Playdate.

I had the chance to do a maternity session today, and I was pretty nervous because it's not even close to something I've done before. I should have known better though because Stacey was pretty comfortable behind the camera. And she's a photographer so she guided me through some of the more classic poses and although I see my flaws (color, anyone? ha!) I'm pretty happy with the final results. Doesn't she look great? She's not due until the end of August so I'll get to play again when she's bigger too. Overall, it was a good learning experience and I'll be much more prepared for next time.

Oh, and if she looks familiar, it's because you've seen her before. :)

P.S. Stacey, there are more! I'll email them to you very soon.

The lost files.

Some of the recovered Breckenridge files, I quickly realized when I was going through them that I actually lost more than I originally thought. Lament. Tears. Sadness. So you're stuck with these. What? These are from Carter Park and that is the raddest hill on the planet. It's a "fast" hill and you go careening down it at about 67 mph. Okay, that might be a teeny tiny exaggeration but whatever. We got the littles those slick bottomed carpety type sleds and man, those suckers MOVED.

There was a point where we got all reckless and went down in a big chain and somehow I got flipped over and dragged down to the bottom by my leg. Yes, that's right. Face down and by my leg. I ended up with snow packed all the way up my pants and believe me, my ahem sensitive areas did not appreciate the shock. I haven't been sledding like that in a million years and it was oh so fun. Ahhh. Good thing I've never fully grown up or I might have missed out. I highly recommend it. The sledding, not the not growing up. Although, I highly recommend that too now that I think about it.

Anyway, on to more current affairs. The blizzard snow is slowly but surely melting, much to our dismay. The boy's "pregnant snowlady" was an early casualty and suffered an untimely death. Untimely because I was too lazy to get off the couch and take a picture before the blazing sun went to work. Is it just me or does the whole pregnant snowlady thing strike anyone else as incredibly funny? Who thinks of that? Beside my son, of course?

Whaaaat else? Oh, we went to a birthday party this afternoon at Amazing Jake's. Amazing Jake's is just a couple steps above Chuck E Cheese in my personal social hierarchy but the kids love it so I grit my teeth and go with it. The loud movies, flashing lights and general craziness of several hundred kids running amok is more than enough to top off my irritability meter. Talk about sensory overload. Although it wasn't that bad this time because the kids all took off and we stayed at the table and ate cake. Actually, I just looked at it and tried to taste it through pure osmosis. I've been living in utter gluttony the past week so I made a pact with my thighs to stay the hell away from the cake. I'd like to think they thanked me for my restraint.

P.S. If you are so inclined, could you please spare a minute or two to send my sweet grandma some positive thoughts/prayers/whatever? She is in a bad place and it doesn't look good. Please and thank you. xoxo.

Oh, Ashton.

What a craptastic couple of days! I had to reformat my lappy because it went all crazy on me. I'm really good about not downloading things, etc so I have no earthly idea what happened. I was mildly panicked at first because I couldn't burn my pictures so I thought I was going to lose them. About three months worth, including our mini-vacation in Breckenridge. I managed to get them off about 5 seconds before it crashed and burned on me in an epic way. Or so I thought.

Turns out the folder with the vacation pictures didn't burn, major sadness. I was able to pay to recover most of them but the ones of the kids and their rootbeer and some sledding pics are gone to wherever pictures go to die. Doesn't sound too bad except the rootbeer pictures were hilarious. Breck is 9,100 ft above sea level so whenever they would take a drink of the bottled rootbeer it would foam up and go all over the place. So I had pictures of foam all over their faces, the table, etc. I'm trying to look at the positive, I got most of them back and really, I can go back to Breck and buy more rootbeer.

Sooo, last night as I'm sitting around still trying to re-load everything on the laptop, I had an epiphany. I was being punk'd. I was sure of it. Only instead of being all heehee when Ashton popped out of the shadows somewhere like everyone else is, I was gonna karate chop him. In the throat. Alas, Ashton is alive and well because he did not, in fact, pop out of the shadows because I wasn't being punk'd. At least not by dear Ashton.

Anyway, we got a little (ahem, a LOT) of snow today! I'm not sure what the "official" snowfall total is but we always end up with more than the official amount anyway. I'd guess we got around 18" of pure goodness, although it's still lightly snowing. The first picture waaaay up there is the during, it was nuts. It was a total white-out and visibility was reported at <0.1 miles. The wind was ridiculous, with gusts up to 40 mph. Happy Spring!

On second thought.

We spent the weekend in lovely Breckenridge, and on the drive up there we stopped at BeauJo's. I had never heard of it but Michelle had and was told it was THE BEST PIZZA EVER. I'm not a pizza lover (line up the firing squad!) but I'll eat it occasionally. And really, how could I pass up THE BEST PIZZA EVER?!

Anyway, this particular BeauJo's is in Idaho Springs, CO, although we had no idea what particular town we were in when we stopped. I asked the waitress and she gave me the craziest look before she answered. Idaho Springs would die a slow death if it wasn't for the tourist traffic traveling to the mountains. It used to be a thriving gold mine town but now it's kind of... depressing. Truly. The kind of place I can only stay in for short periods of time before I break out in hives.

Sooo, on to the pizza. NOT the best pizza ever. It was okay and we bitched about the nasty jalapeno's for two days. Buuut, there was one saving grace.

Honey.

As in, eating honey with your pizza. My stomach heaved at the thought but as I looked around the restaurant and saw I was pretty much the only one not indulging, I figured I should at least give it a shot. I mean, you only live once, right? And if I died of botulism then I would just come back and haunt the bastards. That would be immensely satisfying.

Turns out, it was good. Really, really good. Not good enough to go back, but good enough for me to gross out T when I called to tell him about it. Such a bonus!

Making friends.

The boy, the girl and their penguino's. And because it's kind of punk rock around here, you know there had to be a mohawk. Annnd these are from last week, trying to get caught up. Shame, shame I know.

Who I Am.

Some random lonely trees. And my shoes, of which I have worn some version for almost 20 years. Not sure what that says about me. Either I had good fashion sense really early on or I'm too lazy (read: stubborn) to change.

Your choice.

P.S. That's grass I'm standing on, in case you're wondering. Or at least what passes for it in the middle of a Colorado winter. C'monnnn spring!

Experiments.

I've been a little out of sorts lately, I haven't even had the urge to pick up my camera in over a week. I think I'm having a crisis of identity, of sorts anyway. I really love photography but I feel like I'm lacking creativity. I only photograph my kids and really, how many pictures can you take before they all look the same? I'm a little tired of it. I get excited at the thought of meeting with other photographers just to have something different to photograph. Sad, so very sad.

Anyway, I decided no matter what I was going to take pictures today. I really love that hazy look that is so popular right now. I think it takes a certain level of technical knowledge to pull it off and I figured it might get those creative juices flowing. I really wanted to get the sun cutting across him so I purposely faced him 150 or so degrees away from it in the first one. Not technically backlit but also not sidelit. I moved slightly to my left in the second to get even more yummy haze, while he stayed put.

I like it. A lot. I know that there are people that won't but that's okay because this is supposed to be for me anyway. I wanted to re-create something that other people use actions to get and I did. This has only been cropped and teeny bit of de-fogging, that's it.

 So there photo purists, you can suck it!

My son.

Favorites.

My running shoes. Which are dirty, as they should be. I have very high arches and my feet always hurt after a run. Until these. I went to a local running store and got fitted/measured/videotaped, etc and these beauties were one of three pairs recommended to me. I put them on and it felt like I was walking on clouds. They are also a full size larger than I normally wear because your feet swell when running long distances. Who knew?

And, my tattoo (one of many). Some lovely Dallas Green lyrics via Darren Hall of Bolder Ink. Dallas actually dedicated this song to me at ACL because of this very tattoo. Probably one of the top 10 highlights of my life. Seriously. (Photo courtesy of the girl)

P.S. See that scar on my ankle? Women should not have to shave their legs when 9 months pregnant. Tragedy usually ensues.

I have a secret.

I hate Monopoly. Like massive, unexplainable hatred. Like practically break out in hives at the very thought of Monopoly. My poor kids don't even ask me to play any more because they know I won't. It's so very sad.