Portraits

This is a collection of my best digital photography of late. I often ask myself why I didn't ever consider this as a profession prior to going (or even applying to) law school. Taking pictures of the people I love and especially my babies truly makes my heart happy. An added bonus is when I take a picture of someone not my child or family member that is beautiful and that makes their hearts happy. Ah, well...hindsight is 20/20...

Vanessa starts 4th Grade!

Vanessa started 4th grade today . One more year and then she moves to the "big" kids building where the classrooms open to the outside. As a 4th grader, she has a 2nd grade buddy that she has to "take care of" in church. A lot of responsibility, and yes, honestly, it seems like yesterday when she was the one that needed the buddy in church.

Seriously, someone please slow time down, just a bit, so my babies can be little just a little while longer...

Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum

This past weekend, we decided to venture out to McMinnville, Oregon to the Evergeen Aviation & Space Museum (www.sprucegoose.org). It is quite an impressive museum, dedicated to Captain Michael King Smith, with 3 buildings, including an Imax theater. We only went to the aviation museum because it was rather expensive. There we saw the famous "Spruce Goose" airplane, made of spruce wood by the excentric Howard Hughes.

The kids had fun tootling around the planes and especially in the kids area where they could play with all sorts of aviation things including many computers loaded with flight simulator software.

This is a good day trip, and would be even better if we didn't have the kids because it is smack in the middle of wine country where we could have really sauced it up at the wineries...

Twelve Years and counting

(Self portrait at McCormick & Schmick's Harborside)

I can't seem to stay on top of anything these days, so I am finally posting, 10 days later, that Mike and I celebrated our 12 year wedding anniversary! This actually means that we've been together for 17, yes, SEVENTEEN, years. Well, 17 years and 4 kids later, we're still together.

It's not always easy, but we love each other, so I guess that's good. Who knew that day 17 years ago, on the bus on our way to the "Pray for Sun" dance put on by Mike's (now disbanded for all sorts of bad things) fraternity, when I moved up to a front seat because my friend, Martha, was peeing in the back of the bus, and Mike said: "Chicago? A fellow East Coaster!" in his New Yawk accent, that he was actually my Prince Charming in disguise?

So I will have to "massage" our story a little so I can tell my little princesses how we met, inserting some writer's flair and interpretation so that the big yellow school bus was actually a limo, that my friend, Martha, was actually my fairy godmother, and that the fraternity dance, was a grand ball, and that Mike's t-shirt and shorts, was actually a nice shirt and tie, and instead, he said: "May I have the first dance?"

Regardless of how not fairytale-like our "reality show" meeting was, our life has been nothing less than colorful, full of surprises and excitement, twists and turns, minivans and soccer games, and 4 beautiful babies. We may not have a castle or a lot of money, but we have each other, our incredible children, and most of all, love, so I guess I am getting my happily ever after, after all.

Happy Anniversary, Honey! Here's to 12 more 12 year anniversaries and many more...