Teacher/Student Relationship

Today I started my new position as an adjunct professor for Tabor College teaching basic photography. Mom, Ali and I left at 6:20 this morning for a 50 minute drive to the campus in Hillsboro. I met with the head of the art department for a brief orientation and tour. He was pretty nervous and I think relieved that I was there. I met a lot of the other faculty and administrators but with a different experience than I had previously known. I met them as colleagues, as equals. Everyone was so nice and expressed there appreciation for my being there. Now going back to WSU where I am a student still I feel funny knowing I am in the same club as my teachers but they just don't know it (well some of them do). It is a strange simultaneous contradiction in perspectives. Then I met my classes. I have 24 students total. I introduced myself and the syllabus and some of the highlights of the class before showing them the very dingy darkroom. I am going to have to organize that to where I can use it effectively. I have a senior student that will assist me with inventory, cleaning, organizing, and upkeep of the darkroom. This too is strange because class-wise he outranks me. I am still a junior until January, yet he is my aide. The campus is only a handful of buildings and the town is very small, very. It was a beautiful drive this morning at 58 degrees with mist in the fields and on the ponds. The day stayed pretty cool until after lunch. It was the perfect fall morning. I look forward to what the rest of the semester will bring.

Video of Tyler Walking

Click the link below to see the extended play version. There is no sound on either of the videos and they are dark. But at least you get the picture. Enjoy!

http://christnationministries.org/English/tylerwalkingvideofinal.wmv

Happenings at our house

How about a little update on how we are doin'? I thought you might say, "Yes indeedy!" So here goes...

Tyler has been taking like 5 - 10 steps at a time on his own around the house. He will start off from a piece of furniture if he is motivated to reach someone. We are all helping him out and he loves it. He is also down to nursing only three times a day. I hope to have him weened close to his birthday, which is just days from now. Can you believe he is almost a year old?

Gabrielle is enjoying her hippo tent. Papa bought it for her and she has been camping out (I guess actually camping in because it is in her room) every night. It's the cutest thing! Its a pup tent that looks like a hippo. She is enjoying the life of a six year old.

Timothy has decided that soccer is not his thing and has taken up bowling with his papa. It is a more individual sport; I think that is why he enjoys it more. He is able to compete against himself, which is a big plus. Oh - and according to Timothy "darn" is not a bad word unless you add "-et" at the end.

Raimy continues to write emails with her pen pal from St. Joe that she met when she spent a few days in Mrs. Miscavish's (Jenni's) 3rd grade class in May. Her little friend is named Brooklynn and has the very exact same birthdate as Raimy right down to the year. It's so cute that they each end their emails with "diamonds".

DaRonn's bowling group from church had their championship. His team took second place by 5 points. Though, he did get the prize for player with the best average score. Would you believe that DaRonn owns his own bowling ball now? The next bowling championship starts in two weeks; but the people from church had so much fun that they are going to get together tomorrow tonight just to bowl for fun.

I have been doing alot more writing recently. I am trying to figure out how I can squeeze more time out of my schedule to be able to do even more writing. What I am doing now can be done in 15 minute intervals (blogs, journaling, e-updates for the ministry and web site). I would like to be able to dedicate a solid 1 and a half to 2 hours to it so that I can finish my next book some time soon. This will be the third book that I will have published and the people are already asking for it.

recent images of interest

Emily and Terry in their new apartment. Allison pretending to be asleep. The bathroom in black & white.













To add to some of the blogs recently posted.


Here is the beautiful Emily at her art showing.
The subjects in her paintings are interesting characters. With amazing familiarity. If you ever get to see them up close you will be gratified.

greetings from Groene

I ran into Joy Groene the other day. She happens to know the family that I am working for right now. She is best friends with Rachel's mom. Anyway, she asked me to send her greetings to everyone and especially my mom. she said, "tell her that i miss her terribly."
its good to see old friends.
Grandpa seems to be doing well with his recovery, both Gregg and Eric are here right now.
Love you guys
Shawn

Bath Time Fun

Long time, no blog....

Hello family,

I thought it was about time to fill you all in with what's going on in my life. Besides school starting yesterday and all the normal first week of school things, there has been complications as well as great opportunities.

First complication being my DL being suspended, so until my court date on the 30th I am relying on others for transportation to and from school and elsewhere. Pray that I get it all taken care of smoothly.

Now for the good news. First, last week Ali, Terry and I got an apartment. We are not to far from Mom and Dad's house. We have a big L-shaped pool and a playground for Ali. I hope you guys will get a chance to come see it, Mom will have a spare guest room now;) Terry painted Allison's slide bed pink and she loves it! It took 14 cans of spray paint. The apartment buildings are brick with tall white pillars and a small community. We did have some kinks when we moved in like the toilet backing up and had to be hand-snaked a couple times and got a new toilet before they finally took the big snake to it and now it's fine. Also, we had no oven racks, they found me one and have the second on order. We are on the second floor and have a patio/deck thing that looks over the pool. We put a couple plants out there and Allison's rocker and a lounge for me. She and I like to sit out there in the mornings. They also just resurfaced the parking lot, it looks nice and fresh.

The other neat news is that I got a job as an adjunct professor at Tabor College. It's about 50 miles from here. I will be teaching beginning photography. Usually they hire people with degrees, but they're desperate and my photography teacher gave them my name with lots of accolades. It's a great break into the profession I am aspiring to.

I have my art show reception Saturday. I am excited and hope a lot of people come. I have gotten good comments about the show already in the comment book. The school newspaper is going to interview me for it too.

Well, that's a brief update. Now I am going to go clean out my studio here at Mom's and take it to school.

Love you guys.

Happy Birthday Sweet heart

Gabrielle,
I hope this was the happiest of birthdays for you. Uncle Nick, Aunt Shawn, and Cousin Sasha all wish you happy birthday. And remember sweet heart that we love you, very much. I am so glad that God blessed our family with you.
Love from the Smiths

Happy Birthday Gabrielle!

My girl is 6 years old today! We had a party at Burger King Friday afernoon with 15 bouncy kids, ice-cream, cake, presents, and lots of fun. We are very proud of our girl Gabrielle.

"I just want to ride my bicycle..."

I have been biking regularly this past year or so. I feel much better with the exercise. It is an excellent balance to my swimming in the mornings. I started biking when I was a kid. It was a coaster brake style bike. I remember going all over on my bike. I would tie a balloon to the chain stay or clothes pin a playing card to the front fork so the bike would sound like it had a motor. I remember painting it red with a can of spray paint.

When I started college a new 10-speed bicycling fad had just started. Particularly young, environmentally conscience people wanted to ride these new style bikes. (kind of like everyone wanting an iPod now) I was interested and wanted a cool bike. The established bike shops carried Scwhinn or Huffy bikes that were made in the USA and sometimes had a few expensive imported bikes such as Raleigh (English) , LeJeune (French), or Bianchi (Italian). In fact, the demand for these new bikes was so great and many of our friends wanted some way to get a good deal, that I help established a partnership called Pedal Pusher Bike Shop. This entrepreneurial effort was run out of my basement. My three partners were my good friends: Fred Galata, Jerry Kavan (yes, uncle Jerry) and Mike Casanova. They helped with funding and sales while I was the main bike mechanic that assembled and set up the bikes for delivery when we received a batch of bikes from our supplier. We didn't make a lot of money, but we did each get good bikes and learned a lot about business. Fred and I expanded our interest by competing in amateur races in the area. We would travel as far as Kansas City or Ames Iowa to compete in Criterion's (about a 26 mile race). My first fancy bike was a Dawes made in England. I would ride it to work since I needed to watch my spending as I was putting myself through college. That bike was sadly stolen while I was at work. In broad daylight even though I had it secured with sturdy chain and lock. This was another indication of what the demand was like back then.

Eventually, since we had developed many good connections, I got a better bike. This was a Fuji racing bike (quite uncommon at the time). This was 1973. It was a pretty blue chrome molybdenum steel tube bike. I have included two pictures of me with it earlier this year. Many parts have been replaced and upgraded over the years but it is what I have ridden for 34 years. It was a premium bike at the time and is still a very good bike. Over the past 3 decades bike technology has had a great deal of advancement. Many engineers with computer aided design have worked on improving bikes. Particularly in the area of competition and professional racing. The Trek bikes that Lance Armstrong rode to win the Toure de France seven times, had hundreds of thousands of dollars of design and development invested in them each year. Each year being better than the previous year. Continually becoming lighter, stronger, more aerodynamic, more ergonomic and generally more efficient.

Well, I decided a while back (after I had the benefit of riding a friend's new exotic mountain bike) that I would treat myself to a new bike if I worked hard and got myself down to a weight closer to the weight I was when I was racing. I am not quite there yet, but Jill helped me decide that I am close enough. We find that when we get older, diet and exercise is very important; but seemingly much harder than when we were younger. It comes off slow and keeping it off is a great effort. The rewards are still great. I feel better and have generally fewer aches and pains.

So I am now celebrating, somewhat for this past year's efforts and also for the continued, anticipated improvement in the upcoming months. After much research, shopping and test riding, I bought a new bike Friday, August 3, 2007. It is also is a Fuji and is similar to the ride I am use to; only much better. It is smoother and I don't feel the road vibration and bumps as much. It is faster and has lots of very cool technology. It is nine pounds lighter than the blue bike weighing only 17.4 lbs. Oh, and it looks very cool as well. See the photos of me with a white bike.
The blue Fuji is a road bike for that style of racing. This new bike a triathlon style bike named Aloha 1.0 (reminiscent of the Iron man race in Hawaii). I intent to get many miles on the bike next week (including some hills) while I am in Omaha. I will be there to help my Dad and Mom while Dad gets a knee replaced. I have a bag the bike goes in when I travel. I pop the wheels off and put it in this canvas bag that fits in the trunk of a car. I often have a rental vehicle when I travel for my job. I have taken my blue bike with me a few times and the new bike should be even easier.

Kent's Birthday Party

Happy Birthday Kent!

Hi Kent! I hope that you are having a great birthday. I am thinking about you today, my brother. I was trying to think of what I like best about you. I like that you celebrate! You get happy at the thought of any party for anybody. I like that about you! I also like that you are so friendly to everyone. You make everyone smile because you are so nice to them. I also think that it is awesome how much you love your family. And you can know that I love you too, my brother Kent.




From your sister: Angie

Raimy’s Song

It all happened so fast. Church was about to start one Thursday night a few weeks ago. A couple of members came up to me and asked if my 9 year old daughter could help them with a music project the next day. They assured me that the song that she would be learning was a Christian one. The couple had been attending church for a while so I said that it would be fine.

The next day when they came to pick her up I got some more details, turns out that they needed a child’s voice for a music CD that they were making. They were going to teach her the song in the morning and then record it in the afternoon. Then in a couple weeks they were going to go to La Paz (Bolivia’s capital) to do a children’s crusade. Each child at the crusade would receive a free copy of this CD with 10 songs on it.

She came home for lunch after learning the song in the morning. They had also sent with her a DVD so that she could practice. What a surprise we got when we popped it in and found out that all the songs were in English. My daughter explained to me that this couple had translated the songs to Spanish and that all the songs that they were making were in Spanish. The DVD was Hillsongs for Kids. It is a great DVD. We made a copy of it before she had to go back to do the recording.

They did the crusade in La Paz and are planning to do one here in Cochabamba in October. We are very excited about it.

Just yesterday they were able to bring a finished copy of the CD to give to Raimy. My kiddos were listening to it all evening dancing around and singing along. It was great fun.

To hear the song you can click on this link: RAIMY’S SONG. It is called "Tus Ojos" (Your Eyes) and speaks of the eyes of God looking for children that will worship him. Raimy's voice is the back up vocalist.