The Neely Team

The dining room was quiet. Used supper dishes were pushed to the center of the table, while eleven heads bent in concentration over the papers in front of them. An occasional giggle or comment broke the silence, but for the most part, all was still. Then, someone asked, “Do I have to pick just THREE? These are ALL so good!”

We were finally judging the captions for the photo caption contest of a few weeks ago! Each person was handed a piece of paper which had all the entries typed on it (without the names of the submitters), and we were to mark our three favorites. When we finally managed to narrow down the list to our top three (or four ) favorites, we tallied the votes to find out which captions seemed to fit the picture the best. After seeing some very interesting results, we took the four finalists, and voted again. Then, when it was obvious which one had won the contest, there was a moment of breathless anticipation as we waited to hear who had submitted the winning caption! A drum-roll was called for, the winner was announced, and the room instantly burst into cheers! So, for those of you who submitted captions and are just dying to know who won , here are the results. The winning caption was:

“What shall we say then? Shall we continue with baby toys?” , submitted by Michael S.

The other three finalists were:

“Where are all the boys???” by Uncle Jim

“Oh my! The Bb in measure seven was a bit sharp again – one more time girls…” by Joshua

“Did you see what I just did?? … Sometimes I even amaze myself!” by Aunt Lisa

One that we really liked when we had our personal family contest a few weeks ago was the one that Mom came up with: “Where’s my binki?” Another favorite was Dad’s “Why wouldn’t my sisters adore me??”

So a great big THANK YOU to all who participated!! We GREATLY enjoyed receiving and reviewing all the comments – please visit again soon!!!!!

We recently spent some time taking family pictures. It made me think about all the many different things people say when its “picture time.” Sometimes the process is harder than other times, especially if you don’t have anyone to take the picture for you. It teaches some good character qualities, including patience, perseverance, and cooperation. Most of the time we take our own family pictures… you know: the “Quick! Push the button and run into the picture!” routine. This time we were  blessed to have a neighbor who offered to take them “professionally” for us. Amazing!! We got done in less than an hour! Last time we tried, it took us probably two or three hours! Having an extra person to push the little button helped a lot!

So anyway, what does your family say when its picture time and you’re trying to get everyone to not only look at the camera, but with a pleasant expression (like, you know, a smile or something nice like that?!)? I’ll be honest… you have to be creative. Think about what your family likes the most. The thing that makes them smile to think about. Then make them say it out loud to produce the smile. That’s what we want, isn’t it?

The “normal” picture-taking sayings are, “Smile!” “Say, ‘Cheese!’”, and other stuff like that. But… wait a minute… what is the standard for “normal” if everyone is different?! Hmmmmm…

Well, I have to admit that sometimes it’s a real struggle to get a good family picture. It takes an extra amount of cooperation and patience. This past March, we were trying to get a really good one for the cover photo on our new CD. Ummm… well…. we all got dressed up in our “Sunday clothes” and headed  out to the garage where we set up our portrait studio. Titus was only about a week old, so Mommy was coming off bed rest to do this. Remember, it was March, so we had a heater going in the garage, which we ended up shutting off, because when you have twelve people squished into an approximately 5’x5’ area, no one gets extremely cold. (Actually, you’re more likely to get extremely hot.) About  two hours and eighty pictures later, we concluded that we probably had one picture that would work, so we went inside and got little ones ready for bed. Most of us had ice cream (to help us cool down ) while Daddy was browsing through the pictures.  We then realized that we didn’t have one picture that we could even “cut and paste.” Back to the garage… side note: we had to redress six people and redo hair. It was now about 10:30 pm. We were all getting kind-of tired. After about twenty or thirty more, finally, we got one that we could “cut this and paste that,” and it would work. That night, we tried several different ways to try to get the effect we wanted, which included laughing uncontrollably, instead of just smiling at the camera.

Oh, I guess this post is supposed to be about what people say when they are  waiting for that little clicking sound, which confirms in our mind that the picture has been captured by the incredible device known as a camera. We use the common words like “Smile!”, “Say, ‘Cheese!’”, and “Look at the camera!”. But we also say probably not-so-common things, too. “Laugh uncontrollably!” “Pretend like you’re comfortable!” “Relax… just be yourself.” “Smile anyway!” “Be happy!” “Don’t wrinkle your nose when you smile.” “Umm… it just took…. my eyes were shut.” “Let me take it! You always ‘cut off’ your head!!” “Make your eyes smile.” “Ooops… I wasn’t looking.” “Well, let’s try that again.” “Open your eyes a little wider.” “Are we having fun yet?” “Just one more.” “Take off the sunglasses – we want to see your eyes.” “Hurry… I can’t stand like this much longer!” “Don’t pick your nose!” “Hundreds of people will see this.” “You sit right there.” “The sun is in my eyes.” “Run… the timer’s going!” “Everyone hold still.” “Ouch… you stepped on my foot!” “_________ was looking the other way.” “Watch out! Don’t fall off!” “My legs are falling asleep.” “Call the dog.” “Everybody open your eyes.” “Put your hand down.” “Nobody move until after the ‘click’.” “Quick! Run into the picture before the time is up!” “Hopefully there will be one good one out of all these.”

So, go take some family pictures. Enjoy time together. Cooperate. Work together as a team to get it done. And, most importantly, laugh. It adds “spice” and will help to make the process more enjoyable.

Leave a comment and tell us what you think Titus is saying in this picture. We will judge the comments in about two weeks, and the winner will receive a free copy of our newest CD, Let the Joy Begin: Christmas with the Neely Team.

*Special thanks to Tim Hynes for taking the picture!!

August 19, 2009 5:32 a.m.

It’s still dark outside. The whole world is asleep, except for us, because we are getting ready to go to our first violin lesson with a new teacher, at a new time, and, of course, in a new place. Everything thing is still, there are a few sounds like the squirt of a not-so-new hairspray bottle, the whispering sound of a hairbrush through bed-head (or maybe you should multiply that times ten), the running of water as people attempt to get ready to go……then, it happened. The sound of two feet running up two flights of stairs, and one mouth screaming (it sounded like a dozen, by the way), “Amanda! Amanda! Amanda! There’s an egg on the nest!!!!!!” (That one person was Jessi. I think it scared her. ) This one egg has multiplied itself by three in the past week, and it has been very interesting to see the parents interact with the shells that we’re not sure are fertile…

How It All Began

Just in case you didn’t know, last spring (2008), Amanda stole two baby mourning doves right out of their nest. Little did we know that this would lead us to where we are now. After four additional birds and lots of fun and trauma, we were left with one lone mourning dove from the original pair (all the others died, including one of the original two), which was a plus for some and a minus for others. A friend, hearing of our “woe”, gave Amanda two ring-necked doves. We certainly were not expecting to become dove breeders, but it seems that that is what we have become (I think…).

Moral:

Never tamper with the wild,

Or you may end up with a child.

But not a child that you’d expect,

And not a child from the elect.

But this one child comes from a shell,

Of which there’s no more need to tell…

We have some interesting discussions around our dinner table. In fact, they can be pretty strange. Sometimes they’re very technical. Or should I say technological. Maybe it’s both, because when we discuss technological terminology, we can get very technical. Maybe I should give you an example of what I’m talking about.

One evening a few months ago, we were sitting around the table, enjoying the remains of a wonderful meal, and doing what we do best: talking. The topic of our conversation was one that we had discussed many times before, needing a solution to a certain problem, always thinking of solutions, and never succeeding in following up on the solutions we came up with, because we didn’t know if they were really good solutions after all. It was a persistent problem, which got more frustrating the longer we waited to follow up on a solution. (It was a lesson in patience. ) The topic: our website/blog.

So there we were, trying to figure out what in the world we were going to do about our pitiful “website”: how we were going to update it, who we were going to get to help us update it, what we were going to put on it, how we would keep up with a blog…

“WHAT is a BLOG?” someone suddenly asked. “Who in the world came up with the name “blog” and what made them do it?” Dad explained that the word “blog” is actually an abbreviation of “web-log” – in other words, a record or journal that is posted on the web. That drew everyone’s attention, and we all began to ponder the meanings of different computer terms.

“How did we come up with a “cursor”?” someone else asked with a laugh. “A “curser” used to be someone who cursed!”

“And if you think about what a “laptop” is, it’s kinda funny. A laptop used to be a place for children to snuggle with their mothers; now it’s a flat, rectangular box with buttons and lights, with a lot of wires and stuff on the inside!”

“What about a mouse?” another person volunteered. “A mouse is a four-footed little varmint with a long tail that runs around in people’s houses and makes them scream.”

“And how ‘bout RAM? A ram is a male sheep, like the ones that they used to sacrifice in Bible days.”

“OR,” some mischievous personality added, using the unfortunate sibling beside them for a demo, “it could be when I RAM into you all of a sudden!!”

Of course, everyone had to laugh at that! It became a very intriguing conversation as we discussed how confused someone could become with all the double terms. We laughed at the very SOUND of names like “floppy disk”, “JPEG”, and “thumb drive”, and debated the origins and meanings of other terms, such as “hard drive”, “cd-rom”, and “software.” (For instance, “hardware” means tools for manual labor, but “software” is a kind of – what? A series of ones and zeros that tells a computer what to do. Huh??) Take this for an example of multiple meanings: I asked a few different people what a “bit” is. Mom’s definition was “a small piece of a yummy chocolate dessert.”  Victoria said a “bit” is “a steel bar that goes into a horse’s mouth to control it.” Kathryn’s idea was a “small piece of metal that you use with a drill to bore holes.” However, according to the Daddy Dictionary of Technology, a “bit” is “the smallest increment of electronic data: a one or a zero.”  Then I asked about a “byte.” Mom’s answer could be expected: “the first taste of the yummy bit!” Jessi’s immediate thought was “what a bug does to you!” Kathryn said that a “bite” is “what the teething infant does to your shoulder.” And, last but not least, the Daddy Dictionary of Technology explained  that a “byte” REALLY is “a collection of bits that form one character.” Whew! If that’s not enough to make one flumbuzzled! We could go on and on; I wanted to ask about a megabyte… but lets just say that that’s one monster mouth! 

So, the next time you decide to get technical, you could think about the OTHER definitions of your technological terminology!!! Anyone have any other terms to define?

P.S. Using all of these terms makes ME feel kinda strange; I wonder what it feels like to be a REAL techno-geek??