Catching up...

I'm so behind in blogging...

it's been crazy around here!

I am going to catch everyone up in one post.

Here goes...

10 days after returning from our vacation to France my father passed away.

It was not unexpected... he had cancer and suffered for nearly 18 months.

I traveled to Kansas City for 10 days for my fathers funeral and to clear out his home. 

While I was there I also had to make arrangements for my 90 year old grandfather to go into a nursing home.  He has dementia and is no longer able to care for himself.

I'm not going to lie, it was the hardest 10 days of my life, very stressful and emotional.

Jeff stayed behind to hold down the fort and keep some sort of "normalcy" for the kids.

My father and I were never close and his passing has brought up lots of hard feelings.

The day before he passed I told him I forgave him.

Whew.. not easy.. 

Here is a photo of he and I when I was about 2-3.  

I may blog more about this later, but right now it's just too hard. 

Soccer season is upon us.

Both Olivia and Jack decided to play soccer this year for their school.

Olivia was at practice (the night of my fathers visitation) and dislocated her knee and suffered a bone bruise.  She has to wear a brace. 

She had to have an MRI.. and now has to start physical therapy.

Her soccer season was very short lived. 

Jack wanted to play, but our school (K-12) does not have a middle school team.

Jack asked the HS coach if he could be the team manager or water boy.

Well, the coach saw Jack play this past summer at camp and told Jack he could play up...

which means Jack is now playing on the HS boys JV team.

I have to say, he's rocking it.

I love watching him play.  He's keeping up with boys twice his size.

There's 4 more games left and I'm hoping to get out there with my big camera and get some photos.
Until then, here's a little iPhone photo.
Jack is #17

 Speaking of photos..

I'm have 4 senior sessions this month!

One is complete, one is in the editing process and I have 2 more to shoot and edit.

I still have to edit my France photos too, but it will have to wait.

I'm hoping to come up for air once October is over.

Here's a photo from my one of my senior sessions.

If I could build a business on just senior photos, I would. 

Hands down my favorite genre. :)

Lover of light...

I have begun editing our France pictures.

This is a photo I took in Paris.

The way the light was coming through the window stopped me in my tracks.

I told Lucy to run over and look out the window.

I plan on having this enlarged on canvas to hang in the house.

I hope to post more photos soon..   :)

Back to Reality...Back to School

We arrived home early Sunday morning.. about 1 am.

At 10:30 am we picked up our newest exchange student, Jennifer.

And this morning, (Tuesday) the kids started school.

We are back to reality.. bam! 

I'm hoping to edit our France photos this week...

As you can guess, I took a ton!  

We had the most amazing time, it was truly magical!

Here's a little sneak peak of the Eiffel Tower taken with my iPhone.

First day of 11th, 8th, 5th and 11th!  

I'm hoping these kids have an awesome 2014-2015 school year!

Photo editing..

I have been an editing fool this summer.

Trying to learn tons of new techniques.

Here are two images taken recently that I had fun editing.

This one was a photo taken during the day and turned into a night look.

This was taken in my backyard.  :)

This photo was one I took and I tried to edit it an artistic, almost watercolor feel.

I love photos of Olivia even when she has a serious or pouty look.  :)

I still have a ton to learn and I'm going to keep going.

My goal is to have a website up and running by the new year! 

I'm both excited and nervous.

It's not easy for me to put my work out there.  I have a little FB photography page and I hold my breath every time I post.  

The more creative I get the more personal it becomes.

I heard the saying,  "do something everyday that scares you." Well, I'm doing just that.. and I'm loving it. 

Mt Rainer

A few weeks ago we took off for a weekend adventure.

Our dear friends from Tennessee were on vacation in Vancouver and we decided to meet up at Mt Rainer.

We really enjoyed our visit, it was short, but very sweet.

 This is Lucy with Zoe. 

Lucy and Zoe lived together in the orphanage in China.   They have such a beautiful, sweet bond.

They always pick up right where they left off.
You may remember their reunion last year.. HERE

We are busy preparing for our next adventure... our BIG vacation is in 11 more days!

Stay tuned...