{Scenic} An end of the year Adventure

One of the things you probably don't know about me, unless we've been friends for a while, is that most of my friends growing up were guys. Still to this day one of my best friends is a guy, who isn't my husband (and yes he's aware, and okay with that). We've actually been friends since kindergarten, about 23 years now. This past week we went on a little end of the year adventure, I took some shots, he took some shots (both with different equipment).  I came home with a bag of 'goose & duck' to learn how to cook and a few images to add to my collection & expanding portfolio.

Probably my favorite one from the day. 

 

{Scenic}Just a little Extra-Ordinary

One of our more recent favorite things to do while we wait for pre-school to be done during the weekdays is head into Greenhorn park & take a little 'nature' walk around the lake. It's usually too wet in the mornings to play on the 'park' but it's been decent for a little stroll. Grace asks lots of 'whats that' and "momma take my picture".  Brody just wants to get down & run. 
Friday I took my camera, hoping for some fall color and there is a tiny bit starting to emerge, but not out in full force yet. It was a gorgeous morning for photos.

{Local Events} Montague Balloon Fair

This past weekend was the Montague Rotary Balloon Fair. It's one of our favorite local events. We make it a point to attend every year, it's like a little family tradition for the past 6 years. Normally we do an early morning, watch the balloons go up, do breakfast (usually at my mom's), just hang out for a bit until the parade that runs downtown.
This year it was pretty much the same except I left my husband home alone to gather up the kids & head into Montague & I was with my aunt and grandpa. My favorite part of the morning is when the sun starts breaking over the hills & casting it's beautiful orange-y glow on everything. The other thing special for this year was that we built a float for Amanda Pratt Photography & entered the parade. It was a super fun thing for the kids. Our float was a prize winner as well.

The ascension starts of with a single balloon, carrying the American flag as the national anthem is sung.

 Then it's mass chaos of filling balloons, fans & people.

The kids graciously (errr, more like forced) posed for a quick photo together.

This year it seemed the wind was drifting a different direction & I could get Mt Shasta in the photos without doing too much traveling from the launch site.

Here is our float in all of it's before/after the parade, windy Montague afternoon glory.

Have a great day!

{My Life} They only look sweet

I sent my camera off a week or so ago for a cleaning, adjustments & a couple repairs it finally came back on Tuesday & I hadn't really tested it out yet. It was a nice & cool, overcast day today (it really felt a lot like fall, yay!), which gives off lots of nice even lighting. So I coordinated some outfits for the kids and we went out in the yard for a quick little shoot.

Of course, rounding up my own herd, is worse than trying to herd a bunch of cats, but we pulled off a couple shots.  I even managed to get in a few thanks to the girls who love taking turns pressing the shutter button with the camera set up on the tripod.

I noticed a couple months ago that the number of photos of me with my kids are almost nil. There are tons of the children, lots with the kids & daddy, but mom is pretty much non-existent in photo form, so it's been a goal (urged from a little scrappers forum challenge) to get in more shots, no matter how I'm feeling about my looks. After all, when the time comes it really won't matter what I was wearing of it my hair was done. If I'm gone, they will only care that they have something to remember me with.

Here is one of my favorites from tonight.

{Wordless Wednesday} Vacation Edition

Check this out...a scheduled blog post; & it's more than the normal sneak peek, but a look at the little mini-vacation that I got to take with my sweet hubby to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary and a bit of an early birthday to me.  In fact this is almost the exact thing we did, 5 years ago, to celebrate our wedding and my birthday.

We headed to Las Vegas. City of Sin, Dry Heat & a gazillion people walking around 1/2 dressed like ants all.day.long.

We however, dislike the heat enough that we tried to avoid day time on the strip (& most night times too). We ventured out to Hoover Dam though, it was huge. One thing I didn't do a lot of while we were there...take pictures. I didn't want to lug around the camera & a purse & water, so most of the time, I ditched the camera & purse and just enjoyed having a few moments with my hubby.
 
Here's a quick glimpse of the few photos I did take though. It was Richie's first time flying, so we got a couple shots of familiar places; one of which was Medicine Lake (we won't be fishing there yet, it's still frozen).

Our motel & rental car, that we got a free upgrade on, so instead of a Kia Rio, we were able to cruise in a Nissan Cube.

Hoover Dam & Mead Lake

 The Great West Truck Show

 Seriously, show trucks are GORGEOUS, both inside & out. There's lots & lots of chrome & shiny. We saw the largest limo ever, an entire trailer sized limo, it was amazing. Decked out interiors complete with cowhide & leather, seriously ahhhh!! A hay trailer, complete with huge glitter flakes. Now, it's not really my thing, but I know how happy it makes the ol' man, seeing as he used to show, way back in the day and has a few trophys to show for it.

{Snapshots} My life this week

I know I've talked about getting the blog in order before & this is just another one of those posts. In an attempt to be more regular & scheduled, my goal is to post a look into my life every other Sunday of the month.
So here I am with the first edition of, My Life in Snaps. Random shots from the first week or so of the month of April.

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This is sort of what the typical weekend morning looks like. Grace in her crazy hair, Brody sucking down some milk, Anna pouting for who knows what.

Brody has a new fascination with the laundry cart. He WILL.NOT. leave it in the laundry room, instead we find it in every other room of the house, usually with him climbing into it, or hanging on it, sitting in it.   & a banged up nose courtesy of sisters & steps.

The girls & Daddy are on horse stall clean up duty, taking another bucket of stuff to the compost pile.

With a nice little snow storm last week we got to see Ol' Man Winter trying to steal away our spring.  It didn't last long and although it most likely damaged a lot of the fruit trees, it was very pretty on the blossoms.

Evidence of a little frost bite, kisses the blossoms now & even though the snow is far away, today, who knows what our crazy little world will look like tomorrow.