Birthday, Bread & Books

Birthday

My grandfather (or Bumpa, as AnnaLaura calls him) turned 88 this past week. In honor of this event, we* had a birthday party for him yesterday. AnnaLaura and her cousins, Jeana and Paige, had lots of fun tickling Bumpa and running rampant around my parent's house. Somehow, my mom managed to get everyone on the couch for an impromptu family picture. A thank-you goes out to my Aunt Barb for taking the picture for me.

It was a wonderful evening with great food, lots of hugs, and hyper-active kids running in circles around the place. Paige followed AnnaLaura around (as usual) while trying to say her name, which comes out as "Ann-lala", which is pretty close. The kids obviously had fun, and we (my sister, myself, and our husbands) kept trying to escape.

I had a chance to use my new camera some more in front of Dad, just so I could drive him crazy. I use to worry about him breaking into my house to steal my CDs (mainly Mike's G&R CDs), but now I worry about my camera disappearing, only to reappear in his car. Why is it that I see a camera purchase in my father's future?

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Bread

One of my favorite memories of childhood revolves around bread....fresh baked bread. Every week, Grandma baked 4 loaves of bread. We would often visit on bread-day, and the aroma...ooooh, the aroma! If you could package to smell of bread baking, you'd be rich. Because of this, I decided to try my hand at it. I figured that since I'm pretty good with Grandma's Cream Puff recipe I'd try Grandma's Bread recipe. Oh, you should smell my house right now.

Well, lets put it this way - I'm currently on piece #2

I told Mom that I'd bring a loaf to her tomorrow, and let me tell you, I am really kicking myself for offering. In all honesty I could sit down and eat a whole loaf by myself. After I take 2 loaves to my mom's tomorrow (so she can take 1 to Grandpa) I'll only have 1 1/2 loaves for myself and that's going to last how long? Two days, maybe? When am I going to have time to bake bread again? Who knows. I got lucky having today off while AnnaLaura is in school. ACK!

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Books

This week is Banned Book Week. Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banned_books and see how many of your favorite books have been banned! You won't believe some of the titles, trust me. Spend some time checking out the web site on the link below. There is some very interesting information there that, I feel, should be read by everyone. I couldn't believe the number of books that I grew up with that are on the top 100 challenged books and/or authors. I mean, who would ban Roald Dahl? Or Judy Bloom? While I was aware of many wonderful books and authors on this list (Mark Twain, for one) I was absolutely astounded by some of the listings. So, please check it out and make sure to pick up your favorite banned book this week! Don't let me be the only one with my nose in a book... And please leave a comment on your favorite banned book, I'm interested to see them!

*okay, Mom and Dad....errrrr, Mom had a party.

Farewell, old friend

Well, I've done it. My beloved rust-heap of a car is now gracing someone else's driveway. *sniff* Believe it or not, I will miss that car. And why have I done away with it? Well......I traded it for a camera. Yep, you heard right. I am now the proud owner of a Nikon D70.

I borrowed this same camera to shoot a wedding this past summer, and loved it. When we received the Nikon D80 at work a few weeks ago, I offered to buy my co-worker's camera (so he could buy the new one), and to my surprize he said yes (actually, he said yes after calling his wife for permission). The next day I jokingly offered to trade him my car for it. Next thing I knew he was calling his wife again. Seems that he had been looking for a junk heap to last him until next spring. Lucky me!! I had been planning on selling it, and hoping that I could get $500 for it.

Since I have now (finally) entered the digital age, perhaps I can figure out how to use all this photo-editing software that I've had on my computer for 5 years. Can anyone believe that I've worked in a camera store for 5 years and am just NOW getting a digital camera? And hey, look! I figured out how to "merge" two photos together. I'm cookin' now!

On a slightly similar note, a regular costomer of mine has decided to photograph weddings again (he runs a modeling agency and had stopping doing wedding photography about 3 years ago) and asked if I'd be interested in working with him!! Yippee!! I absolutely love shooting weddings! Come on, Paul....book those weddings!!

Summer Fun

This summer we spent 10 days at the family cottage on East Bay, just outside Traverse City. For 4 of those days we had a full house...errrr, cottage. Both nephews and a niece joined us for swimming, s'mores, and "whale-pulting." And what is whale-pulting? Well, take one giant inflatable whale, add 2 or 3 kids, and let them do what comes naturally - jump up and down and try to launch your cousin in the air. Isn't it great that kids these days can so easily find entertainment with nothing more than a beach toy? Nevermind the fact that they were 30 feet from the bay and the water was warm. Oh well.




We had a thunderstorm blow through while we were there...and I got a picture!!! Yippee for me!! My first ever lightning shot on my first try! Luckily AnnaLaura slept through the whole thing. When the wind blew all the windows open she merely rolled over. I did manage to finally get my car windows rolled up after I re-shut the cottage windows (which was after the inside of my car got soaked).

Unfortunately, the sun kept setting...and I kept taking pictures, and more pictures, and more pictures (7 rolls of film, yes film, but don't worry - I'm trading my car for a digital camera next week). I have made so many copies of some of these sutsets for people, I'm thinking I need to sell some. And then I need to shoot some weddings so that I can buy accessories for my new camera. Which means that I need a website. Which means I need to learn how to make a website. Anyone out there with some free time to make a website for me? Anyone?


I will leave you with this picture I managed to take without AnnaLaura noticing. Of course once she realized that I was taking her picture she stopped cooperating. This meant that I had to settle for taking more sunset pictures.

Well folks, I still owe you some first day of school pics...still haven't gone looking for that CD. When I find it though, I will share...I promise.

Ahoy Matey!

Some one turns 5 tomorrow!!

AnnaLaura's Birthday party was on Sunday. There's nothing like a house full of people to make you appreciate having some alone time. However, it actually was alot of fun, the multitude of children were rather well behaved, the menfolk seemed glued to the football game, and the rest of us stood outside (freezing) while pretending to watch the children. All in all, no one got hurt and much fun was had by all (or at least they all acted like they enjoyed themselves - thank you, everyone).

This year we had a Pirate Party. For the first time the theme was not Pooh related! Yippee! Also for the first time, I did not draw a picture on the cake. Instead, I stuck toys on the cake and called it good (thank you Playmobile)! I still had to frost the thing though...I hate frosting cakes. Really.

Since this was a Pirate Party, AnnaLaura received a Pirate Ship from Grandma (and a rowboat and raft - with a Pirate each - that I needed for the cake). It really is a fun ship with LOTS of little pieces that I'm sure will soon be in the vacuum bag. Let's not talk about all the Polly Pocket parts that will be in the vacuum too. Needless to say, my living room is an absolute disaster. I won't mention my kitchen if you don't.


School started last week and already AnnaLaura, who was soooo excited last week, wants to stay home because "cleaning up" is "too hard." Poor child. I wonder where she got that from.... I have pictures of the first day of school, but I'm not sure of the location of the CD since the house was cleaned pre-party. When it is located they will be posted.

Also coming soon, pic from our stay at the cottage. It's mainly sunsets, but there's some fun "whale-pulting" too. Stay tuned!