« December 2008 | Main | February 2009 »
Just testing out a new (known about) area today. It used to be where the school kids practiced skiing before the new ski hill with the fancy lift was built. Back then, everyone hiked up to ski down. Now it it is unheard of in this area.
Unfortunatly, this year the snow is like spring snow - late spring snow... and it is not even February yet.
I have been waking up around 4am every day since getting back from the US. Partly due to work - for the first few days I was camping and snow-shoe hiking with 5th graders up a 900 meter mountain. I had to wake up every day at 4am to prepare breakfast. Now I just try to get up because it feels good to look at the clock after several hours of work and realize that, were I to work in an office, I would still be at home getting ready.
Today I layed in bed for a while, mentally running over my goals and intentions, and envisioning a One Life program I aim to have started by Summer of 2010. As I visioned, however, I couldn't help but be distracted by the sound of rain washing away all of our snow. It is the second half of January and we still have less than a meter of snow (although a few days ago there was over one meter on the ground). What's worse, with the exception of today's rain, the lack of snow does not seem to have any correlation with temperature, as it is much colder here than normal winter temperatures, which usually only fall a few degrees below freezing.
I hate man-made climate-change.
I took my camera out for a bit yesterday as we visited all our neighbors for belated new-year greetings. Of course, most of the photos are almost identical to those I took last year (in November), so I have been trying to think of something to spice it up.
Meet the snow-man. From now on, when I am feeling less than creative, and can't find anything to take a photo of that I didn't already shoot last year, I will buid a little snow-man and shoot him. Tomoe and I made a huge snow man a few days ago, but I didn't have a camera then. Today I will go check to see if he survived the rains.
I know everyone has been anxious to see the other twin, so I fought the urge to do the work that should have been done a month ago (not such a hard fight), and managed to get some photos of Oscar touched up. Again, not happy with them, but I am happy that I now have a replacement for my broken camera. Kelly, if you are reading, bring the kids over and I will do it right this time!
And yes, I know I posted a bunch of photos of Irene yesterday, and this is Oscars day, but just to prove that they are really twins, I have to post at least one photo of Irene... and then there is the spooky one which I like so much. And who can forget the time that Oscar knocked Irene out with a flashlight to the head...
I'm back from the US. It was great and not so great all at the same time. The great part was meeting my niece and nephews. The not so great part was making a mistake with the return flight schedule that cost us $1,800 to fix. I am trying to forget about that though, so this is the last time I will mention it.
The niece and nephews, on the other hand, I may mention more often.
I was commissioned by my sister to photograph her twins while I was home, instead of paying for the cheesy cliche photos one gets from Sears photo studio. Unfortunately, when I arrived in Michigan, I found that my camera was broken and there was nothing I could do to make it usable that week. I had to rely on my dad's camera, which is good, but it is not what I was used to, so I am not completely happy with the shots I got.
These photos are of my brother's kid, Toby (the Tobster, or T, as they call him) and one of my sister's twins, Irene. The other twin's photos (Oscar) are not yet developed. Although I am not completely happy with the photos, I *do* like the Jekyll and Hyde look the Tobster gave me. (Tomoe thinks he looks like a mad scientist)
