Friday, August 31, 2007

Dreamstime Stock Photography.

You may have noticed the new links on the right of the page. One of them is a link and the other a button to the Dreamstime Stock Photo site. I guess I am officially an amateur stock photographer. I have had my lighthouse sunset picture accepted at Dreamstime. I am very excited about this! I was reading in their forum that over 1500 images were submitted this month and only 20 were approved. I am very happy that one of mine made it. The other six I submitted did not make it. The kids and I are going out on a photography adventure this weekend. I hope to have more ready for upload by next week.

If you want to try your hand at selling some of your pictures click this link, or click the link on the side of the page. I get a little bonus for recruiting new photographers! It is free to sign up and upload your photos, they just need to be approved by the staff before they will be available for sale. Here is a link to my portfolio, which I hope will grow to more than one picture soon!

I have an inspiration for a financial post that I read on another great blog, I am getting ready to bore all of you with it! Also, I plan to post some pictures of our Ohio trip soon....

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Thankfulness.....


There are so many things for me to be thankful for. I am thankful that we have a great group of kids to teach at Sunday school this year. This was our second Sunday since they moved up a grade and it was very enjoyable and I feel that the kids are having fun while they learn some very important stuff. I hope they keep the interest that they have now for the rest of their lives.


I am also very thankful for my large family. Without them I don't know what I would do. They make life so interesting for me and their mother. Take for instance this weekend. I had to clean the garage out. This is one of the worst jobs in our house. For me, it was very fun because I had some special help. Joey was out there with me almost the whole time. He would sweep and pick up junk. He would get his tools out and work with me. He is such a hard worker! This is a picture of Joey. As you can see, he is very cute too. Don't worry, I didn't buy him a fantastic colored coat! Thanks for all your help this weekend Joey!

We are planning a short trip soon. I'll snap some pictures and post here soon!

Monday, August 20, 2007

Meet Esther...


You may have seen our link to World Vision on the side of the page. We have been a sponsor of a World Vision child for some time now. This is Esther and she is from Kenya which, for those of you that don't know, is in Africa. Dawn and I have always said that we wished we met earlier and could have had more kids at a younger age. Since that wasn't possible, we decided to sponsor. We consider Esther our "oldest girl". She will be twelve years old this year.

It is fun to receive letters from her telling us what her life is like and what her home is like. She told us in one of her letters about how she lives near a wildlife refuge area where there are many lions and other large animals that roam free.

It is rewarding for us to help someone like Esther. It helps her attend school and receive food and medical care. If you want to look into sponsoring a child, click the link on the side of the page. It will take you directly to World Vision's site. We don't get anything out of your sponsorship other than knowing another child gets help. Please leave a comment if you decide to sponsor.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

It's Football Season!!!


Football season officially opened this weekend. Jakey and Nicolas had their first games Saturday. We had very good first games. The kids did great and nobody was injured. Let's hope it stays that way all season. Joey cant' wait to play! He has a few years until he can start. I can't wait to see how they improve throughout the year.

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Tough year for Peyton Manning!


This is going to be a tough year for Peyton Manning. It looks like practice is tough on him. I hear the Colts signed a couple of small tough guys this year. These guys are really tough! Their names are Jakey and Joey. We accidentally knocked over this Peyton Manning while we were goofing around, but luckily we caught it before it hit the ground. Don't the boys look cool?

Fun at the Falls...


Here is a picture of the bunch at the Falls. Every year we stand in front of the Little Sister Falls sign and snap a picture. You can tell by the looks on their faces how much fun we have here every year. Jakey was a little excited in this picture!

Monday, August 6, 2007

Is that a pregnant tree?


I think we made a major scientific discovery! We spotted a pregnant women next to it! This was a neat find as we were all out exploring on the trail. Very appropriate to our situation. The pregnancy is going well. It will be January before we know it!

Sunday, August 5, 2007

Indiana's Largest Waterfall...


Another annual Bolt tradition, is to visit Indiana's largest waterfall on the way home from Colts training camp. Cataract Falls is located in the Lieber State Recreation area. The water was a little low this year, but it was still very nice. You can see what it looks like when the water level is higher here.The kids really like this, and it takes a very short time to see it all. It is a nice break from the driving.

This time we practice some of our photography experiments. We took a normal picture followed by a slow shutter speed to blur the motion and make more of an "artistic" picture.


A visit to Cataract Falls is highly recommended by the Bolt Family, it is fun for all ages!

Training Camp Bust!


Training camp was a huge bust this year! The Superbowl bandwagon fans were getting in our way of the fun that we have every year with our favorite team, the Indianapolis Colts. There were people showing up wearing Bears and Cowboys jerseys. Why even bother, go support your team, don't show up at ours! There were hecklers in the crowd. That really gets me upset, I bring my kids to this for fun, save that for a game and don't do it around my kids. People were stealing our rosters. People would show up at the start of practice and gripe because they can't get a bleacher seat. There were even more people trying to cut in the autograph line than there usually are.

We have decided to skip the "family day" for the rest of training camps to come. We will just take time off and go back during the weekdays when the crowds are lower. We will work up a new strategy for next year and post here.

At least it did not rain on us, although that may have been a blessing, since it would have run off all of the bandwagon fans. All was not lost, we were able to get a few good pictures, as you can see. Here we posted a good one of the Superbowl MVP, Peyton Manning.

Friday, August 3, 2007

We are at the Indianapolis Colts Training Camp!!!


We are in Terre Haute today at the Indianapolis Colts training camp!!!!! The bad news is the weather is way too hot and the crowds are insane this year! We showed up late and missed the tent autographs today, but hopefully we will get some tomorrow. Here is a picture I took today of Jeff Saturday, the best center in the NFL, signing autographs for a bunch of eager fans! Remember that fumble recovery in the end zone against New England? What a touchdown for the big guy!

Thursday, August 2, 2007

Launch of Stock Photo...

Today we added our stock photos to zooomr. We will be adding more picture to our portfolio for sale. We are excited to see what the response will be from this. We will soon submit to other stock agencies as our portfolio grows. You can view the portfolio at www.zooomr.com/photos/rickbolt/ .