More fun at the park

Well, I took Alex to the park the other day after work/school, since he's the only one who will allow me to photograph him! I'm still trying to get used to my focus, been doing a crappy job of it. I just have to keep practicing.


So, being depressed (not really but you know what I mean) about my crappy focus, I thought I'd try something new.

Panning....

Well, he got tired after running back and forth several times but this was the best shot I could get!







Here he is being silly and pretending the tire swing was a hula hoop! My noodle head is a NUT!

My wild and crazy guys!

As seen on the first day of school!

We survived the first day of school!!!

Yippie! Of course things were kind of hectic at work, if it weren't for the new system, things would have gone so much better! But I can't complain :)

I haven't processed the photos taken yesterday but here are some of my Andrew taken the other day.

Practice practice practice

Back to school pictures ala "Fro" LOL I refuse to buy school pictures anymore so we'll see what I can come up with!






I'm really trying out locations and times of day AND posing...I totally suck at posing! So I took Andrew out to the Marina and tried some with him. Totally the wrong time of day and they didn't come out good at all, so I'm scrapping (not scrapbooking, but tossing!) those pics and have to try all over again.

Alex agreed to go out with me yesterday to the park and I got some ok ones. The light was better and he's just such a goof I didn't really get to "practice" becuase he was posing himself!

Here's my little noodle head:
Ah, they start school tomorrow! Mr. Noodle head is really excited for this year, I'm a bit aprehensive but I know he'll do just fine.

Well, I tried!!

I need to work on my portraits so bad and today my "senior" decided to be a brat! Well, at least I got to try my concept, now I just need to get everything else down! My focus was waaaaay off on these.

Here are some of my out takes from today....the little turd!

Senior Portrait practice

I have a loooong way to go, but I have to get some practice in to get the hang of this. So, since I JUST got a new lens I couldn't think of a better time to get started.




My lighting was horrible, but I went for it anyway. I suck so bad at posing people, Willy pretty much just stood and sat around :) LOL All of these shot in manual and a couple of actions run on them for effect.

Brotherly love

Or should I call this "Uncle"?




I'm so tired but DETERMINED to get at least one picture posted every couple of days.

Work is hard, hard, hard but I'm surviving :) It'll all be ok and we'll be talking about Turkey and stuffing in no time!

Another "Oldie" :)

I'm desperate here! Here's a funny one, well, to my Andrew it would be scary, he HATES them ever since I made them watch Alfred Hitchcocks "The Birds" LOL

It was a battle over food that caused this fight, look at that guy, totally unsuspecting!!

Used my Lensbaby for this shot.

Some more "old" photos :)

Work has got me so busy, I can't go out and shoot this week and I'm going crazy!

I'm tired but I'm so wound up I need to destress, I guess I should be scrapping but I don't feel like it right now.

So I'm going through some files and processing some pictures I totally ignored. Here are a couple of baseball shots of Ben & Drew. Both B&W but with different conversions. I thought the high contrast worked better on Andrew's because of the stronger lighting. I'm still working and learning but man this is fun!

It's that time of year again!

So I guess I'll challenge myself to shoot some "different" back to school shots. Hey if anyone wants to play along go right ahead! Even if you don't have kiddos, you can still play. Just take some random pictures of things that remind "you" of back to school.


Think: New clothes, shoes, school supplies, your favorite lunch box charachter, your best friend. Come on, play with me! Take pictures within the next couple of weeks that "scream" back to school to you and post a link/or don't :) in the comments section. Have fun, think out-of the box or in!

I got my baby back!!!!

It's only been two weeks but I sure did miss my camera! I can't believe how much I missed it, it's like an extension of my own body now!

Ben was so kind to go to the marina with me and allow me to take pictures of him!

Here are a couple of my favorites.






Here he was sitting on the rocks by the shore flicking pebbles into the water, he's such a guy! LOL

I desatuarted this last one a bit, not quite B&W but just a bit of color left.

Just an older image

This is one of the statues in the Exploratorium. I went on a fieldtrip with Andrew's class last spring and had so much fun. This is still one of my favorite places to visit.

I used the lens baby through the entire fieldtrip and got some very interesting images.

I'll post more later this week, as I have no camera right now to take new ones :( But I've been told they're finishing up repairs and I should have my baby back in my hot little hands by next week!

My attempt at "Art"

Picture with filter in PS

I took this pic at the Rose Garden in Golden Gate Park with my Lens Baby. Added a filter to it and viola, a piece of art :)

Original LB picture

What a blast we had!

Since we don't do big family vacations we usually get season passes to an amusement park in the area. We go as cheaply as possible, taking our own food and never letting the boys play arcade or midway games. Well to give them their "midway" fix we take them to Circus Circus in Reno at the end of the summer and for a fraction of the price of midway games at the amusement parks they have a blast playing games and winning prizes at the casino.

Of course being the kind of mom that I am, I always try to add something educational or "enriching" for us to do. We've gone to museums, ranches, learned about gold panning and have even gone driving for hours in the mountains admiring the beauty of the Sierras.

I've ALWAYS wanted to go white water rafting. There are a lot of things that I want to do that I've not been able to because the boys were too little or because my husband's disability I just thought I'd never do.


This year I said "I'm going on an adventure!" I looked up a couple of companies on line and ended up at this website http://www.visitrenotahoe.com/plan_your_trip/outdoors/kayak_park/.

Here's some of the white water we saw

I asked the two older boys if they were interested in going, of course Willy said yes but Ben was apprehensive about going kayaking, he'd rather go in a raft. So we set off to look into it when we got to Reno.

Well, needless to say, WE DID IT! And got the pictures to prove it!


Little Willy, with the sun rays shining down on him

Willy was a CHAMP, Ben did amazingly well, and I.....well, I was behind the pack for most of the trip. Every rock that there was to get stuck on, I was stuck AND I was the first to unintentionally flip. Yes, I fell in the Truckee river it was cold, but I got back on my kayak, not very gracefully but I got my butt back in! I also got attacked by some bushes that were on the side of the river, everyone else went under them so I thought it was ok! BUT our guide did not have to come rescue me, not once. Every bad situation I got into, I got out of all by my myself! I'm so proud :)

I wasn't all rough water, there were amazing stretches where the water was clear and beautiful, we took this time to splash and cool eachother off with our paddles :)

Because of my surgeries, my hands and arms were weak, but I still made it. My hands, arms, tricepts, pectorals, thighs, buttox, all sore, very sore. But I had the TIME OF MY LIFE!

I bought a disposable waterproof camera, so the pics aren't so great but I've got pictures!!!

Our Museum Field trip (finally got the pics to load!)

We took a little field trip to the deYoung Museum in Golden Gate park last week.

My main purpose was to take the boys to go see the Chicano Art Exhibit . It was a wonderful exhibit, with many gorgeous pieces and a lot of history about the Chicano "culture". (I told big Willy he could be in the pic even though "technically" he's not Chicano LOL)



We continued on through the rest of the museum, where I'm glad to say the boys were very well behaved and actually READ and LOOKED at most of the pieces!

A few months ago I chaperoned a field trip of 7th graders to the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. That museum is just AMAZING, three floors worth of marvelous art, very impressive. The 7th graders weren't too impressed though, they flew through 3 floors worth of packed exhibits in less than 1/2 hour! Yeah, needless to say I took my group through the exhibits AGAIN and I was the most hated chaperone of the 7th grad this year, some of the girls feared me and my son wanted NOTHING to do with me the rest of the day!

Well, Alex was mostly amazed. I explained to him that each display had a little plaque that described and dated the piece. I went on to explain that these pieces were not only "cool" but also very, very old. I think that's what piqued his interest. He kept looking at the dates and asking me "You mean this was made 600 years before Christ was born?" Here's a picture of one his favorite pieces, it's a sculpture of a baby holding a ball, dated at anywhere 600-200 BC, HA! babies played with balls back then too! LOL

Another Tournament this weekend means more pics

I'll post a couple of my "artsy" ones. I have an extra gross spitting one in my http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/userprofile.asp?user_id=36160 but I won't post it here 'cause it's really nastay! It's on the first page, if you want to see, click on the page that says "warning".

Santana Concert, can I just say WOW!

Here we are before we left for the concert. I was so excited, I guess, I didn't think to have Big Willy or any of the other boys take the pic LOL Oh well! Gosh, I've never "seen" how much he looks like me until now! Good thing I shaved, or else you would have a hard time telling us apart!


Little Willy and I had an amazing opportunity to attend a Carlos Santana concert at the Concord pavilion. It was Will's first concert and my first in a whole lotta years LOL.

We had excellent seats, section 105, row J, pretty much front and center. It's funny because my children are so "old school". Willy just LOVES Santana's music, old and new and was just in awe last night.

All I can say is "OH MY GOD!" We couldn't contain ourselves toward the middle of the concert and broke out dancing! Boy have I taught my children well and they can get DOWN, especially when it comes to "Latin" dancing! My feet hurt and it feels as if I've dislocated my hip but I guess that's just age creeping up on me :)

My one true disappointment was that no SLR cameras were allowed into the venue. I totally understand the reasoning but man I missed my 20D. Here are some pic I got with a "regular" digi camera, a lot of them were taken of the jumbotron screens.

We're goin' on a bear hunt, a bear hunt a bear hunt.......

Are you scared? Are you prepared? LOL

Thanks to that stupid big purple dinosaur, I used to sing this to the kids every time we went on an outing. I no long sing that song, but boy are we prepared!

Loaded up with coolers, sandwich fixins, drinks and snacks we load into the car and off we go!

Soft-shelled Turtle popped his head out of the sand and opened his eyes for me :)

Yesterday we ended up at the California Academy of Sciences It was a four person field trip as my van was in the shop plus Andrew & Big Willy had been worn out from the day before at the museum.

Poison dart Frog - there was an amazing blue one in there but he was hiding and I couldn't get a shot of him

Now this place is right up my boy's alley. They enjoyed themselves and we did a second go-round through the entire facility. I'm really happy they have an interim home for the Academy but boy I sure do miss the "old" building. This temp place is just a fraction of the size of the building in GG Park. The new facility won't be open until 2008, but it's going to be one amazing structure. Ben can't wait!

The penguin area was so crowded but I managed to get a picture of this little guy