Emma Learns to Ride Her Bike

We finally took the training wheels off Emma's bike. We had tried riding it a few times, but she was nervous. I gave her a "controlled" fall (meaning I held the handle bars and lowered her down to the ground), and she immediately hated riding her bike. Yeah...I've got serious Dad skills.

I searched the internet and spoke with Brett Harkey about how to teach her how to ride her bike and gain confidence. Brett's idea seemed plausible, so last weekend I took Emma to the old driving range near Lewis & Clark. They have a ton of grass, and a few little short hills. I held the bike for her halfway up the hill, then let her coast down it, learning how to balance. I reminded her to use her feet to keep from falling. She coasted down and used her feet to not fall when she slowed down!! She was SOOOO stoked! We kept doing that over and over, going higher and higher up the hill. She started pedaling at the end of the hill, and was riding all over that driving range! It was awesome! We called Mommy, and she beamed the news over the phone. She eagerly wanted to ride on the road, so we got in the car to head home.

On our way to all of this, Emma found her camera in my car. On our way home, she said she wanted to go on a "photo adventure" with me. So we stopped at the railroad tracks in Johnson and went exploring with our cameras. It was so fun! I'd take a shot, and she'd try a similar shot, then show me and ask me if that's what I was trying to do. There are some pictures from the adventure (her's & mine) below.

When we got home, the fam went outside to see Emma show off her new riding skills. Here's the video. Please disregard my fatness and moobs. It was a pretty perfect day!

Treehuggers are Crying

With all the ice, sleet, and freezing rain (c'mon snow, get here!!), there's a lot of downed trees here in NWA, causing the treehuggers to cry. Which is funny and sad at the same time. Thankfully, we only have a small tree in the back yard (about 30% of the limbs are down). Our neighbors, however, have tons of trees and lots of work to do. Smashed sheds, privacy fences, and limbs to pick up. In particular, our favorite tree at our backyard neighbors house lost it's entire top half today. The saddest part is that this tree gives our house a TON of shade during the summer. Our air conditioning bill just went up $15/month with the loss of that tree. Bummer.

I got up and took some pictures earlier this morning. The situation has worsened since the pictures were taken...I'll add more pics later.









Our trampoline net is a solid wall of ice! I hope it doesn't tear...it's a pain to assemble!









Some of the neighbor's trees. They aren't so upright anymore. Most are supported by my back fence at the moment.









Ice coats the limbs of our Japanese Maple in the front yard. I'm pretty sure there's already another 1/2" of ice accumulation now.









A male cardinal keeps flying between trees as each one collapses.

Thanks for the Rain, Gustav!

Hurricane Gustav dumped a lot of water on Arkansas this past week, much to the dismay of almost everyone I know. However, I was yelling at Gustav to bring it on! The more rain, the bigger the waterfalls! I got up at 4:30 this morning and drove down to the Jasper/Ponca area to hit up some easy-to-find waterfalls.

First, I went to Triple Falls near Camp Orr, a Boy Scout camp in Mt. Vernon (outside of Jasper). After a very steep drive down into the valley, it's a very easy 200 yard walk upstream. Usually, there's only 1 or two falls here, but with all the rain, all three were flowing nicely. The big fall on the right was running so hard, that it was causing a decent wind and mist at the bottom. I kept having to wipe my lens dry. It was worth it!








On my way up and out of the valley, I came across a nice opening that overlooked the valley I was just in. The best thing about this part of the state is the early morning fog...it's super thick, and creates some really stunning views from above.







I then headed to Hammerschmidt Falls, a few miles west of Triple Falls (just outside of Low Gap). The best part of this one was the Jeep trail you take to get there. I have a Jeep Liberty (the pansy version of a real Jeep), but it's a free company car, so it's even more fun when it's not your own. I got to go into 4x4 Low and tackle some 2-2.5 foot ruts where the road washed out. On my way out, I did get two wheels off the ground and rocked sideways a bit. It was really fun!

Hammerschmidt Falls is another easy falls to get to. You park, then follow the creek downstream for about 200 yards, past all these great cascades. When you get to the falls, you're actually on the TOP, so you have to hike down into the base to get a good look at the waterfall. It wasn't running at full steam, though. During heavy rains, the entire top of the falls is going, not just the little spigot you see here. Regardless, it's a very cool spot, and I spent most of my time photographing the cascades at the top of the falls.







All of that, and I was home at 10:30. We had a great outdoors day celebrating the Fall weather. Allison will post more about that later. If anyone is interested in joining me for a waterfall outing, let me know...I'd love some company!!

Kids Will Put Anything in Their Mouth (aka It Wasn't Mine!)

I recently started a photography business. Specifically, I'm focusing on kids sports photography, but am willing to give anything a try. There's my plug, and the background needed for the following story.

A story entitled "Kids Will Put Anything in Their Mouth (aka It Wasn't Mine!)"

I went to take some pictures of a few T-ball games for the Cramer's. While standing around talking after the game, all the kids were climbing around underneath the bleachers. Parents would glance around long enough to see if their kid(s) were about to die, but we pretty much kept the conversation the main focus. While talking with the McGooden's, I hear Allison tell Brooklyn "Stop...don't put that in your mouth!"

Then...

"Oh gosh! STOP!"

I look over to see Brooklyn with a mouthful of brown stuff. Apparently, one of the parents (NOT ME!) took their big plug of Copenhagen and tossed it under the bleachers...where my 2 year old was playing. Brooklyn just stood there, mouth WIDE open whining, while Allison frantically dug out my daughter's first dip. We got a wet wipe and cleaned her off (externally and inside the mouth). When everything calmed back down, about 5 parents turned and look right at me.

"It wasn't mine!"

That night, Brooklyn was suspiciously wired at bedtime. I think she had her first buzz. Or she was having withdrawal. Here's some pictures.
Publish Post

Old Photo Shoot

A while back, Allison posted about Brooklyn's 18-Month photo shoot. While trying to get some good pictures of Brooklyn, we handed her a dandelion in hopes of getting a sweet "smelling the flower" shot. What happened was not so sweet, but pretty darn funny! She immediately opened her mouth and chomped down on the weed, filling her mouth with those little white seedlings. She didn't like it very much. Click on the picture to see a larger play-by-play...it's a good time.

Of course, with Brooklyn getting so much attention during the shoot (I use that term extremely loosely), Emma was feeling a little left out. She kept asking for me to take her picture, so after giving up on Brooklyn, I turned the lens toward Emma. This actually proved to be my favorite time taking pictures of her! She was hamming it up for the camera and threw in a real smile every now and then. Here's a series of her multi-faceted smile...I love it!

I'm a Winner!

With all the flooding we've had over the past couple of weeks, the creeks (and streets) have provided some great opportunities for picture taking. During the flooding a couple of weeks ago, I went out around Johnson to capture some high water shots. There's a low water bridge on South Ball Street in the heart of Johnson that was under about 3 feet of water.

I submitted the picture to 40/29 News for Drew's Digital Snapshots contest yesterday. I got a call from Drew on my way home from work today telling me I won and that my picture would be on the news tonight around 6:30 PM. We totally taped it! And not only did we tape it, but I took a picture of my picture on TV. Yeah...I'm retarded. Anyway, I win a disposable camera and a 40/29 umbrella (sweetness), and get entered into a drawing to win either a camcorder or camera ($600 value) from Bedford Camera & Video at some point this year. And that totally rocks. Here are a couple of flooding shots of the old one-lane bridge in Johnson, near the Main Street / Carley intersection I took last night. There's usually some water flowing under the bridge, but it was easily 5 feet deeper than normal. Be sure to wear your life vests, as we're expecting more rain over the next couple of days! Happy canoing!

A Very Gender-Balanced Day

Today was very gender-balanced for me. Living a life with 4 girls (wife, 2 daughters, and female dog) makes like pretty...um...pink and frilly. The day started off on the manly foot: a trip to National Home Center & Lowe's. I spent the next 3 hours installing new doorknobs on all the doors in our house. Now, that may not sound manly to you, but in MY book, that counts. Big time. You see, I'm the least handy person, possibly ever. Todd and Josh can attest to this information. They're my go-to guys when I need info or help on doing anything remotely manly (except electronics, it's my only saving grace).


After replacing the doorknobs, I grabbed my camera gear (and my two beloved lenses) and went to grab some quick shots of the sunset. I found a nice spot that gave me some great sunset shots along with cow silhouettes, which is always a bonus! A couple of the shots turned out pretty cool. My favorite is this one to the left...cows are cool.


Now, the tipping point.


After dinner and putting Brooklyn to bed, Allison told Emma that we were ALL going to play one of her favorite games: Pretty Pretty Princess. If you're unfamiliar with the board game, it's essentially Trivial Pursuit. But where there aren't tough questions, and instead of winning little colored pie pieces, you win different pieces of jewelry. Travis is quite aware of this game. I am no longer a Pretty Pretty Princess virgin...I even won a game! Here's a pic of me and Emma after the first game (that Allison won). See how manly I look?


But the fun doesn't stop there, folks! After Emma went to bed, Allison told me she had DVR'd something fun. And by fun, she meant "it's girly". We spent the next 2 hours watching "Girls Just Want to Have Fun". The best thing about the movie was seeing Sarah Jessica Parker actually being cute. I mean, that girl's face has gone down hill since that movie. It's amazing what makeup can do...she sports a mole larger than De Niro!

So that was my day. Balanced nicely between manliness and girliness.

A Trip to the Zoo

What to do on a warm January day? Pack up and head to the zoo! We loaded up the girls this morning and headed over to Tulsa to visit the zoo and enjoy the warm winter day. Though a bit windy, it was 70 degrees and sunny in Tulsa, and the animals were loving it!

I got a new lens for my camera this week, and got to put it to the test at the zoo. I'm pretty darned pleased with its performance thus far. However, the lens itself weighs 3 pounds, and got pretty heavy very quickly. Check out the pictures from our trip here.

Hope everyone got to get out and enjoy the great day!

Allison & Brooklyn

Photo Tour: The Airport Road

On my way to Phoenix this past Monday, I got on the road a little early in hopes of taking some pictures. The road to the airport is littered with very photographic opportunities. Barns, vast fields, deer, cows & horses, and streams. So I stopped to take some pictures near Osage Creek (I think). I stayed by the first bridge near the 264 and 112 intersection.

Looking at the stream to the north, I noticed an old decaying barn near the edge of the stream. I'm really fascinated with barns and want to focus on taking lots of pictures of them.








On the South side of the bridge is a large field that the stream cuts through. I lucked out and caught several horses drinking from the stream that morning. The previous week (when I didn't stop), I saw deer drinking there.








And while in Arizona, I was hoping to climb the small mountain behind our hotel and take some large landscape shots. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time, but I got a few shots out of my hotel room window.








Hopefully, I'll be going on another photo tour soon. The more practice, the better! I may even try out the Devil's Den Outdoor Festival at the end of April!

Photo Tour: Local Streams

In my efforts to learn how to take pictures correctly, I decided to spend some time taking pictures of spots around the neighborhood. More specifically, I spent time in the creeks and streams around Johnson. As a kid, I absolutely loved exploring creeks. I could have spent all day just walking up and down the creeks around my house when growing up, and got pretty close to doing just that.

It was fun to climb down into the creek beds and take some pictures. As I drive through places, I make mental notes of landscapes and objects I would like to photograph. Here are some of the shots I took today. My main focus was learning how to take good long exposure water shots (so you get the fuzzy-looking water). Hopefully, there will be more Photo Tour posts in the future.

My favorite part of the entire time was when I was coming up from the creek bed near the Carley & Main Street intersection in Johnson. A redneck shouts "Catch `em all!" at me. Keep in mind I'm in jeans and a polo with a camera in one hand and a tripod in the other. I quickly yell back at him "Does it look like I'm fishing?". He flipped me the bird. I laughed.

Blossoms

I love my Bradford Pear in the back yard. Each Spring, it amazes me to watch the buds form and then quickly bloom. The end result is an amazing density of blossoms covering the tree. This is middle-of-the-bloom, so I'll post a full-bloom shot later on.

I'm a Rebel

I have finally moved into the world of digital SLR photography! I just bought a Canon Digital Rebel XTi, along with some accessories, and have been playing around with it all weekend!

Of course, I know close to nothing about how to operate a DSLR, but that will come. So if I know you're into photography, you can pretty much expect me to call you and come hang out to learn and experiment (that means Miller, Brett, Murray, and Spencer). I'll be calling each of you soon...

Here are some preliminary pictures I've taken so far. Since I'm indoors and it's pretty crappy outside, the lighting isn't what I'd like it to be, but it's fair enough. More pics to come in the future!

Photography

I'm becoming a huge fan of photography. Not only taking the pictures, but also admiring others' talents and outcomes. I find myself surfing Flickr accounts looking for shots that I would like to take: similar subject matters / lighting / etc and figuring out how they did it. Of course, I'm using a wonderful point and shoot camera at the moment that captures some great shots. But it can't match that of a DSLR with lots of lense options like the pros use.

Tonight while browsing Flickr, I came across hkvam's account. I'm completely stunned by the scenery that she has captured. I'm also marking up Iceland as a place I want to visit. Take some time and go through the lady's pictures...they're absolutely breathtaking!