Christmas Card Photo Shoot

Yes, I said Christmas Card Photo Shoot.

If you know me, you know that I LOVE taking photos.

I am OBSESSED with taking photos.

I take a LOT of photos.

My photography obsession has definitely evolved over the years. BK (that's Before Kids) Dale and I were really into landscape photography on our travels. We were always in search of that perfect sunset, that brilliant blue water, and that awe inspiring mountain shot. Of course, most of this time was (Gasp!) before digital photography, so we basically got what we got, and there weren't really any ways that we could change what we got. But now in the digital age, we are blessed to be able to see right away what we get, and I can also dramatically change the look of what we get by working some magic in Photoshop. Lately I have been playing with Photoshop more and more, and now I am also OBSESSED with Photoshop. The only problem with this is that now I am never happy with any SOOC (Straight Out Of the Camera) shots. They might be a great shot and something I would normally be happy with, but now with Photoshop, there is always some way I can make it better. To illustrate this, let me show you a shot before and after.

Today I took advantage of a gorgeous, sunny fall day and a half day of school and took the kids into downtown Vancouver in search of a large red door that I have been wanting to get photos of them with. I decided that now would be a good time to get photos for the annual photo Christmas card. As usual, the kids weren't thrilled with me dragging them away for a photo shoot, but I bribed them with candy and ice cream afterward if they were good. All in all, they were very good, and I got about 230 photos. So here is one shot I got with the SOOC shot and then my Photoshopped version. This isn't the best shot because I don't want to show you the best now and ruin the Christmas card for you. You'll have to wait until December for that.

SOOC (Straight Out Of the Camera)

Photoshopped

Did I tell you that I LOVE Photoshop?

I LOVE Photoshop.

Scrapping Again

Despite the fact that I adore scrapbooking, ever since I purchased Scrapdango just about 7 months ago, I have been consumed with the business side of things rather than the creative side of things. By the time I have time to scrap after taking care of forum stuff and making sure I have everything I need for kits and putting them together and shipping them out, I just don't have the energy or the inspiration to do anything creative for myself. My scrappin' mojo definitely took a long spring and summer vacation. Although slow in getting back into things, I hope that it has returned and will stick around for awhile. I already posted the tray that I made for our friends that moved, but here are a few layouts I've done in recent weeks. A couple of them were for examples I had to do for Scrapdango's School's In contest challenges and the Back to School one was using this month's Scrapdango spice kit, which good for me is already sold out.

This first layout is my favorite that I have made in a long time. I scraplifted a layout by Kerryn on Scrapdango because all her layouts just amaze me in how she can get so much stuff on her layouts without making it look crowded or detracting from her photos. I do not usually put that much stuff on my layouts, but I have to say I love how this one turned out. Meine Liebchen means "My Sweethearts" in German.

I wasn't as thrilled with this one because I think it does need more stuff on it, but it's done and I already have Owen's back to school photos for this year scrapped.

This next layout is another departure for me. I don't usually do such bold, graphic layouts, but I wanted to play with my new Glimmer Mist, which seems to be all the rage, and I have always wanted to use the lyrics from the song, "Seasons of Love," from the musical, Rent.

525,600 minutes. 525,000 moments so dear. 525,600 minutes. How do you measure, measure a year? I think that pretty much sums up how we should remember each year.

I hope that I will have more layouts to post soon. I guess one advantage of the weather taking a big downturn is that I'll hopefully be more motivated just to stay inside and scrap.

Owen's First Day of School

This week, all 3 kiddos were finally in school. Owen was chomping at the bit to go to school and that day finally came on Wednesday after Labor Day. For the first week, though, he only went for 1-1/2 hours for two days. Next week, that 3 hours at school will jump up to 10-1/2 hours. Whatever am I going to do with all my free time?

Here he is on his first day.


And of course he had to show off the new backpack. He was very excited to get a new Iron Man backpack and a lunchbag since he will be having lunch at school one day a week.


Here he is already settled in and playing at school. When I picked him up, I was told that he had a fabulous day. Last year, he wasn't so keen on participating in a lot of the activities, but it seems like a year makes a huge difference, which I knew it would. So proud of my little man.

In other fall news, Justin has his first soccer game of the season tomorrow. He just had his first practice yesterday and we're excited to see how the season goes because his coach is actually the men's coach at Clark College, the local community college. It also turns out that the coach lives right around the corner from us in a house that we once looked at buying before buying the one we're in, and his son who's on the team is a grade above Justin. It's a small world--or a small town anyway.

Well that's about all I have of interest right now.

TTFN - Ta Ta For Now

Season of Change

Well I cannot believe we are into September already. I mean seriously, where has the year gone? How can it be that there's less than 4 months before Christmas? Alright, let's not get ahead of ourselves. We'll worry about that later.

It is definitely a time of change right now. Besides a recent and fairly sudden shift in the weather--it is starting to feel like fall in the air--there has been a lot of other change. Hannah and Justin headed back to school on Wednesday. Neither of them were very thrilled for summer to be over, but Hannah had an especially difficult time as she has the past three years. I was really hoping this year would be different and there wouldn't be any issues, but she did get very anxious and upset starting the night before. I think we have determined that she just has a hard time with the transition back to school and the unknown of a new grade, new teacher, new classmates, etc. I think she was especially nervous because she was chosen to be in a split 4th/5th grade class this year as a 4th grader. Justin was also chosen to be in a 2nd/3rd grade class. Here they are on their first day in their new duds. That's the part of going back to school that Hannah does like, the back to school shopping, especially since she seems to be getting more and more into fashion.

Hannah really loved this shirt with the tie. She's all about anything with black and/or sparkle. She also has really determined she likes dresses, which is an about face from her previous fashion choices. When I asked why so many dresses now, her comment was "A girl can change, can't she?" Yet another example of change. My "little" girl has gone from girly girl in princess dresses and tutus, to a not girly girl that just about only wore jeans, to a new version of rock star girly girl.

Then we have Justin who is all about anything skateboard related including his style. All he wants to do pretty much 24/7 right now is practice, watch or talk about skateboarding. And of course he has to sport the look including the new Chuck Taylor hightops.

Now, there was one kid that was excited about school starting, Owen. Unfortunately, he does not start school until next week. He did have school visitation that morning and had to have his backpack and a packed lunchbag and get in on the back to school photos.

Now in addition to back to school, another major change was saying goodbye to our best friends of 10-1/2 years, the Goves. We became fast friends with them when they moved up here from California over 10 years ago. We were both pregnant with Hannah and Gabby at the same time and had them exactly 7 weeks apart. Those two have been best friends practically since birth. We then had boys just months apart who were great friends and Owen and Evie who were two peas in a pod when they were together. We spent so many holidays and events together over the years. They were like family to us, and it is so sad to see them go. They moved back to California, and only 10 minutes from Disneyland at that, so there will definitely be trips down there to visit. Before they left, we did get to spend a lot of time with them, which was good. I even gathered all the kids together for a little photo shoot and made a going away present.

I am not a sappy quote person, but did want to put something personal on the gift, so I found the quote "Make new friends, but cherish the old." I thought that was pretty appropriate. I know that they will always be friends of ours no matter how far apart we are. We will miss you guys so much but look forward to special visits in the future.

Alright, well I guess it's time to go to bed. Something else I'm trying to change during this season of change is my sleeping habits. I really need to be better about going to bed at a more consistent time and not staying up 'til all hours some nights.

TTFN, Ta Ta For Now

Our Summer Vacation around Oregon

Okay, we've already been back for almost a week, but I just now am able to blog about our trip we took last week. It was one of those vacations where you kinda need a vacation to recover from your vacation and also we took TONS of pics, as usual for us, and it took me forever to go through them and make a slide show. There are far too many for me to even post the best ones, but I will post a few of my favs. if you don't want to sit through the whole long slideshow.

We did leave the last day of July and headed south to Florence, OR along the coast. We camped 2 nights there in a the Jessie M. Honeyman State Park, which is a fabulous campground. Florence is not really your typical coastal town like we're used where you can see easily see the ocean pretty much wherever you are. Florence is the northern portion of the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, and at our campground, we could easily get to the dunes, but to get to the water, it was an impossible 2 mile walk across the dunes. It makes me think of the horrible, torturous movie "Lawrence of Arabia" where the whole movie, they're just trudging across the desert. It would be "Lawrence of Florence" LOL :) Anyway, the kids did love to climb up and down the dunes, although getting up could be very difficult. Hannah, Justin and I actually did one hike up a dune that was SOOOOO steep that my legs and my lungs were burning by the time we got to the top. We did it just at sunset, though, and the view was gorgeous. Here are a couple photos from that excursion. Dale and Owen didn't go up because he didn't think we could get Owen up there. I was proud of Hannah and Justin for making it though.

Victorious!

The gorgeous expanse of dunes

The kids had a great time camping, and surprisingly, I did too. We think we might even be ready to do more camping. The kids loved roasting (or torching) marshmallows and making s'mores, riding their bikes around and just being in the great outdoors. We do need to get a few more things to prepare for more camping, though. We saw a lot of people who are SERIOUS about their camping.

We did manage to find the water at Florence. We had to drive there, and it was a hike up and over the dunes to get to it, but it was gorgeous. Again, the kids loved playing in the sand and also finding all kinds of shell treasures on the shore. Dale and I had a great time relaxing on the blanket just watching the kids.

Heading up the dune with their finds

Justin helping Owen up the steep dune.

Hannah's favorite find.

Our next stop after Florence was a little further south to another Coastal town, Bandon, OR. We just stayed there one night but it was a gorgeous stretch of beach that we had never seen before. There were lots of really cool rocks off the shore. Like Cannon Beach but on a much larger scale.

We loved walking along the beach and finding new shells, rocks, climbing on larger rocks and playing in the driftwood.

The gorgeous (although a little foggy) Bandon coastline

The kids posing in front of a cool sea arch in Table Rock off the shore

Just love this photo of Justin

Dale and kids with a cool giant tree root that washed up on shore

The next day was a long one. We left Bandon and drove about 2 hours east to Winston, OR where we visited the Drive Thru Wildlife Safari. Unfortunately, Hannah didn't feel too good during the drive--don't know if she actually had a touch of flu or just carsickness from the windy roads, but there was a lot of complaining this day. The Wildlife Safari was a little bit of a break, but it took us over 2 hours just to get through that. We did see some cool or interesting things as we drove through. Right at the start we came up to the giraffes and three of them were right in the road next to the cars. Two of them were dancing, or doing the "tango" as the kids called it. They were doing the tango alright. We almost had a little (or should I say big) health education lesson right there on the road. ;)

"It Takes Two to Tango"

This is just out my side window--they were close!

We continued on our drive and saw many other animals and then just as we were coming up on the elk and bison, the entire bison herd decided to walk onto the road and just stay there for 20 or 30 minutes. No cars were moving past them that whole time. Some of them got pretty close to some of the cars, and I was getting a tad bit nervous. Finally, they decided to move out.

Look at the huge guy strolling just a few feet away from our car!

We left the Wildlife Safari, and it was another 2 hours to our next destination, Union Creek Resort near Crater Lake. We stayed in a "rustic" cabin there right near Union Creek and the Rogue River. Dale and camped at the campground there years ago when we did a very similar trip before having kids. The Rogue River there is beautiful, and it is in close proximity to Crater Lake. Unfortunately, when we got there, Hannah actually got sick and really wasn't much up for doing anything the rest of the day, so we didn't do much the rest of that day. Thankfully, after a good night's sleep, she felt much better the next day. Unfortunately, though, then Justin didn't feel so hot. We did go to Crater Lake and got just a gorgeous view of it. You couldn't have been there on a better day with the bright blue sky and puffy white clouds and the gorgeous blue of the water (sorry Sharon and sisters--wish you could've seen it like this). Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the United States at over 1900 feet deep.

Crater Lake with Wizard Island

Last time Dale and I were here, we drove around the entire lake and hiked up to the top of the tallest peak overlooking the lake. Unfortunately, this time with Justin not feeling great and the kids not being quite as excited about the natural wonder as we were, we didn't get a chance to do that. We did a little drive to view a rock in the lake called Phantom Ship (can see a pic. in the slideshow) but then headed back to the cabin. We did do a little hiking back along the river where we saw Natural Bridge where the rushing Rogue River disappears underground in a lava tube and you can see it emerge on the other side. It's very cool. Plus we got ice cream at a cool shop at the resort.

After staying there two nights, we headed north to our final destination, Sunriver, OR, where we have vacationed the last 3 summers. The kids love it there and it was a very relaxing end to our vacation. We were there 4 days and really didn't have much planned besides riding bikes around the extensive bike trails and going to the pool. We stayed in a new place this year, which was extremely convenient right across from the Sunriver Village and a very short bike ride to the pool. And fortunately, the condo came with pool passes since it costs almost $50 for all of us to go to the pool one time. Since we had the passes, we went there all three days for 2-3 hours. We did manage to take one little road trip to see Newberry Crater where there are two lakes, waterfalls, a lava cast forest and some great views of the Oregon Central Cascades. We took the kids on a hike through the lava cast forest, which they thought was cool because they could find pumice and obsidian rocks to take home for their vast collections. Then we did just a short hike to some waterfalls, but by then, they were about done. Hannah especially I think was going to go crazy if she heard the term, "scenic vista" from Dale one more time. Their only concern was getting back to the pool.

So all in all, it was a fabulous trip, but after 9 days, it was exhausting, especially with all the moving around. We managed to pack a lot in that 9 days even with 3 kids in tow. Next year, we might tackle a tour around our own state of Washington or maybe even a trip to Yellowstone.

One last "scenic vista" of the Central Cascades

Of course, I had a ton more photos and here is a slideshow of just my favorites.

Happy Birthday Owen!!!!

Wow, 4 years ago last night we were flying down the freeway to the hospital at midnight when Owen made it very well known that he was quickly on his way. And less than an hour and a half after we left home and only a few minutes after we reached the hospital, in a triage room with no doctor, and after a very short but painful labor, he practically leaped into this world. Life hasn't slowed down since. I cannot believe how fast time has flown by and that my baby is 4 years old.

This past Sunday, we had our annual bbq/birthday party to celebrate our one family summer birthday. Owen has been waiting for his birthday for months now and was beyond excited that his party was finally here. He wanted a Star Wars birthday. Since I had just done that a couple years ago for Justin and did the R2D2 cake, I wasn't sure what I was going to do for this one. Owen's favorite Star Wars characters are Boba Fett and Jango Fett and so I came up with a Boba Fett cake. I had considered carving it into an actual head, but decided to just frost the head on a flat cake. He seemed happy with that.

He didn't really have a lot of patience for all the eating and socializing. He wanted to get to the presents.

One happy boy waiting to open his presents

Seriously studying one of his presents

Then there was even a pinata courtesy of Grandpa Robert and Grandma Pom packed full of candy. At first Owen wasn't thrilled that it didn't break open on his first hit. It actually took many many hits and Grandpa slicing it open with a knife to get that thing to open.

Once it did open, there was a candy frenzy with kids packing their bags.

The 3 youngsters up to no good with their candy loot on the stairs. Grandma Judi spent a long time cleaning up tiny little red candy balls that got all over the stairs.

It's cake time! This was the part that Owen's best friend Evie couldn't wait to get too. She enthusiastically led us all in singing "Happy Birthday" to Owen.

Blowing out the candles with a little help.

So all in all, it was a fantastic party with lots of family and friends. Owen had a great time and probably in a few months will start bugging us about when his next birthday is.

On another subject, the kids have been bugging Dale and I for over a year about building them a play house. Well finally, Dale got this project started. Hannah, especially, is extremely excited about this. The question is whether Dale will get to use any of it to store tools in. He says that in 10 years, he'll finally get a shed, but for now, it will be a great place for the kids to hang out in the backyard, rain or shine. Hannah has even made her own 3D model of it out of paper complete with furnishings and decorations. She has quite the plans.

Here she is inspecting Dad's work.

I have been busily cleaning up after the party, getting Scrapdango kits ready to ship and now we have to get ready for our week long tour around Oregon that starts on Saturday. I will be so happy to get away for a week. I'll be back soon to post about that.

TTFN ~ Ta Ta For Now!

God Bless America!!

Happy 234th Birthday

Happy Birthday also to Grandpa Harold!!