SmamPhoto

This Memorial Day has been packed full of activities and newly acquired freckles.  Today started with meeting Becca down at the river for coffee, followed by the parade in downtown Perrysburg.  It was super hot, but the whole town showed up.

After the parade we headed back to the river for the annual boat race.

Someone should have warned this kid about the rock spiders at the river…

But at least the fans were out in full force.

The rest of the day was followed up with cooking out and movies with Becca and Seth.  So after only a minor sunburn, lots of good food and afternoon beers, I now believe this is possibly one of the best Memorial Days ever.

It is finally time to be back on the Maumee River.  I have looked forward to this all winter long.  The current is fast, but it is such a rush to be back out on the water.   I love paddling in the current  as well as finding a spot where the water is still and you can just sit back and watch all the wildlife around you.

Finally updated pics of my nieces!  I can’t believe they are this big already.  Time is going by very, very fast and now the girls are huge with even larger personalities.  Aunt Sam or “Aunt Tam” got to spend the day with them on Saturday.  I wish there was more days like this, but at least I get to see them as much as I do.

For the second day in a row it has been 80 and sunny.  The local Weather Forecasters have been calling it “Unseasonably Warm”.  I will take it.  Thank you Spring/Summer for coming early.  I have been lucky to have been able to go outside for a few hours in the sun each day, whether it be a trip to the river or sitting outside with friends.  Today I took a walk in search of flowers taking as much advantage of this weather as I have.

Sometimes when you teach babies to crawl you have to get creative.  My friends Jeanna’s 10 month old son is just starting to crawl and he got even better at it once he discovered London’s cat toys.

Some pictures just make you smile.

With the return of the nice weather, my photography has come back as well!  After 3 days of sun, I finally felt like getting out and about and picking the camera back up.  My first stop, of course, had to be the Magical Forest.  However, lots and lots of mud may have made it a little less magical than usual….

After the trip to the forest, I took the next day to go see my Mom for her 50th birthday!  Construction in the nearby neighborhood has driven deer onto our street, and yesterday evening we caught some in our front yard.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!!

This past week I finally got motivated to paint again.  So after prying open some linseed oil, paint thinner, and some (somewhat crusty) oil paint tubes, I’m back in the game.  Here is my progress thus far….it is a very (very) long way from becoming the final product.  It helps so much that Becca is letting me invade her studio space, and working on projects as well.  It’s like being back in school again!

This is London.

She came into my life on Friday, March 13th.  She has been with me through a lot in the past 9 months and I can’t imagine coming home and not having her here.  She has a personality unlike any other and trying to capture her moods has been my latest project.

I consider the above picture her seldom seen “Ewok” face.

Above is her “I may swat at you” face.

Thank you London for all the love, and I’m sorry I had to put you on a kitty diet.

So the fall has ended, along with my favorite time of the year.  Winter has officially begun, and I sit here writing this with 2 inches of snow falling outside my nice warm living room.  I have been terribly neglecting my blog with all the holiday craziness, starting a new job and having the flu for what seems like 6 weeks now.  However with the new job also came the new laptop I bought as a treat to myself!  It is amazing and I can actually create posts on here again without my computer catching on fire…hooray!  To get back into the swing of things I thought I would share some pictures from my Thanksgiving trip to my parents house.  It was a short, but amazing trip and I wish that I could go more often.

These are all little stolen moments with members of my family.  The light turned out very yellow, orange and red in these photos.  They almost seem too warm, but the light in these rooms, as well as the warm feeling they give, was exactly how it was in the moments they were taken.  The below photo is one of my favorites because it is of one of those looks that my parents give each other that makes me smile.

Thanksgiving ended quickly and Christmas snuck up on me as well.  Thanks to my family I got to go home for this holiday, when I didn’t think I would be able to.  I was too ill to even pick up my camera, but I hope they all know that if I could have documented every second of my trip I would have.  So I hope that everyone has as good a holiday season as I had a Christmas!

Thanks Jeanna, John and Gunnar for letting me share the day with you take your family portraits.