From the backseat

Sometimes when you're on a 2,600 mile (roundtrip) road trip, the natives get restless and you do crazy things like handing over your very expensive DSLR camera. And because of those sometimes you get little surprises like these.





I'm just now getting around to going through the rest of the 600+ images from our road trip to Florida. More to come.

Vacation

I've been a little MIA over here. It's not that I don't have things to share, because ohmygoshIdo. So many things. Little things, big things. Lots.

My children are amazing and beautiful, and we took them on a road trip to Florida. YES! Florida, and we drove. No, we didn't go on the typical Disney Florida vacation, we went to Miami, and it was beautiful. Amazing. I took so many beautiful pictures of my cuterthancute kids. More than I care to admit, but that's what a mom does, right?

So I'm here to share some of those pictures. And I might come back and share some of the tales from the road. Afterall, we drove almost 3,000 miles roundtrip with two kids and a bottle of vodka. Okay, I am only kidding about the vodka. Probably.

Yes, the water was really that color. SOOC.

Yes, he really is that cute. And awesome!


Not my kids, I know. But the art deco-ness of Miami was amazing. So colorful and fun.

This is how I shot most of my non-beach photos!

I want to spank her all day long for being so perfect.



This was the view from our patio. We were right on the beach. So amazing.

BJ was so excited!

Mia was amazed!

If you want a little picture preview of my 1/2 marathon in San Diego with Team in Training, you can check it out here. I went, I ROCKED it, and it changed my life.

Also, I'm a little tired of this little blog. I might change it up, or move it to Wordpress. I'm still thinking on that.

Timber.......

Our Thanksgiving was perfect. (Well, except when the glass fell out of the cabinet and broke in the bowl where I was mixing the stuffing, but we won't talk about that. Or the fact that I had to use Stove Top stuffing. Or even that I owned a box of it. Ahem.) The meal was lovely, and it was just our sweet little family of 4. So wonderful.

On Friday, we made the trek to the Christmas tree farm. The weather was a little cooler than usual this year (meaning it was BELOW 70 degrees), so the kids actually got to wear some "seasonal" duds, and actually looked the part!

The tree farm has so many fun things to do. These old fashioned water pumps with little rubber ducks are always a favorite.

We had an amazing time searching for the perfect tree.

BJ found a tree he deemed PERFECT! All 10 and a half feet of it. And yes, that's the one we bought!

We did some maybe-this-will-be-THE-Christmas-card-photo shots. They didn't really work out, but the outtakes are priceless!

It was a perfect day.

Saturday we decorated our beautiful tree. It looked amazing.

This morning, as I was snuggled up in my bed relishing the thought of sleeping in, Brian came in the room and mumbled something. Or maybe it just sounded like he was mumbling because I had the pillow on my head? What I finally heard, after he yanked the pillow off my head and shouted, was that our perfectly decorated 10 and a half foot tree had fallen over. As in on the floor. More precisely on the ottoman. And it just happened to land smack dab on top of my Mac.

There were lots of broken ornaments.

Oy.

As you can see, my Mac is still working, but OMG if it wasn't, I think I would have joined a convent and taken a vow of silence.

Okay, that's a lie. I would have cussed. A whole lot.

The skinny on April's visit

Blogging and I haven't been getting along lately. I haven't been blogging and I haven't been reading blogs. BOO. I do have an amazing excuse this week though! I had a visitor, a wonderful friend that I met in bloggyland, on Twitter if you want to get all crazy about it. Yes, I met April on Twitter (she's @aprilshowrs), and we became fast friends. I invited her over to the Sisterhood, where she was a champion supporter and she eventually became a contributor. Our first official IRL meetup was at Blogher in July, but her trip to visit me has been in the works since before that.

She arrived on Tuesday, and from that moment forward, we were on the go. I took her for her first REAL Tex-Mex, including table-side guacamole, and super-duper margaritas. Then we headed for my house where she got to witness a real life traffic jam. Then we hung our, watched the Biggest Loser, drank some beers, and chatted with each other on the 'hood. Yeah, we were sitting in the same room, but whatever!

On Wednesday we got all crazy and decided to head to Lost Maples State Natural Area. I knew the maples would be near peak, and I knew it would be an awesome hike with lots of photo ops. We were not disappointed. We ended up taking the 4.9 mile loop, with 1.5 miles being a steep and rocky climb up, and then another mile was a steep and rocky climb down. Did I mention I had Mia in a Kelty Kids backpack? Um, yeah. I had never hiked that far or that high with her, and it was challenging. Totally worth it though! I mean, look at these shots I got!

On Thursday we baked all.day.long. Friday was the Wild Game Dinner at my son's school, and I had committed to making cobblers and brownies for the bake sale. I've never made a cobbler so I googled recipes and found this one. Can you say heart attack on a plate? For reals, yo. As April and I melted the stick of butter in the 9x13" we laughed and maybe gagged just a little. Then when it came time to add in the TWO cups of sugar (I know, right?!) we skimped because we felt totally guilty for the fact that someone was going to consume this sweet buttery mess of dessert. So 4 cobblers and two batches of brownies later, I'm pretty sure we were drunk, or maybe close to it. Neither one of us had any desire to eat cobbler, and we might be totally scarred for life.

On Friday we geared up for the dinner, and it didn't disappoint. Perfect weather, so much amazing food, including elk, venison, antelope, fallow, oryx, axis, and much more. About an hour and half into the dinner, with more than 450 people already served, we started running out of food. Very scary because we had 2.5 hours left and dozen of people flooding in. We managed to scrape by with limited selections available during the last part of the dinner, but not one person complained. We raised a TON of money for the PTO, which will go into the school's activity fund to support, among other things, the end of year field trip.

I know I had fun, and I'm pretty sure April did. I mean, what could be more fun than coming to Texas and going to a wild game dinner, right?

The next installment of our trip, the Sisterhood Virtual EA SPORTS Active 5K, will come tomorrow over at at my Shrinking Jeans blog!

Come back later tonight/tomorrow because I'm going to tell you all about why I'm in California RIGHT NOW for EA SPORTS Active! It's so exciting!!

Pumpkin Patch

This weekend was beautiful. Cool in the mornings, warming up to the lower 70s in the afternoon, and so sunny. Typical fall weather in Texas. We took advantage of the beautiful weather on Saturday and headed to the pumpkin patch, and I just KNEW I was going to get that shot. You know, the one for the Christmas cards this year. Only I didn't. The sun was too bright, shadows too harsh, and I couldn't get either one of the kids to look at me at the same time, much less smile without squinting, to save my life!

We still had a wonderful time, and I did get some great shots, even if I didn't get "the one"!




This was the typical shot of them together.

BJ and a baby turkey chick.



Getting ready to toss some hay.

The obligatory Texas Longhorn shot.



Mia and the turkey face off. That thing was as big as she was! I loved this shot in black and white, but the color version was so nice, so I'm sharing BOTH!



I used the Pioneer Woman's free actions for Photoshop to edit these photos. They are so much FUN, and did I mention FREE?

You Capture - Summer

Ahhh, Summer. Hot. Sunny. Wet. Wild. Endless. Fun. Bright. Colorful. Hot. Hot. Hot.

Yes, summer is upon us here in Texas. Every day this week has been 100+. Right now, it's 101.9. That's hot. We try to beat the heat by either staying inside with the A/C working overtime, by heading to the beach for vacation, or to the river for the day. Here are some shots from our past Summer week.

my boy on the beach

hill country sunset butterfly on lantana beautiful weed
drinking in the sunshine

For more summer captures, go one over to Beth's. Her's are the BEST this week!!!

real life adventures catches up

I don't know if you've noticed, but the only time I blog lately is to weigh-in on Wednesdays with the Sisterhood, or to post my fabulous You Capture pictures on Thursdays. I've scrolled down and that's pretty much all I see. Trust me, this blog's intention isn't to be a weight loss/photography blog, although I would love to lose the rest of this stubborn weight and take pictures pretty much ALL DAY LONG.

But I digress. This blog is a record for me, a record of my family and our real life adventures, and there are so many. So many that I haven't blogged about, and that kinda makes me a little sad. One day when I'm old and senile, I won't remember all those adventures unless they're documented here and in photos. I don't have a problem with the photos, but I do need to story to go along with them.

So bear with me while I scroll back through Picassa and relive a few of our recent adventures.

First up is a fabulous shot I took of the full moon back on April 8th. I've been hoping Beth would pick a night shot for You Capture (hint hint):

And here we have some fun Easter egg dying and hunting shots. This year the Easter bunny took mercy on mommy and her diet and didn't bring much candy. The kids didn't seem to notice!
The weekend after Easter, BJ had an out of town t-ball game, so we decided to make a fun weekend of it! We stayed in Bandera, Texas and did lots of good eating and sight seeing!

And to top this post off, I'll leave you with some great shots I took when my friend Amanda visited last week. Her and the boys came down for a couple of days that ended up being a whole 5 days (due to car troubles). Our boys had a rough go of it, but she and I had the best time ever! We're already planning our next photography road trip sans kids! Did I mention she's a photographer with mad skillz? FOR REAL! I had my very own personal photography trainer at my disposal for a week. She's the best ever!





This tree? I could make out with it for hours and hours and hours. I photographed it for the very first You Capture. Remember? It was magnificent! Now it's budding out and I'm still in love.
And another tree with a very cool perspective. I love the colors, straight out of camera, as all of my shots are since I don't have Photoshop installed right now!

Amanda and her boys!

Okay, it's obvious I love trees, so I'll leave you with a picture of Lovey Bluebird!