Saturday, September 19, 2009

"We Are Family..." RS retreat 2009

Harmony Park Relief Society Retreat

On Friday evening we ate a wonderful dinner that Monty and his helpers, Richard and Chris, cooked for us. We watched the video of Stephanie Romney helping Peggy Moffat declutter her craft-sewing-laundry room. It encouraged us to go home and declutter at least one closet in our homes. We watched the church video “Between Heaven and Earth” also. It was about temples and why our church has them. The video is available online or Susan will lend her video if you want to see it. We discussed temples and how important they are to us in our day to day lives. Especially the peace we feel as we serve doing baptisms and other work for our kindred dead.

On Saturday after a wonderful breakfast we had three workshops that we all attended.

Myrna Borden told us about the cookbook she and her sisters put together. This project was over three years in development and included at least one sisters “retreat’ to figure it all out. The book includes memories of their mother making the recipes and so is more than just a cookbook, but is a book to teach their children and grandchildren about Grandmother Whiting. Mary Ann Hogle then showed us some of the books she has put together about her kids. She used large oversized envelopes to sort all of the items by each year of their lives. The items in each envelope were then used to create a chronological record of pictures, documents and creative items in large scrapbooks. She has been at this project for over twenty year with three children complete and three children to go.

Pam Bowman shared with us how to preserve our videos. She showed us how to take our VHS tapes, run them through a camcorder and onto our computer. She said we first need to decide how to organize our movies. Some ways might be by years, kids, events, etc. We could then burn the video onto a DVD and have a better way to keep our family movies. She taught us about external drives, ways to organize our files on our computers, and how to make two DVD copies of each VHS so that one could be viewed by our family and the other put away in a safe place.

Merle and Debbie McKinnon taught us how to take better pictures. He told us about the white balance (WB) on our cameras. It should balance with the type of lighting to get good picture. Some tips for good pictures are:
· We should balance our pictures in thirds.
· We should look for horizons.
· The middle often looks better a little off center.

There are three types of picture we take:
· Document photos—a picture a real estate agent takes for a house for sale.
· Memory photos—family pictures, kids doing sports, vacations, etc.
· Art photos—sunsets, art, really cool trees or flowers, etc.


http://www.centuryphoto.com/servlet/OnlineShopping

http://www.lightimpressionsdirect.com/

http://www.thefatsisterscookbook.com/

http://www.mormoncoloniesinmexico.com/

http://www.instawares.com/10in-x-13in-duraguard-open-end-archival-clasp-envelope.wevco523.0.7.htm

Click pictures to make larger.