Black and White Wednesday

Welcome to my second installment of Black and White Wednesday sponsored by Lisa at The Long Road to China. This past weekend, I snapped a few pictures of Lindy running around in the yard before we went out for dinner. I got a few I liked but I thought this one was a really lovely shot of her because I caught her being still (which is rare for her) and just enjoying looking around in a really natural, unposed way.

I find it challenging to get natural shots of the Lindy I see and love because when the camera comes out she either hams it up or looks like a candidate from America's Most Wanted--not an uncommon challenge and frustration for those photographing kids.

Happy B&W day~
Lisa

Black and White Wednesday

Lisa at The Long Road to China started a neat project last Wednesday called Black and White Wednesday. She is an amazing photographer and is on a quest to fill her walls with black and white shots. She asked her blog buddies to join in and post black and whites on their blog "walls" each Wednesday. I, too, have been looking for some black and whites to put in frames, so I thought this would be a good motivator to get that project started and finished.

I will admit I was kind of hesitant to join along today because:

1. I'm a complete novice when it comes to photography. I have very few fundamentals and am sure I break more rules than I follow.

2. For as little as I know about photography, I know even less about editing. I haven't ventured into the world of Lightroom or Photoshop, yet.

3. I'm easily intimidated and totally hard on myself.

However, I really DO want to learn and I'm not going to be able to do that until I put myself out there and start observing and being observed. One of the first things I noticed when I was looking for a photo to convert to b&w was that a lot of the pictures I've taken in the past are filled with background junk. This one wasn't.

I took this picture of Lindy on May 31, 2009 before church as I caught her twirling in the front yard. I am sure we were late and it was a complete run back in the house and get the camera moment, so I was glad to catch anything decent. It was just with my little Canon POS (circa 2005) and I cleaned it up in Picasa. I was psyched to see the catch light in her eyes, although, I'm not sure you can tell with the size that'll show up on blogger (note to self--figure out how to post bigger-sized pix).

Happy Wednesday!!!

Holiday highlights

Happy new year!

It seems I'm a bit slow getting myself into gear for the new year. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and that 2010 is off to a good start for you.

We had a very nice but exhausting Christmas and New Year's.

For Christmas, we traveled to southern California for a week. Some of the highlights included:

A quick jaunt to the famous Santa Monica Pier. For those of you in the throes of winter, here's some California sun for you...





A fun day at Knott's Berry Farm. Sure they don't have the mouse or princesses but they have the cute beagle we all love and a world famous fried chicken dinner.





The FIRST time for Lindy to sit on Santa's lap...


LOTS of bonding time with the family. We were so fortunate to see my grandparents, parents, brother's family, aunts and uncles, and cousins.





Christmas morning at Matt & Erin's, Christmas day and evening at Uncle Steve & Aunt Pauline's, and a late celebration at home. Christmas morning included "a white Christmas" thanks to "Uncle" Kyle's HUGE box of styrofoam peanuts.











An educational visit to the Reagan Library in Simi Valley and a tour of a retired Air Force One plane.

Time at my grandparents (which somehow went undocumented in photos)...

After we returned home and had our quiet Christmas, we turned around and headed to Houston for quick family trip.

The focus of the trip was to watch Navy play Missouri in the Texas Bowl and to have some quality time as a threesome. We did a lot of driving around, a little bit of shopping, some yummy eating, and some exploring in downtown Houston.

The game was GREAT and our seats were AWESOME! We were in the 4th row on the 40 yard line right behind Navy's bench. Navy trounced Missouri which was both surprising and exciting. We got to see the elder President Bush (as we figured we would) toss the coin. If you look REALLY closely, you can see him in the pictures. He's the one with the ball cap and blue blazer.








Just composing this post has made me kind of tired, so now I know why I felt so exhausted after our trips!

We closed out our year in a wonderful way and we started the new one with many hopes, dreams, and good intentions. We don't know what the new year holds but we pray it will be one of good health, happiness, and many blessings.