bullseye.....

if it was up to me K would not have anything to do with any guns at this age, but he now has his cousins old bb gun. i was not happy, but he and S really enjoy going out to find cactus and such to shoot at. at first S held it and K just pulled the trigger, but now he holds it himself. And he is actually pretty dang good. he can barely hold the thing up but he can hit what he aims at almost every time! maybe we should get him into one of those redneck shooting contests.....:)

by the river.....

last month my MIL, SIL, BIL, niece and nephew came to visit, on their way out of town we brought them to the river in town to see how pretty the park is.

for this group shot i climbed up a huge rock, contorted myself in the most uncomfortable position to balance my camera on yet another rock to use the timer...should have brought the tripod! i think there should have also been a video camera to catch me getting off said rock to make it into the picture!


this is T with daddy right after he fell

mean man costume, sharks and seahorses.....

in the car yesterday on the way to town this is the convo i had with K.....

K: mommy I want a mean man costume.
M: why, K its like 7 months to Halloween and why do you want a mean man costume?
K: Moooommm, i want a mean man costume so i can scare away the sharks and catch a sea horse with my fishing net in the ocean.
M: oh, that makes since.....


seriously, where did that come from?

silly boys.....

this is what i have to be happy with when i get my camera out...at least they didn't run like they normally do!

enchanted rock.....

with a picnic packed and walking shoes on we took out on our 45 minute drive to enchanted rock with my sil, bil, niece and nephew. the weather was as near perfect as it could be in mid January to go on an outside adventure. when we left out the sky was clear with a few puffy white clouds, a slight breeze and warm enough for a light long sleeve shirt. it sure never crossed my mind that we should bring along umbrellas, heavy jackets and possibly an anchor!

by the time we paid our entrance to the park and found a place to eat we could see the ominous cloud rolling in. lunch was fun as we had to hold everything down because the wind picked up so much, the rain stared and it turned COLD all in about 20 minutes! we decided to sit the rain out in the car, but finally figured we would not melt, so we scrounged up enough jackets for everyone to wear and headed out to hike!

to make a long story short, it was so windy K and T had a hard time walking by themselves once we got up to the top of the rock and it was SO cold we were all miserable! the way down was better once the rain stopped and the sun came out! it did turn out to be a fun trip, but we are all looking forward to going back when the weather is nicer so we can actually take our time and enjoy the beauty!
these were all taken on the way down....

there are very defined paths that are easy to follow, but we decided to go down the hard way.....:)




sorry stef...just couldn't resist!

Strike.....

i am just gonna pretend i have not neglected this poor blog because if i do then i will have more of those kind of entries than regular ones, so on to the bowling party we had for K's 4th b-day!

K was gonna be four and i didn't think it would be a real big deal. i certainly wasn't gonna go out of my way to make a big celebration because the other 3 birthdays he could not have cared less. well right before Christmas i made the mistake of mentioning his birthday and the first thing out of his mouth was when his party was and what we were doing! and by mistake i mean that is the only thing i heard about EVERYDAY for nearly 2 months(well besides him reminding me he wanted everything on TV from Santa).
being so far from houston i didn't know what we would do to make it fun for him, i thought about the jumping party but that just didn't seem fun with only 2 other kids that he knows. At the last minute we decided to load up and have a bowling party in Houston with grandparents and cousins. I don't think i have seen him so excited about anything so far and he has never even been to a bowling alley. he and the other kids had such a blast bowling! I thought it might be a disaster with the babies, but they had just as much fun and every one of them did wonderful!

this is a succession of photos to show how excited K got EVERY TIME it was his turn..





T found the air vents on the ball return machine and just hung out there!

project.....

Scott had the brainy idea the other day to build the boys bunk beds out of ceder from the property. he has no plans to go by, so i guess he is just gonna wing it. so far we have one tree cut down and half way stripped. we will see how long it takes for this project to be complete........if it gets finished it sure is gonna be neat!

more nature.....

even in such a beautiful place and with a renewed spark for photography when i went on the field trip to lost maples, i just can't get into it. some kind of rut, or un-inspiration, i am not sure, but it makes my stomach hurt to think about not taking pictures. i have been going through a big pity party because i don't like my equipment even though it is fine(just a little dirty) and of course my wish list is a mile long for photography equipment but at the end of the day there are many, many more important things that must and will come before more equipment. well in the wake of my pity party i have posted a few of the nature/landscape picture that i took a while back.....

field trip.....

i doubt anyone is even attempting to keep up with this sad little blog anymore, i don't blame them, whoever they may be. I love my blog, it is therapeutic to me, but time slips away here in my new life and i haven't found the time to devote to something just for me. so for the sake of me, i will continue to update when time allows.

I had the most awesome opportunity to tag along on a field trip of sorts with a photography club to lost maple state park over the past weekend. this is a club from houston where i attended a total of one meeting last year, despite this and not being a paying member, they happily let me go on the trip since i live so close to the park now. this club is made up of hobbyist and professionals with spouses that gladly go along and share this passion. every one of the amazing people i meet this weekend had a story and a passion, they were so willing to share any knowledge they possessed about the ever learning art of photography. i have never experienced this with photographers before. my past experience with other photographers had, unfortunately, left me very skeptical of spending 2 days with a whole group of them, but they made me see the light that all photogs are not egotistical jerks!!!

i took nearly 500 pictures, which surprised me since i cannot 'see' landscape. landscape photography has never peaked my interest further than admiring someone elses ability to translate it in picture. i treat it as a point and shot opportunity when i see something beautiful, never taking the time to study and interpret . It is hard to interpret something so beautiful in a picture that is in landscape. but this weekend i started to 'see' and be able to tell what i saw in this beauty, i found a zone and really enjoyed my time and possibly a new found passion in my pursuit of learning the art of photography.....








the next picture was on the way back to one of the club members weekend house....the boot fence...with hundreds of worn and tattered boots lining the fence...

park.....

i tried my hardest to get a few good pictures of the boy this weekend...it did not go as planned. we went to the local park along the Guadalupe river, i let the boys play for quite a long time so they would get it out of their system and to not tease them with the playground, but it still did not work. I was only able to get K to sit still for about 3 picture, only by threatening him with no TorTing!! T wouldn't even come close! here is K.....

county fair.....

this past weekend we brought the boys to their first county fair. Going to the county fair and carnival is one of my favorite things to do(is there anything better than people watching at the carnival?), unfortunately i haven't been in several years. the boys are at the perfect age to start going and enjoying all that goes on at the fair and what a great way to start getting familiar with the activities in a new town. we watched the lamb show for a while and the pigs, they seemed to enjoy it for the few minutes they sat still. of course they loved the petting zoo, we went in it 4 times! I hope one day they love going and the atmosphere as much as i do. i will have to admit though...the carnival is stinking expensive! on Saturday i charged my batteries, packed a big purse my 2 fav lenses and camera, got to the fair and did not have my camera card. on Sunday, i made sure before we left to go back, that i put the card in my camera. well before we left i took a few pictures of the boys in the bath tib, loaded them in the computer and left it. so of course we get 17 miles away from the house and had to stop at walmart to get yet another card. i have 5 cards, 3 of them have been bought for the same reason, i have got to stop doing that.....