Family Photo Shoot: Part 1

It's no secret that I love taking pictures. I also love looking at pictures (and scrapbooking them, too). There's something so magical about capturing a person's element, their spirit in a photo. And I love how the photo lasts forever.

I always go back to my childhood to explain how much I photography. I have very little memory of my life before age 7, and unfortunately, my father died when I was 7. I have hundreds of photos of me, and dozens of him, and handful of me with him. In an effort to trigger some of my forgotten childhood I did a high school project on memory & photographs, inspired by Bradley Speech Team member Carrie Spencer and her rendition of Marion Winik's Sixteen Pictures of My Father. (Carrie was my coach at speech camp the summer between junior and senior year, and I also performed Marion Winik's prose for my high school speech team with her coaching; I found the piece extremely theraputic, and life changing).

In response, the last semester of my senior year I researched the visual as a memory trigger, and after freewriting and journaling while looking at my pictures I was flooded with memories. Real memories, the tangible kind. I recalled the feeling of textures on the fireplace in our apartment, smells of the wood cleaner my mom used, and sight outside the frames of the pictures, simple things like the cords by the television, and the pages of the books on the shelves in the pictures, so specifically I can remember the inside of a small blue antique guide my mom had with Bible-thin pages, and an excyclopedic format. The project was a deep soul-searching, and ultimately healed many of the wounds I had from my father's death.

In junior high I had a camera, and took many pictures. In high school I took some basic photo classes, had my own camera, and fell in love with the nice expensive camera being Drama Club President gave me access to. I became speech team historian, and took hundreds of pictures of the plays, the speech tournaments, and the basic life of my friends and I. I even recall, embarassingly, subjecting everyone to multiple slide shows that were way too long... I had no clue what I was doing back then. :)

In college I was the picture taker, too. I have, again, hundreds of pictures of us doing every random thing, from laughing, drinking, giving speeches, driving, and winning National Titles. To date, I've taken thousands of pictures of my kids, and they are only 4 and 2 years old. I have pictrues of the tantrums, the fights, the bruises, the kisses, hugs, cuddles, and mundane.

Death is still admitedly my biggest fear. The thought of me, or one of my immediate family members passing on paralyzes me. I panic at the thought, and swing into action: hence the blog, the scrapbook, the journals, the stories. I know my husband being a solider doesn't really statisically put him a more risk for death than the average person driving on the freeway in LA, but I still worry about his looming deployment.

That being said, I asked Alyssa to photograph our family together outside, in the best light possible, at the park, near scenic parts of our town. I took many of the pictures myself, in fact all the of the shots I'm not in. But, Alyssa endured a few hours of taking pictures of our family, and for that, I am so grateful!

Here are some shots from the beginning of our session, at a local park. I love parks as a setting for photos b/c the surrounding bring out the kid in everyone. I think we captured the kid in each of us in this small sampling of images.

First, a few of the trees:

The boys:

Dad assists on the slide. I laid in the sand to get this one:

The monkey bars, wild kid Hunter:

Bubba:

Mens:

As Ben used to call it, the Me-Go:

The kid in Alyssa:

The kid in me:

Jason used his several-pound advantage to trap Theo at the top of the teeter-totter. Thus, we see the kid in Theo, who we see quite often actually:

And, the kid in Jason:

Ben's outer kid:

The first family shot... tons more to come.

Test Driving the Park

One of the larger parks in town tore down their older "toys" last year. Ben was noticeably upset when his favorite slide vanished and in it's place sat a vacant pile of sand for months and months. Late this summer I noticed the city finally replaced the equipment, and have had a visit to the park on the to-play list for some time now. Last month we finally got out to the park to test-ride the new stuff. The boys love the park, and were delighted!

They race to the new slide:

Obviously the new slide is a hit with the kids.

While we were at the park we also needed to roll in the sand, too.

Gotta love autumn.

Ben's not a fan of the swings, but Hunter loves em'.

When Ben wears his hat he pulls it on/off, and his ears get tucked down like this... he looks so silly.

Hunter's a big guy, pushing Ben on the Merry Go Round.

Love this hat.

Old school rides.

One of the new pieces of park equipment is a teeter-totter, and Hunter pretty much hated it. Being smaller means tons of time up in the air with brother at the helm. Cracked me up!!

Hope you enjoyed our trip to the park!

Day Trip & Park Romp

About two weeks ago, maybe more, we decided to visit Mt. Horeb, a little town not too far from us with a quaint atmosphere. We walked up and down the main drag, stopped in a chocolate shop, an antique mall, and a garden center (bought nothing but chocolate). We did make plans to eat a local brewery there sometime soon, and then decided to get a picnic lunch and take it to a park in Madison.

We went to an Italian deli on madison's south west side (almost Fitchburg) that may have smelled like heaven will smell. I'm pretty sure. We got sandwiches (Oh, yum!), chips, bread, and sodas and headed to a lake side park on Madison's far west side (actually in Middleton). The park was secluded, but bustling with lake dwellers, boats, and a few kids covered in sand and water.

There was a nice tree beside the playground, perfect for a little climb.

In all the years we've lived near Madison we never frequented the lake areas. The lakes in Madison are huge, and scenic. I really enjoyed getting a closer look at the boating activity and the shoreline. Yes, Californians, they have sailboats on lakes in the midwest.

Have a nice day everyone!

The Flower Factory

Yesterday, after dad got home from work, I begged Theo to take me to another one of my nurseries that opened this week. The Flower Factory is located west of Stoughton, WI, just south of Madison. They carry thousands of perennials, and only those that thrive in our area. Its a slice of heaven for me!

Last fall I went to this place, and was overwhelmed by all the greek names of plants, and no pictures on the labels. I'm an amatuer, and not trained, so my brain was fried by the time I left. This time, I was so proud of myself. I knew more than half of the plants there, without pictures. I could tell varieties that were new, and could visualize the plant at its full size. I had such a relaxing time as Theo took the boys to get milkshakes. When they got back I still had some browsing to do, so I got them out of the car and showed them the play area. The boys has so much fun running all around in the giant sandbox, and dad was able to relax on a quiet bench and listen to the nature around him.

Sidenote: on the way out there we saw a deer laying in a field, alive, but just lethargic as can be. On his way back to get milkshakes Theo pulled over; he saw a lady there in her car. I guess she had hit the deer, and she was waiting for the sheriff b/c the deer was still alive. Ben was asking questions, when Theo said the sheriff was coming to shoot the deer, Ben says, "Silly, daddy, Sheriff's dont' shoot deer, they help us!" So, we had to explain to Ben how the deer was hurt badly from being hit by the car, and the sheriff was helping the deer not hurt anymore. This sort of explaining the deeper things in life happens all the time now with Ben. He really grasps some deep concepts for 3 years old.

So here they are playing at The Flower Factory:

And here's my angel man, looking so handsome.

Oh, and I'm actually in a picture I didn't take myself!

I guess I should have seen this coming, but Grandma Anita yesterday complained that I need to take more pictured of Ben. Yes, grandma! I take pictures of Ben, they just come out funny, with his mouth open talking or his eyes closed. He moves around so much he won't hold still long enough for a clear shot. In fact, even when he holds still he rarely takes his eyes off the toys he's playing with. As you can see here, its work getting him to take a good picture. I love a good candid shot, though.

A random funny things Ben has done lately: he into playing fireman. He's the announcer though. He found out one of my star decorations echoes, so he shouts into the star, " There's a fire in the house people, get out! Crawl low! Call the fire department! If the fire's in the living room, just play with your toys in the kitchen and dining room, because there's a fire." Okay, so he has some logic to work on, but he gets the idea. LOL. He picked this up from the Barney at the Fire House video, just FYI.

And, of course, I still got a few pictures of Hunter. The light was so good, and he was posing with his giant goofy grin. He's so irrestible at this size, I could eat him up I swear. When he saw where mom was carrying him he shouted, "Bah-Box!" (sandbox). He has such a good time running this dump truck back and forth, picking up some serious speed on the hills. He would run toward the peonies, and turn around, and run back. I told Theo, "Be careful when he's over there, some of those plants are $100.00." I think he thought I was kidding! Yes, they had a $100.00 peony there!

When we rounded up to go the boys were pretty spent. It was almost 7pm, and their bed time. So cute to watch dad gather them. I love my boys so much.

Want to see more picture of this place and its plants, including what I cam home with, check my garden blog at: http://ilovemywisconsingarden.blogspot.com/