Day 133 Homemade Salsa

I have been dreaming about salsa lately so it was time to break out the Fierro Salsa recipe! Yum!

Day 132 Time To Buy Stock

Yes, it's time to buy stock in the company. Since giving up pop for cross country, James has been drinking water, pink lemonade and Gatorade like crazy...this stuff is liquid gold!

Day 131 Nails By Nicole

So I figured if this photography thing doesn't work out that I can be a nail artist...ha ha! These are my own natural nails. A couple of weeks ago I had black painted tips with the silver stripe. Oddly enough more men comment of them then women. A male patient told me he liked my Lady Gaga nails (I will take that as a compliment.) He also mentioned that his daughter would love them. This is what I do to pamper myself when I am bored :)

Day 130 The Power Of A Copyright Stamp

So as I mentioned in a previous post I haven't been as diligent about taking as many pictures as I normally would because I am trying to focus on the behind the scenes stuff of photography...you know, all the boring business stuff, neccessities, documents, trying to word everything just right, setting us a gallery and hopefully a website (some day!). Well, I received my first paid order so I thought I would take a break to post some pictures on facebook for my client. To do that I had to actually figure out how to create a copyright stamp in PSE. It was so much easier than I thought...why did I put it off so long?! Now I will be STAMP HAPPY! Just another basic tool :)

Day 129 Saturday Self

This is in response to the people who post a "Monday Me" photo on their blogs. Saturday Self works the same too, right?! This is a quick pic of me before Brian and I actually ventured out of town for a couple of drinks. Very rare these days!

Day 127 & 128 Missing Memory Card :(

So I have been busy taking pictures every day, but I have searched EVERYWHERE and I can't find the one memory card that I need. I am not going to hold the blog up anymore while I search so I am moving on...

Day 126 The Work Space

I don't have a fancy work space like many photographers, however, since really committing more time to my photography I have completely taken over Brian's office. You'll notice all the wrestling stuff on the shelf in the background...wrestling Wheaties box, U of M National Champion team picture, photos, team video camera, external hard drive filled with hours of wrestling matches, even wrestling soup cans :) Maybe he'll get his office back, but by the looks of it that won't be happening anytime soon! He was lucky enough to get a sneak peak of the Kinnetz gallery before it went live though.

Day 125 Cross Country Is BACK!

I sure was one proud mama last fall after James completed his first cross country season. He did an awesome job and received a varsity letter as a 7th grader! He did well enough to earn a varsity spot to run in both the conference meet and the section meet. CC is definitely his sport (completely suits his long lanky body!). At the end of last season we created an off-season running log for him to track his miles. Well, his second year of CC is officially underway so here's to hoping his hard work pays off :) I will be cheering him along every step of the way!!!

Day 124 Editing, Editing, Editing

Once I returned home from vacation I had to finish editing the pictures from a couple week old session with the Kinnetz family. They were dying to see what I came up with. Starting out sure is a lot of work! I had to come up with someplace to host their gallery of photos so I went with a smugmug account. My page is VERY basic for now, but it served it's purpose :) Hopefully I will be able to figure out how to get the customization working correctly, but there is just too much I need to focus on first.

Day 123 Last Day Of Vacation

The weather was finally perfect...on our last day of vacation. We could relax and actually enjoy beautiful Whitewater State Park. James is in training for the start of the cross country season so it's a great place to get his running in. This was from the top of the Dakota Trail lookout...only about a bazillion steps to get there, but it is James' favorite place in the park. Brian checking out the view. James was a trooper, he ran the stairs, up & down, twice! Then I forced him to let me take a picture... All good things must come to an end and that end was in the form of a dead battery.

Day 122 2nd Annual Parlin/Clay Family Bean Bag Tourney

What a difference a day makes! After flooding one day, back to hot and dry the next. The competition was as hot as the weather! 7 teams of 2 ranging in age from 13 years old to the 50's compete for bragging rights!
Score board
Concentration and determination
Losers!

Day 121 Tumultuous Weather

It wasn't a very nice week weather wise to be on vacation. From 100+ degree days to turbulent storms! We were nearly blasted out of bed at 5:30 AM by one of the strongest storms we had witnessed since moving into our house 3 1/2 years ago. We were the lucky ones. Nearly every street in our town suffered major tree damage. We only had minor damage and our house was fine, but we were without power for 7 hours. We couldn't return to our camper until we knew that the power would be restored for we didn't want to lose all the meat in our freezer. By the time we headed to the camper and to drop James off at gun training this is what we encountered:



We left town right before the tornado sirens went off, but got stuck in torrential downpours with no visibility. After we dropped James off we went to check our camper.

Only a small amount of flooding on our site...the poor vintage Bethany made it through though! Again, we were luckier that most:

Many other sites looked like this one, including Brian's parents' site.

Day 120 Happy Camper

No camping trip is complete without a happy dog picture! Spotty truely LOVES camping more than just about anything. Here he is relaxing in his very own chair...yes, he's spoiled :)

Day 119 I'm back!

Yes, I have been absent for over a week, but that doesn't mean I quit. I have been on vacation and then busy putting some serious time into the boring/business side of my photography...more to come about that in a future post. This is a picture from the campground. It clearly doesn't do the starry sky justice, especially when I wasn't using a tripod, but we saw the most brilliant stars! We even stayed up to catch the Perseid Meteor Shower...AMAZING!

Day 118 Power Poles

James is taking gun training in St. Charles this week. It's an hour round trip so we killed time in between with a few photos just outside of town.

Day 117 Martin Zellar On The Plaza

A little afternoon lunch date with my boys to watch Martin Zellar play a free acoustic noontime concert in downtown Rochester!

Day 116 Lake Pepin

I am on vacation this week and James and I needed a little get away so we headed over to Lake City for a mom and son mini trip! The day was complete with swimming pool, hot tub, a nice dinner and a walk along Lake Pepin before the sweltering heat chased us back in doors...with a little DQ for dessert and then to swim some more :)

Day 115 Worn Out

This hot weather is far too much for poor old Spotty to handle. After playing outside for only a short time he was completely worn out and ready for a snooze!

Day 114 Icecream Truck

This truck has been traveling the streets of Stewartville every day. I finally got home early enough to see it...and hear it! Yes, complete with music. It was fun to see the little kids in the neighborhood running out to catch the truck and perfect weather for business!

Day 113 Blood Donation

I am a regular blood donor. It's something near and dear to my heart and I do it regularly. Did you know that every time you donate blood it helps 3 people?! There are so many people that benefit from donated blood...people going through surgery, people with Cancer and people with many other illnesses and diseases. If you are able to do it I would highly encourage you do donate! This was the sticker off my shirt today. A big thanks to my sister, Jill, who also came along and donated today!

Day 112 Game Night

My sister accepted a new job in Rochester so she was staying with us while she was looking for a new place to live. It was the perfect opportunity for James to dig out a bunch of games and sucker her into playing them with him :) Here they are playing Star Wars Monopoly.

Day 111 Sad Face For Icecream

This is James giving me the sad face for icecream :) Yep, he's still my baby and that makes it hard to say no! He'll even give me fake tears...what a goof :)

Day 110 Fun With Silhouettes

Oh my did we have fun shooting these tonight! Each one brings out something different...his serious pose, his joyful carefree pose and especially the super hero pose :) They make me laugh everytime I look at them! Dare I say I LOVE shooting silhouettes now?!

Day 109 In Full Bloom

Here's another picture form my beautiful flowers from Brian. The lillies are starting to open up now!