we took the kids to savannah, ga today for a few hours.  normally the idea of trekking through a town on a hot summer day with the kids would be an awful idea but jeff found a cool safari hunt for them.  we headed over to the juliette lowe house (the founder of the girl scouts) and picked up our savannah safari guides.  the kids were thrilled that they had a map and that they had to find different animals hidden in the architecture of the town.  a huge hit all around.

my original plan was to snap a few photos along the way, but to mostly help the kids find the animals.  i'd forgotten how beautiful savannah is, though, and ended up trailing behind jeff and the kids trying to take photos of every single beautiful building and iron gate and ivy-covered staircase.  i could have spent an entire day just walking around with my camera.  sigh.

a few snaps (same disclaimer applies: i'm proofing this on my uncalibrated laptop and make no claims that the colors you are seeing are what i'm seeing) :)

(*** important note to clients/prospective clients: my cell phone coverage is rotten here is hilton head.  if you are trying to contact me, please send me an email and i will get back to asap.  thanks!)


so.  we're in hilton head for our annual vacation with jeff's family.  i look forward to this every year...a week to do nothing more than sit in a chair and read.  and the reading is spectacular this year thanks to the kindle jeff bought me for hannukah this year.  i don't have to lug 14 books to the beach anymore (seriously - i could read two books a day).  all i have to do is download the books i want and off i go.  several people have come up to me to ask me about it and i swear if there was a church of kindle that i would be a missionary for it.  i love my kindle.  go buy one.

a few photos from the first two days here (disclaimer: i only have my uncalibrated laptop with me and have no idea if what i'm posting is what you're seeing; the colors could be totally wonky. all i did for these photos was adjust levels and curves a bit and burn a vignette in a couple of them).

a few weeks ago i volunteered to take photos at a local event.  the photos were just going to be used in house for the organization  but they ended up being published in a local newspaper - the baltimore jewish times.  the photographer from the the jewish times ended up having car trouble and missed the cocktail hour.  the paper contacted the organization and asked them if their photographer (me) happened to get any good photos of the reception.  i sent a few over to them, sure they wouldn't work because i'm a portrait photographer, right?  not a journalist. 

turns out they published a bunch of them and my mother-in-law tore the page out for me so i could see them:

kris found me through a former client of mine and i love meeting new clients that way;  it's pretty much a guarantee that i'm going to like them.

we headed out to one of my favorite spots in howard county to shoot at and it turned out that there was a festival going on last weekend.  it didn't start for a couple of hours so we got a chance to use some of the vendors and food stands as back drops.

i loved watching this family interact - it was so clear how much they loved thomas and he, unlike most 12-year-olds i come across, wasn't embarrased to be hugged and kissed by his mom.  it gives me hope that jack will still let me kiss him when he's that age.

check 'em out:

so check it out.  this girl, here?  the one who looks like she could be 15 or 16?  she's 9.

N-I-N-E.

did you ever?

so not only is she beautiful, but she's a total ham.  she loves acting (coincidentally, she was one of the leads in the play 'Annie' in which my niece played an orphan) and she laughed and giggled and flitted her way through our session.

check out the gorgeousness:



 

today was jack's last day of preschool and i can't decide if i'm relieved or sad.  relieved because i no longer have to write tuition checks or drive to school twice each day and sad because it seems to have gone so much faster than my time with kate.  how is it possible that i don't have preschool kids any more?  i remember very distinctly the first day jack went to preschool as a 2-year-old back in september 2004.  he was in the 2's class and kate was in the 3's class.  i went to a nearby coffee shop with my laptop for an hour or so and jeff's cousin, jordie, IM'd me asking how it felt to have both kids out of the house.  i remember the giddiness of having a few hours to myself to do whatever i wanted.  all those long nights and napless days were behind me and i felt like a new chapter in my life was starting.

and now?  now i still stop when i see a young mom in the mall pushing a newborn in a stroller and dragging a 2-year-old behind her.  sometimes i forget that isn't me anymore; i haven't used a stroller in a couple of years and can't remember the last time i had to pack a diaper bag or a 'just in case' bag when i went out for more than 45 minutes with the kids. i don't wish for those days back (dear god in heaven, no) but it still takes me by surprise sometimes when i realize i'm not a young mom any more.  that in a few months i will have two elementary school children.  that the years are going faster and faster and before i know it i will be blogging about having any empty nest.

how did i get here?

jack, back in october 2006 just after starting preschool:




jack last month at a tball game:

i'm in the process of editing one of the sessions  i had this weekend and when i came across this one, i actually laughed out loud.  it's so simple and yet so perfectly this little girl (who happens to be my niece).  i'm going to have it printed up on a canvas to hang in my studio: