WOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, IT'S THE WEEKEEEEEEND!

Well it is Friday and what is on our minds? Pizzaaaaa!!! It is a beautiful sunny day. It is 80 degrees and the bugs are out. In about an hour the Alonso family will be enjoy succulent slices of pizzas at Picnic Pizza. Then tomorrow Libby has soccer openning day at the YMCA. Unfortunately, I can't say or write YMCA without thinking of the song. Now you have it in your head too. Tomorrow after the opening ceremonies she has her first game. I will bring Sport Illustrated style images for you next week after going through them. Right now the kids are asking, "when are we going out for pizza?" Again and again and again. So for now have a wonderful weekend.

Oh yeah, why do I have a photograph of a drink and ketchup? Because I don't have any photos of pizza.

God bless and enjoy in particular the Lord's Day. :)

Sharing his puzzle skills.

Joseph wanted to share how he can put together his puzzle. So, I then thought of sharing it with you.

Back to Basics.

As some of you know I pastor a very small Spanish speaking congregation. Over the last few months the numbers have grown. We have been evangelizing from door to door on Sunday evenings and the Lord has blessed that. In the last month most of them have moved on to greener pastures, literally, since they are migrant workers. So for the first time in a while we are down to just two families, essentially. Well we have started to get together after church to relearn how to evangelize using the Spanish version of Way of the Master. We will then go out together using the same message to bring more people, not to church necessarily, but to the Lord as He sees fit. We ask for your prayers for us and for Albany as the Lord's good news begins to get spread again.

The training is a good combination of video, Bible study, a skit to prove a point and quotes form the greatest preachers of the last few centuries.

While everyone works, Joseph deeply meditates on the lesson.

The best looking student in the study. Clearly she is my favorite. I may ask her for her number around lesson 3.

These envelopes contain letters of our expectations for the training. We get to open them at the end of the training.

Updates, Updates, Updates

Thanks to Brian's prompting I will again attempt to update my blog. I have been so busy with school, church and the photography business that I have just given up on this blog. I do however enjoy following the Timoldi's, Rosa's, and Jones' blog on my iPad, even though I don't leave comments. I will try to update as more regularly as events happen. I will leave you with this photo of Joseph I took at the MacDonald's outdoor cafe a couple of weeks ago.

Ok two photos.

God bless,

Juan

Long ago in a wedding.

Long ago in a wedding.

Joseph's 4th Birthday Party

Sorry for the delay in keeping you updated, but the last month of school keeps me pretty busy. Anyway I have finished editting Joseph's party pictures. Most of them will be at the family picture site at  http://jcalonso.smugmug.com/. Some of them I will use in this post.

Before the party had begun and after the house was readied for the festivities, I took some pictures of Leidys feeding my nephew Adrian. I do this not just for the memories, but also to test the white balance set up on my camera so that it is ready for taking pictures inside the house. (It looks more like a group feeding.)

Here is a close up of Adrian. I didn't really take a close-up, I kind of just blew up the image.

Again setting up the aperture in my camera so that I can get lighting right, I took this picture of Elisabeth as she was helping out. So I enlarged and cropped the image to what you see below.

Once the camera was ready, I began to take what I thought were memorable pictures of the family. Here is Adrian and his grandmother Dania.

Group shots with my family are always hard to take. Everyone wants to be posed and they want to do it fast. It was a mess, none of the kids wanted to take a picture and they were squirmy. I had to make Elisabeth smile and my in-laws were growing impatient, while striking their poses, with me.

While editting the photos to upload them onto Smugmug, I liked my father-in-law's pose and enlarged him. He is a handsome man.

Finally the guests arrived and I was able to take some group pictures. They are sloppy, but memorable. These are the children of family, friends and neighbors. Some are from New York, Indiana, New Jersey, and from right here in Georgia. Look closely and you can see Amelia's dad hiding behind here while keeping her standing still for the photo-op.

Here is the family. Well, almost eveyone.

The theme of Joseph's birthday was Thomas the tank engine. For party hats we had conductor caps and cups cakes put together as train tracks. Thanks to Wal-Mart for the idea and my sister-in-law Leidys for the decoration.

Then it was time for Joseph to open his presents.

After we opened presents and ate the cake, everyone went outside to swing at the piñata. Here is Joseph winding it up to take a swing at it.

Libby got a shot at the piñata, but she had to be blind folded so the piñata would not go flying.

After a few more kids took a turn the piñata broke and the kids just stood around looking at it. You would think they have never seen one before. So we had to tell them to run and go get the candy. So here they are plundering the cache.

Finally the party was over and everyone went home happily. One last word, thanks to German Quiñones for risking his life as he held the piñata and protected his eyes from sharp flying candy with goggles.

Going for a Walk.

Today we went for a walk on a trail we knew about but never went on. It winds for about 3 miles from lake Chehaw Lee County to Turtle Park in Albany.

On the way we took some pictures. Karen saw a dead bug on the path.

We stopped and looked at some violets?

I took some photos of Karen,

of Joseph,

and of Elisabeth.

Finally, I handed the camera over to Karen, very carefully, set it up and all she had to do was frame the camera and shoot. Not a bad job.

By this time we were tired of walking and headed back to the car and went home.

A Passing!

Karen's great uncle, passed away today.

Mother and child: Madre e hijo

Precious Moment

Snow ball?

So after hours of playing in the snow. Libby shows up with this =>

http://www.jcalonso.smugmug.com/

My Birthday.

So my birthday was on Saturday and we used Karen's gift card she got for her birthday to go to Florida and eat at the Olive Garden. Instead of pictures of the wonderful food or of me I took pictures of my family, which made my birthday very special. I praise the Lord for them.

You may view more at http://www.jcalonso.smugmug.com/.

Snow Day in the Deep South

For those of you who are not on Facebook these are the pictures of our snow day in the deep South.jcalonso.smugmug.com

Friends Part 2

Although the issue of Elisabeth and friends is one that we will cover. I have come to the conclusion that sometimes a girls just needs a good cry. So most often I offer a quiet shoulder. Then we have talk and prayer time.

Rosa boys at beach.

I love the picture of the Rosa boys at the beach. I did a little professional touch up. What do you think?

Friends.

I asked Libby this morning while I drove her to school if she had any friends at school. She commented on kids she knew and one girl she considered her friend but has been out already two days since school started last week. Not much was said on the way to school.

This evening she comes into my room, sits on the floor and sighs. I asked the question I usually end up regretting. "What's the matter?" She replied with sobs and tears. She began to explain through her tears that she does not have a friend in school. She had spent the last two years without a friend. Her recess times have been lonely, just walking around. I do not regret that my daughter feels free to share her troubles with me. I regret asking the question because when the answer is something that hurts her, it hurts me.

I can't stand to see her cry and I would rather avoid it than deal with it. I gave her the best answers I could at the moment. I can't think straight when she is bawling on my shoulder. I spouted some Bible verses and made some jokes, but I need to really help her. You see what do you tell someone whose definition of happiness, or at least happiness in school is having friends. I am sure it is not her only definition, but it is an important one.

And so I ask myself the question. What is really in her heart? What is driving her so about friendship or lack of friends that cause her to get really upset? I know friends are important and the love of a friend and what you share with them is precious. In my mind, I think I would like her to be more content with whatever is going on in her life. I would rather desire that nothing would bother her, but that would not be realistic. How do I take hold of her heart and care for it and protect it?

I told her that Jesus is a friend to the friendless. That we will pray for a godly friend for her and that she but know how to be a friend. Karen and I were careful to let her know not to change just to be friends with a mean girl or unpleasant girl just to have a friend.

Friendship is important, but sometimes friendships are desired for selfish reasons. Elisabeth is a sinner. If she has truly trusted in the Lord then she is a redeemed sinner. She struggles with sin just like we do. Her desire for a friend can be as selfish as well as altruistic. I understand she sees other girls being friends and must imagine how happy their lives are. However, I also understand that she may want to fulfill her selfish and self-satisfying desire to have a friend because it pleases her and satisfies her own self-esteem.

Instead of finding her contentment in the Lord, she wants to find it in another, not to give but receive. We are all like this. Some of our so called "friendships" are nothing more than relationships of what we can get out of them, or how they make me feel. Some even have this relationship with the Lord. What we can get out of Him and how He makes me feel. We want to feed our self-esteem and not humble ourselves.

So for the next 10 months I must teach my daughter and myself what exactly in our hearts. I must show her that glorifying God and pleasing Him is more important. And to look for friend for the right reasons and not to satisfy or please ourselves.

I do not know if this makes sense. I have not proofread it. I just needed to get this off my chest. Please pray for us and especially Libby.

Sold first print.

Some of you know I have started my own photography business some time ago. Recently I started to take fine art pictures. One of them was of a church steeple. You can see it at www.jcalonso.photoreflect.com under seaside images. Well, I hung it up at the coffee place named Elements and it sold today. Praise the Lord!

Hunter Green