Of Travels, Cameras & New Names

So rather than getting my poor Nathan fixed, I decided to upgrade and buy a Nikon D90.
I was having kind of a hard time being really excited about having to spend the money to buy a new camera when I was trying to save money for a 70-200mm f2.8 lens.
But after a week with no camera, (even my mom's small digital camera had dead batteries) especially a weekend in Akron, OH at a really cool hotel : The Quaker Square Inn, I was definitely ready to have a camera again. I think this was proof that I can't stop being a photographer. lol
This week I am the photographer for Vacation Bible School at my church and am supposed to put together a slideshow for the program on Thursday evening. I've been having a lot of fun learning all of the new things that the D90 can do.

I am looking for a name for my new camera! It must begin with the letter "N"

Leave a comment with your ideas!

Of Weddings, Broken Cameras and Answered Prayers

I was really excited about this wedding, two of my friends were getting married, it was an outdoor ceremony, Megan Decoteau of MRae Photography was flying up to help me shoot the wedding, I rented a fisheye lens, and I wasn't nervous at all.
But the day didn't go exactly as planned but God came through anyway.

Just as the pastor was pronouncing the couple as Mr. & Mrs. Beck and they were ready to walk down the aisle, my camera flashed an error message and stopped working. I found out later that the shutter had worn out. I was so glad to have Megan there to get the shots of the couple and wedding party coming back down the aisle. And praise the Lord for my cousin Ryan who was running the sound system and had his camera gear with him and let me borrow Nora, his Nikon D60.

The rest of the day seemed to go well, until I got home that night and finished loading pictures and going through them and I realized that I was missing all of my pictures from after the ceremony. I started frantically going through all of my SD cards again and making sure they didn't just get saved to a different folder. But the worst thing possible had happened, With several identical cards that were not all labeled, I had apparently formatted the card, thinking that I had already loaded it, when in fact, I had not.

I bought and downloaded a program called "CardRecovery" deciding it was probably a good business expense anyway. I didn't even know which card it had been, so I ran the program on all 5 of the cards I'd used that day, praying that I would find the pictures. But it was only bringing up pictures from a year ago.

Some of us girls had decided to go watch "Killers" at the theater. I tried to enjoy it but I kept thinking about my lost pictures. I knew Megan had gotten plenty of shots and this is why I have a second shooter. But I'd gotten some really, really good shots that I was excited about and I felt that being the main photographer I'd let down my friends who'd gotten married.

It was a pretty miserable night. I wanted to cry (and truth be told, I actually did.) My friend John McPherson of JM|Imagery called and told me his own horror stories of losing images and gave me some tips and the names of a few other programs to try.

At 1:30 a.m. I finally decided to try running the program one more time, I picked up a card, put it in the slot, started the program and went to take a shower. I prayed again that God would recover my images and promised to never format a card again until I saw every last one of my images on my hard drive and to label all of my cards.

After the shower I came out to check on my computer and saw that it had finished recovered over 400 pictures. I thought it must just be the pictures that it had recovered earlier. But when I checked the files, hallelujah they were all of my missing pictures!!
Everyone else in the house was asleep so even though I felt like screaming, I whispered "Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord."

So, hallelujah, our God is the God of lost images. =)

"The LORD said to Moses, 'Is the LORD's power limited?
Now you shall see whether My word will come true for you.'"
-Numbers 11:23

Here's some of my favorites so far:

Of Wednesdays, Home and Fisheye

This post is what a "normal" Wednesday is like at my house --Seen through the "not-normal" way of my fisheye lens that I rented for a wedding this weekend.

First off, my sister Jessica bakes cinnamon rolls and pies for a local restaurant every Wednesday. So our house is always hot and smelling good. And it's also messy... lol
This is what the kitchen/dining room area looks like:

This is the door from the kitchen into the office... that's my dad at his desk.

An empty wok with remnants of the pork stir-fry I made for lunch.

In between putting pies in the oven, Jess has been playing from my Selah music books

Philip & Susanna are building stuff with Legos.


Early on in our Lego building days, Mom came up with a solution to having Legos end up all over the house: Old bed sheets.
Then when you're done you just wrap up the sheets, Legos and all and put them back in the box.
Handy, no?

A couple of the finished products: Pecan, Rhubarb and Rhubarb Custard pies...

And there you have it... a Wednesday in the Yoder house as seen through a Fisheye lens.

Of Accidents, Breakfasts & Porches

My sister Lindsey, while cleaning up around her new house last Thursday evening, tried to pick up a piece of plywood that she forgot was covering the septic tank and ended up falling in and messing up her knee. Here's a picture of her in the ER while Jess tries to clean up some of the nastiness:

So, because of Lindsey being laid up with her knee until Wednesday when she goes back to the doctor, my sister Jessica & I (and our friend Angela) have been spending the night with Lindsey to keep her company and help her out with meals, etc.

This morning I had my breakfast of "Egg In a Basket" and cranberry pomegranate juice out on Lindsey's front porch while doing my devotions.

"The LORD is high above all nations;
His glory is above the heavens.
Who is like the LORD our God,
Who is enthroned on high,
Who humbles Himself to behold
The things that are in heaven and in the earth"
-Psalm 113:4-6

Of Ice Cream, Friends and Goodbyes

Last night we went out for a little "Going Away" party for Joy.

Joy & I have been friends basically since we were babies... lol
I love her so, so, so much. I just wish she could always be home!
But unfortunately, I have to share her.
One Wednesday she's leaving for Slovenia until the end of July for a missions trip.
Even though I'm gonna miss my chica, I'm so glad that she's taking this opportunity to work for God.
She's a fun-haver, a song-singer, a risk-taker, an encourager, a lover of God and people.
In short --she's awesome.

Oh, and we share the same most awesomest nieces in the world.

Of Nieces, Lunch and Fun

I like to take out each of my nieces for a "date" for their birthdays. They can pick breakfast, lunch or supper and choose the place.

Hannah chose the Dari DeLite. We had a lovely little date and afterwards we had a fun photoshoot and went to the park.
I so can't believe that my niece is 7 years old! It's crazy!

Here's a couple of shots from the day....

Hannah wanted to take some pictures... she wasn't bad at all! ;-)

Of Mornings, Light and Peas

I picked and shelled the first little batch of peas this morning... =)
Call me weird, but I actually LIKE to shell peas. lol
There's just something fun about cracking open the pods and letting all of those pretty green peas roll out into your hand.
I decided they were way too cool and the morning light way too pretty to just enjoy it myself so, here you are!

Macro --because it's fun!

Of Families, Giggles and Tears

A short and somewhat impromptu photoshoot for my sister & her family who needed a family picture to put up on her husband's website.
Poor Kayla was hungry and didn't want to cooperate though...

My nieces are crazy..

Unfortunately, Viva was starting to get hungry by the end, as well. lol

Of T-Shirts, Trips and His Glory

The t-shirts for the Ecuador 2010 team arrived today!! =)

About half of our team has been to Ecuador already, 4 years ago. We can't wait to get back and see all of our friends and "families"!
Dios te bendiga, amigos!

Our trip is set for July 16-28 and we are about $2,000 away from reaching our goal of $40,000 for this trip. The money pays for plane tickets and the bus rental to drive us all to New York to fly out of JFK. Our group works hard on fundraisers all year to raise this money so that no one has to stay home because they can't afford it.
God has been so, so, so good to us and I am continually amazed at the way He has provided for us.
Our last trip to Ecuador, in 2006 was a situation of trusting God. We decided to go about six months prior and we really had no idea where all of that money was going to come from. But God "opened the windows of heaven" for us.

"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this," says the LORD of hosts, "if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows."
--Malachi 3:10

At the end of those six months we had our money and God had our trust. We could only stand back and be amazed at His faithfulness.

I can't wait to see what He will do this year!






The phrase "His glory revealed to the world" is taken from I Peter 4:13 (NLT):

"...So that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing His glory
when it is revealed to all the world."

I pray that this will be the result of our trip --God's great glory revealed through us.