Friday Night

This is just a photo I took last month. Is the exposure too dark? I can’t decide.

It’s Friday night and the boys are camping. Gotta say, I’ve been looking forward to this night for a few weeks now. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t revel in the constant crazy 3-year-old boy noise, NoIsE, NOISE (said like the Grinch), but a little stillness is nice sometimes. Madeleine and I are joining them tomorrow for an afternoon in the canyon.

We heard a funny story the other day from a primary teacher (not Nate’s). He and his wife were sitting in sharing time listening to the lesson and his wife felt something weird. She looked down and Nate was on the ground licking her shoe!!!!! EEEWWWW!!!!  HAHAHA!!! I guess he entertains them all the time in church. 

Madeleine and I enjoyed a long night out shopping. It’s so much easier when you can strap them in. We had plenty of things to buy on our list but didn’t find a thing. I even had money to spend! Hate when that happens. She tried on tons of shoes, which she likes to do, but we didn’t find anything that fit. We never do. She has super narrow feet and unless I want to spend more on her shoes than on my own, she just has to go barefoot. Good thing it’s summer.

I can’t think of anything that’s new with me or Rob. We’re just as happy as can be and glad to have each other.

Happy weekend!

Boise With Breanna and Fam

The first weekend in April we ventured up to Boise for Rob’s sister’s senior piano recital at Boise State University. She’s worked incredibly hard and we wanted to go support her and congratulate her on this huge accomplishment. She had over an hour of memorized pieces to play including Rachmaninoff’s Concerto #2! One of my favorites ever! Her performance gave me chills.

Before the recital, Rob and I had some time to explore downtown Boise on our own little photowalk. We had a great time wandering around and ate at a great Greek restaurant. Then we picked up the kids and headed just out of town to the Idaho State Penitentiary. When I was planning the trip, I suggested it to Rob and he full-heartedly said YES to this little venture. He was so excited to get some creepy pictures. Weirdo.

We had a great time there. The kids were able to run around at their leisure without me worrying about where they were; afterall, they were in a prison yard…hehehe. How convenient.

Rob and I have been to Alcatraz and we both agree that this little place is JUST as impressive and cool, yet tons less expensive. There were many buildings we were able to wander in and out of including the armory, which has a substantial exhibit we wish we had more time to check out.

Here are the pictures.

We had such a fun time with the family, too. Nate and Madeleine love their cousin Joseph and had so much fun playing together. We really wish we could get together more often. Maybe this summer we’ll take the drive up again.

We love the Russell family!

What the Crap? You’re saying that Foto Friday MOVED!

In a word, Yes.  We moved the foto friday and photography stuff to blog.rjsnowphotography.com. We are trying to generate traffic on our photography site and also don’t want all that traffic to come to our family blog.  Perhaps you see the problem.  However, I think this will all work out nicely for everyone. 

So what do you do?  If you typically visit the blog using a web browser, just add one more site to your daily routine blog.rjsnowphotography.com.  If you use an rss reader, here is the link to the feed to add to your reader (such as feeddemon or google reader). If you use our email subscription service then you will receive a confirmation email asking if you would like to receive updates for the new blog.  Confirm the email if you would like to receive our photography emails  or ignore if you would rather not.  Please leave any questions in the comments.

If you are looking for the most recent foto friday post, you’ll find it on the new blog here. 

For some unknown reason, a recent post about Julie’s Nephew Greg was not sent out in the rss or email.  Please find it here.

Have a Great Weekend!

Pics & Stories

 

Here are a bunch of fun pictures we’ve taken of the kids over the last month or so.

The first set is of the kids playing outside.

The second set is of the kids in their Easter outfits.

The third set is a couple of funny shots of Rob. Make sure to expand the description on the second picture so you can read it all.

Some stories:

• The other day Nate was being very quiet in his room. After asking a couple of times what he was doing and him replying “Nofin,” I checked on him. He was laying in bed and I asked him if he was okay. He said, “Yeah, I’m just waiting for dad to come home.”
• After having to have his blood drawn again for more tests because his white blood cell count was low, the doctor concluded that Nate just had/has a viral infection that’s running its course. Okay….wonder how much that little bit of info is gonna cost us. And I’m bugged because the doctor wouldn’t even talk to us the three times he needed to after Nate’s original appointment. He just had an assistant talk to us even though we requested to talk to him twice. Yeah, we’re getting a new pediatrician.
• Yesterday, on his own accord, Nate used his foam letters to spell out words he saw on his toy. He spelled turkey and goose. How great is that?!
• Madeleine is a little spit-fire sometimes. If we tell her no, she’ll act all defiant and grab or step on something angrily. It’s pretty funny and we can’t help but laugh.
• She’s finally starting to like the bath again. Madeleine went through a phase where she’d scream and try to climb out every time we stuck her in the bath, even if just her feet got wet.
• Some of the words Madeleine now says are boo, ball, baby, and bear. Notice a trend?
• Her favorite games are Boo, Chase, and Sliding.

Working in the Garage

Last Saturday afternoon Nate and I undertook a project in the garage. We don’t have a ton of storage space in our home and for some time we have wanted some shelving in the garage. We had some old white laminate wood just sitting around in the garage that was perfect for the job. Nate and I went to the hardware store to pick up some metal brackets (the typical kind with 3 holes for attaching to the wall and three for attaching the shelving), normal 1.5” wood screws to attach the metal brackets to the wall, and some 0.5” wood screws to attach the shelving to the brackets. We had a good supply of drywall anchors on hand so we didn’t pick up any of those. We were ready to go.

We spent the first little while moving stuff around and planning where the shelves would go. Finally we got out the safety glasses and the power tools. I placed my tool box a few feet away for Nate to sit on while I operated the circular saw. He got his sunglasses out of the car so he could have safety glasses too. :) The circular saw produced a large amount of sawdust (Nate initially thought this was sand) and a fair amount of manliness.

To attach the brackets to the wall with the maximum number of screws in the stud I slightly offset the bracket so one of the top screws and the bottom screw both anchored to the stud behind the drywall. The other screw at the top of the bracket received an alligator-type wall anchor. We used a level to keep all the brackets in line. Nate was in charge of the screws and kept a fresh supply coming (most of the time at least). After a quick primer on ladder safety, Nate was very proactive about reminding me to be careful. What a great time we had together on our quick little Saturday project. This shelving should really help de-clutter our storage closet upstairs. Sweet!

The picture above is not from our project but it does show how much fun we have together.  I look forward to many projects that Nate and I will work on together.  :)

Gregarious Greg

A few weeks ago my (Julie) nephew turned 19 and Rob and I wanted to take some fun pictures of him. Greg, as you can see from the pictures, is hilarious. He has so many good qualities about him, but some of my favorites are that he’s sincere, fun, a great giver of hugs, has the cutest smile and set of dimples, a jokester, great with kids, and is thoughtful of others.

He’s very photogenic and we wanted to capture some of his many facial expressions. It was really fun having such creative freedom with portraits. People usually don’t want anything too weird done but we knew Greg would love some tripped-out versions of himself.  We also took a few of him with his two brothers and with one of his sisters.

Greg’s cool and everyone knows it.

Foto Friday – 621

 

I (Julie) couldn’t decide which picture I liked the most so I thought I’d post them as a series.

These were taken in downtown Boise last month. Rob and I spent a morning wandering around on our own little photowalk. We were impressed by the cool/funky/historic nature of the area. There will be a few more pictures coming from that day.

To get the grungy, popping look, I first used the “Night Grotto II” preset in Lightroom. This was a good start, but I knew I needed to alter a few things to get the look I was going for. The preset added split-toning, turned the color saturation down, and turned up the luminance on the remaining color. Below is what the original picture looked like straight-out-of-camera. Then the picture after applying the preset.

Then I adjusted the vignette and turned up the black clipping and exposure until it was just right. I love how the red popped out and really makes the bricks look amazing.

So, presets are a great start. They help get the creative juices flowing. But it’s important not to get stuck there. Adjustments usually still need to be made in order to make your picture just right.

Have a wonderful weekend, everybody!

Easter…A Month Ago

Yeah, yeah, yeah…

Anyway, Easter was really great. Rob and I get more and more bugged each year with the commercialization of Easter. I mean, it’s EASTER. We worship and commemorate Jesus’ resurrection. I was at Toys R Us a couple of weeks before the holiday and their “Easter” baskets were taller than I am full of expensive toys and tons of candy. It sickened me. Granted, I am sickened by most marketing and commercialism, but that’s a whole other (really long) blog post.

So this year we kept a low-key, wonderful Easter which I hope will become a tradition. We invited our elderly neighbor, Janie, over for dinner and to watch the kids find some eggs and get pictures of Jesus to put up in their bedrooms. Simple as that. Nate and Madeleine were so cute! Here are our pictures.

And a very belated Happy Easter!!

My Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day was awesome. Besides the fact that I got a 2-hour nap, a homemade card with Nate’s new letter-writing skill, the dishes done and dinner made, and a new shelf built in the garage (so I’ll be able to step into my upstairs storage closet once again), Rob made me a custom photo book with sweet pictures and sweet thoughts.

There are many online services that offer printed books of your blogs and photos but there is quite a variation in quality out there. Rob decided to go through the service that our professional photo printer recommended, My Canvas. The price for a leather-bound, 20-page book is about $45.00, less for non-leather. Rob really liked how easy it was to insert and drag pictures to get the exact look you want. You can see an online version of this book here. Just make sure to have a kleenex handy.

This really was one of the best Mother’s Day gifts I’ve received. It took thought, effort, and love. I am always amazed how much my husband cares for me. I love you, Rob!

What’s Up?

Thought I'd post these funny pictures I took a while back. Turns out, Buzz Lightyear is a little camera shy.

First off, it's wonderful to have our computer back up. I feel so cut-off from the world without my email/internet.

Our trip to Southern Utah was grand. Highway 12 and the the national parks along it are seriously some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. We ran into people from all over the world who flew tens of thousands of miles just to see these places that are a mere 5 hours from our front porch. If any of you haven't been, you MUST!! I can't urge you enough. I was in awe the entire time. We're planning another trip down early this fall if any of you are interested in joining us. And a huge shout-out to Rob's parents for watching the kids over the weekend. Nate and Madeleine always have such a fun time when they're at the grandparent's house...and so do we ;)

Rob's convocation for his Master's Degree was yesterday and it was cool to see him all dressed up like Harry Potter. Everything went so smoothly until it was time to find somewhere to eat. There were hour and a half wait times everywhere! Rob kept deciding on different restaurants, but they all had the same story. Wouldn't be so hard except there were 2 sets of grandparents who can't walk and 2 little kids in tow so it got a little crazy. We ended up driving down to Sugarhouse to eat there and still had to wait! An hour and a half later we finally got dinner. Thanks to all our family who have loved us during all the many years of school. I'm super proud of my hubby and I know you all are, too.

I took Nate to the doctor the other day due to his incessant fatigue. Everything seems fine but the doctor had blood drawn to check for anemia, etc. It wasn't fun getting his blood work done. Nate had his blood drawn a few weeks ago for his regular endocrinology appointment and knew exactly what was about to transpire. I had him and Madeleine on my lap. I've never heard a higher, louder, longer scream come out of that boy...and that's saying a lot! BUT, his vein collapsed and they had to do it all over again! The nurse took Madeleine so I could hold Nate down better and he let out another soul-piercing scream. This really freaked Madeleine out so she decided to start wailing, too. Finally, it was done and we went and got a Jamba Juice. We'll get the results by the end of the week and will let everyone know what they are, but I'm pretty much counting on everything being fine. Maybe just a growth spurt.

Here's one funny story to end on. The other day I was outside playing with Nate and told him it was almost time to go inside. He told me he was going to see what time it was and ran inside. A moment later he ran back out and told me, "The clock says it's time to play outside." Cute.