dallin March 5th, 2010

Generations

Originally uploaded by D@lbo

Every 3 weeks Canon has a competition to give away an EOS 500D camera. It’s called the Hero Chain, and is a part of Canon’s Photochains. There is a theme, and anyone can submit a photo representing their interpretation of that theme in some way. Each person who submits a photo also tags something in that photo, which would be the next theme if they win.

The current theme is ‘Generations’. I was planning on doing something slightly odd or different for this theme, but when I got this photo of Joshua and his great-grandfather, I knew it was the one for me to enter. I am really happy with how it turned out in black and white, too. There are some really good entries, but I really do think that this is up there near the best of them. So, I’m not expecting to win, but I’d be grateful for anyone who can go and vote for me!

You can see my entry here on page 2. It’s unfortunate that you have to register with Canon World of Eos to be able to vote (but, I’ve never received ANY mail from them after signing up).

And of course, if there’s another photo which you like better and fits the theme better, please vote for that. Yes I’d love to win, but not if someone else is more deserving!

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dallin February 21st, 2010

Captain Josho

Originally uploaded by D@lbo

As I have mentioned previously, I enjoy taking photos. Well, I’d been looking into getting a nicer camera for a while, and I finally convinced myself to buy a Digital SLR in January. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money, so I found a Canon EOS 400D on eBay for $400. Considering this is what our Olympus u830 cost when we got it a few years ago, I thought it was a reasonable deal.

Anyway, I won’t bore you with too much information about the camera. But it is really nice to have a much better camera, and while an EOS 400D is no where near a professional level, just using a DSLR makes me feel like a better photographer. And the quality of the shots (when I get them right, or close to right) is just way better than most of what our Olympus gives us.

I’ve had the camera for three weeks now, and I decided I should start doing something with the pictures that I like. So, here I present the first one I’m uploading to Flickr, of Joshua being captain of the washing basket boat! He’s such a good little boy!

Posting a blog entry directly from Flickr is pretty simple, so if you don’t have the time or patience to check my Flickr stream very often, I’ll try to highlight some of my extra favourites here on Howesthat!

Til next time…

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Kathryn October 26th, 2009

So Dallin does most of the blogging these days, mostly because he is better at it and I just haven’t quite got into the hang of writing blog’s yet! But today I’m giving it a go!

Life is sailing along busily but rather smoothly for all of us. Since Dallin last updated the blog Joshua seems to have grown fast! He gives us the most beautiful smiles everyday (as you will see below) and makes life completely worth it! We are lucky enough to have a boy who sleeps pretty well at night, often only waking us once. He loves play time, and we get some of his biggest smiles when he’s laying on his play mat and kicking or hitting his toys around. One of my favourite moments so far was when he fell asleep in the bath! He just lay there fast asleep and didn’t even flinch when I took him out and put him on the towel, which at the time was often a bit of a drama!

Dallin’s work is going well, and we’re really blessed that he is also able to be home 2 days a week which fits in well with my return to teaching. This is my third week back and I love teaching my students, it is a great job and I love seeing them learn and grow both in their piano skills and as people. It has been interesting trying to adjust to being a mum, and a teacher but we’re going well although I imagine the bigger and more mobile Josh gets the more challenging it will be!

In March this year I started something called ‘Project 365′ or ‘Photo A Day’. Many of you may have heard of it but it’s where you take a photo everyday for a year and then write what’s the photo’s about. It has been a great project that I’ve really enjoyed doing. It helps me look for something new/exciting in each day which is proving to be a good experience. I guess by the end of it I will have a record of time spent with loved ones, things I’ve achieved or something beautiful I saw everyday. So far I have pictures of some of the important events this year such as Dallin’s graduation (I was so proud of him!) and Joshua’s birth (The most life-changing event ever!) to some very ordinary things such as the washing that I spent all day doing, or something new I made for dinner! I have never been very good at keeping a journal so this is something that helps me keep a record of my life. I would recommend to everyone to do this, or something similar if you don’t already keep a journal.

I hope that after I have finished the year of photos that if nothing else I can write in my journal, a few lines everyday, about something that I have done or seen. Elder Henry B Eyring spoke once about the wonderful blessings that came to him and his family as, everyday, he recorded how he had seen the hand of God bless him and his family. Both he and his family have been able to read that record and experience joy as they remember the many ways they have been blessed. Although I don’t anticipate that anything I have written or may write will significantly impact or bless the lives of others, I’m sure that in years to come I will have great joy as I look back at the photos and reflect on things that otherwise would have been long forgotten. I may even learn a new lesson or two from them as I recall the experiences, and that will make it all worth while!

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dallin August 30th, 2009

And a whole bunch of dirty nappies in there too.

Joshua has been home for two weeks now! It’s been pretty crazy, and we’re all learning a lot, but we’re all doing great. The midwife came and weighed him on Friday – he has gained about 330 grams, which is 10% of his body weight. I think that’s pretty impressive. We had to feed him through a syringe for a few days, but that is pretty well all sorted out and he is feeding well now.

He is such a good boy for us – he sleeps really well and isn’t bothered too much by noise. He been sleeping for up to 6 hours some nights, which has been really nice. We are both still very tired, especially Kathryn, but we’re doing well. He has been great at church the last two Sundays, too – he sleeps through Sacrament Meeting, Kathryn takes him out to feed during Sunday School, and he comes back in a lies awake contentedly in his snuggle bag during Priesthood/Relief Society. He hardly makes a noise, and several people have asked “Where’s Joshua?”, because they didn’t notice him.

He still loves his tongue, and it is constantly going in and out of his mouth. He is also quite good with his fingers, stretching them every which way.

Just as I am writing this, he has been working hard at holding his head up. And filling his nappy. One of those is much cuter than the other…

We have taken a bunch more photos, and I’ll include some for you below.

*Edit* Joshua is being blessed at church this Sunday, September 6th, in Morialta ward. We meet at 9:00 am at Firle Chapel, 120 Gage St, Firle. We’d love for people to come, but we realise that it is father’s day, so it could be difficult for many.

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dallin August 15th, 2009

Joshua Josiah Howes was born yesterday, August 14th at 2:34pm, in the Lyell McEwin Hospital. He weighed 7lbs 4oz, or 3285g (I think), and was 50.5 cm long. Everyone is doing well – and much better after a decent night’s rest.

The full account may follow sometime later (or it may not…) but just very briefly, labour was about 12 hours long, ending with a successful, natural birth. Kathryn was amazing. When I took my ring off half way through, my hand hurt a lot less! As a follow up to the last post, the doctors at the Women’s and Children’s didn’t feel comfortable with her delivering there, in case something went wrong with her heart, since they have no adult ICU there. We chose Lyell McEwin over Flinder’s as it is closer for most of Kathryn’s family, a newer, nicer facility and the same distance for us. There were no issues with Kathryn’s heart during labour, and no major issues at all. But, it was kind of nice being treated as ‘high risk’.

Anyway, you didn’t come to read what I’m writing, you came for pictures. So, here you go…

Hopefully Kathryn and Joshua will be coming home on Sunday.

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dallin July 22nd, 2008

We helped Chantelle and Daniel (Kathryn’s sister and brother-in-law) move on Saturday. It was a pretty good move, as moves go. Pretty well everything was packed up already, and most things were labelled with post-it notes to tell us where it was going. Some was going to storage, the rest was going to Jeanette’s, where Chantelle and Daniel are living at the moment. So we had two trailers and two teams of people, one for each target location. It went really smoothly, and was all over in a few hours.

I’m not a big fan of moving, though. I think it’s the packing that gets me. It especially annoys me if I go to help someone else move, but nothing is packed up when we get there. I had a few horror stories like that when I was a missionary for the church, in Switzerland and Germany. Had some really good ones too.

We’ll be moving soon, though. For those who don’t know, my parents have been asked to run our church’s Temple here in Adelaide for the next 3 years. It’s the big granite/marble building on Lower Portrush road. Like all positions in the church, it’s a volunteer thing. But it’ll be full on, full time, so dad is retiring from dentistry and selling his practice. But, they do get to live in a house just behind the temple for the next three years. Which means we get to move into their house.

Fortunately, we don’t have too much stuff, so it should be a pretty easy move. Except that we’re upstairs here. And it’ll certainly be lovely to have some more space. Kathryn had just started teaching from there too, so that will be really convenient for her. We kind of feel bad at the moment, since that is dominating their front lounge room for now. But soon it will be our front lounge room, and renamed the music room!

Soon everything will be ours.

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dallin April 23rd, 2008

Hey everyone!

Welcome to ‘Howes That!’, our little corner of the internet. At the moment this is being hosted on our own computer, so if it’s ever unavailable or slow, that’s why. But this is where we’re planning on keeping the world updated about what we’re up to and what’s been happening.

Just to start off with, I’ll explain why we’ve decided to do this. In General Conference a couple of weeks ago, President Monson mentioned, while talking about his ancestors, that “there is but little recorded” about one couple. That inspired me to record more about me and my new family. I know I need to be better at keeping a journal, but I thought I would turn to a more public method of recording things too. And so, ‘Howes That!’ was born. We’ll do our best to update it regularly, at least monthly. Although sometimes there isn’t much exciting going on…

Love Dallin & Kathryn

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