Off in the distance...

 

 I couldn't resist re-posting this picture when I saw that this week's I heart faces theme was "from a distance."

(cue Bette Midler...)

Not only is she at a distance from the camera, but she's looking off into the distance looking for the source of the birdsong that we'd been listening to.

A bubble parade...

An endless line of bubbles trailed behind us as we walked through the neighborhood yesterday,

bringing smiles to the otherwise shy and retiring neighbors.

As one teenage boy said, "Holy Bubbles!"

(This picture was taken with my iphone using the instagram app.)

Bundled up

I'm just absolutely in love with this photo

and wanted to share.

:)

And it just occurred to me that this would work perfectly for the I heart faces "Smile" challenge.
Initially, I imagined great big giant ear to ear grins for this challenge, 
but I guess smiles come in all sizes.  

I love her sweet little smile
and every time I look at it I want to reach out and touch her cheek.

And it's SOOC too!

I heart faces: Chalk

I love sidewalk chalk.

When we lived in Washington State, we lived on a cul-de-sac,

so the girls would spend hours with their friends creating HUGE chalk murals.

Sometimes it was random, but two of my favorite masterpieces were 

the under the sea themed "fish bowl" culdesac

and the totally play-able monopoly board.

We've moved away, but our friends and fellow artists are still at it 

as witnessed FROM SPACE on google earth!

(Jody, have you seen that?)

I was looking up our old house and sure enough, I could see giant flowers all up and down the street.

We live on a far busier road, so we aren't able to create the same kind of masterpieces anymore.
Even in our own driveway we have to be careful because people like to use my house as a place to turn their cars around.
Some lady nearly ran over my daughter one day!!

However, the sidewalk is still pretty safe... thus the name sidewalk chalk, huh?

This is my beautiful niece, Avery, creating a game of hopscotch on the sidewalk.

Isn't she cute?
  I don't miss summer yet, but I do miss her.
 

for more chalk themed photos:

Vrooom

You don't have to own a cool car to look cool, but it would be nice.

For now, we'll just pose by other people's cars and dream.

It's nearly as good and far less expensive!

What does America look like?

It's been a busy couple of weeks and I haven't been blogging or commenting on blogs much,
 but I'm hoping to get back into action here this week and next.
However, rather than share all the millions of photos that I've taken since summer began,
I saw that I heart faces was doing a "My story in photos" challenge with the topic being America.

I thought it would be fun, but it was HARD to dig through all of the archives to find these pics.
I'm going to have to come up with a better archiving system!

But here they are (in no particular order) along with my little story...

When I was fifteen my aunt took me on a trip to England. It was the first time that I'd ever been outside of the country, in fact, I'd hardly been outside of the Northeastern States before, so it was quite a big deal.

While on that trip, we visited one of my aunts friends who happened to be a school teacher. We visited her school and spent some time with her class.

This class of second graders had lots of questions, but the one that I remember best and the one that truly stumped me was "What does America look like?"

How exactly does one answer that question?

     Especially someone who hadn't really seen America yet.

I tried to answer as best as I could.

I believe I said that some places looked somewhat like England.

  But then I added that there are also deserts

and mountains

and tropical places.

Now, more than twenty years later, I've had the opportunity to move about the country. 

 We've made the trek across country three times

by car no less!

           As much as we might dislike sitting in a car for hours on end, we wouldn't do it any other way.

How else would we find views like these?

The fifth child

 This is Natalie,  my "other" child.  

No, she's not really mine, but I think that she spends more time at my house than at her own.

The girls and I did a little photo shoot in the backyard this weekend.

I can't begin to tell you how nice it is when they actually LET you take their photos.  

It makes life so much easier and it was fun!  :)

The photos run the gamut from serious to silly, but for this I heart faces challenge, I chose silly.

Lessons learned: Photo walk edition

So much fun and so many wonderful things came of the photo walk on Saturday.
The time spent getting to know and learning from some amazing women
was well worth dealing with the heat, the rubbing shoes, and the craziest metro ride ever!

So here are a few lessons learned...

No matter how many times you've looked at the same pointy monument, 

no matter how many pictures that you and the rest of the world have taken of that pointy monument,

there's always the possibility of finding a different angle with which to see it. 

Lesson learned....

Don't apologize for your vision.  

When the picture popped into my mind,

I looked around and said to the person nearest me, 

"Don't laugh... sometimes I like to take stupid pictures."

Turns out, it was one of my favorite shots of the day.

Lesson learned...

In a world full of giant buildings and over-sized monuments, find the details.

Lesson learned...

Don't be afraid to lay on the ground, climb a tree, hang upside down, whatever...

to get the shot that you want. 

No one will think you are weird, more likely they'll just be curious to see what you are seeing.

(I did not live by this rule this weekend, I was too timid and shy while surrounded by all those wonderful and non-judgmental women and I regret it. )

Lesson learned...

Totally take advantage of someone else's photo shoot 

especially if they are wearing an incredibly awesome hat!

 (Can't come up with a lesson for this one.  shrug.)

Lesson learned...

Living, moving creatures totally trump marble statues.

and duck butts are far more photogenic than people butts.

(Well.... I guess that depends on the person.)

So many lessons to be learned here... 

I just love this spot

and it was the one picture that I had planned in advance to take while I was there.

So maybe the photography lesson learned is to plan ahead, but go with the flow.

For the next few pics,  I believe that my lesson learned...

was to be a bit bolder,  wait until the shot is right 

and don't be so nervous that you move the camera too soon after you release the shutter.

But be quick with the camera so you can catch the unexpected.

And finally...

when all else fails,

edit the heck out of the picture!

I have to pick my three favorites from the walk to put into the I heart faces site.

Which three would you choose?

Everybody has a camera

"So," my sister asks, "how will you know who's in your photo walk?"

"I don't know." I say.  "I guess I'll look for the group of people with big old camera bags."

Uhhhh.... yeah.

The problem there?

In DC, everybody has a camera.

I exited the metro station and saw a small group of ladies sitting along a wall.  

There was nothing that made them stand out as photo walk people other than the fact that they all seemed to be waiting for something or someone.  

I looked closer and saw the camera bags and ventured the question, "Are you with the photo walk?"

Sure enough, I had found my group.

But after walking around DC for a bit, I realized how unremarkable a group of people with big old camera bags and cameras was.
There were cameras everywhere.
Pretty much one for every person.

So I started to take pictures of the people.
Now that's a big step for me.
I feel highly uncomfortable taking pictures of people that I don't know.
Shoot... I feel weird taking pictures of people I do know.
I even felt awkward taking pictures of the model that came along with our group.
So, my people pictures weren't my best shots of the day.
I was afraid to get in close and wait for a good shot.

***Here's a secret....a look into how my brain works...***
I try to hide all my crappy pictures inside of collages with the hopes that you won't notice that they kind of suck. 
If I really hate them, they've already been deleted. 
So you'll never get to see the really awful ones.
If the picture is big and bold, then that's kind of how I feel about them.  
Or, at least I find some redeeming quality to the picture.

When I got home from the walk I saw that a package from Amazon had arrived with a new Jack Johnson CD.
(We're going to see him in July and I wanted to hear his new music beforehand.)
I popped it in the car and had to rewind it a bit to listen to this song.
The lyrics pretty much described the goings on at the photo walk. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pictures of people taking

Pictures of people taking 

Pictures of people taking pictures.

I pictured us at the end of time

Holding up a camera to our eyes

I took a picture of you took a picture of me

In the background of the picture

Was water running to the sea

~Jack Johnson