Joy of Love // Photo Project!

I am participating in Willette Design's Joy of Love class during the month of February. This is a great exercise in photographing a person (or creature!) that you love each day with a different theme. Check out Willette Designs for more info on the project!

Plus, it's a great way to get back to updating my blog, which has been seriously at the bottom of my priority list. Sorry guys!



Day 1 - your love "doing" something. Here is my love doing chores, changing the oil in my car ;)



stay tuned this month for a new photo each day!

Photos!

Since I haven't updated the blog with any fun images in awhile... here are a few to enjoy! A big thanks to Josh Hejl for his inspiration to go and shoot in the evenings of late. I drug Chris and Ryan out to the birchwood flats for some practice.

Since my tripod broke recently I decided to practice some of my Eddie Soloway techniques. I loved his workshop last summer - teaching us to see things in a different way. These are my "watercolor" abstracts. I love them! The idea is to capture emotion... And trust me, it's not as easy as it might seem ;)

And it never hurts to practice a little off camera flash... Guinness is a difficult subject, not only because he is a black dog but also because he won't sit still... but Chris stomped down on his leash and I got him to keep looking at me by just saying "cookie"...

And what's a photog expedition without beer?

New House!

Alright - i know, you've all been waiting for news on the house front... We have not wanted to post anything before it was official - but we are pretty close to the finish line now! All of the inspections/appraisals/etc are done - there are a couple of minor required repairs that must be completed to meet code before the bank will let us close, but the contractor has been hired and should be finished this week! If all goes smoothly with the paperwork we should be homeowners (again) sometime around June 18-21!

Since we are not owners yet i don't have a lot of pics to share, but I grabbed these from google maps. If you want to look more closesly, check out the street view option - it's fantastic!

Flying!

Saturday morning Chris and I got up early to sign papers on the new house (more to come on that!) and meet up with our friend Christy and her dad to go clamming. And by clamming I mean hopping in their 7 seater piper cherokee. It was awesome! We took off from Merrell Field in Anchorage and flew over the inlet to find the clams!

There were bears out everywhere! They must like clams too ;) These shots were actually really tricky - we were going about 150 mph, so fast shutter speed and pre-focusing were a must! Jim did a great job of flying us over and tilting so I could get the shot - perfect!

Here is the beach where we landed and dug our clams! There were a couple other planes out there, but mostly we had the place totally to ourselves! We only had about and hour and a half to dig because of the tides, but we filled our buckets!

Razor clams are not my favorite to eat, but they are fun to catch!

All in a morning's work...

Baby Ethan!

Our godson -

Ethan Wayne Donahue, born March 30th at 2pm - 7 lbs 6 oz

Such a cutie! These photos are at 2 days old... check out Dori's blog in a few days for more photos!

Who's this guy?!

Chris took a new position at Key recently, and as part of his move, he had to have pro-photo. So of course, he came to me ;) He didn't actually use this one, because he's smiling too much I think, he used a more serious version, but I thought it was awesome. So... blogging it!!

Baby Shower!

Had a great time yesterday hosting Dellany's baby shower. Ethan is due in just 5 weeks!! Very excited for him to arrive.

I love the bump comparison with Betsy and Dellany - she is due just a few days before Dellany!

Winter is due just after Dellany - I had to make sure our driveway was extra safe so nobody went in to early labor slipping on the ice! (anyone that has parked in our drivway can relate...)

Helping Out!

My friend Bryn Welcenbach has been serving in Macao, China as a missionary for about 2 years now. She is trying to raise support so that she can continue her work there, and needs to raise over $25,000 before June 15!



In an effort to help, http://enjoymittens.com/ has donated 50 pairs of their beautiful vintage wool mittens to Bryn. The mittens sell for $35 and every single dollar goes straight to helping Bryn!




If you are looking for a fun gift for a friend, or need some fun mittens yourself, this is great way to give something back! Contact me, or email Norma Jean: enjoy.etc@gmail.com

Or, if you would just like to help out (and don't need mittens), you can donate to Bryn directly: http://www.lcms.org/pages/internal.asp?NavID=13540

New Years Eve!

Had a great time up north this year, freezing our butts off at -20 degrees, but we snow machine'd back to a friends cabin right on a lake. It was great - plenty of fire works, lots of wood for bonfires and the wood stove (very important at -20!) and great friends - what more can you ask for?

More Night Winter Photos

I love Christmas lights! The Anchorage town square is a total winter wonderland right now - the foggy weather has put a beautiful frost on all the trees, and the lights are so fun! Went downtown with my friend Renee Vanni last night and we practiced a little more night photography. As promised, here are a few more images!

Winter Frost

It has been forever since I posted new photos! In the spirit of catching up before the holidays - here are a couple quick pics I took last night. I have been desperately wanting to play around with night photography, and of course, in Alaska you can only do that in the winter! And Chris gets a little concerned when I want to go out alone at night... So I only got about 15 minutes to play. But here is my first attempt. Hopefully more (and better) photos to follow soon!

B-Day in Seattle!

Had an awesome time in Seattle for my b-day this year. Cristen drove up from Pullman and we had a great time running all over town!


After a visit to the Comedy Underground we headed to an awesome Irish pub near Pioneer Square, Fado.

I love Michael's expression in this one - although it looks like he was edging Megs out of the pic!

Fall Photo

Just a fun pic from this past weekend...

Seattle

On our way back from Milwaukee/Minneapolis we stopped over in Seattle for a couple of days. Chris went off on a bike expedition with Joe, so I hung out with my awesome siblings for a couple days. Cristen even drove in from Pullman to surprise me, and we had a fab time!

I was a bit photo'd out from the wedding shoot, but i did manage to take a few on a quick trip to the park near Megan's place in Queen Anne...

View of the skyline from the park pier
Bandit gets around so good in his wheel chair!

He gets lots of attention everywhere we go - everyone thinks he is super cute and asks about the wheels. He loves it - he was literally romping in the grass - so cute!

Fall Day

We are in full fall swing here in Ak - and it is gorgeous! We've had beautiful weather this weekend, and are trying to take advantage of our last little bit of summer... Chris and I headed out Saturday afternoon for a little hike. We took Guinness along, and he was quite a trooper! We had to cut it a little short because I we both thought he was going to die... short legs are not good for hiking! But he did good ;)

Normally, Guinness hates to be picked up, but he was so tired, he didn't even care...

We came right up on this chipmunk, and he didn't even care! Alvin was totally about the berries he was eating...

I love this last one - been playing with some of the ideas I learned at my workshop with Edie Soloway...