My life...just not on the road I expected (but it's still dang good).

Thanksgiving (censored).

Thanksgiving was at our house again this year.

 

That's Josh getting the Turkey ready (and Annie taste-testing all the crackers).

 

That's my Mom and my Aunt Alicia & Uncle Brad in the background.

  

That's my cousin Roshelle (she's a Duck - getting her Master's at U0f O) and that's another cousin of mine, Jesse in the background (he's a Beaver - wrestling for OSU).

And yes...the Ducks got lucky and beat the Beavers out of their shot at the Rose Bowl.

Josh is devastated.

 

That's my Sister, Leigh Ann who flew down from Seattle for the week.

  

My Aunt Alicia having a turn with the camera.

  

That's a carrot in Annie's hand.

  

Good thing he's got a Mommy who loves him...

  

And then.................

  

Our annual football game.

  

Usually, I try to shoot in between playing every year.  This year though, my Mom took ALL of the football pictures (and did a mighty fine job I might add).  Thanks Mom. 

 

Warming up.

 

More warming up.

 

Taking a break from warming up.

 

My Sister was very excited to be the first person Jesse Ray picked for his team (blurry but hysterical).

 

Everyone was instructed to pose for the camera throughout the game.

 

 

 

 

Josh Downs discussing strategy.

 

Josh Downs landing on his head.

That's me trying to rub Jesse Ray's head into some goose poop because he tackled me.

  

Uh-oh...Josh's 'Scrapbook Clubhouse Diva' coffee mug got broken during the game. 

   

And then I took pictures and Josh videotaped everyone saying what they were thankful for before dinner.

 

Roscoe-T said he was thankful for 'Mi Madre' (that's me).

 

When it was my Sister's turn to say what she was thankful for, she said that she was thankful for our Uncle Brad (who mooned the camera during the football game...and thanks to my Epson printer, I was able to print up a nice, glossy 8x10).

 

And it only seemed right to pass it around.

 

Not sure why Josh was squeezing Coley's head off.

Not sure why my Grandpa was holding Coley while Courtney Lee pinched him.

 

And then we played some games (girls vs. boys).

 

 

 

I'll bet Santa puts some antiperspirant in Ross's stocking this year.

 

Blurry (not so easy shooting indoors at 8pm with no flash) but one of my favorite shots of the night.

 

Courtney Lee and I were partners.

  

Not sure why Josh was squeezing Coley's head off again. 

 

That's my cousin, Sammy and his girlfriend. 

Josh was trying to get the boys to guess the word 'Beaver' (but unfortunately for the boys...they weren't smart enough to get it right).

 

 

Blurry again...but that's what it looks like when the girls beat the boys.  All day boys.  All day.

 

Ross's girlfriend got her first dose of the family.

I was standing behind the couch talking to Ross when my Uncle Brad grabbed my legs and lifted them up in the air until my face was laying right in Ross's plate of lemon pie.

I got even (with some whipped cream) though.

 

And then there was dancing.

 

 

I am thankful for this crazy, loud, wonderful family of mine. 

Here's some Thanksgiving posts from the last couple of years:  2006, 2007.

Tater-Tot.

 

Our little sweet pea niece, Taylor is scheduled for her second surgery on her leg up at Children's hospital in Seattle, WA today.

She's the most beautiful, determined little bugger I've ever met though so I have no doubt she'll be walking again in no time (she's younger than Annie but was up and walking with a prosthetic leg before Annie ever started walking).

Any prayers would be much appreciated.

We love you tons Tater-Tot.

Cowlie.

   

We've had some new company lately.  Her name is Cali (but Annie calls her Cowlie).

And I like her.

And some other cool news...

Cocoa Daisy is doing a food drive and is looking for help.  The icing on the cake?...there's tons of cool prizes.  In fact, I'm going to give away a spot in one of the sold out online Photographers' Workshops to one of the winners.

Just click here for all the info.

I love stuff like that.

Go Beavs.

 

Josh and Josh's Dad and Coley went to the the Beavers Vs. the Cal. Bears game last weekend  (Beavers won 34-21).

#50 (Casey Noack) threw Coley his glove at the end of the game (and that's big news in our house).

The Beavs are ranked #21 in the nation right now (Josh wanted me to throw in that they are under-ranked).

So they play Arizona this coming weekend.  And then they play against the Uof O Ducks in the Civil War the following weekend.  And if they win both games, they'll be going to the Rosebowl.

I had to ask Josh a few of those details (he was quite disappointed that I didn't know all those stats off the top of my head).

Josh also wanted me to add that the Beavers are going to embarrass the Ducks.

And a few other things:

1. I am finally caught up on my emails (to0k me hours and hours and hours yesterday).  I love being caught up with my emails, but it's always a short-lived feeling.  I'm really good at responding to emails...I'm just really slow at responding to them.  I've also been having lots of email problems.  So if you've emailed me and haven't heard back from me, it means that either I never received your email or you never received my reply (so email me again).

2. The last two fingers on my right hand are tingly (and have been that way for weeks now)...has me worried about carpal tunnel (I'm sure it's a combination of working for 12 years as a dental hygienist and my current career that has me working on the computer all day long).  Any suggestions?

3. I shot all the pictures of Annie and I at the park the other day with a Canon 24-70mm f2.8.  It's the newest lens I have (it was actually the last lens on my wishlist).  It's a spendy lens but Tamron makes a cheaper version of it (the Tamron 28-75mm f2.8).

4. Annie's coat is from Gymboree (got it half-off with Gymbucks).

5. Annie and Courtney's cat-eye glasses were from Ebay (just search for kids cat eye glasses).

6. I shot Ross's musical with a 70-200mm f2.8 lens.  I shot in Full Manual with the following settings; f2.8 (the wide maximum aperture of that lens allows me to shoot it without flash), shutter speed 1/250th of a second, ISO 1600.

7. My online photography classes are going great.  Will try to post more about those classes soon.

8. I try really hard not to miss any questions here, but it's inevitable that I do.   So feel free to post any questions I've missed to this post and I'll get to them.

9. Have a great day.

10. Go Beavs.

Yannie & Me.

It was just me & Annie all day on Saturday.

We went to a few antique shops (she was good in the beginning...but it slowly went downhill from there), to lunch at a little greasy spoon, by the old house that we're trying to buy (three times because I love sitting out in the driveway daydreaming) and then to the park.

 

 

 

  

   

Fat Chance.

 

Ross preformed in his first musical, Fat Chance on Saturday.

I seriously felt like I was going to jump out of my seat the whole night.  In fact, the teenage girl sitting next was giving me a 'I'm so glad you're not MY mother look' while I bounced up and down in my seat, frantically clapping with my hands over the top of my head while I squealed like a teenage girl at a rock concert.

 

He played Rick who helps a guy named Otto realize his dreams of becoming a rock star.

 

That's Otto (Ross's friend, Ben).

That's Ross's on-stage girlfriend.

 

 

  

 

Rick joins the military towards the end of the show.

  

Really, really proud. 

I shot everything with a 70-200mm f2.8 lens.  Shooting in low light situations with fast moving subjects is probably one of the hardest situations you can shoot in and is best shot (in my opinion) with a long, fast lens like the 70-200mm f2.8.  It's an expensive lens but I finally broke down and got it because of all of the concerts (Ross in in concert choir), indoors sports and now musicals that I shoot.  

Three years.

This month marks the three year anniversary since I started blogging (November, 11th to be exact...but I forgot to post about it on November 11th).

I've posted 795 times in three years.

You've all been nice enough to leave 16,230 comments (I've read every single one of them).

And it has received 1,472,392 lifetime page views.

I remember my very first blog post (thanks Heather, Christie, Kristina, Joanna and Katie for reading it).

And I remember when I first realized I could track how many people looked at my blog and was really excited to see that 25 people had looked at it in one day (it gets about 2500 hits a day now).

Josh Downs reads my blog every day.

My Grandfather read my blog every day before he passed away.

Most of my family checks in on a regular basis (although I harass them all for never leaving comments).

And my kids love sitting on my lap while I read through it and scroll through all the pictures.

I go through periods of time when I can't wait to blog and periods of time when it honestly feels like a chore.  But when I look back through old posts, I am thankful that I took the time to post each and every one.

I hope that one day my kids understand the blessing of having a part of their lives documented like this.

I write honestly.

And I've been really fortunate that (for the most part) everyone who comes here has chosen to be nice.  I've received a few nasty emails and comments in the last three years (which just boggles my mind - but I guess I'm kind of a stickler for the Golden Rule) but again, count myself lucky.

And if you need confirmation that with some hard work, you can drastically improve your photography skills in a relatively short period of time...just skim through the progression of my own photos over the last few years (I am convinced that becoming a great photographer is a process, not an accomplishment).  You can just click on 'more' in the archives section over in the left hand column to access all my posts over the last three years.

If you've been around for three years with me...thanks (I can't believe you aren't sick of me yet) and if you've tuned in more recently...thanks (I'm sure you'll be sick of me soon).

And a photo (because those of you who have been around for three years know how it drives me crazy to post without a photo)...

 

Texas & Louisiana.

My time in Texas and Louisiana is kind of a wonderful, crazy blur of events (long days, very little sleep and lots of classes).

And very few photos taken on my part (I hate it when I do that) so I'll just have to share photos that other people took...

 

Outside oxygenating our brain cells.

 

 

Sitting on top of a chair that was sitting on top of a table for demonstration purposes.

If I'm teaching in your area...you'll see these shoes (they're comfortable).  Thanks for the cool shot Jennifer (and nice composition by the way).

 

The gang in Louisiana.

It wasn't until we were driving to the airport at 5:00am for my flight home that Beth (the owner of the Scrapbook Junkie) and I realized we had never taken a single picture of us together (next time Beth).

But thanks Beth for driving me all over Texas (looking for lunch and looking for clipboards) and thanks for taking such good care of me.

Thanks Melissa for making people do push-ups when their cell phones rang (joking) and Connie for all of the Budreaux and Tibideaux jokes (I know I didn't spell those right).  And thanks Janet for all the protein shakes at Red's.

And lots more thanking to do...

Thanks for helping me with the Powerpoint projector.  Thanks for bringing the Powerpoint projector.  Thanks for hanging in there for 9+ hours.  Thanks for laughing at my jokes (even the bad ones).  Thanks for the red aprons.  Thanks for the encouraging words.  Thanks for thinking hard even when your brains were hurting.

And thanks for the links to more pictures here, here and here (just scroll down to the 'You can't polish a turd' post).

Love Languages.

Read this book on my flight home from Houston called 'Love Languages' by Gary Chapman.

Kind of interesting.  It just talks about how different people express love in different ways and how we need to learn to show love to the people in our lives in their 'love language'.

And what a relief to find out that I didn't have to do any work...Josh Downs and I already speak the exact same love language:  Words of Affirmation.

In fact, I came home to Words of Affirmation all over the house:

 

That one says "I miss you."' (By the time I got home from Texas, he was already in Klamath Falls.)

 

That one says "I love you."

 

That one says "I adore you." (Yes, he left a love note on the toilet bowl.)

 

That one says "I'm lucky to have you."

 

And that one says "I can't wait to build our home together."

Which leads me to two points of big news:

1. I switched over to a MAC.

2. We are in the process of trying to buy an old house (built in 1905).

Will share more info. about those things later though.

The hot water heater was still broken when I got home.  The downside of that was no bath.  The upside of that was that Josh had to drive home last night to fix it (so even though we weren't expecting to see each other for two weeks...we got to see each other last night).

Sorry to embarrass you by blogging this Josh.

And sorry to make the rest of you nauseous with all that sap.

I'm in Texas

Woke up Thursday morning at 3:00 am in order to catch a 6:00 am flight Denver and then on to Houston.

Had a headache when I woke up woke up and as I started to get into the tub I had been running, I realized that my hot water heater was broken (flying all day without having a shower is nice).   And my internet connection went down after sending out the first couple of emails of a long list of emails I had woken up early to send out.

Figured I would grab a granola bar or something at the airport gift shop.  The gift shop was closed.  Figured I'd grab a one in the vending machine inside the terminal then.  The vending machine was empty.  And they didn't serve anything on either of my flights either.

It was a long day.

I'm in Texas now and all is well though.

Teaching all weekend and looking forward to it (I get to teach the One Day Photographers' Workshop at two different stores this weekend to a total of about 100 gals...that makes me happy).

Will be back early next week.