My daughter’s first grade teacher retired after 24 years of working at my kids’ school. To show appreciation for her, two of the mothers organized a surprise party last week at lunch time. Many of the parents chipped in toward the party, and some of us showed up for the lunch, but I was so happy that these two parents did so much organizing. One of the presents was a scrapbook with each page devoted to one child in her class. She spent ten minutes (or more) with the children looking over the scrapbook.

Only two other teachers have been at the school longer than she has. My daughter, when asked her favorite teacher from first grade, named all her teachers, including the assistants. She enjoyed them all. Not bad for a child who struggled with school and is finally learning to read.

For more photos with a little or a lot of red, visit:

Welcome to JPIX, the blog carnival of Jewish photo bloggers from around the world.

Batya:
  
Robin:
  

Ilana-Davita, G6, and Rahel:
  

Maya and Mike in Midwood:
 

Devo aka Pesky Settler and Proud Mommy:
  

Occidental Israeli, TRS and Mottel
  

Soccer Dad and Mrs. S.:
 

CosmicX:
  

Mother in Israel, Rafi and Imabima:
  

Baila and Jew Wishes:
 

Jewish Side and Mimi:
 

Leora:
  

If you see a photo you like, please click on it to visit the blog from which it came. You may find other photos you like as well, and perhaps an explanation of the photo. In particular it is always nice to leave a complimentary comment on the blog of the photographer about the photo. You can also leave the photo blogger questions about the photo on his or her blog.

Unless someone volunteers to host JPIX in the next few months, the next addition of JPIX will be in December. Batya has volunteered! See below.

If you want to participate in the September 8 edition of JPIX, the blog carnival of Jewish photobloggers, please submit your post using this blogcarnival.com form.

Thank you so much to everyone who participated! I love doing this carnival.

See also:

• Kosher Cooking Carnival up at the Real Shliach
• Hot and Humid Haveil Havalim at Simply Jews

I played with this photo in Photoshop so it is more about the motions of the soccer game than the individual faces. I was working toward achieving a painterly look. The soccer game was in Johnson Park off River Road in Piscataway next to Highland Park.

In this version I pixelated the photo and then used the history eraser tool to bring the figures back to a clearer image.

For more Summer Stock Sunday posts, please visit Robin’s Around the Island.

First snapdragon of summer is pink - self-seeded from last year's snapdragons

On my blog

Sky Watch: Rainbow in Edison
Stained Glass at Etz Ahaim
Ruby Tuesday: Red Signs
Today’s Flowers: Gaillardia, Rudbeckia, Lambs Ears & more
Summer Stock: Beach Drawings
Nature Notes: Slow Seed
Tomato Sauce Alternative (beet with yam sauce)

JPIX will appear on this blog on Sunday morning, so please come back and visit.

Upcoming in Highland Park: a clothing drive for Yad Leah in Israel from 9:30 AM until 12:30 PM. at Congregation Ohav Emeth
(someone remind me on Sunday to bring in some clothes for them)

Elsewhere

Gilad Shalit was three years in captivity on Thursday:

• Mother in Israel: Three Years of Waiting
• Baila: The Saddest Anniversary
• Occidental Israeli: Leave No Man Behind? On other Israeli soldiers left behind
• A Soldier’s Mother: A Son of Israel (a huge applause for her in all her hard, hard work in getting Gilad to be #3 in Trending topics in Twitter – I was honored to participate – it’s about letting the world know)

Iran: Its About the Women (hat tip: Ilana-Davita)
When we heard Dr. Kedar speak in Highland Park a few months ago, he had a similar message in general about Islam — they don’t want women to have freedom.

First we saw this in the sky in Edison, New Jersey on Tuesday night.

Then we saw this – a rainbow!

If I didn’t have my camera with me, and if it weren’t for the SkyWatch photo meme, I would have missed the rainbow.

For more skies, cloudy, colorful or blue, visit:

Sky Watch Friday

Call me impulsive. Or a creative gardener. A risk-taking lawn owner?

I’m sick of grass. I don’t much care for weeds, either. So I pulled up some of my grass in early spring and planted some chamomile seeds on my front lawn. The seeds took a while to germinate, and now I have these pretty, leafy green plants (pictured on right side of photo, under the rudbeckia leaves), but no chamomile flowers yet. While playing with my daughter in the front I pulled up some more weeds. After a while, I had more space to plant in front. My intention was to plant flowers, ideally perennials that would grow back each year. I put in a few, such as creeping phlox, speedwell and Mexican primrose (at left in photo). But there was still room for more. If you recall from an earlier post, I had planted a lot of basil seeds. So I had a lot of basil plants. Since the groundhog or the deer had eaten my dill and chomped at my marigolds and nasturtium in the backyard, I thought my front lawn might be a safer place for my basil. I now have little basil plants in both my backyard and the front yard. And some parsley, too. A few oregano seedlings.

What’s going on naturally where you are? Visit Michelle’s Nature Notes: