Weekend of Fun!!!

Once again, I wanted to post more this last week and again, I did not. Thanks for checking back though. I really do hope to be able to blog a few times a week but right now, I don't know if that will be likely.

It was my birthday this last Friday so Hilary & the kids took me out for lunch. She left it up to me though for what we were going to do this weekend. My idea of a fun weekend was either, going to the cities, going camping or to take a canoe down the Brule. So what did we end up doing? We went to Madeline Island. With the storms moving in on Friday, I decided that I really did not want to go camping and I didn't feel like heading down to the cities and because I was unsure how the weather was going to be on Saturday, I didn't want to get the whole canoe thing lined up so we just decided to take a drive out to Madeline Island.

We left around noon on Saturday and caught the 2:30 ferry ride to the island. It has been at least 7 or 8 years since I was last out on Madeline Island with Hilary but last time we did not have our car. We simply walked around for awhile looking at the shops and then headed back to Bayfield. This trip however, we had our car all loaded up with stuff.

We first drove around the island looking at the houses (about 100 of them for sale too). One thing I found very interesting is that the population of La Pointe (the official city on Madeline Island) is 250 in the winter and 2,500 in the summer. Anyways, after we made it around the entire island, we headed over to Big Bay State Park.

We first took the kids on a little hike to find the ledges. The ledges is an area of the park with... ledges over Lake Superior. As we were walking up, we seen probable a dozen kids walking back to their cars after a day of swimming at the ledges. The water looks pretty deep in some places but not so much in others. In my younger days, I probable would have jumped off but now I would probably be the one on the sidelines encouraging everyone else to jump.

After our little hike, we headed over to a picnic area to grill up some food and then take the kids swimming. The kids loved the picnic. Audi just played in the grass (and ate cookies) while Breckon ran around trying to get his kite up in the air for longer than 5 seconds. At the beach, the water was hovering right around 33 degrees. Ok maybe not that cold but pretty close. Audi was the first one in it though. We put her in the sand and she crawled right towards the water. Once she got her hands in it, she stopped but didn't cry. Instead she just sat there and played. Hilary & I both thought she would have been screaming for us to get her out of there but she was very content just having her toes in the water while she played. Breckon took a little longer to get use to the water but once he did, he was in there playing too.

Below are a few pictures from our trip. I will hopefully add more posts this week but who knows, we have a lot of things happening and not a lot of time to blog.

Florida Trip 2008

Sorry I have not updated our blog in awhile but this week was kind of crazy. For that reason, I will write a short novel in this post.

Back in April, I went to a conference in Orlando and brought the family with me. My conference was from Wednesday to Friday so we flew down on Tuesday and then stayed an extra week and came home the following Friday. From Tuesday through Friday we stayed at the hotel that my conference was at but then on Friday we went to another hotel until Monday and then we stayed at a third hotel until Friday.

We were all over the state of Florida. We started off in Orlando then ended up at Cocoa Beach (although we were in Tampa and Sanibel Island too). We put just about a 1,000 miles on our rental car in less than a week.

This was our first time bringing the kids on a "long" vacation. We have taken them down to the cities and to Madison but never some place this far away, let alone on an airplane. We were worried about Audi (and Breck too I guess) on the plane but they both did just fine.

We did the whole Disney World & Epcot thing, seen both the gulf side and the ocean side's of Florida and finished the trip off with a trip to Sea World. Speaking of Sea World, that brings up an interesting subject.

I don't mind spending money on things if they turn out to be worth it. Disney for example cost us almost $400 for two days. Next time we are in Florida, if the kids wanted to go back to Disney, I would easily pay it again. The whole Disney experience and seeing your kids face when they see their favorite characters, is worth every penny!

Sea World on the other hand was something that Breckon really wanted to do. Hilary and I have both been there before (although my trip was to the one in California) so it really wasn't one of those things that we just had to see. Now even with our AAA discount, I think we paid close to $200 for this one day at Sea World. The shows started at noon and would run every hour to hour and a half (i.e. 12:00, 1:30, 2:45...). They had four different shows that you could go see with the biggest being the Shamu show. Well at about 11:30 we decide that we would head over to Shamu stadium and see the big guy first. As soon as we got there, we heard them announcing that it was full and you had to go to another show. Well, since we missed the 12:00 show (and it looks like everyone else in the world did too), we decided to go to another exhibit and wait for the 1:30 show.

By 12:30 there were lines and lines of people waiting for the 1:30 show!!! Thankfully, we were able to get in to this show. Audi was pretty fascinated with the big fishes but Breckon wasn't as impressed as I thought he would be. When we got out of that show (around 2:15) we booked over to the dolphin show that was going to start at 3:00. Again, Audi thought it was pretty cool but Breckon was tired from all the standing around we had been doing.

By the time we got out of the dolphin show, all the shows for the day were over. We walked around for a bit and then left. For $200 you would think that they could space the shows out a little more to allow people the opportunity to see all of them or have more shows throughout the day.

Ok, I will get off of my soapbox now but that Sea World thing was really bothering me :-)

Below are a few pictures from our trip.


Audi beating up her brother


At Downtown Disney... Hilary told Breck to go play in the
water but don't get wet!!! She might as well told him to
go swimming and not get wet.




Breck & I on the Dumbo ride


Audi sleeping at Venice Beach


Audi at Sanibel Island


Breck & Audi at Sanibel Island




She likes sand... what can I say


Don't get wet now Breck! :-)


A beautiful sunset in Cocoa Beach


My tan little buddy

Audi's Big Birthday Bash!!!

Well, I don't know what to do, my baby girl has turned one. For as many times as I tell her to stop getting older & growing up, she just does not listen. The funny thing is that everyone is telling me to just wait until she is a teenager. Below are a few photos from her party.

One of our friends (Dave to be exact) made an interesting comment to me at her party. He said that you need to take 100's of pictures just so that you can have 2 or 3 great pictures. I am sure that the professionals can take great pictures all the time but I still need a lot of practice. None of the pictures I took at the party would I consider great pictures, but eventually I hope that I will be able to take great pictures the majority of the time. All I need is more practice!!! Anyways, enough rambling, here are the pics.

Saturday Afternoon

Well after Audi's big birthday party, we spent Saturday just kind of hanging out. Since it was one of our few nice days this summer, I decided to take Hilary & the kids up to Enger Tower. Breck loved the view!!!





After Enger Tower, hung out for a bit then headed out to my dads camper for a bonfire.

Audi and the Dandelions

A few weeks ago, after church, I saw a field next to the church that was full of dandelions. While looking at it and waiting on Hilary to walk out, I thought I would bring Audi over and take a few pictures.

I have not had a chance to edit these at all so they might be a little "rough" but I think once I have a few moments to edit these, I think they are going to turn out great.

Here is one final shot of an old tractor

Waterfalls

Ok, so I am trying to get caught up on all my little photo outings but I don't want to bore everyone with my nothing pictures. Since I just got home & would like to spend a little time with the family, I decided to post a small section of my waterfall pictures.

I am completely fascinated with how someone can take a regular picture of a waterfall and give it movement and make it look incredible. Below are a few shots that I have taken (the ones with snow obvouisoly are from a few months ago (that is the Amnicon Falls) and the ones of the Little Manitou Falls are from this weekend.

Brittney & Mark's Wedding

Hilary, her sister Andrea & myself had to pleasure of attending a beautiful wedding in Springfield, MO over Memorial Day weekend. We left on Thursday morning and arrived in Springfield around 11pm.

We spent Friday shopping and then went out for dinner at a GREAT place... Lambert's Cafe... Home of the Throwed Rolls. When we got there, there were people everywhere and I knew it was going to be a long wait. I said I would find out how long and we could either wait or go somewhere else to eat. Well, I just walked up to the hostess and worked my magic. I told her that I, Mr. Lambert would be eating this evening in their establishment with 5 others. My name dropping work like a charm and we got in 55 minutes later. The wait was long but the food was great!



Cheryl, Shannon, Hilary & Andrea


In coming roll!!!

Saturday was Brittney & Mark's wedding. Wow what a beautiful wedding!!!


Jeff & Brittney


Mark & Brittney


Brittney


This is one of my favorite pics from our trip


Brittney was making fun of me since I always
had my camera up to my eye taking pictures


Hilary, Barb, Andrea & Cheryl

The Start

** Disclaimer **

This blog is Troy & Hilary's first attempt at "Blogging". We hope to share with you our love (or more of Troy's love) of photography. Hilary's pictures will be more of Audrah & Breckon, where as Troy's pictures will be about anything he can take pictures of. We have been inspired by two people... Jo Thompson (They took the plunge!!! blog) and Staci Landis (Staci Landis Photographic Art blog). Jo's blog was all about Jo's pregnancy (and a little bit about Jon too) and Staci's blog is about her work as a photographer. You will see bits and pieces of their blogs in ours. Please take it as a compliment Jo & Staci... we like your style :-)

With that being said, we hope you enjoy our photos!!!

I have enjoyed taking pictures since high school but until recently, I only had a simple point and shoot camera. On our way down to Madison for Superior Days, we had to stop in Eau Claire so Hilary could feed Audi and change her. Since I knew it would take her a half hour or so, I decided to take Breckon into Best Buy to look around while we waited. While we were in there, I found the Canon 40d. After Hilary was done, I asked her to come in and look at it. Like a great wife, she told me we should think about it before we just buy it. I agreed and like a good husband, I stopped at every Best Buy possible to show her the camera again.

A few weeks later, we decided to go up to the Best Buy store in Duluth and get the camera. One thing that I should mention too is that Hilary was excited about the camera as soon as she seen it too but she can resist the impulse buying much more than I can. Her thought though for buying this camera is all the pictures she could take of Audi & Breck. My reason for wanting this camera was simple, I love to take pictures and this is a great camera to take pictures with.

Below are some samples of photos we have taken over the past few months. Along with taking pictures, I enjoys working in Photoshop (PS) (as you can see by the editing). I have taken a few classes on PS but since I never had a camera that would take quality pictures, I never had the opportunity to edit anything. Some of the photos are "as-is" and others I have done a complete makeover. We would love to hear you comments too!!! If there is anything that you think we should do differently, let us know. We are new to this and want to continue learning the art of photography!

Audi & her Tutu


Yes, this is Audi's real eye color!!


Breck in Canal Park


One of those artsy fartsy photos I enjoy taking


One of my first PS creations

Hilary & Audi