As Joey likes to quote, "America Runs off Dunkin!" He loves their coffee. I get green tea. I have hated this bronze mirror for quite some time..I put on two coats of metallic silver. LOVE! The 20ft maple tree that we scored at our favorite nursery for an amazing price The dead maple that the builders gave us that we had to replace out of our pocket...ouch. Joey uprooted the old dead tree easily as it was rotted to the core New tree weighs over 300 pounds...Joey rolled it carefully out of his truck and into this hole Packing in lots of dirt around the root ball. We were exhausted by this time. Me watering the new bush I planted and the other flowers. Isn't she a beaut! This was all done in a half day Saturday with 90+ degrees and humidity bearing down on our backs. We were cooking to say the least and exhasted by the heat but, in the end it was worth it. I love my new metallic colored mirror. I will post a picture of it soon and Joey and I love our new tree and bush that we planted. That is our weekend in a nutshell:).
We generally take our smaller, light weight camera when we camp so that we don't have to lug around the heavy duty one, but silly me lost the battery charger so we were stuck with the less portable camera. As a result, I took maybe 15 pictures in total during our weekend at the lake which I am very bummed about. Note to self: buy new battery charger asap! The lake is absolutely gorgeous and the campground area is literally a forest....so much different then the dry, dessert style campgrounds of California that I am used to. Joey got to fish a lot and I got to lay out in the sun with friends by the lake. I would love to camp there again with our families someday. I enjoyed a wonderful bible study by myself early on Sunday morning at a picnic bench next to the lake and it was the most serene experience I have had in a long time. I saw a beautiful well fed Cardinal (one of mine and Joey's favorite birds) in the tree right beside me and the wind whispered all around me. It was so quiet,peaceful, even a bit cool as if Fall was visiting early. It was such a great place to spend some time alone with the Lord and to hear his voice. That was the highlight for me!
I don't know anyone whose husband loves fishing as much as mine. I don't think Joey would get sick of it even if he fished 7 days a week for a year straight! He generally fishes at the lake every Saturday from around 5 AM until around 2 PM and I'm sure he would stay a lot longer if he wasn't married...lol. He also takes his boat out occasionally on a week night if he has time and will fish from around 6 PM until around 9:30 or 10 PM. Yah, my guy is hardcore but, he is VERY good at what he does. He catches fish like a pro and in fact, I think he would go pro if he wasn't tied to a job and bills. I decided to tag along with Joey last week so that I could capture pictures of the fishing process for the blog. I sat quietly and watched and took a ton of pictures. These were some of my favorites. Unfortunately, Joey didn't catch anything that night so I have to go again with him soon to try and capture the actual fish on the line. I can't even describe how serene and peaceful it is on the lakes out here. The trees are beautiful and green and you can hear all kinds of birds and insects chirping in the evening breeze. LOVE IT!! I really wished I enjoyed fishing because it would be so fun to share that in common with my man...just can't seem to get into it the way he does. I get bored after about an hour of fishing. Now if he had a library of decorating magazines on the boat I could hang around a little longer! haha.
I got to take some more pictures of adorable little Vinnie and his parents this past week after work. He's gotten so much bigger since the previous posts hasn't he! It has been such a treat to watch this little guy grow and if you remember, he was the very first person I took pictures of using manual settings a few months back. On that note: I'm so grateful to everyone who has given me a chance to practice photography, who has encouraged me along the way and who has been so supportive as I have tackled this challenging field. I still have a long way to go to get to where I would like to be but, for now it has been a wonderful journey and I have lots of great pictures to look back on and see the progress I've made in such a short time. I have to give huge props to my absolutely amazing husband for being the most encouraging person throughout this process. I've gotten very discouraged a few times both with myself and my camera and with a few people who have cast a shadow over my joy. Through it all Joey has constantly lifted my spirits and has had far more faith in me than I have had in myself. Gosh, I love that guy! Anyways, what I really want to say is...Thank you to all my friends and family for being such wonderful cheerleaders! You guys are truly wonderful!
I am in need of quotes for a project that I am working on and I would love a little assistance from all of you who stop by the Martinez blog shack:). Please share with me one or several of your favorite quotes in the comment section below and I will most definitely incorporate them into my project which I will share with all of you when it's finished...which will probably be a little while. The quotes could be a bible verse, someone famous, your own quote, or a friend's words. I would love to hear some of the meaningful or silly things you have said as well that have stuck with you.
Here are a couple of mine to get you inspired:
I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.
Philippians 4:13
Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.
Ambrose Redmoon
We get to make a living; we give to make a life.
Winston Churchill
Now, I know that you don't all post on here much but, if you could help me out just this once I would really appreciate it:). There is no bad quote if it means something to you. Please share! :-)
A friend sent me these this morning in an e-mail. There were a few others but, I couldn't get them to upload for some reason. Silly, clean humor:). I have had so little to blog about this week which is so unusual! I lost the battery charger to my smaller more portable camera so that has really limited mine and Joey's ability to take more frequent pictures. Hopefully I find it soon! We are camping this weekend at a lake nearby and that is something we are both really looking forward to. The campsites are so beautiful and the lake is warm by this time which is nice. I have been teaching Dakota how to run with me in the evenings. She used to hate it when I ran and she would turn around and start biting the leash and trip me but, with a couple simple words I have corrected that problem and she appears to love our nightly tradition now. It's been fun having a buddy to jog with! I should try and take a picture of it sometime! lol.
As Joey likes to quote, "America Runs off Dunkin!" He loves their coffee. I get green tea.
I have hated this bronze mirror for quite some time..I put on two coats of metallic silver. LOVE!
The 20ft maple tree that we scored at our favorite nursery for an amazing price
The dead maple that the builders gave us that we had to replace out of our pocket...ouch.
Joey uprooted the old dead tree easily as it was rotted to the core
New tree weighs over 300 pounds...Joey rolled it carefully out of his truck and into this hole
Packing in lots of dirt around the root ball. We were exhausted by this time.
Me watering the new bush I planted and the other flowers. 
Isn't she a beaut! This was all done in a half day Saturday with 90+ degrees and humidity bearing down on our backs. We were cooking to say the least and exhasted by the heat but, in the end it was worth it. I love my new metallic colored mirror. I will post a picture of it soon and Joey and I love our new tree and bush that we planted. That is our weekend in a nutshell:).
