Game Day = Much Better Weather :-)

In just two weeks, Nathan and his team have improved leaps and bounds.  The overall game time was cut down by 45 minutes today and on several occasions, the inning changed because they forced three outs vs giving up 5 runs (the rule for this age group). 

Nathan earned a couple of hits today and had the chance to play 1st base for an inning. 

And as the title suggests, today is sunny and warm!  Tonight Erin and I are going out with friends and going to enjoy some adult company and a winery or two in Woodinville.  Gotta love Springtime!

An evening with Bambi Cantrell

I'm always on the lookout for photography related learning opportunities, so I was psyched to find out that Bambi Cantrell was going to be on Microsoft's campus to give a free 3 1/2 hour session. 

There was quite a large turn out as you can see from the shot above.  After Bambi walked us through her portfolio and talked to us about some of the techniques she employs, she brought out a model and began to shoot with her studio lighting setup.

It's too bad (for me) that there were so many people there.  It made it kind of impossible to get any good shots of my own and given how photogenic the model was, I'm sure there would have been some great ones for my portfolio. 

But the important thing was that I walked away with some great new ideas that I can't wait to try out at my next shoot. 

Not the best day for baseball practice

Nathan had baseball practice on Tuesday and well, it was cooold. I think the temp dropped 15+ degrees while he was out on the field.

Nathan didn't seem to mind though. Here are a couple of shots of him taking his turn at bat.

Cole on the other hand sought out the biggest mud puddle he could find and stomped until he was soaked. I think Erin was a little relieved though, since that gave her an excuse to wait with Cole in the heated car while Nathan finished practice.

Tomorrow, Nathan has his team pictures followed by a game, so cross your fingers for nice weather!

Comments now work on the blog!

Thanks to Me Ra for pointing out that comments were broken on the blog.  I fixed it up and it should now be working, so feel free to comment away!

A few more shots from Easter

As promised, here's a few shots of the kids we took on Easter.  This first one is of Ian during the East egg hunt.  There were 6 'golden eggs' with money in them.  It was so funny watching the kids that were 5 and up going nuts looking for the golden eggs.  Reminded me of Willy Wonka and the golden tickets...

We procrastinated this year and ended up coloring eggs on Easter Sunday. 

And you can't have too many pictures of Cole.  I couldn't decide which one to post, so I'm posting three ;-)

  

 

Erin captures amazing portraits of Claire

Friends of ours invited us over to their house on Easter for brunch and an Easter egg hunt (for the kids).  Erin brought the camera and grabbed these shots of Claire. 

  

The added bonus is that I think it is safe to say that Erin is completely addicted to Photoshop, so I know that I won't have to beg to upgrade to CS3 this Summer ;-)

Happy Easter!

Erin and the boys have been building a little Easter village out of cookies all week.  I just wish Erin was a little more creative ;-)

We're heading out to a friends house for an Easter egg hunt and brunch and then we'll be back to cook a big dinner tonight with family.  Check back for more pictures!

 

A great day for photography

We had our second day in a row of sunshine and temps in the 70s. The morning started off with Cole's friend Danny visiting and Erin got some great shots of the kids playing.  Here's one of Danny:

 

Later in the afternoon, I came home from work early and followed Erin over to Beaver Lake Park. Erin had made plans to meet up with our friend Lori to photograph the kids.   Lori is also a photographer and  has four very photogenic kids.  Check out this shot of Courtney that Erin captured!

And here's a shot of Lori.

Click on any of the pictures to see Erin's slideshow.   

Cole Turns Three Years Old!

Our youngest has just turned three, which is surreal to me.  We still lived in Ohio when Cole was born and I remember driving to the hospital and calling our family saying that Erin was in labor and having no one believe me (since it was April 1st). 

 

Here's a shot of Cole talking on the phone on his birthday and in case you are wondering what is on his arm, it was marker (boys will be boys).

Then there is Cole's cake.  He told Erin he wanted a brown cake.  Then it became a brown cake with star wars.  Then it evolved into a brown cake with star wars and blue triangles and squares.  So, bizarre as it may look, that is what he got ;-)

Here's a shot of all three boys with Cole getting ready to blow out the candles.  Not sure what he wished for; probably had something to do with action figures, matchbox cars or monsters though....

Nathan loses his 2nd front tooth

 

Another rite of passage this morning as Nathan lost his 2nd front tooth.  I think it was the corn on the cob last night that finally did the trick.  He refused to let Erin or I cut it off the cob, but managed to eat it using his bottom teeth only.  Kind of funny to watch and so Nathan.

Spring is in the air

Here's a shot I took of a Senetti Blue flower in our back yard a couple of weekends ago.  Spring is finally kicking into gear in the NW! I took this picture using my Nikon D2x and a Nikkor 105mm macro lens.

Kate finishes the Ironman 70.3 at Oceanside CA

I flew to San Diego this weekend to watch my sister Kate compete in her first 1/2 Ironman at Oceanside CA.  From what her friends tell me, she has been training religiously for months and it showed on Saturday. 

From the time she entered the water to the finish line, she had a smile on her face, so it was no surprise that she now plans to go the distance and run a full iron man at some point in the future. 

We could only catch glimpses of Kate along the course, mainly just before and after the transitions.  The picture above was taken as Kate was finishing her 56 mile bike.  She was telling everyone afterwards about how hard the hill section was.  She said it started at about 30 miles into the ride.  I found this map that shows that the riders had to labor up about an 800' climb in elevation; three quarters of which was inside of 5 miles! 

This was Kate when she was roughly half way through her 13.1 mile run.  I've also posted a bunch of additional pictures from her race here for you to enjoy.  In addition to meeting her goal of finishing the race, she also came within 15 minutes of her stretch goal - to complete the course in 6 hours and 30 minutes.  GO KATE!!!