Monday, September 21, 2009

Junebugz

Last Thursday was picture day at Busy Bee Academy (Juno's preschool). He sat so well for the photographer (which was a huge surprise to me. He hasent sat on something in a strange environment since I traumatized him with the Snow White ride at Disneyland a year ago).

We made a point to watch the girl before him take her pictures so he could see that all was good and there would be no scariness. Except for the creepy bearded photographer who said 'that's gooood huunney' one too many times.

Once we got home I just couldn't let him go without snapping a few photos of him myself. Here are a few of the pictures I took (with a little more personality than the school shots) of my little Junebug.




Saturday, September 19, 2009

Beach Day

In an attempt to squeeze as much outdoor play into the last remaining weekends of summer, we headed to the coast. Florence is about 45 minutes west from where we live and it's such a beautiful beach. I thought it would be weird living further from a beach than we were used to in la, but with all the traffic on the 101 it turns out to be the same amount of time.

The Oregon Coast is awesome. The whole coast line is owned by the state or rather 'The People'. So that means, no private beaches for you to trespass on and no crazy parking lots charging $15 per car. Just mile after mile of empty beach. About an hour north of Florence is a town called Newport. That is where the Oregon Aquarium is located. We have been gathering up the stamina to drive all the way up there. Maybe in the winter, it'll give us something to do while Eugene is covered in a blanket of cloudy rain.

This past Sunday on our trip to the beach, we decided to bring Bella, our new Cocker Spaniel. She just seems like a dog that would love running in the sand and frolicking in the water. While she loved the sand, the water was entirely too cold for her. She took one dip and that was good enough for her.

I'm still getting used to the internal light meter on my camera. Haven't quite figured out how to meter off of something darker so it doesn't automatically take the reading from the lightest thing and darken the whole photo. This is why some pictures appear to be darker than others. Giving the illusion that it's later in the day. All of the pictures were taken between 2 and 5 (brightest part of the day).

Juno found a walking stick and poked around at all the jelly fish looking blobs in the sand. He had to point out every shell to us. "Shell right HEEEERE!!!!"



Ryan and the bug decided to race a wave. As you can see, the wave won.


This is me trying to practice some portraits. This huge log was perfect for sitting and framing.

My wonderful boys.

Bella the black blob.


This is an example of a light meter taking a reading from the brightness of the water and sky. It made this image look as if it were 7 or 8pm. I like it though. It makes me feel cold. haha


I'm sure that this was probably our last trip to the coast for the summer. The weather is starting to change into fall and the beach will just be too cold for the remainder of the year.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Labor Day Weekend

This weekend we were lucky enough to be invited back up to Eric's parent cabin at Wauna Lake for the holiday weekend. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate. The forecast was rain Friday through Monday. The clouds behaved themselves for the most part. We were able to go out on the boat to the other lakes and look for turtles.



Shelby and Ryan eagerly awaiting some grilled salmon and veggies.


I love this picture mainly because of Juno's facial expression. Hahaha. We went on some hikes and looked for bugs. And bears of course.

This place is so awesome. I feel so privileged to live near so much beauty.

Watchin' movies and eatin' pasta waiting for the rain to come..


And it did...

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

We're goin' to the fair y'aaaawllll

Come One, Come All and see the white trash come out of the wood work! I knew they had to be somewhere.

Ryan, Jb, and I took a drive down to the Lane County Fair one Sunday. It was a relief from other fairs we'd been to where you have to wait an hour under the summer sun just to get your tickets to get in. Here, there was no line to get tickets and we were the 4th people in line to get in. We went in the mid afternoon. I guess everyone was waiting for the evening when things really got wild! (yikes)

I wish I had snapped a shot of the dude giving rides in his monster truck in a fenced off portion of the parking lot. There were two families strapped into the seats in the bed of the truck. Two toddlers gripping on to each of their mothers screaming for dear life. The Mothers were holding onto their kids with a I can't believe I paid $20 for this look in their eyes and the Dads rode with a little smile creeping out of the side of their mouth as if they were finally getting to fulfill some monster truck fantasy from when they were kids (which wasn't that long ago from the looks of them). The truck did figure eights for about five minutes and Ryan and I joked about how we wished it would have been figure eights for an hour.

After we walked through the gates, the fair was pretty much any other fair.



Food booths, Rides, Carnies, Animal tents, oh and your run of the mill Are You Going To Heaven booth.




Junebug got a Snow Cone. We also got some Cotton Candy but he didn't want anything to do with it. I think his taste buds are still governed by texture. Oh well, more for me!

This ride was the only one he agreed to go on and as you can see he had a fantastic time.



Ryan won him a frog.

We lasted for a couple hours then called it quits and headed home. Thankfully Juno is still too young to want to win every prize from every booth and ride every ride until he pukes.

It was a fun day and I'm happy to say I've had my share of Fairs for the next couple years!