Fun in the northland

We have been having a great summer vacation in Minnesota since last Thursday night.  The little darings are getting along surprisingly well, and that is making it a really great visit.  I love this age that Chloe is dragging me through right now, but I can’t help but things like travel, vacations, staying away from home, etc. will be a lot easier in just a year or two.  If you have any evidence to the contrary, please don’t burst my bubble right now… a mom can dream, can’t she:)  

My camera hobby may be turning into something of an obsession.  We went to the mall to play on the toys last night and Harry smiled at me and then asked, “Hey, where’s your camera, Al?”  He and Chloe had a great time playing and I really wish I had proof of that!  I have a grand idea for a side photography business that eventually turns into my retirement gig (I’ve even named my business-yep, I’m a dork!) and I’m going to feed that crazy dream by stopping in Madison Coutny, Iowa on our way back home this weekend.  I cried through the wonderful Bridges of Madison County twice in the movie theatre and I rarely make it to watch a movie outside of my own home so that is saying a lot.  I am now going to get my chance to shoot the bridges and I am hope, hope, hoping that the kids will cooperate and give me a little time and even a few smiles while we’re there!  I’m kicking myself that I did not bring my new camera that I’ve been afraid to take out of the box. It is way too much camera for me at this point, but it would have been great to break it in this weekend on such a great location shoot!  Oh well!!  

I’m a little impressed with my photograpy on this first pic.  I don’t know what this effect is called, but I saw it on Pioneer Woman’s photo blog and I love it, and am pretty proud that I already have my own example of it.  I love that my mom is blurry in the background, but you can tell she’s watching Jack and smiling.  If anyone knows the name of it please share so I can look like a real photographer when I talk about this!!

We had fun with bubbles on day one of our visit…

Grace really had fun!

Chloe did some work on the shed my dad was helping my sister and her husband build.

This tea party picture was completely staged and the party lasted about 3.5 minutes.  We just wanted a picture of all 4 of them together, but I guess that was too much to ask!

Since Chloe has not been out of arms reach of my mom this whole vacation Jack and I have had a little bonding time…doesn’t it look like he’s having a blast?!

Harry is also loving our bonding time:)  I just love this kid so much!!!

He doesn’t always love my camera, though!!  I’ll keep working on him because this beautiful face is meant for close-ups!

Gorgeous (with attitude)

Was someone looking for the sweetest face in the world?!  I think you found it!

The thing I love best about this picture is that she’s snuggling my knee here…

Seriously Mom, I’m tired of this bow…

This weekend I discovered the secret to really cute pictures of Chloe.  Are you ready for this?!  Take pictures of someone or something else.  That’s it.  So simple!  Why didn’t I think of it sooner???  This is Chloe at her cousin’s birthday party when she realized I was trying to take pics of all the guests…

And here she is at the baby shower we had for my friend on Sunday…

We had a fun and busy weekend last weekend and this coming week is going to be even more of the same!!  Tomorrow we’re heading back to visit my sister up North!  It’s going to be a great, but full 10 days together, which we haven’t had in at least 5 years:( so I can’t wait!  There will certainly be cute pictures to follow.  

My blog is getting even less dedicated to thoughtful entries and even more heavily weighted to pictures, but I’m just not sure how to fix that.  I haven’t been able to put my feelings into words let alone into writing for months now.  I think it goes back to the answer my law school professors loved to use when someone asked them to define something lovely like “due diligence” or “adequate consideration”…it’s like beauty, you just know it when you see it.  Unfortunately you can’t write that into a legal brief and you can’t write it into a blog entry!!  I look at Chloe and I know what I’m feeling, but trying to explain it to anyone is pretty close to impossible.  I’ll keep trying periodically, but at least I’ve almost been able to get my thought process into black and white–even if it’s just explaining why my thought process isn’t leading to anything these days.  Any words of wisdom about how to get through this fuzziness are warmly welcomed!  

Still working on my new photo editing software, but haven’t made much progress on it.  I wish I could just take a class on it so I didn’t have to read through all these books to figure out how to use it all!  I’m not much for studying any more.  Glad I went to law school straight from undergrad because I don’t think I’m ever going to regain that momentum even though I’d love to have a PhD to tack onto my name!