Springtime in Washington

We found a glorious tree blooming on the way to one of our appointments this week & I just had to stop and take a picture of it.

Ian decided he liked it so much he had to have his picture taken in front of it:

Yes, taken with my phone.  Not too shabby of a shot:

A close up of one of the flower clusters:

Surrounded with some other pretty blooming plants:  

I have no idea what any of these plants are, so if anyone knows, please let me know! Hope you enjoy our little snapshot of spring here.  There are so many trees that are just starting to get their leaves still. Catherine

Scenes from the Plane

Many of you know that I recently went to San Antonio to find us a new place to live. Well, it turned out that the flight down was pretty scenic.  Thought I would share a few photos I took from the plane with my phone.

I'm pretty sure this was still over WA state:

Another shot showing snow still in the mountains:

A cool lake on the way:

Over a more desert area with a river flowing through it:

One more view of the desert:

I loved the way this cloud was casting a shadow in the ground below:

What I think are crop circles.  Let me know if I'm wrong.  It just looked so interesting from above:

A wind farm: 

Hope everyone enjoys some of the sights the way I did from the plane! Catherine

Leah's Solo

Can't say the quality of these photos will be as good as what Marc usually posts, since they were taken with my phone, but still wanted to share them.  Leah had a 2nd grade performance at her school the other night and she was the only one in all 4 classes who had a solo (which of course she didn't tell us until we saw it because she wanted it to be a "surprise", um, yes it was!).  I would have positioned myself in a much better spot had I known she had a solo.

Anyways, here she is coming in with her class:

She also performed a dance as part of one of the songs with a few of the other kids:

Doing a few hand motions for one of the songs:

Out for her solo.  The song was about Pizza.  It was a cute, silly song.

 Back to her spot after her solo.  She also went back up to sing the last line in the song. 

She did great! People started to clap in the middle of the song after she did the first part of her solo. Pretty amazing.

Fun with Photoshop

I thought up of something that I thought the kids would have some fun with, but have struggled in the execution of the compositing bit in photoshop. 

This took a bit of work to get the lightsaber effect, and then the two kids in some proximity to each other. The blue for Leah's lightsaber is tough to find the real shade! I finally gave up and went with what you see here.

The kids have enjoyed the photos, hopefully you do too. Cheers,

Marc

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everybody!

Spring Break Road Trip

Yesterday I loaded the kids and the camera up for a trip down to Hood River and the Columbia River Gorge. We stopped at two waterfalls in the Gorge, but then due to high traffic decided to make our way to Hood River where we could have lunch and then go exploring.

We ate at a nice little restaurant on the Columbia River, and then walked across the street to play in the playground area for a bit. There were quite a few wind- and kite-surfers out there, which looked like a bunch of fun (though cold).

After that we drove around a bit looking for this particular red barn with the flowering pear trees and Mt. Hood in the background (I gambled that they'd be in bloom, it was a solid bet). We found it pretty easily, then went back into Hood River to explore the town a bit. The kids and I were exceptionally well behaved, so we all got ice cream.

We ate at a different restaurant that offered brick-fired pizza, and then drove back out to the red barn for sunset. Sunset kind of fizzled over the mountain, but was drop dead gorgeous to the east with pink clouds and the west with bright orange clouds and backlit pear blossoms.

We got back a bit late, but that is what Spring Break is for. Have a great day!

Cheers,

Marc

Spring Break part 2

Nothing terribly exciting today for the fourth day of spring break. The sun did give me some great light that I had to rush the kids to get a couple of nice photos.

Ian struggles with the "school photo cheesy grin" and this was the next to last photo I took  before the good light disappeared. The last one would have been awesome, but either he or I moved and the photo was too blurry. C'est la vie.

Have a great day everybody. Cheers,

Marc

Spring Break

Yesterday was a busy day for me as I took both Catherine and Nancy to the airport, and picked up a friend (also at the airport). So today when the sun came out, I was itching to get outside for a bit.

Luckily the kids wanted to go outside too. We walked to the big playground and the kids just ran around for a bit.

We took the long way home, through a nice path through the forest here. All in all, it was a very pleasant walk.

And the kids obliged me when I broke out my camera for some photos. So far it has been a lazy spring break, at least for us. Catherine is busy looking for our new home in Texas, so wish her luck!

I'm playing around again with my new software, getting more comfortable with it and trying not to make changes that are too glaringly obvious (I have to scale back a good bit on the auto-tune changes). Hopefully the photos aren't too processed. Anyways, have a great day.

Cheers,

Marc

Sunday photos

Nothing new or exciting here on the Washington home front. I'm about a month away from my long trip to Texas, starting to get things ready. I've been wanting to grab some photos of the kids for a while, and this evening during supper the sun decided to break out.

So I grabbed my camera and the kids and we went for a little walk to some blooming azaleas that I pass on one of my morning running routes. Luckily, the kids were up for the fun!

For the photo above, I am learning a new (photo) software program (OnOne Perfect Suite) and pushed Ian's photo through since Lightroom couldn't do what I wanted it to do. I won't bore you with the details, but it worked pretty slick here, and added some other effects I'm not sure I like or not.

Nancy came along and got the kids to stand together for a photo and smile.

After our walk we took a different way home that took the kids past the small playground by the entrance to our subdivision. So the kids got an extra reward, too.

Have a wonderful day everybody!

Cheers,

Marc