Faves Of The Week

These are my favorite pics of the week.

Dissapointment Trumped by a Great Day

Well, we're not pregnant anymore. Thursday was a hard and disappointing day, I'll leave it at that. As disappointed as we all are, the past couple days have brought quite a bit of joy to all of us. Jared is back on surgery once a week. The surgeon he is working with is a very proactive teacher. Jared was handed the scalpel and told-cut. As you can imagine he had a great start to his Friday. It was fun to hear him so excited. Later that evening he met up with Noah at the Fathers and Son camp out. They had a blast, rockets, paintball and quads. Oh My! He didn't bring the camera...so no pictures. Hannah was my assistant during an evening photo shoot and did a marvelous job portraying dolphins and butterfly's behind me to get the giggles and attention of two little girls. After the shoot we went out to dinner together feasted on chicken Parmesan and sucked down a very yummy orange Italian soda. We woke up this morning at 5:00 and drove down to Tubac for another photoshoot at a Golf Resort out there. Golf Resort does not accurately describe this property. Think picturesque Spanish Colonial Village with fountains, flowers, huge trees,(weeping willows, cotton woods...)The Golf course was rolling hills with cows and their calf's laying around or snacking on the beautiful, lush grass that made up the course. Did I mention the ponds? Hannah again was a great assistant. After the shoot we explored the town of Tubac together. We had breakfast and waited for the shops to open. Then we had fun looking through all the jewelry and art galleries. In one shop Hannah was given a really cute glass pendant. It has a purple flower blown into the glass. I'll have to get a picture of it. She could have stayed there all day. Jewelry and art galleries-need I say more. We had a terrific Mother Daughter day together. I love these moments we get to share together. It was a pretty special day. Jared and Noah brought home flowers, then we all got ready and went to a family party hosted by the dentists family who is responsible for all the photography work I've been getting. In fact the mornings shoot was of one of his office staff and her family. We're sad not to be expecting anymore and it's hard not to feel a little foolish for announcing it so early in the first place. It was nice to feel that joy and excitement though and wonderful seeing how much Hannah and Noah were excited. They have taken the news in stride-I'm very grateful for that. Hopefully there is nothing wrong and we'll have news to share again in the months ahead. More time to prepare I suppose.

Love, Mel

Baby!

Jared and I both decided we wanted to share our news and excitement-even though it's really early. I have been dreaming that I was pregnant, rubbing my belly, and fantasizing about car seats and pint sized diapers. So...we took a test last night and we're pregnant! We took another test this morning-and yep! still pregnant!! We brought the kids in bed with us this morning and shared our news. They were very excited-and inquisitive-especially Noah. Throughout the morning we heard almost every sentence prefaced with-" I have a really good question Mom" ,(or Dad depending on who was readily available). My favorite of the morning went something like this:

Noah: Mom, I have a really good question for you.
Me: Yes, Noah.
Noah: How does a test tell you if your going to have a baby?
Me: Well, if a plus sign comes up it means I am, if a minus sign comes up, it means I'm not.
Noah: Can I see it?
Me: umm okay. ( yes I actually fished it out of the trash for him to see).
Noah:(BIG SMILE) Oh! I get it-you rub it on your belly and it tells you.

Now I could have smiled and left it at this-but I can't willingly allow my child to be ignorant even if it's really cute.

Me: Actually....

Yes-that's right,I just laid it all out there for him. I explained that our urine can tell us many things about are body-hormones, sugar levels, proteins, and that this particular test picks up certain hormones that you have when your pregnant. Then I asked him not to share that bit of information with his school mates. Somethings are better left discussed in our home...

Jared fixed us a really great breakfast, and we had a wonderful morning together basking in the knowledge that a new little one will be joining our family. Hannah kept giving me hugs all morning long, and Noah let out random bursts of "Woo-hoo-I can't wait to tell everyone at school!", and, "So when I'm 20 the baby will be 14. WOW!!! When the baby is 6, I'll be twelve. WOW! Giggle Giggle. We have had a very fun morning.

After the kids and Jared were off I finished framing some pictures for a client and helped her figure out how and where to hang them. That was really fun! Then, had lunch with a couple
friends.

On a side note-since I was whining about it earlier-everyone has been really happy with thier pictures. The Moellers ordered over 20, and repeatedly asked if they were paying me enough. I feel comfortable with that. That's how I like it. It's funny-I originally thought that people would be happy with a CD. Super inexpensive to order your own prints. I'm finding that people are more than happy to pay me to just take care of it all. At this point, I'm more than happy to do it. It's been a great learning experience so far.

Now it's time to pick up Hannah and Noah!


Love, Mel

To Tired to Title

Well the day began at 3:00am. Poor Noah had a high fever, swollen tonsils, and gagged and threw up after taking his medicine. We got him all cleaned up remedicated and put back into bed. 4:00am came and I just couldn't get back to sleep. I was supposed to hike Sombrero Peak with Mandy and our mutual friend who also is my neighbor who is moving this week and has not hiked to the top of the peak yet. I was going to cancel figuring I would be to tired-then I decided to just get up finish some chores and just go. I was the only one who had been to top, and it's one of those trails that isn't marked very well in some areas and nonexist in others, and I really wanted Chris and Mandy to be able to check it off their list too. I'm so glad I went. Early morning-when the stars are still shining is a pretty special time. I met up with Chris and we picked up Mandy. The three of us gals started on the trail around 5:30-we made it to the top of the peak around 7:30 and we were back home by 9:00. It was a little hairy on the way down-(think lots of medium sized boulders slipping out from under our feet. I ripped out the back of my pants sliding down the mountain. But it was really fun! No pictures of me...one was taken but it's pretty bad. So, here are my two adventurous friends.

Noah's fever has broken but he's feeling pretty bad still. I think we are going to spend the day reading and napping.

Hannah and I went to the zoo for the first grade field trip last Thursday. It was so fun! Hannah's piano is really coming along. She can now play Keep the Commandments and wants to play it every Family Home Evening. I'm really proud of her. Piano and sewing I really can't help her with at all-but she loves it and does most of her practicing on the piano all on her own accord.

im startingggg tooo ffffffffaaaaaadddeeeee awayyyyyyyyyyyyy.

Mel

Random Ramblings and Epiphanal Moments

We slid back into life relatively gracefully... Well it felt more like stepping into a whirlwind after experiencing the slow pace of vacation in Hawaii. The kids have had a funky something. Hannah's consisted of high fever for three days followed by a heat rash on her trunk area and a sinus infection. Noah has shown slight lethargy during the day followed by extreme lethargy in the late afternoon and a high fever that lasts for only a couple hours. Wakes up in the morning fine then repeats the cycle again. Hmmmm. Jared is busy with work and church and has fully recovered from his sunburn.:) I've been busy volunteering at the school, trying to keep up with all the photography business that has come my way. Which has been great! It's a continual learning process for me. I get so anxious before a shoot though-especially one where I'm getting paid. I'm pretty cheap-but I still feel like I'm winging it. If I'm winging it-the session should be free. If they like the pictures enough to buy them then I can charge more for the prints. Ah hah! You have all just witnessed a moment of epiphany. See, this is why I like writing- blah blah blah then wham it hits me. Feel free to comment on my epiphany-here are a few pictures of the last two weeks worth of work.

I really enjoy taking pictures and getting to know families. Okay- I LOVE IT! However-I know I really need work on the technical aspects of photography. There is so much to learn. There is so much I don't know. This is what becomes overwhelming for me. Each photo shoot I come away with a little more insight. Which is good-but should I be excepting $$ when I'm still gathering insight? Bottom line I think I would be able to sleep better the night before a shoot knowing that no money would exchange hands until the final product was approved and desired.

HAWAII

We had an amazing time! Here are the highlights from our trip and how we spent our time away from home.

Three days of diving...

*We were not diving with the humpback whale. A fellow diver stuck his face in the water and we handed him our camera.

Almost everyday afforded us whale watching. This female and her calf greeted us when we were on the dive boat. The picture above is her hanging out beneath our boat.

Gliding through canyons and over the sea.

Long drives to nowhere...

Enjoying the local talent and heritage...

Reflecting on our greatest blessings and privileges...

We had a great time! We miss the ocean, but are so glad to be home with Hannah and Noah. The cruise was fun despite the drunk, grumpy, and half naked Seniors that seemed to make up 80% of the ships patronage. Jared and I loved having breakfast, lunch and dinner together every day. While Jared was in class on the ship I was able to find a quiet corner of the ship and get lost in Persuasion. There are 495 pictures not show here...and hours of storytelling I'll spare you. If you would like to see more pictures of our adventures go to http://picasaweb.google.com/mel620/BestOfHawaii

Bottom line we had an AWESOME time, and we didn't DIE...

Aloha!

Mel

TWO MORE DAYS!

I can't believe we leave in two days! And what am I doing right now in preparation- Figuring out how to have a playlist on my blog and writing a new post. In my defense I will say I needed a little emotional unwind time. I just waved goodbye to Malea and her family after a wonderful five day visit with them. Five days just wasn't enough. Sniff sniff. We hiked, we shopped, we lunched, we laughed, we cooked,we cleaned up puke,we fell, and I picked cholla out of her underarm. It was great!! I'm sad it's over. I suppose spending a week in HAWAII with my amazing husband will cheer me up though. I'm finally past the- We have a higher probability of dying and orphaning our children by flying across the ocean and spending over a week without them mode. That was rough. I don't think I have ever experienced anxiety attacks like that before. Thank you to all those who witnessed my madness so gracefully. I am now onto the -WHOO HOOOOOO!!!!!!!! We are going hang gliding over canyons and ocean side cliffs. We are going night diving with Manta Rays. We are spending a week together just the two of us in one of the most romantic places in the world! No worries! Almost... I really think I have duel personalities sometimes-minus the blackout periods. Keeps life interesting though. So I decided Hawaii would be the theme of my first blogger playlist. Sorry there are only two songs-had to pick the chillens up from school.

Aloha,
Mel