yet another yard shot

The hubby is in the garage working on his motorcycle and I'm in the house smelling gasoline. Can't be good. (He assured me that everything is under control.)

I just returned from a wedding and am too tired to upload the images. (Not sure how long it will take because I was shooting both RAW and JPEG.) Perhaps I'll hit it early in the morning, well before Game Night begins.

The hubby has left to pick up the 5th grader from a birthday party. Left me with the gas fumes. I suppose it's a good sign if the garage didn't blow up when he started the car. (Perhaps the fumes are why I'm so tired.) I think it's time to call it a night.

Have a good one :-)

Day 81/365: so it's not quite half, but it'll have to do

Captured this shot of Leah during our crying cropping time. Seriously, we got to talking some pretty deep stuff and after a couple of hours realized we hadn't even touched a scrapbook! Leah is no stranger to loss. In addition to losing her 2-year old daughter cancer, she has experienced a number of pregnancy losses as well. Yet despite the pain and disappointment, she has learned much about life. She understands what really matters and strives to live each day to the fullest. An inspiration.

what a great way to start the day

Fox 9 did a story on Stellan... the best one so far! If you'd like to read more about it, click HERE. (Warning: The video above will have you in tears.)

free pie!

I'm working hard to eek out every second before summer vacation. Met some friends for a kid-free lunch the other day and ended up with a free piece of pie to boot! (Click HERE for your own yummy coupon.) We shared several hilarious, this-stays-here kind of mom stories. If the children only knew...

Today I'll be hanging out with another mom friend. I met Leah in the fall of 2007, shortly after she'd lost her youngest daughter to cancer. I'd put together a couple of remembrance albums for the family and now Leah will be working on a scrapbook of her own. It's such a neat thing to have a continued connection with this family.

In case you haven't been following my Tweets, I have a wedding to photograph this week. Can't wait! I'll hopefully have an image or two to share in the near future. Grandma's pool opens today (yay!), we're having some friends over on Saturday, and Grandpa Lito will be home this weekend as well. A flurry of activity so I probably won't have a lot of time to devote to posting until next week. (Aside from the short-and-sweet posts, which have been pretty standard these days.)

Sorry. To make up for lack of content, I'll leave you with a new recipe I'll be trying this weekend:

Watermelon Salsa

2 cups diced seedless watermelon

3/4 cup finely chopped sweet onion

3/4 cup canned black beans, rinsed and drained

2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped

1/4 cup minced fresh cilantro

2 tsp. brown sugar

1 garlic clove, minced

1/2 tsp. salt

In a small bowl, combine all ingredients. Cover and refrigerate for least 1 hour. Drain if necessary before serving.

He's come up with a theme for each grade.

This year (second grade) is all about apples. Apple haikus, apple stories, apple jokes - sometimes he'll even just blurt out the word "APPLE!" for no reason at all.

I really hadn't given it much thought until he announced at bedtime, "There is a theme for each grade."

Apparently, he has given it a great deal of thought. Here's the breakdown:

1st Grade: cheese
2nd Grade: apples
3rd Grade: oranges
4th Grade: donuts
5th Grade: peanuts

The big brother and a couple of friends were messing with Ren's apple obsession over the weekend.

The kid was just asking for trouble.

The apple-hater big brother.

It's good to be outside again, don't you think?

Another quick one, this time w/o the glasses

Day 78/365: meeley, originally uploaded by Tina Vega.

my first RAW shot

my first RAW shot, originally uploaded by Tina Vega.

So what does that mean? Click HERE for an explanation. And HERE for another explanation (with pictures).