Giving Music

Whitney and her friend Rose gave the gift of music to the residents at Lucy Corr Village on Monday, November 7.  I made a video of 30 second clips from several of the songs they played.  Whitney and Rose have become accomplished musicians, and I am so proud of the two of them.

Wedding Planning: Stop-Motion Animation Love Story Video

Suzette's at college in Oklahoma, I'm at home here in Virginia, and we're trying to work together on planning a wedding.  It's not easy to do, but because of modern technology... cell phones, email, sharing web links, etc., we can communicate back and forth and move forward in the planning process!  Wedding planning is a daunting experience, especially when the budget demands we do almost everything ourselves!  But I love planning.  I'm a pretty good planner, I'm just not always good at actually executing my plan.

The wedding date is July 14, 2012 and if you haven't been to www.timandsuzette.com yet, you need to go!  And please sign their guestbook so they'll know you were there!  Suzette tries to post something to the blog weekly.

Right now Whitney and I are working on finishing up a stop-motion animation love story video for Tim and Suzette.  It's something we wanted to do for them that we thought would be fun.  If you're not familiar with stop-motion video, it is when you use clay or paper or some sort of object, and move or manipulate it in tiny motions, stopping to take a picture of it after each motion.  Then you put all of the pictures together to make a video.  It's not particularly difficult, but it does take a lot of time and quite a lot of patience!

Here are a few pics from the process:

Here's Whitney at work.  She's the animator and I'm the big shot director :)

This is from the rollercoaster scene.  So cute!

The hearts float up and away at this part... it's adorable.

As of today we have 2089 pictures we've taken to make the video.  Sound like a lot?  Well, I guess it is!  We are working on the last scene now and hope to finish this weekend.  We will be posting the video on www.timandsuzette.com so check there next week!

Now... back to work!

Whitney's High School Graduation

Whitney participated in the Home Educators Association of Virginia's commencement exercises on June 11, at the Richmond Convention Center, and it was such a special graduation day for her!  She and several of her friends participated, including her good friends Kaitlyn, Kaycee and Zeb.  There were over 200 graduates, and it was a grand ceremony!  We had a wonderful time.  Here are a few pics from our day.

Here's our Whitney, walking in for the ceremony!

Mike Farris, founder of Home School Legal Defense Association and Patrick Henry College, gave the commencement address titled, "Walk Worthy".

Our good friends Keith & Kelli, presenting diplomas to their triplets.

Surrounded by friends after the ceremony!

It was an exciting and fun time :)

Thanks Mike, for grabbing our camera and taking our picture!

More fellowship!

We were attempting to get a picture of Whitney with her  friends, and Suzette dove right in front of the camera!  I missed catching Suzette's crazy gesture, but snapped this pic on her way down!  Of course, the graduates got a big kick out of what she did! :)

It was a special, eventful day... from Linda and Suzette being in a car accident (thankfully no injuries!) on the way to the ceremony and barely making it in time... laughing and sharing melted candy bars while waiting forever to get out of the hot parking deck... to enjoying a delicious Mexican dinner with friends at the end of the day, it was certainly full of memories!

Congratulations Whitney and friends!!!  We love you and are very proud of you!

Nursing Home Music Ministry

Whitney is blessed to be part of a nursing home music ministry with two other homeschooling families.  It has been a wonderful opportunity for her and the other girls.  From beginner to advanced, they come together to sing and play instruments three or four times a year, at two different facilities.  Monday we visited Lucy Corr in Chesterfield County, and each girl did so well!  We are very proud of them all, and thankful for their willingness to minister to those dear folks.  

"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."
Matthew 25:40

Godly music reaches the soul in a way nothing else can, and can lift the spirit like a good, encouraging friend.

Here's a video I made to show some highlights of the music they performed.  The girls are now busy practicing Christmas songs they will sing and play in December!

Salute to the Troops

Last night Whitney played the special music for the evening service at our home church, Gill Grove Baptist. She played a medley called "Salute to the Troops", arranged by Anthony Burger. She was very nervous, but played beautifully.  Way to go, Whitney!!

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Preschool Graduation

Whitney played piano for the preschool graduation ceremony at Mount Pleasant Baptist Church today.  There were around 40 children participating, and many proud parents, relatives, and friends attending the ceremony.  I've never seen so many camera flashes going all at once!  Whitney said she had to look away from the crowd so she wouldn't be blinded by it.  :)
The children marched in single file to Pomp and Circumstance, wearing paper and styrofoam caps with tassels.  They listened to a short message about good behavior and character, sang two songs, and then received their preschool "diplomas".  In closing, they marched out single file, again to Pomp and Circumstance.  It was so cute.  Whitney enjoyed the experience of working with the ladies, the children, and of course being able to play the piano for the ceremony!

Piano Concert

Yesterday at Branch's Baptist Church, Whitney was one of five pianists to play in a concert.  We are thankful she had the opportunity to be a part of such a grand experience.  Here she is playing one of her pieces, a medley of the songs Claire de Lune and Jesus Loves Me, arranged by Anthony Burger. She was disappointed with one mistake she made, but we are so proud of her and think she played beautifully!!

I'm Learning!

I LOVE taking photos and then editing them to make them more beautiful.  I have much to learn, but am enjoying what I've been learning lately about masks.  Here's an example of how I took a picture of Whitney from Christmas and changed it from yellow and drab, to soft, bright and lovely.  First I used my program's auto balance feature to balance out the colors.  Then I used a mask to brighten her eyes a little, and a clone brush to fix some imperfections on her face.  I smoothed her skin a little, added a Gaussian Blur to the entire image, and used an undo brush to sharpen only her face and hair.  Lastly I added a vignette around her.  The program I used is Sagelight.  Here's the before and after.

Photography Fun

Took a couple of pictures while Whitney and I were outside doing her history lesson yesterday.  I've been experimenting with photos... cropping and boosting color.  Look what I did!  Just sharing some silliness.  We have plenty around here to give away :)

Happy Easter!

It was a busy day yesterday, Easter Sunday.  Morning and evening church services, and a special lunch in between!  We had a nontraditional meal... steaks cooked on the grill, baked potatoes, and a divine salad!  Here's a picture of Whitney with three of her friends, after the evening church service.

Whitney's Piano Recital

Today was Whitney's piano recital, and she was SO nervous, but she did GREAT!  We are very proud of her.  She played a medley of the songs "Just a Little While" and "Meeting in the Air", arranged by Anthony Burger.  Here's a video of her performance!

Roy Webb

For Whitney's 17th birthday we took her to North Carolina to see one of her favorite southern gospel pianists, Roy Webb.  He and Anthony Burger (her all-time favorite pianist who died tragically 4 years ago) were good friends.  Anthony was and still is an inspiration to Roy, as he is to Whitney!  Whitney drew a cartoon picture of Roy and gave it to him.  He absolutely loved it and said Whitney was amazing.  We were blessed by his kindness to her.

Enjoy this video of Roy playing It Is Well With My Soul.

After The Snow

It snowed all day yesterday, and so I've had some time to play around on the computer with some new programs I've discovered.  More about those later, but here's a picture I took and transformed into what looks like a water color painting.  If you look at the larger picture (click on the one below to enlarge it) you might be able to see that it looks like it was painted on canvas.  I did this by combining 3 photos taken with different exposures (it's called HDR photography) and then used a circle paint effect from another program I have.  Pretty neat!

Whitney and Grace

I'm still just testing out this blog thing... have no idea what I'm doing.  Took a nice picture of Whitney and Grace today, so I'll share. :)