Day 31 S"NO"W MORE

We were supposed to get hit with another major snow storm. After record setting amounts in December we were okay with the miss. Feeling sorry for all of those areas that got hit hard though. Here's Brian snowblowing before the next round comes.

Day 30 Hot Chocolate

Today was the perfect day to stay indoors and enjoy some hot chocolate!

Day 29 Would you like a brat with that?

Most people eat their sauerkraut ON their brats. My son eats a huge pile first, then eats the brat...gross!

Beer brats and sauerkraut do not fit in to my work out routine :) 40 mins of pure hell this evening with Jillian as I did Banish Fat Boost Metabolism. Ugh!

Day 28 Quality Time

With both computers upstairs we are able to spend more time together...even if we are both working :) He even got to watch me do my workout...day 5 was No More Trouble Zones! 40 minutes of pure "fun"...lol!

Day 27 More Wrestling

This is one of our junior captains wrestling to a win in our dual against Albert Lea. They are a power house in our section, but we still managed to win 5 matches against them this year which is an improvement over the 2 wins we had last year.

Before heading to Albert Lea for the dual, my sister and I donated blood together and had a nice lunch at Olive Garden. The blood donation center told me to either not work out today or do only half of my normal workout. I decided to just do a resistance band DVD. Day 4 in the books :)

Day 26 Better late than never?

My ex husband was deployed to Afghanistan in October. He made the selfish decision to not tell our son and I only found out days before his deployment through the grapevine. I even had to break the bad news to James. To make matters worse he refuses to even call our son and has only sent him a couple of one line e-mails. James has had very little contact with his dad's side of the family since May of last year and no one from his family even invited James to their immediate family Christmas gatherings. No cards, no phone calls, no gifts. Very confusing for a kid. Well, today an Aunt showed up and dropped off gifts from the family. I am not sure what to think, but James was happy that they finally thought of him. So Christmas at the end of January it is. This is a collage of pictures of his dad in the giant sand box. He flies Black Hawk helicoptors so many of the gifts were related to that. It was the first time that his dad has even aknowledged that he is overseas. Better late than never I guess.

On a happier note, I decided to skip the Shred today and try something new. I went out and bought Shred It With Weights after work at the suggestion of one of my coworkers. I need to keep variety if I am going to stick with it and I have always wanted to try working out with kettleballs. Loved it!

Day 25 Golden Hour

My winters are usually spent indoors focusing on sports photography, but today was a nice change...I was able to catch the gorgeous winter setting sun outside with my favorite model :) Thank God for warmer weather!

On another note: Day 2 of Shred done :) Plus I worked out for another 40 minutes with the Wii Fit. Hopefully I can still move tomorrow!

Day 24 Shred

OK, I am back on the Shred bandwagon! If you have followed my blog in the past you may remember me participating in Jillian's 30 Day Shred with some other photogs. I lost 1/2" off each arm, waist, each thigh and more in just 7 days of workouts. I did the video about every other day. Well, it's my birthday in a month and we are headed back to Florida in two months from today...time to get shredded :)

Day 23 Dining Room Desktop

I finally convinced Brian to bring our desktop computer back upstairs for a couple of weeks. So my new "office" is now the dining room table. It is so darn cold in our basement office, plus I feel so disconnected from the rest of our family. I literally have thousands of pictures to cull and edit so this way I can still get my work done and see my family :) And YES, I am calibrating my monitor for the change in lighting. It is so important to be calibrated!

Just for fun I decided to edit an old photo that I found on my computer. I took this image of my son James over a year ago when I got my first DSLR. I thought it was so good, but I had no clue about the whole white balance thing...LOL! This is my new edit after correcting WB and a few other tweaks. I am now incorporating some steps that I learned from the Erin Cobb Clean Color tutorial in my workflow :)

Day 22 Enjoying the sun

I work 10 hour shifts so when I leave for work it's dark and when I come home from work it's dark again. I don't get to see much sun :( Luckily today was a gorgeous sunny day (if not for the below zero temps!) It was nice to see the sun light up the house and it helped with the cabin fever too :)

Day 21 Coach's Night Off

Brian had the night off to actually relax and enjoy himself before an early morning start for a tourney in the cities tomorrow. So what does a wrestling coach do with his night off? He looks up wrestling results, reads wrestling forums and watches wrestling on TV of course!

Day 20 Senior Night

Tonight was the last home meet for the regular wrestling season at JM. It was also senior night. What a great way for our two seniors to cap off their final season...each winning both of their matches! It was a very exciting night as JM beat Mankato East and then went on to upset Northfield! This is one of our senior captains working for a pin in his first match of the night.

Day 19 No photos please

Yes, today was one of those days when all I wanted was a nice photo of James, but all I got was this! I am sure you can all relate :)

Day 18 Procrastinator

Yes, it's January 18th and I am just getting around to taking my Christmas decorations down. Better late than never :) This is part of my gorgeous nativity set. It took me years to find one that I loved, but I finally found this one from Candle-lite.

Day 17 Flower Prints

I purchased these loose flower prints years ago. I didn't really really have a spot for them at the time, but I knew that I loved them. When we bought our house it was the perfect opportunity to do showcase them so I bought these mats and frames at Hobby Lobby and created this wall display that adorns a wall in our guest bedroom. Now I love them even more :)

Day 16 The gift that keeps on giving

I was very fortunate to receive several wonderful photography related gifts for Christmas this year :) Some of my gifts came in the form of education. This was one that falls into that category. My sister bought me a year subscription to Popular Photography. I love it! Two issues in a row focused on sports photography...swoon! My family has been very supportive of this new endeavor and I can not thank them enough.

On another note: I FINALLY posted my photo from Day 8! One of Brian's wrestlers contacted me asking if I could post some pictures of him on facebook so I surprised him with that picture...what a great moment for him :) Go check it out!!!

Day 15 Baby Mamas

My long time friend, Kristine, had baby shower today for some friends and co-workers. I don't get to see her very often since she lives in Mankato so it was great to spend a couple of hours with her. She is expecting her baby girl in February. Her sister, Danielle, is also expecting...a bouncing baby boy, due in just 2 weeks! How fun it must be for these two sisters to not only share the joys of pregnancy, but also be blessed to raise thier children together!

Day 14 Girls Night Out

We had a girls night out to celebrate my dear friend, Jenny's, 31st birthday. Her husband thought it would be a great idea for us to take her on a girls night out to celebrate since last year on her 30th she was pregnant with twins. We definitely had a great time and spent much of the night laughing! Happy birthday Jenny!!! You've still got it girl :) (Julie, Me, Jenny and Theresa)

Day 13 Cutie

It was fun getting to spend the evening with little McKenna. She came to cheer Brian on as he faced his old high school wrestling team tonight, Austin High. It is always a highly anticipated match up so it was great seeing Brian's team come out on top! McKenna was the best little cheerleader and she was my photography assistant for the night as well :)

Day 12 I've got my eye on you

I thought I would go for something completely different today. Yes, this is my eye. It look me awhile to get it in focus without looking through the lens...lol!

Day 11 Rose and a new logo!

This is one of my roses from JM Wrestling Parent's Night. I am not a parent to a wrestler, but Brian is still nice enough to recognize me. They were starting to dry out so I wanted to capture one before they ended up in the garbage.

You'll notice that I have a new logo!!!! Thanks to Kim at Madilu. She is still working on some other great stuff for me, but wanted to get these files out so I could start using them. I can't wait until everything else is completed. What a great way to start out 2011!

Day 10 Hair today, gone tomorrow

I have been begging James to get his hair cut for several weeks now. He hasn't had his hair cut since August at the start of cross country season. Telling him he has Justin Bieber hair enough times finally did the trick :)

Day 9 Why do I do this to myself?!

After sitting at a wrestling tourney all day on Saturday, we were ready to unwind and have some fun at Dr. Cabanela's retirement party. We don't have an occassion to get dressed up nice and celebrate very often, especially during the wrestling season, so we took advantage of it! After lots of wine at the celebration and a stop to a local bar in Rochester, we headed home to change and decided to meet some friends at our favorite local bar, the D.U. They had a band playing and there were tons of people so why not do it up right and stay til closing time! Seemed like a good idea at the time. This morning I was paying for it though. I still made it up in time for church...seemed like the longest service EVER and I was definitely kicking myself for the late night out! I am getting too old for this! Thank goodness for my little friend ibuprofen to help get me through the day :)

Day 8 First Varisty Win!

This is one of Brian's wrestlers getting his first varsity win, via pin! Congratulations! Hard work pays off!

Day 7 Spring Training

Yes, this freezing cold weather and snow is a good indication that a trip to Twins spring training is in order! Tickets go on sale to the general public tomorrow morning, but we were lucky enough to have connections and a friend who was able to buy our tickets earlier in the week. I can not wait for warm weather and outdoor baseball in March :) This will be our 7th year in Florida for spring training!

Day 6 All City Champs!

For those of you not familiar, Rochester, MN has a population of over 100,000 and there are three large public high schools. My fiance, Brian, is the head coach at John Marshall High School and tonight was one of the biggest nights of our season. We played host for the All City Triangular where all three Rochester teams get to wrestle off, the winner will be declared All City Champion. Brian's team won last year and we were definitely looking to repeat again this year. The competition wasn't really even close as JM beat Century 58-16 and then beat Mayo 52-20! This photo is of the varsity and JV wrestlers celebrating with the Clyde Ridenour Trophy after the duals. Way to go guys!!! When I have a little more time I am going to work on cleaning it up and adding a few head swaps, but for a POTD it's not too shabby :)

Day 5 Hall of Fame

Anyone who knows us, knows how much we love baseball...especially the Minnesota Twins! It was so exciting today to see former Twins pitcher, Bert Blyleven, FINALLY get inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame after 14 long years on the ballot. Put it this way, he's been on the ballot James' whole life! Clearly he was well deserving. From famed pitcher to entertaining broadcaster, Bert has been a cornerstone of the Twins organization. We were lucky enough to meet him and get his autograph on this baseball...he even included his strike out total 3,701 (5th on the all time list.) It was a great day for Twins fans...CIRCLE ME BERT!!!!

Day 4 Snowman

The best thing about this little snowman is that once Christmas is over he still gets to stay out for another couple of months :)

Day 3 Lego Love

Keeping with the Lego theme, this is a new mini fire truck that James got over the weekend. It even has a ladder with a fire fighter in a bucket at the top, but I love all the little details and the depth of field :)

Day 2 Hard at Play

My cousin's son came over to play today. They had a great time playing with all of James' legos! He told James when he left that we can not touch them until he comes back :)

Day 1 Happy New Year's Day 2011!

Day one of my new 365 day photo blog...so exciting! I learned so much in my attempt last year and can not wait to get started on 2011. I started mid year last year so I think it will be a little easier starting on the first of the year this year so I can keep up with my fellow 365ers. So, picking up where I left off, here's a photo of our champagne flutes filled with deliciousness :) We had a family night at home and stayed up way too late! No New Year's celebration would be complete without a phone call to my sister, Jill, just after midnight to wish her a HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Today, she is 35! She was the first baby born in Rochester, MN in 1976. I didn't get to see her today, but I know she follows my blog so here's your shout out sis...Hope you enjoyed your day and we'll see you soon to give you your birthday present!