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

Just a few.

Just a few shots that made me laugh lately...

Courtney Lee tearing up the front yard with a butter knife in search of pill bugs (she loves pill bugs).

Coley's 'Will you pleeeeeeeease do one more round of Mad Libs?' face.

And Batman.

Would take some pictures of Ross if he ever graced us with his presence.  (No one warned me that when they turn 17, get their first car and their first serious girlfriend that you never see them anymore.)

And I know I've been kind of lousy with answering questions lately (I think I used to be really good about that) so here's a few that I remember:

- Courtney and Annie's polka dot beadspreads are from Target.

- I shoot on the beach a lot (even though sand is a camera's arch nemesis).  However, I never change my lens, battery or memory card on the beach and I either keep the camera on my neck or in a zippered bag at all times.

- I'll check the paint colors I've been using while we're over at the new, old house this weekend and will post them soon.

- That's all the questions I remember.

If you have any others, feel free to leave them hear and I'll try really hard to get to them next week.

Have a great weekend.

Brookings

Josh's parents took Coley and Annie to Brookings while Josh and I were in McCloud. 

We drove up to get them Friday afternoon and ended up sticking around the rest of the day.

We headed down to the beach first thing.

I couldn't decide which of these shots of Josh and Coley were my favorite (so I decided to post them all).

And then we went crabbing.  (Josh is big on crabbing - last year, he took a sleeping bag and slept on the crabbing dock all night.)

Annie's not a very big fan of the crabs though.

I love that belly button.

She is a big fan of chasing seagulls though.

But not a big fan of eating unpeeled oranges.

Still trying to figure out why that orange tasted so bad.

That's Annie's great-grandpa Leroy.

And my favorite face of hers.

And then we headed back down to the beach.

Showing off her muscles.

She has Fred Flinstone feet just like me.  (It's a cruel twist of genetic fate that I have Fred Flinstone feet and sausage legs.)

And then we headed back to the campground.

I love her.

We talked about staying for the rest of the weekend (Josh's family camps there over Memorial weekend every year) but decided we had better head home to work at the new, old house (moving in on June 12th).

1st Anniversary.

We headed out to McCloud Thursday morning for our Anniversary.

Took a break at a rest stop along the way to hit the restroom and play catch (and to take a business call).

And then we stopped in Mt. Shasta to grab some lunch.

That's Josh's 'Can I just eat my lunch without you taking pictures?' face.

And then we hit a few antique shops where I was reminded that I prefer to go antique shopping without my husband (who got cranky because he thought the $40 lamp I bought was overpriced).

And then we got back on the road again.

Another bathroom break.  (I mistakenly asked Josh to hold the camera.)

And then we did a little sightseeing around McCloud (which doesn't take very long).

And then we checked into our room at the Mercantile.  (We stayed in the Friday George room this time which is a tiny, cute, blue room.)

And then we went hiking.

I don't know what these are but I love them.

Josh Downs picked one to put in my hair.

And then he fished.

Which gave me some time to take pictures of things I normally don't take pictures of.  (Nice to shoot cooperative subjects for a change.)

And then he fished some more while I relaxed.

He would have been really disappointed if I didn't post a shot of the fish he caught (even though it was a tiny one that he put back).

That's mist from the falls.

Josh Downs has hot calves.  He doesn't believe me when I say that though because I once made the mistake of saying that his legs look just like his mom's.  (His mom has hot calves too.)

That was the view on the way to the upper falls.  (There's 3 sets of falls.)

You can kind of see the flower in my right ear.

And then we drove to Dunsmuir where we had the best Thai food (and a Mojito with extra mint for me) I have ever eater (yes, in Dunsmuir, CA) at a place called Sengthongs.

One of my favorite things about Josh Downs is that he never lets me open my own car door.

 

And when we got back to our room, there were flowers, chocolates, sparkling cider (because I hate wine) and a card waiting for me.

And then we woke up the next morning, had breakfast at the Mercantile diner and got back on the road again.  (Josh's parents took Cole and Annie to the beach so we headed over there to pick them up.)

Had to take a fishing break on the way though.

Will post a few of the beach pictures tomorrow.

McCloud.

When Josh and I got married last year (there's pictures here, here, here, here and here), we didn't plan a honeymoon.

We were just at a point in our lives where we were already out of town so much with our jobs that a honeymoon just didn't sound all that great.

So the grandparents divied out all the grandkids so we could stay one night at the hotel in Ashland where we got married.  We just needed to be home by 2:30pm the next day to pick up the kids from school.

Josh changed his mind at the last minute though and decided we needed to go somewhere.

He had no idea where though.

In fact, the morning after our wedding, we still didn't know where we were going.

We stopped by Jill and Jason's hotel room (my best friend in the whole-wide-world and my best friend in the whole-wide-world's husband) to say goodbye before they checked out.  They had internet access so we ended up surfing the net in their room trying to figure out where to go.

We settled on McCloud, California (just a few hours away).

McCloud is a tiny little town (pop. 1344) in Northern, California but Josh remembered that his Dad spent a summer there when he was a kid helping Josh's grandpa tear down the old theatre in town.

He'd also heard they had a dinner train out there.

So we headed out for McCloud, making some phone calls on the way.

Josh called the Shasta Sunset Dinner Train to see if we could get a spot on the train that night (yes) and asked if they had any hotel recommendations.

They recommended a place called the Mercantile so Josh gave them a call and as luck would have it, they had a room available for us too.

So we got into town and checked out the old Mercantile.

Turns out that Josh's grandpa used to pay Josh's dad for working on the theatre with vouchers to use at the Mercantile but he always wrote 'no cigarettes' on the bottom of the voucher so Josh's dad couldn't spend the money on cigarettes.

And then we checked into our room (The Founder's Room).

It was the coolest room I've ever stayed in.  (That's Josh taking a nap.)

As soon as we got there, I told Josh we should come back on our anniversary each year to stay in a different room (each room is totally different).

And then we walked around town. (Kind of a lousy shot but there's something about it that I like.)

And then we headed over to the dinner train.

Just in case you ever decide to take the Shasta Sunset Dinner Train...the food isn't all that great (but it was fun).

They even sprinkled confetti all over our table because Josh told them it was our honeymoon.

And then we woke up the next morning and had breakfast at the Mercantile Diner.

And then we went to the Mcloud museum where we found this...

That's the old theatre Josh's dad helped to tear down when he was a kid.

So a couple of weeks ago, I heard about an Adobe Lightroom 2 class that Scott Kelby was teaching in Portland, OR and decided that I had to go (since that program is still kicking my butt).

So I called Josh and said, "I know we're really busy with moving but I'm thinking about driving up to Portland on May 22nd to go to this class that I'm drying to take."

To which Josh replied, "Don't we have something going on already on May 22nd?"

I said "Nope, I just checked the calendar...there's nothing going on."

And he said, "Are you sure?"

And I said "I think so."

Turns out that May 22nd is our anniversary (dang).

And Josh had made plans to go to McCloud, California so we could stay in a different room at the Mercantile.

So we're heading out in the morning and I'm really excited.

Busy weekend though (going to McCloud, then going to the beach, then moving stuff over to the new, old house).

Back on Tuesday.

Have a great weekend.

Kiss?

Courtney just wanted a kiss.

But this is what she got instead.

Summer at the new, old house.

I know I already said it, but there's just something about the new, old house that is so good for all of us.

We met over there Friday night.

Josh and I got cranky with eachother within 15 minutes of getting there while discussing how to finish up the shelving system in my office closet.

But then he said "Let's start all over...How was your day?"

And we really did start all over.

The kids get along better over there too for some reason. 

They just play better and want to be outside all day long.

They even seem less bratty when we're there.

We brought the slip-n-slide over because we heard it was supposed to be hot all weekend.

And then Josh decided it would be great fun to throw the kids down the slip-n-slide.

And it was.  (No one even got hurt...which is usually what ends up happening when Josh gets an idea like that.)

And then Josh went down the slip-n-slide in his underwear.

And just as I was officially falling in love with having the neighbors school bus in all of my backyard shots...he moved it.

And now I miss it.

And then we took a break for lunch (raspberries and cheese wraps).

Coley and Courtney were having a heated discussion over whether or not white chocolate is better than milk chocolate.

I only said they were less bratty...

I hope our whole summer at the new, old house looks just like this.

The Plan.

I love Cole.  He's just not the easiest kid in the world.

He's been particularly twirpy the last few day. 

So twirpy that I've gone 'off-duty' every night by 6:00pm  (When he drives me crazy, I just tell him that I'm off-duty and that he'll need to talk to his Dad if he needs anything.) 

He hates it when I'm off-duty.

Our biggest issue lately is homework (he either forgets it at school, loses it, takes 3 hours to complete a 10 minute assignment or complains endlessly about it).

We got a progress report from his teacher yesterday saying that he was missing 3 assignments.

Since I was off-duty, Josh told him that he had to sit at the table and work on it while the girls got to watch a movie.

2 hours later, he still wasn't done. 

And he's been 'working' on it ever since he got home from school this afternoon but hasn't made much progress.

He wants to stay the night at Grandma and Grandpa Russell's this weekend but Josh told him he couldn't unless all of his work was done.

So he came up with a plan.

I just found the plan.  (Apparently he was busy working on his plan while he was supposed to drawing a state map.)

I actually hope he gets all his work done and is able to stay the night with his grandma and grandpa.

Because he's driving me batty.

Deploying.

There are thousands of Oregon National Guard soldiers deploying to Iraq right now.

Josh was out of town and Courtney was at her mom's but I pulled the rest of the kids (and Cali) out of school the other day so we could see some of them off.

I'm sad to admit that I had never taken the time to do this before and that as my busy Monday morning progressed, I kept thinking of every reason in the world of why I couldn't take the afternoon off to go.

But I went and I cried and I felt proud and it became even more clear to me that no soldier should ever have to leave their family and home without a huge outpouring of support from their community and that when they come home, they should be greeted like the heroes they are.

I hope every soldier and every soldiers family knows how much we appreciate their sacrifice.

Something else on my heart this morning...

The Littlest Heroes Project.

This is a non-profit organization working with photographers all around the country to provide free family portrait sessions for families of children battling illness.

Check out the site if you'd like to get involved.

Two hints.

 

Who's in the red wig and leopardskin tights?...I'll give you two hints:

1. He performed 'I Remember You' by Skid Row during Cabaret last night.

2. I gave birth to him.

Prom.

Ross and Cali and some friends of theirs all went to prom together.

Ross asked me to take pictures of everyone (ummmm....yes).

This wasn't an easy shoot for me.  It just isn't the type of thing I'm used to shooting.  I'm used to candid stuff.  I'm just not good at posing and that sort of thing. 

So I didn't pose them.  I just told them where to stand and whether I needed them to 'look at me' or 'socialize'.  Other than that, I just let them do their thing.

And their 'thing' was pretty good.

Ross and Cali were the only actual 'couple'.

I didn't ask them to do that...Ross did it first and the other guys followed suit.

I've been wanting to shoot on this bridge for awhile now.  (And, yes, it's kind of weird seeing my son kissing.)

That was Cali's idea.

That was my idea.  (They were up for anything though.)

They were even game for climbing hills to get up here...

This spot was Ross's idea.

I know this is kind of an odd shot but for some reason, I love it.

The boys were spitting off the side of the bridge.

Cali.

Cali's best friend, Kelby.

And their friend, Ashley.

The (very cool) guys.

The whole gang (and my favorite shot of the day).