Hello all, this has been a while in coming...but this will be my last post here. I'd like to just say I'm too busy to do this, but busyness is totally relative. We find the time to do the things we want and choose to do.

Anyway, each time I do go to post, I realize the last post was a month before. That's just not enough posting. Most of you who want to keep up with us, are on facebook anyway. Last year I took more of a different focus and started posting my photography here, but I do that on flickr and facebook so a third place seems to be overkill.

More than anything else, blogging stopped being fun a while ago. One of my friends gave me three or four months when I started, I'm not sure, but I think it's been something like eight years.

Not sure what I'm going to do with the site yet. Not ready to give it up just yet. And there's other things I've considered doing so, we might go through a rebirth. But not anytime soon, that I don't have time, don't want to make the time for just yet.

Thanks for those who've contributed to some fun conversations over the years.

Today was haircut day for Lucas above and Marcelo below...

Lucas wanted an Emo? cut and Marcelo wanted a Sonic the Hedgehog haircut.

The colours were added in photoshop. Although both would have loved to have been able to get the colouring. Marcelo's will not stay like this, we can't afford the hairspray. Although, as you can tell, he feels very fast (if you don't know what Sonic the Hedgehog is, you won't get it - videogame character.)

Anyway, I laughed really hard as this was getting done. When Marcelo saw the photoshopped version, he said, "I want it that way!"

I'll post a picture soon, of what Marcelo's hair really looks like, although, until we get the pounds of hairspray out, we don't really know.

I've had Lightroom 2 for a while now. But because it wasn't very intuitive when I first looked at it, I've only used it to do minor edits on individual pictures, and still, I used photoshop to do most of that. That is, until now. My photo collections are getting pretty large and all of a sudden managing them is becoming a little more difficult. When you want to find a photo, among 6000 (I think I have more), all of a sudden remembering where you put that photo isn't always easy. So the need for a photo program that manages all your photos, as well as has really strong editing properties, has become imperative. With that in mind, I decided to tackle Lightroom. Armed with some milk and cookies, my MacBook Pro (I haven't said anything about that yet) I sat down and travelled into the world of internet video tutorials and wached, and watched and watched videos on Lightroom. And very soon, I was sold.

Presets are basically filters. The beauty of presets is that you can create them in no time. You can also download hundreds of free presets from the internet. The beauty of presets, you can apply a preset with one click to one photo, or two photos, or a whole batch, or even all my 6000 if I wanted to. They can be as simple as a Sharpen Preset that automatically sharpens your photos by a desired amount. For example, my lenses aren't that great, so I've learned I always have to sharpen almost all my photos by about 30%. So, when I import my photos into Lightroom, the first thing I do is highlight all of them, click on my sharpen preset and voila, I don't have to do that to each photo. I actually have three or four things I have to do to almost every photo I upload, I've set a preset with those adjustments, and now every time I upload, click, voilá! That can mean hours of editing in cases of 500 or more photos. That's usually two small photoshoots for me. If Presets are not an issue for you, and you're a Mac user, then Aperture is all Apple and just feels right. It also interacts with photoshop as easily as Lightroom. But presets are a necessity for me.

The other beauty of Lightroom, I didn't understand before, or I would have done this a long time ago, is non-destructive editting. I only ever have to have one photo on my harddrive (the original) and no matter what edits I make to it in Lightroom I can go back and erase all of them with one click. No more "wishing I hadn't done that!" Aperture does that as well, so it isn't just a Lightroom thing. Lastly, the easy interaction with Photoshop is also great, for those photos that require a lot more clean up.

All that said, I created the above preset (grunge look) in about 30 seconds. I actually created three versions of it in about a minute. And again, click and I can apply it to any photo I would like, just like that. If you place your mouse above it, you'll see the original, so you can see the difference.

Finally figured out how to do a rollover image in a blog today. Took some work, but now I know.

Okay, it's not even October, close, but not yet and inside my house it's a cold 16 degrees celsius, that's 68 degrees for those fahrenheit minded . It's never this cold inside my house even during the winter months. So, we might have to surrender and turn the heat on today.

In three weeks, God willing, I'm going to be lying on a beach in Cuba and I'm going to suck up every sun ray I can.

Anyway, I've got a million layers on, and I'm still freezing. I know useless post, no need to mention it.

Over this last year I took a lot of pictures that I never uploaded and have just taken up room in my hard drive. Well, the time has come, so I'm getting them all up. If you click on the picture above you'll be linked to a set of photos that I took at my brother-in-laws place, in Huntsville, last winter. They have since sold it and moved 15 minutes away from us down here in Niagara.

This was Emerson inside Ari's Motorcycle Saddlebags.

As mentioned in the last post I had the opportunity to head out to Pennsylvania for a few days last month. While there, I commented to Glaucia about how cool it was to find an old Pentax Camera at a garage sale this summer for $20, actually it was the lens I was interested in, not the camera (with the exception of first generation - all Pentax lenses are compatible in all Pentax cameras, including DSLR's.)

Where to with photography. Last year, for just over three months, I tried to shoot and post a photo a day. I certainly shot more than that, but ended up finding it a lot. Anyway, as of this week, I've asked one other person, and am planning on asking a few more, to join me in weekly photography assignments. With the occasional trip out shooting together. More to come as we begin, most likely next week.

And this is building to a photography show next summer at a local fair, we'll see - that's a very loose plan for now :) - will keep you updated.

Took the kids back to school this morning. Three of them full-time. Two at home (full-time). So, I guess, that, more than anything else signifies summer's done. Although, for someone, African blooded like myself, it seems that summer never started. Okay, it showed up for two weeks.

What did I do for my summer? Mostly worked, although, as in most churches, things slow down significantly during the summer as people go away, or some, just stay away, not sure which all the time.

Around the house, with the help of my father-in-law, I put in a fence in the backyard, as well as a long-asked for and awaited tree house for my kids. Which I think was exciting when it was being built, not sure how used it will be, we'll see. The general wet summer kept it from getting all the use I thought it might get. Will put up a picture soon.

Didn't get to do our usual summer camping get away as a family, as we've been anticipating and getting ready for my sister's wedding coming up this Thanksgiving. We were pretty bummed out about that, not camping, we're excited about Sandra's upcoming marriage. Since then, we've been offered a trip away several weeks after the wedding, so we're looking forward to that as well. Did get a two day away camping trip with some friends, and got to visit family down in Pennsylvania, while tenting in their backyard for a few days. So got some of the camping thrills in. The kids camped for a week with the grand parents at Sherkston Shores, a local resort, with a neat Quarry lake which we were able to enjoy when we visited. Even got in some cliff diving, which I really enjoy and don't get a chance to do too often. It was neat to see the three older kids get in on the action as well. Nina even got gutsy enough to dive off the cliff. The other two stuck to jumping. Fun for everyone.

Emerson began walking while we were down in Pennsylvania. Seems that he needed a carpet to feel safe enough to start.

Besides that, spent lots of time with the kids and I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of other stuff, like planting a vegetable garden that yielded lots of vegetables for the family. Anyway, that's the kind of summer it's been at the DeFreitas household.

As with last summer, I'll be taking a break from blogging. There might be the occasional post throughout the summer, but for the most part I'll be on a short blogging sabbatical :)

Ok, you could say I've been on break for a while already. Still...

Hope you enjoy your summer and your families and friends. Don't blink too much, it goes by way too fast.

And no, I won't be fishing all summer.

I don't know whether I mentioned it before or not. But the local Pentecostal church decided to head up a day (this past Saturday), where all the churches in town were invited to join together and "Love Port Colborne" through acts of kindness all over the city. About 12 churches participated in being a blessing to our city in numerous ways. Everything from car washes, to free spas, children's activities, a youth "Fear Factor" time, lots and lots of renovations projects.

A few of us from POG were part of a renovation project that involved redoing a kitchen and a bathroom for a single mom in our community. There were 9 men involved, who worked incredibly well together, in quite the challenging project. It turned out to be an ongoing project. The three of us from Port of Grace wrapped up our project last night, after three different work times.

The PAOC (Pentecostal Assemblies) have done this in a few cities now. And I think it's really cool. I think, just my opinion, that more churches need to think about missions this way, that is, to think about what they could do to involve their people in impacting the places and people where they live. Much of the time short term missions means spending $2500 and more to go somewhere overseas and painting or building a wall. Always needed projects.

However, it's important that we realize that we can do it in your own towns/cities for a much lower cost. Again, I don't want to take away from short-term missions, I just think it might be time we re-think the whole thing and use kingdom resources more effectively.

I think it's critical that we realize missions needs to happen where we are first. I guess part of the issue is that we need to see ourselves as missionaries all the time and not as a job that we do or a trip we go on, occasionally

I wonder if we were to partner up with a church overseas and send the $2500 or more we would spend to go there and paint a wall, build one or dig a well, if we'd send them the money and gave them the opportunity as a church to do the work we would go and do ourselves, how much more effective, and how much farther would that money go for their impact in their own community? I understand there are times a team needs to go in order to train people to do something they don't know how to do, but a lot of the time, that isn't the case.

Just a thought. Not what I intended to talk about when I started. Something I wonder about though.

So I was walking by the house on this incredibly beautiful day, and saw some leafs keeping the sun from reaching a new plant, so I decided to remove the leafs, as I began to do so I felt a sudden prick on my right index finger. I thought that was awkward as this plant has no thorns, but continued on, as I did a stinking huge snake comes crawling out. Now, the truth is that it wasn't a stinking huge snake, it probably wasn't any bigger than a foot and a half, but if you were born in Africa, as I was, snakes are not your friends. And no, it didn't look like the one pictured above, however, in my mind, it looked worst.

My finger hasn't ballooned and I'm not having difficulty breathing, so, I think I'll be ok.

I know this is only a little better than posting about rocks, but oh well...

I've never had anything stolen from our property here in Port Colborne. Kids toys, bikes get left out pretty regularly. Our garage door doesn't have a lock and many times the side door just blows and stays open. Our main garage door stays open more times than I care to admit. I've left the car unlocked overnight, with the keys in the ignition, several times. The point being, all that considered, it's pretty surprising that we've never had anything stolen from our property. Something, I love to tell all my friends visiting from places like Toronto.

Well, that was true until early this past Winter. On a snowy day, I realized something had gone missing. A decent sized rock that I'd picked up and placed in one of my gardens had gone missing. The truth is, considering all the things I could have had stolen, I found this to be pretty funny. So, all winter long, I've been telling people, "I've never had anything stolen from our property, that is, except a rock. I thought it was pretty funny.

The neighbours who used to live there, no longer do. They were asked to leave and the owner is now remodeling the house to sell. Now, I'm not saying that the previous renters stole my rock. Someone picked up the rock and somehow it ended up in their possession.

All good, it's back where it belongs. And no, the picture above is not of my rock, it's shy.

Over the last few nights I just haven't been able to sleep well. Two nights ago, I finally fell asleep at 4AM, last night 3AM. Getting up early is still not getting it done. Anyways, this happens every once in a while, so it's a little extra time to pray for people and circumstances in my life, play through my local golf course in my head, the way I should play it in real life, and when all else fails, and it's late anyway, pick up a book and read.

So, over the last few nights I've done something I don't do very often. Which is pick up a book I read before and read it again. "God in the Alley" is written by Greg Paul, founder of Sanctuary, a church in downtown Toronto with a mission to bring the gospel "to the streets."

One of the key scriptures in the whole book (in my observation) is Matthew 25:40, "Whatever you (did) do to the least of these you do (did) for me." And central to the book and maybe hardest for us to grasp, is this idea of "seeing Jesus in the people God brings to our lives." So to help the reader understand things like being Jesus, seeing Jesus, carrying your cross, he uses anecdotes of his journey and relationships with the least in the streets of Toronto. The addicted, the homeless, prostitutes, the people he ministers to and calls friends.

I guess one of his premises is that as Christ-followers, we're too quick as we enter relationships with non-Christians, if we even do that, to try and fix people. He's not advocating, simply a social gospel where you serve people, and hope they somehow find Christ someday. But he is challenging the reader with, being Jesus in people's lives, even when it seems they're not fixable - to believe that all people are made in the image of God and live with them in such a way as they can begin to believe that about themselves - And beyond that, to really believe that, sometimes, God wants to show himself to us through these encounters and relationships.

One of the many powerful stories he tells, is of a relationship he built with a homosexual man who had and would eventually die of Aids. The relationship for several years was a serving relationship, where he was assigned to do odd jobs, for this man, occasionally, through a volunteer organization. But that relationship grew to the point where they became close friends and culminated in a night, a few weeks before this man's death, where he found him completely soiled and struggling in his bed. Where he ran a bath, bathed him, changed the bed and then put the man back in bed. And it was in the moment where he was putting the man's feet back under the covers, where he noticed that one foot was still dirty, and he took a washcloth to wash it, that he realized what being Jesus to the man at this point really was about.

So, what if we took that scripture literally and really believed that "whatever" we do for anyone else, we actually do for Jesus, as if he was in their place, and not just as a worker, working for a boss. I think we'd be set to learn see Jesus in people's lives in ways we might never have recognized before.

So the question is, who has Jesus put in your life that you can be/emulate Jesus in their life. And who (might be the same person) does God want you to see Jesus through? It's not as simple as that, because sometimes you only realize Jesus was there after the fact (like the disciples on the road to Emmaeus, after the resurrection. This is a process that requires lots of prayer. So you don't jump the gun with your own desire to make things happen in your own timing, rather than God's. Thereby pushing people away, way before they're ready to even think about Jesus.

Anyway, great little book, you can read in a few sittings. Worth reading when you need your comfort zones challenged a little or a lot.

Last night, and today, we're having what I think might be the last snowfall of this Winter. If not, certainly one of the last ones around here.

However, you know it's time we wrap Winter up when Marcelo gets up, looks outside and asks...

"Mommy, why did the snow come back?"

Of course, as you can see by the picture above, it didn't seem to bother him, as much as it's bothering many others.

After many years of depending on e-mail, I'm starting to feel e-mail is very counter productive. I decided to do a little test and actually record how much time I spend reading and responding to e-mails in a week. I was actually so surprised by the results, that all I will say is, it's a whole lot of time.

Yes, you could say I'm a slow learner on this one. However, there's a false assumption of need, when it comes to e-mail. You need to check it as often as possible and you need to respond to it as soon as possible. But what it's started to feel like to me, comparing it to the phone, is like you have the phone ringing non-stop throughout the day, and how much fun is that? Not just that, many of those e-mails, are just not e-mails you do need to get back to right away.

Anyway, I'm trying to figure out a new system of dealing with e-mail. Not sure whether that means checking e-mail just once a day or what yet. I also think when you check it in the day matters as I've spent the large part of a morning responding to e-mails because it's the first to-do thing in my calendar each day. I'm not sure whether I'm strong enough to check it early and not respond to it right away, I think it's just second nature, anyway, still figuring this out.

It's that time of year again. Report card day at the DeFreitas'. Last report card brought a surprise to our household. Lucas, who had previously been an A student since his first year in school - suddenly, without any explanation went down a whole grade in most subjects and more in others. So, we met with the teacher. Turns out, in fourth grade, Lucas' teacher believes that they're old enough to make their own decisions and choose for themselves whether the work they're handing in is good enough. So, regardless of what they hand in, she asks them if that is what they want to hand in and if they say yes, she takes it.

The problem, if you have a student that doesn't have to work too hard and can just coast, like Lucas, he never really tries and just gets decent marks. A long time ago, I made a deal with my kids, as long as they did their best, the marks that they brought home would be fine with me. Therefore, Lucas and I had a conversation about whether he was doing his best. He told me he thought that was just for the other years.

Oh, yes, and for parents who might find themselves in such a situation, we told the teacher that it wasn't up to Lucas whether he could just hand in any work, but if it wasn't up to his ability, she wasn't supposed to take it. We also told him, and I don't think she ever had to act on that.

Lest this be all about Lucas. Xanda brought home a solid B report card. Which is great work for her. She, like her mom and dad, has a hard time with math. So she had some low marks there.

Senzenina brought home a glowing Senior Kindergarten report card. She's gotten two awards so far this year and the teacher had nothing to say that she needs to work on. So far according to what her teacher has said, it seems she's going to be and even better student than Lucas. Her report begins with, "Senzenina loves school each and every day." Which is true. While every other kid gets excited about days off, she can't wait to get back to school.

Anyway, it was nice to see that they're all working hard and doing their best.