The Bike Family

When I took the above photo J said "you can't sell that bike!". I guess I've been so crazy about making some extra dough on Craig's list lately that he assumes anything I photograph is going to be up for grabs online. Not in this case. I just wanted to document our latest family activity which is going for bike rides.

We all happen to love it and as long as we take the low traffic back roads there are plenty of places to ride to, such as the barbecue place downtown where you can get a chopped beef sandwich for two bucks or the nearest subway which currently has $5 foot longs.

Then when we are not eating there are TWO different parks nearby, a library, and of course family video. Z isn't too confident on his big boy bike so he usually rides the tricycle.

Once we get going we travel in a train formation. J is the leader of the pack, SJ rides in the bike trailer behind him.

Z's bike is being pulled by a bungee cord attached to the trailer, and I follow behind to make sure we don't loose anybody! Once the little guy gets tired he can easily ride along in the trailer with his sister.

My favorite part of this tradition is the horn. The kids like me to honk this old rusty horn before we start.

If we stop for any reason Z won't let us get away with starting up again until I honk the horn. I am pretty sure everyone in the neighborhood probably hears that squeaky horn and thinks here comes the crazy bike family. It's a fair warning. HONK! HONK!

Family Video

One of my favorite activities to do with the kids is walk to the Family video store that is just a couple blocks from our house. They have a section for free kids movie rentals and we use it A LOT. The walk there gives us some exercise and it's free family fun. I feel kind of guilty because I never spend any money there, but the employees are always extremely welcoming, and they even clean up the scratched discs for us.This is my way of saying THANK YOU Waxahachie Family Video. You guys are the best!

My mom is in town right now so tonight she took the stroll with us so that we could return some rentals and check out the Incredibles. We've seen the Incredibles several times, and Z thinks he is one of the Incredibles and so that is what he is going to be for Halloween this year.

My mom got a Dash costume that I have been working on customizing and she is making a gnome costume for SJ so that she can be the girl from Gnomeo and Juliet.

I am really looking forward to seeing how the costumes turn out and hope to get a lot of use out of them this weekend and Monday!

Party Animal

I like to dance. When I photograph weddings I get jealous of the guests because they always look like they are having so much fun on the dance floor and I have to work. Lucky for me I have had a few chances to get my boogie on here lately. In fact I worry that I may be building a reputation on my face book. If you look at all the latest photos I've been tagged in you might be inclined to think I some kind of wild party animal.

Exhibit A: That's me in the red dress. Tagged on August 25, 2011

Exhibit B: Here I am in a feather boa, showing off various party faces in a photo booth with the fam. Tagged on September 20, 2011

Exhibit C: You may recognize the creme dress in this scandalous photo which I was tagged in on September 27, 2011.

Exhibit D: My caption on this picture was "For the record I do not do drugs" because I look like stumbling heroin addict or something. Tagged YESTERDAY.

A cyber stalker could potentially conclude that I have some kind of wildly active social life. And believe me I could party in the PG rated sense all night long. Most of the time though the closest I am to a dance party is a decent episode of Yo Gabba Gabba. In the past 2 months I've been to a Latino birthday party, Oktoberfest, my ten year reunion, a 50th anniversary party, and lastly a dear friends mustache bash (long story). So WOO, there have been some fun times, but I don't how long I can keep up with this Facebook alter ego. I wouldn't be surprised if my tagged photos soon return to looking like this one which I was tagged in this time last year.

But that's okay, whether it's dancing shoes and disco balls, or sweats and an ergo baby carrier, I can't worry too much about what pictures show up on my social networks, after all, my kids are still too young to be embarrassed.

Everybody Has a Story

We don't have cable, but we do have instant netflix and when I saw that we could watch American Pickers online I got all kinds of excited. The show is about these guys that go all over the country, looking for old junk that they can make a buck on.

J and I LOVE this show. It's on the history channel because all of the antiques that they find have a history of their own, and as they say in the intro, the people they meet are a breed all their own.

That's one thing I love about the show is that they can just make a random stop on the side of the road and meet the most fascinating people. It reminds me of segment called Everybody Has a Story with CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman. Steve would throw a dart at a map and look up random subjects in the phone book of that town to do a news story on whoever answered the phone. A couple clicks on youtube about some of the stories he did just left me in tears. Like this one or this one.

What I love about these shows is also what I love about my job, I have the opportunity to meet and photograph all kinds of people from around the community and hear a little bit of their stories (or read about them when the magazine comes out).

I already shared a couple stories that were featured in this months issue, and here is one other that really intrigued me.

Don is retired, but makes knifes as a hobby.

I love the facts that uses all sorts of materials, from elk antlers to yard sale scraps, to make his knives out of. He has made 154 knives. If it were me I probably would have lost count, but not this guy, he has each knife documented in little notebooks that he doodles and makes notes on.

Eventually Don started keeping a photo album with pictures of each knife along with notes of their own.

Most of the knives he gives as gifts or donations, although some people insist on paying him, which after seeing these treasures I am sure they are worth every penny and then some.

Don and I didn't have a ton in common although he could have talked my ear off all day and his wife warned me of that. I really connected with the scribbles and doodles he had in his notepads. They reminded me of the drawings I do when I pack for a trip or the notes that I jot down all day long, but his stuff was more organized and kept together in one place. I am reminded that everyone does have their own unique story, but in some ways we are all part of the same story.

The October Issue

Today I photographed a house that will be featured in the Midlothian Now magazine in the fall of 2012. The featured fall home is shot a year ahead of publication because we want to showcase them when they are fully decorated, but other than Autumn and Christmas houses, we work about two months in advance. Like back in August when I wrote a post called "the photos I've been taking" and I mentioned that I had been doing a lot of fun shoots, but couldn't share them until October. Well, here is a little peek at what I was working on at the time.

I am not a huge football fan, but when I got the assignment to photograph a former NFL player who was in THE FIRST EVER SUPER BOWL I was pretty pumped.

So what if his team didn't win, he still managed to get on the cover of Sports Illustrated (#65) and not many people can claim that!

I also had the opportunity to photograph this very cool lady who teaches aerobic workouts that involve jingly skirts for everybody. Sounded like fun to me.

She's got tons of energy, is in great shape, and you would never know she is in her 50's.

I have actually met up with her since photographing her class and she invited me to be a part of the Zumba party which I would love to do, and this time no camera.

Build a Dress

I had fun linking up with "what I wore" for my 10 year reunion so I thought I would do it again for the 50th anniversary party that I have been writing about this week.

A couple months ago I found a dress at a thrift store, but I couldn't try it on. I reluctantly bought and it did fit, even if it meant having to hold my breath to get it zipped up. So now I had this dress, but I had no idea where I was going to wear it.

When I found out my in laws anniversary would be a brown, western, yellow rose of Texas type theme, I thought the dress would be perfect.

The color and style matched what my husband was wearing too.

So now I knew where to wear it and just had to figure out what to wear it with...

First came the orange shoes, which I ended up not wearing because all the ladies were doing pedicures before hand and I wanted to go open toed, but next time I'll pick these thrift store heels.

Then I found a simple brown cardigan

When I was out looking for the cardigan I spotted this necklace that matched perfectly and since both items were on sale I went for it, because I knew I could use them for more than just this one occasion.

Lastly I threw on the belt which was also a thrift store find.

That's me on the end with the rest of the family.

I gambled on a used strapless dress that I couldn't try on and 4 accessories later I think it worked.

The Making Of

I spent a lot of time working on the slide show for Don & LaDon's 50th anniversary (yes those are their real names). I had tons of material to work with and was hoping to squeeze over 70 years of history into 10 minutes.

The story begins with The wedding photos of their parents. As the song "You're Just To Good To Be True" plays you see a sequence of black and white photos of J's parents up until they met and got married at ages 17 and 20. The next song "50 Years From Now" lyrically fits perfectly with this time in their life when they go through raising 4 daughters and the loss of their 6 week old baby boy.

From there we transition into "Love Like Crazy". I am not a big country fan, but this song has such a good message to it. During this part of the presentation we have the arrival of J and his brother who were born 8 years after their youngest sister. One of my favorite pictures is of LaDon with her daughter with their sons that were born 7 weeks apart.

Then we hear "God Gave Me You" and start to get a closer to current day with pictures of the grandkids and the siblings and spouses raising kids through the years.

My favorite part of the slide show comes when we hear "You're Just To Good To Be True" again and we are back to the old black and white photos of the family on tractors, but then the song switches to the hip hop version and we see the next generation of kids on tractors in color. The legacy theme continues with past and present photos of the family who played football and lastly instruments.

The video closes with "Love Story" and shows a brief montage of portraits of the happy couple throughout the years. I threw this in because "Love Story" is my mother in laws ring tone and I really wanted to end with a recap of 50 years that focused on the two of them.

So that's probably too thorough of a description, but I just wanted to share their story and also what my thinking was with the flow of this project. This was one of the longest slide shows I've ever put together, but I enjoyed doing it. It was like getting a front row seat to the past 50 years of their marriage and makes me really curious about the next 40 years of mine!

50 Years

She's too young. It's too soon. Her family is weird. There are a lot reasons J's family could have rejected me when I became a part of their family 11 years ago, but they didn't. Maybe they could relate to our situation, because when J's parents got married they were young too and against all odds chose to jump in with both feet and yet here they are 50 years later celebrating their golden anniversary. In 50 years they've lived in 4 states, had 7 children, 10 grandchildren, and 4 great grandchildren and some of those number are still growing. This past weekend we all gathered to celebrate their love and it was a very special time that I was honored to be a part of. They've taught me a lot about what commitment means and I wish them the best in all the years ahead.

We're Still Breathing

This is a really great week for a blog break for me because I am up to my eyeballs in video/slideshow editing for my in laws 50th wedding anniversary! I will definitely be checking in with details about all of that next week, but I thought I should at least drop a line in regards to national headlines that SPARKED on Monday.

I recieved calls from relatives across the country checking in to make sure that we were safe. Safe from what? was my initial reaction until I went outside to see the huge cloud of smoke in the air. The news broke around 11:00 am. There had been a massive explosion at a chemical plant that is just over one mile away from our house!

Helicopter photo I found online

As I went to get groceries that afternoon I got a slightly better view and I just stared in shock saying "I have NEVER seen anything like this in my entire life."

My latest instagram

Z responded that he had never seen anything like that in his whole life either. He was a little scared that the scary smoke alien was following us, but fortunately this was not the case. In fact other than being able to see it, and watching buses bring evacuated children out of nearby schools I was completely unaffected by the event. I texted a friend of mine whose husband works for Magna Blend which is where the fire occured and not only is he okay, but everyone that was in the building even when it happened made it out uninjuried. So praise the Lord for that. I drive by this place almost every single day when I get on the highway and even 3 days later the smell is overwhelming! It's almost like a combination of an overdone Turkey, 4th of July fireworks, and a science expirement gone bad. When we drove by after church last night there were still many rescue workers on the scene and you could see the smoldering orange glow.

The reports are saying that our post chemical explosion air quality in Waxahachie is completely safe and so I personally have not held off on the breathing at this point. Obviously I'm grateful that everyone is safe. Now I just have to get through photographing two big events this weekend, and that could be explosive on another level.

All Grown Up

I have had so many emotions about my ten year reunion you would have thought I was a still an adolescent teenager. I went from planning what I would wear a year in advance, to announcing that I would not be going at all. In the end I did go, and I am glad. While Facebook certainly does dilute some of the excitement of finding out what has become of everyone since High school, social networking is still a very limited media when it comes to reconnecting.

The girls I hung out with in High School were all in the top 10% of our class of 300+, were far more involved in extra curricular activities than I was, and had success written all over them. Some of these girls I have kept in touch with through the years, while others I saw for the first time since High School.

I should mention that there were guys there too, but who cares. Well, I used to, but lets not talk about those memories.

These four gorgeous gals that I'm with were some of my best friends back in the day.

Can you tell who is who from this picture of the 5 of us 12 years ago?

We were all about 15 years old in this photo. The girl on the far left is a graphic designer for Fossil now. I LOVE hearing her stories! Next to her is a girl whose heart is bigger than anyone I know. She spent 3 years doing missions and teaching in Slovokia, and is currently back in the States teaching minors at the juvenile detention center. Her stories are wild. Right next to heris my jet setting friend who is a commercial real estate asset manager. She has tried to explain to me what she does, but I don't totally get it, even after a google search. Next to her, in the blue tank top, is my friend who heads up a women's ministry for a large church in Dallas, and on the far right that's me, the brunette of the group and it may be hard to believe, but I am the only mom.

So, we are all doing our own thing living completely different lives, yet we all still genuinely care about each other and get along as though no time has gone by at all. Obviously I am proud of my friends and their endeavors. And as the only nerd at the reunion toting around pictures of my family in my wallet to show off to anyone willing to try to see in the dark, I think it is safe to say I am proud of what I have done with my life as well. Here's to the class of 2001.