Walter and Ginger

I picked up Walter's girlfriend this morning for a playdate. Turned into a photoshoot! Now I need lessons on how to shoot playing dogs without blur.

Kaleidoscope 2008

Since our Girl Scout Council has combined with the council to the south of us, we were invited to join their HUGE camporee, which they only have the energy to throw every other year. So we packed 8 girls, 2 moms, and a brave dad, into two LARGE vehicles, and drove south for almost 5 hours. Santa Barbara's Live Oak Campground was full of tents, crafts, camping skills competitions, and porta-potties for the entire weekend.

In case you're not able to picture what 2000 girls between the ages of 10 and 17 looks like up close, I took three shots and merged them as well as I could for you. I wasn't going to camp with the new DSLR, so you have to settle for the old snappy camera. Click on the picture to blow it up.

The oddest thing... after 2 days of eating camp food, sleeping on the ground, and trying desperately to keep all 11 of us hydrated... is that we all agreed we'd do it again.

KK 44

Happy Birthday, Kenny!

Poor baby, having a birthday during Passover. So I did a trick I learned from the woman who threw the seder Saturday night, and I sliced the rock-heavy passover cake into two layers and stuffed it with whipped cream. It looked like a Susy-Q on steroids.

Soccer Princess

I took about 100 pictures of Rachel's coed soccer team today. I really need the bigger telephoto lens if Coach is going to keep playing her on the far side of the field from me for both halves of the game!

Sean played his first baseball game with kids pitching today. To get him ready, Ken and I took him into the tennis court and worked on his body mechanics. I finally got him to spin on his back toe by kneeling behind him and spinning his hips, and then he spun all of the way around and hit me in the side of the head with the bat... possibly a mild concussion. We'll see if I still have a headache tomorrow. But he got the bat on the ball both times he was up today!

Baseball Boy

I took 104 pictures of Sean and his teammates yesterday, just practicing. Trying to blur out the fence, test out sport-mode's multiple frame shooting, make each boy look like he hit the ball.

Here's my slugger, and his power stance. Doesn't he just look like a home-run hitter? Someday I'll even get the ball in the picture.

New Subjects for my camera

Well, some of my new subjects were invited over, and some must have literally heard about my new camera over the grapevine and invited themselves!

Baby Kate is definitely a fav subject, because she could make any photographer look good.

And the Bambis... most definitely NOT invited into my yard to prune my cherry tree from the bottom. A big limb fell on the deer fencing, and they got in but couldn't find their way out. Too bad there was no one else home to take a picture of me herding deer!

If I were a good photographer, I'd learn to either get the second deer's head in the shot or crop it out entirely. I'm allowing you to see my true lack of skills so you can be impressed with my progress later. ;)

As always, if you click on the pictures they should take you to the full-sized version.

Maybe tomorrow I'll share some of the 104 shots I took at baseball tonight.

Canon EOS 40D

Okay folks, are you ready? These are my first shots with my new camera! You should be able to click on them and see them bigger.

Hippo Birdie to ME!

Thanks to everyone who called to remind me how old I am now. Lisa D. brought me a cake for Saturday, Rachel made me brownies, and Vicky made me a cake on Sunday, so it wasn't ALL bad! ; ) This is me at 43 damn years old, with the earrings Rachel made for me!

So far, all my blog pics were taken with the little snappy Sony CyberShot DSC-S600 which was obsoleted yesterday by my new Canon EOS 40D (thanks Kenny, no-no don't ask what it cost, honey.) So from now on, my cute pictures will be STUNNING PHOTOGRAPHIC MARVELS instead.

The inferno cake pic was taken by Marcus with a Canon Rebel XT, not my snappy. His closeup of my face had WAY TOO MUCH resolution, so you won't be seeing that unless Photoshop removes wrinkles.

Dezzani Visit with Lucy

Friday night and Saturday night, the Dezzanis stayed with us! Mike, Lisa, Alecia, Emily, and Lucy the pup. We dragged them to baseball and soccer.

And Walter dragged Lucy everywhere with a chew toy.

The girls gave Willy a shampoo and condition!

Grandma Nancy Visits!

We got to keep Grandma Nancy (formerly known as Gramma 'Ancy) for two nights this week. We tried to keep her forever, but Grandpa Gene held her dog Katie as bait to get her back to Portland.

As incentive to get her to move back to CA, we went hiking in the Redwood Grove, had lunch at Gilda's on the wharf, and Sean tortured her with a game of Upwords. Rachel baked brownies. And I poured the wine.

Chicken Buddy

Sean was cleaning out his bug habitat, and this Ameraucana hen was convinced he had food for her somewhere. She laid him a beautiful green/blue egg anyway.

Bear Valley - Walter's First Snow

Walter and his buddy Merlin had never seen snow, so we rented a cabin in Bear Valley for the beginning of Spring Break. We had to snowmobile/trailer sled up to the house, since they don't plow the roads up there, they only groom them!

Here are the snow dogs at Bear Lake. Maybe I'll even post a human picture. Here's Sean throwing snow, and Rachel getting it out of her shoes. Yes, it was warm up there.

Goodbye Sister Jeannette

I think everyone who reads this knows how proud I am to have nuns in my family. Even the rabbi at temple school and I have talked about them. Our dear Aunt Sister Jeannette has been in hospice for 6 months, and finally passed away on Tuesday. Godspeed, Aunt Em/Sister Jeannette.

This is the last time we saw her, Thanksgiving 2006.

Baby Snuggles

Wow, I've really been neglecting this thing lately. Sports have kicked into high gear, cub scouts and girl scouts, everything at once. But today was MY time. I went to see Melissa's new baby girl, Kate, at 4 days old. First I gave Alli the big sister a present and wrestled on the floor with her for a while, then I finally got to snuggle a sleeping baby. A half hour later, Melissa reminded me that I had kids to pick up at school, ooops!

First Belt Test

Such a proud momma moment! Rachel, Sean, Jessica, and Sydney took their first belt test tonight. Forms, combinations, board breaking... you name it. And they presented each kid with their new belt and tied it on. Very sweet. Can you tell in the top pic that Sean axe-kicked the center out of the board and left it in three pieces? Go Killer.