12.27.2008

Pops

Point a camera at my dad, ask him to smile and this is what you get.
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Gotta love that guy.

12.23.2008

classic

One of the best things about traveling to Iowa (my current location), is the anticipation of some new Grandma stories.
Tonight we were treated to some of her usual antics at a family dinner celebration for my brother's engagement. As my brother and his fiance opened their gift from her they found a nice set of flatware and a newspaper article. The newspaper article is nothing new, as she often sends clippings and obituaries along with birthday cards. This article was wedding themed of course. Upon opening her card we learned that the flatware was, in fact, not the set they had registered for, but rather a set my own parents had given her about 5 years ago for a Christmas present.

With that, I wish you a Merry Christmas!

12.22.2008

Mini Christmas



Alex and I celebrated our own mini Christmas this weekend. I thought it would be nice to make a multi-course gourmet dinner and drinks. I didn't quite realize that would mean a solid six hours of cooking. It was fun...once a year.
Here's what the menu consisted of:


Cranberry Gin + Tonics
Fettuccine Meatball Lasagna
Mile-High Chocolate Cake

My favorite part? Definitely the Cranberry Gin + Tonics.
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Next to the Cranberry G+T's, my favorite part of the evening was the piano concierto.

12.18.2008

Pieces of Flair

Lauren and I both are aware that we've been slacking in the blog department lately. What can we say, it's a crazy time of year. I expect we'll both be back blogging full time by the first week of January, but in the meantime I'm going to try to keep it up with the occasional post.

Usually I'm the only one who puts much effort into holiday decorating (and even then my effort extends to a Christmas tree and that's about it), but I came home the other day to find that Alex had added this little Christmas flair to our kitchen doorway.
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Isn't that nice?

12.09.2008

Tradition


We hiked three miles in the snow to cut down our own Christmas tree this year. I dare say I appreciate it all the more for having cut it down myself. (Or for Alex having cut it down himself).



my oh my sky

Me again...sorry for being such a blog hog lately, but I've seen seeing and hearing a lot of impressive things. Last night I was driving to Moscow to do some work at the coffee shop and then meet up with some folks for drinks in celebration of a birthday. Once again, the sky blew me away, and I actually took the time to pull over and snap some shots. Also, once again, way better in real life.

12.08.2008

bone-eee-vair

I don't know if it's the winter weather setting in, or what, but lately I can't stop listening to Bon Iver. I fell for the music the first time I heard it last winter on a random internet music search, and I continue to fall more in love with the it every time I listen. I found this really great interview where Justin, the head honcho, tells the story of how the album came to be. The skinny of it is that he spent three months in a secluded Wisconsin cabin, as sort of a starting over moment in his life. He wasn't trying to make an album, but he was making music, and his main objective was to write heart to paper, instead of the normal heart to head to paper. I think that's why the music seems so honest and continues to be mysterious even after practically being on repeat for me. Anyway, I really connected to the goals he seems to have for his music, and it gave me sort of a spiritual slash motivational revival for my own artistic practice.

Here's a link to some really great videos of the band playing in a small Paris apartment. Flume is especially fantastic.

golden

Alas, sometimes a photo can't capture everything. But, I did attempt to soak some of the lighting that was going on Saturday evening through my lens. As I was leaving my studio I walked outside into some of the most incredible light I have ever seen. Actually, it's funny how the sky and the light seem to be so particular to location. I have never seen this light in Colorado, and I have seen light in Colorado that I never see here. Anyway, it seemed like everything had sort of been dipped in gold, and as I was driving it was sometimes so beautiful that I just wanted to disappear into it.
Even our cement slap of an art building looked kind of nice all lit up:
Oh, and I just thought I would throw this in. Often, the random piles of things that accumulate in my studio are much more interesting to me than what I had actually been working on.

9 days!

Socks

I've found recently that I have a very difficult time caring what I look like. There's just no need for makeup when you're photographing dogs. Likewise, there's no need to actually do your hair.

Yesterday on my way home from a shoot I realized I've hit an all-time low: my socks no longer match. That's a low most people don't hit until they settle into a nursing home.
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Probably time to start spiffing myself up, at least a little. But maybe just in the socks department.

12.06.2008

kamiake

I had intended to post photos from my Thursday morning hike earlier (the one that inspired yours), but am just getting around to it. I never fail, no matter how hard it is to get out of bed, to be grateful whenever I start a day this way.

12.04.2008

Flora

It snowed most of the day yesterday and all of today nonstop. I can't very well run in the snow, so Roux and I went for a hike on Table Mountain (inspired in part by your hike this morning, Lauren). It's amazing how much more you notice when you're walking not running, and furthermore when you have no real destination. I came across these little plants and was impressed by their fragility. How do they survive the harsh Colorado weather? I used to despise Colorado's dry landscape, but I've learned to appreciate it.
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Come to think of it, these would make a nice little framed series. Hmmm...

The backgrounds for those little plants are the albums Jen from Painted Fish Studios makes for my Denver Dog Photography clients. Great colors, eh?
Also, look at the packaging she sends them in:
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She has all kinds of fun things in her shop.

If you're still jonesing for some puppy photos, you can see more of the little monster on DDP today. (Mary, looks like we're gonna need two of those dog hats).

12.03.2008

wondering and wandering

First of all...Happy 300 to you! It's incredible to think we have made that many posts here on the old Wonder Net, but I'm glad it's been part of our lives these last couple years living far from one another again. I wonder what we would have thought about "blog communication" back when we were little and you were living in Chile. In some ways it was nice to have less frequent updates, because when I did get a letter from you or, on a very fortunate day, a phone call, it was like a treasure. Remember how it used to take multiple counts to 10 before we could finally convince ourselves to hang up? Not to say that your letters and phone calls aren't treasures now...

I spent this morning exploring the Appaloosa Museum in Moscow. For our seminar class we have to write a proposal for a new way of displaying an existing collection. I'd been meaning to hit up this local museum for a while anyway. I don't know what my proposal will be yet, but here are some images I took during my visit. (If you didn't know, the Appaloosa breed started in this region, hence the museum.)


Yesterday, I noticed my band aid looked very much like an owl....

Final thought: With all of this depression, recession, and gas price fluctuation I've been wondering a lot about what parts of our current life style will seem absurd a few years from now. I remember when we all started to freak out when gas started going over one dollar a gallon, and now that it has dropped under two dollars, it seems incredibly cheap! It hasn't been very long and it already seems unimaginable to pay one dollar or less/gallon at the tank. Are you catching my drift? Someday will we think it was crazy that we were able to have lights on whenever we want, or shower every day if we so choose?

Sorry for the randomness..my brain is a bit scattered these days.

More McKinley pictures please......

12.02.2008

Viva Mexico (kind of)

I was lazy about taking photos for basically the entire Mexico trip. One of my goals was to get good portrait shots of my family, but I really didn't do it the way I wanted to (on the beach) and instead only ended up really getting everyone together on a hotel room balcony.
Ah, well.

So here's what I have to share:



But mostly right now, this is taking up all my extra time.

I like it.

12.01.2008

backyard bliss

I forgot to include this image of sun soaking in the backyard, and since it was one of my favorites anyway, I think it deserves to make an appearance.

pilgrim's pride

Oh what a week! I'm back at school now trying to retrieve my brain from vacation, but it's a hard task, when another vacation looms just over two weeks away. I've compiled a short photo display to share my last week's adventure with you. We begin with a jam packed car. Who needs to see out the back window anyway?We left a small pocket for me in the back seat. Not such a bad way to travel actually. Being surrounded by things made for a nice little nest to nap in.




We stopped a few times along the way to take little walks, and look for birds, or in the picture above a nice rock. I think I had the best enchiladas of my life in a little restaurant in Eureka. And, we were also able to drive through some of the Redwood forests. No matter how many times I see those giant trees, I never cease to be amazed by them.
The first activity we did on our first day in Alamo was go to the Concord Flea Market. I snagged a couple of lovely broaches, was gifted two tiny silver ponies, and bought a toothbrush (f.y.i. never buy a toothbrush from a flea market.) Mary got an incredible typewriter for only 2 dollars (it was worth nearly 400), and David bought a "120" year old mandolin.
The rest of the afternoon was spent soaking up some sun in the back yard and drinking beer. We were also entertained by David's 5 year old niece. She's the star in two of David's music videos which can be seen here.
We were also constantly entertained by Fletcher the cat. Or, rather, we were constatnly entertained by David's sister's constant jibber jabber style of communicating with Fletcher.
We took a long hike, and drove to the top of near by Mt. Diablo, which, according to some mythology is the point of the beginning of creation. Even with the fog, the top yielded some spectacular views. We also saw a ton of new birds, thanks to the addition of another bird expert (David's brother).
The day before Thanksgiving we were able to go to the science museum in San Fransisco. It turns out that everyone decided to go that day, and the overwhelming amount of humans inside nearly drove us insane. At one point I had to cover my ears in order to not completely loose it.
Thanksgiving day was much more peaceful back at the house. We consumed delicious vegetarian food, more beer, and Mary and I whipped up a batch of hot spiced wine for dessert. The day also consisted of a long hike (spotted 21 different bird species), some guitar playing, some trampoline jumping, and a rousing game of "Guess who is thankful for what." (We made that game up.)

Well, there's your glimpse into my lovely week in California...now let's see some Mexico!

11.21.2008

one last thing

I was just sent this link to some fabulous Obama pictures.
They are pretty fabulous, and if there is one thing I will be giving thanks for on Thursday, it's our new President.

happy early t-give

Since we are both either hitting the road or hopping planes for the holiday, I am giving you my happy Thanksgiving wishes early. I'm leaving here at the crack of 11 pm tonight for an exciting adventure to the San Francisco bay area, to spend the week with Mary and David and David's siblings. I like this new tradition of mine of spending Thanksgiving with strangers, makes things interesting. I didn't know what picture to post, but happened upon this one in google images. You should think about getting Roux a head dress.

Lama + Mexico


Someday when I have more money than I have now, I'm going to buy this place out. It's like Anthropologie, only with a South American twist. You are going to love, love, love it.

Just look at this



And this


And this


And this

It's orgasmic.

I just asked Alex if we could call number two Llama and he said absolutely not. (BTW, there's an actual reason they spell theirs Lama instead of Llama).

This is over and out for me for the next week. I'll be back the first part of December more relaxed, more tan and with one more dog.