Sunday, July 31, 2011

Apparently, Snakes Are On the Cute List

My son found a snake in a friend's herb garden the other day.  Now, I can understand his fascination with snakes, but I did not expect my four girls to all dash to his side, squealing, "Oh, he's so cute!  Look at his little tongue!  Can I pet him?"  They'll run away at first sight of a spider, but apparently snakes are on the Cute List.

Of course, we won't mention the mommy who squealed, "Ooo, hold him while I get my macro lens!"





Thursday, July 28, 2011

Grandma's Strawberries




This is usually where we can find our son when we're visiting Grandma and Grandpa in Oregon.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Independence Day, Part 2

Sparklers!


Whoops!  The end of his sparkler flew off and landed near my folks' pond.




Independence Day, 2011

Our independence day celebrations are fairly simple.  A few "snappers," an assortment of fireworks, sparklers, and bedtime.  This year we celebrated in Oregon, with my parents.






Plumeria




My favorite flower? That's easy: plumeria.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Family photo

Even with a family only spread between two states it's very rare that we all get together.  My grandma passed away a few weeks ago and we were all able to attend the funeral.  My mom asked me to grab a couple of family photos of the family members who came to the cemetery.  One of my sisters and her family is missing from the photo because her husband needed to leave for a work assignment right after the funeral, but these are the most updated photos we've had in years.  Someday I hope we can get the entire family together and pick a beautiful location where we can have time to set up a really nice shoot.




My sister took a turn at the camera so I could be in a couple of the shots, too.

(6-27-11)

They have dinosaurs at the zoo!

We took the kids to the zoo again, this time to focus on the animatronic dinosaurs that are on temporary display there. Normally I wouldn't bring an external flash with me to the zoo, but I figured the dinos wouldn't complain about flash in their faces too much, and I wanted to do some experimentation with on-camera flash. To be entirely truthful, I wanted to try off-camera flash, too, but my oldest daughter went on strike and refused to hold a flash in a public place. The other kids just wanted to look at the dinosaurs. Silly children.




Wow, our zoo has headless giraffes!





Our own little animatronic dinosaur, ready to go home.

And Daddy is still smiling!

(6-16-11)

Cottam family photo shoot

I always appreciate it when families give me the opportunity to take their family photos. It helps me push myself out of my comfort zone, and it's so fun to see how various families interact with each other.




What a trooper!  It isn't easy to have a lady follow you around with a camera for a couple of hours, and he did great!








One parting shot as we all packed up to go home.

Thank you so much, Cottam family!
(6-10-11)

Cousins

I'm not terribly proud of the quality of these photos, but it's very rare that all of the cousins get together for a photo opportunity. Grandma and Grandpa don't care that the lighting wasn't perfect, after all.





(6-4-11)