A Little Fruit Snack

Knox was having a little snack at Madisyn’s basketball game.

Technical Details:  Canon 5d mkII with 135mm f/2.0L, ISO 1600, f/2.5, 1/400s

70th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor

Jake and I visited Hawaii for the first time in 2009 and we made it a priority to spend a few days on Oahu, primarily to visit an important location in America’s history, Pearl Harbor.  It was very emotional, touching, and moving to be there, hear the stories, watch footage, and see many American Veterans themselves visiting the memorial – some that were there on that December 7th day so many years ago.  If you are ever visiting Oahu, this is a must do experience; plan on spending much of the day taking in all of the history and different areas and also expect for it to be a very heavy day.

While watching news coverage this evening I decided to share some of the photos we took during our visit to honor all of the lives lost and changed forever on December 7, 1941.

The National Memorial was built over the submerged hull of the USS Arizona. The battleship sunk 9 minutes after being attacked and was the final resting place for 1,102 sailors and crewmen. While visiting the Memorial was an emotional and sad experience, it was also very peaceful and is such a beautiful and symbolic memorial.

Memorial with names of each of the 1,177 lives lost from the attack on the USS Arizona.

Part of the sunken USS Arizona.

Oil in the water that is still, 70 years later, leaking from the hull of the USS Arizona. It is estimated that about a quart of oil still leaks from the battleship each day. The movement of the oil in the water brought a life-like characteristic to the memorial and was a very emotional sight for me.

United States Flag flying above USS Arizona.

Visitors reading a few of the countless memorials with the USS Arizona Memorial in the distance.

USS Missouri was the location where Japan signed the surrender documents that ended World War II. USS Missouri is now a museum at Pearl Harbor where you can explore many areas of the battleship and learn about life aboard the last U.S. battleship.

Torpedo controls.

Wreckage in Pearl Harbor.

Looking through the gun sights at one of the displays.

December Snowflake

Flurries on a really cold night like tonight produce the best snowflakes.  We were out shopping when we noticed perfectly shaped snowflakes on our windshield, so I pulled out the camera when we got home and found this one on our grill.

Details:

Canon 5d Mark II, Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro, 68mm of Kenko extension tubes, remote shutter release, tripod, ISO 1600, f/4.0, 6.0 second exposure.

First Big Snowfall of the Year

I was up at our family’s cabin the weekend before Thanksgiving – the snow started dumping just as I was getting there.  As the day wore on, I was rewarded with this beautiful snow cover. What you see is the old out house that has been relocated to the edge of the yard, no longer in service.  It provided the perfect scene with the snow falling and the woods in the background.

Snow falling in Northern Wisconsin (click on image for larger view)

 

Trick-or-Treat

This year’s Halloween brought the Green Bay Packers (Aaron Rodgers to be specific) and a Nerd new to the teenage years out in our house.

Ready for Trick-or-Treating

Knox has become quite the little football fan, not very shocking if you know our family, but he has developed this interest with very little encouragement from Mom or Dad.  Anytime he sees anything football related he stops what he is doing to clap and he makes sure that we see the football action.  It doesn’t matter if it is a photo of football players, a commercial, or seeing Aaron Rodgers on the Wheaties box at the grocery store, Knox does not miss the opportunity to cheer for football.  Just the other day Jake and I were talking about football and Knox picked up the remote, sat down on the couch next to Dad, handed the remote to him, and made it clear that he expected to see some football.  Fortunately for him, college football was on.  Ironically, the game that was on TV was featuring Aaron Rodgers’ younger brother, Jordan Rodgers, in his second start for Vanderbilt.

The next Aaron Rodgers?

Yay Packers!

Touchdown

And Madisyn.  Her Birthday is Halloween so it’s always a fun time in our house.  Every year we carve a pumpkin with her age in it; crazy that this year marks her joining the teenage club.  She was considering having this the first year she didn’t dress up for Halloween but in the end she changed her mind and transformed into a Nerd.  We recently started watching the TV show Psych (and she can’t get enough of it) so we had a Psych themed Birthday party for her.  If you aren’t familiar with the show, they have pineapple references in every episode.  Her party was complete with pineapple cakes, pineapple shaped Jello, pineapple shaped cookies, Psych green decorations, and photos of the Psych stars up around the house.  We even played pin the leaf on the pineapple for the kids.

Madisyn the Nerd

The age pumpkin, an annual tradition, this year in the Psych font

Time for cake

Birthday Girl

1st Birthday Cake Smash

For Knox’s 1st Birthday, we decided to try our very first cake smash.  Knox didn’t quite know what to think of the cake initially but eventually he dug in and seemed to enjoy it.  The shoot was a blast and I am so happy that we captured the whole process from uncertainty to curiosity to delight.  I highly recommend trying a cake smash, especially for the 1st Birthday milestone – and I think a full photoshoot is required!

6 month photos

I had a great time photographing this little beauty who just happens to have a Mommy that has been one of my best friends since we were in diapers ourselves.  Brixie visited us for her six month photos and I adored capturing her chubby little features and beautiful eyes!

Jesse turns 2

We didn’t get a chance to blog about a fun shoot we had before we moved.  We have had the pleasure of getting to know Jesse over the past 2 years, so we were excited to take photos in celebration of Jesse turning 2 before leaving Seattle.  We had a lot of fun with some of Jesse’s favorites and a few things just to be silly too!

Looks like he knows what he is doing!

Jesse is a Seattle Sounders fan.

Isn't he handsome!

Sporting a new 'do for the camera.

3 months later

Crazy it was three months ago today already that we arrived in Wisconsin and started unpacking.  It’s quite the process to move your family across the country and get settled into a new house.  I found some more photos to share of the big move, Jake previously shared some other photos of the adventure that you can find here.

The main issue that we ran into during the move was that our car did not fit on the tow dolly we had rented.  This not only set us back a few hours right off the bat but also meant that we ended up driving an extra car the entire way.  The moving van and both of our cars put on all 1,710 miles.  Luckily we had two family members fly to Seattle to help us along our journey.  And having a walkie talkie in each car helped us stay in touch and entertained.

In the end we made it without any car trouble (car towing issue aside) and although we arrived a day behind schedule, we were glad to have the long journey behind us.  It was quite the drive.  52 hours, 3 vehicles, 3 adults, 2 teenagers, and 1 toddler.

1,710 miles left. No problem.

The rest of the crew ahead on I-90 just outside of Seattle.

We had lots of beautiful scenery to enjoy along the way, although it was appreciated most in the beginning before we were all exhausted.

We ran into some crazy weather, luckily we missed anything serious but it made for some interesting cloud formations and colors.

We were driving through North Dakota during bad flooding, luckily we were able to make it through without any detours. We did come across I-94 down to one lane here though.

Flooding alongside I-94.

Welcome home! We were welcomed to our new home with signs, balloons, and flowers from family.

Fall Colors in Northern Wisconsin

We haven’t posted for a while so I thought I’d check in with some fall colors from Northern Wisconsin.  I was up at our family’s cabin last weekend helping clear some trees and took a little 4 wheeler ride when I came upon this scene.

Taken along a trail in Northern Wisconsin