Another Great Family

I met Christy (the mom) when she was walking along our road one day. They recently moved in a few houses down from us and happened to be LDS, so we have some things in common. What a beautiful family she has! I've never photographed this large of a family, so it was a definite challenge for me, but I had fun and learned a lot. I'm always grateful that someone trusts me enough to take the time and allow me to photograph them.

A Delightful Family

This is my friend and hairstylist with her family. What a delightful family! It has been such a pleasure to be able to photograph her daughter last month and now her family. Their home is gorgeous - who needs a studio with landscaping like theirs.
After we finished with the photographs they showed me their beautiful gardens and shared their produce with me. The Asian pears are as juicy and delicious as they look.

This was one of the smaller zucchini. Amazing and so good!

The Cutest Little Girl

Riley was in true model form today and changed her wardrobe four times and posed like a pro.

The umbrella wasn't quite useful, but she looked cute!

A Husky fan, through and through. Big sis Caylee and Aunt Mischelle ought to be proud. Sorry Steve and Heidi!

Taming the Cougar...

In her new dance outfit

And finally her Halloween costume

Soccer

Andrew is having fun with soccer this year. His teammates are all great players and his coaches are very encouraging and patient. His first game was last Saturday and we are still talking about how well he played. Can't encourage that boy too much, ever. He laps it up and promises to do even better the next time, because he loved the feeling of playing so well. I've never seen him work so hard at a sport as I did at that game...at least the second half anyway. He got right in there and blocked kicks, stole the ball, and even passed to a teammate for a goal. We are so proud of him.

My Third Grader

Andrew is officially a third grader now. I've seen a lot of changes in him this past year. He is more willing to do chores, which has been very helpful. He has grown to nearly 4 feet 7 inches and is one of the tallest in his class and among his age group. He is playing soccer again this year and although he is not very aggressive, he is starting to feel more confident. I can't wait to see what the next year brings for him.

Photoshop Fun

I've been playing around with Photoshop trying to learn some new things and I'm having fun with it. This is a photo of a friend's daughter that I took a couple of days ago.

Original Played a bit with the contrast Added a dark vignette

Used an Action by Brenda that I found through another blog

August

Heidi and Jon had a reception on the 9th of August. It was held at the Red Lion Inn in Vancouver, WA, also called the Quay.

Ready to throw the bouquet off the balcony...

...into the waiting crowd of single women below

Garrett's sister, Sara, and her two children, Thomas and Rebecca, flew all the way from Missouri to be there. We had a fun visit with them.

The next weekend we went out to Fort Worden in Port Townsend (where An Officer and a Gentleman was filmed) with Heidi and Jon and all the dogs. Boy did we look strange - 5 people, 5 dogs.

Andrew loves Mercedes

He also had a great time with Buster, who is obsessed with sticks among other things.

Heidi and her baby, Mercedes

There is a nice sandy beach at Fort Worden that was pretty quiet that day, so we let the dogs run loose.

One of Heidi and Jon's brood, Shay, loved playing with Tate and vice versa.

Beau had a ball running around exploring and chasing sticks in the water.

Andrew had fun on the beach, too.

It's berry picking season here, so I made tons of jam with all of the blackberries in our yard and our neighbor's yard.

This is one of my favorite images so far this summer. I've come to love the rainy days so that I can find droplets like these on all the plants.