Beach Photography

The wintry scenes at the ocean totally inspired my artistic side and I got some good pictures with my little camera. This place was so beautiful. The pictures don't really do it justice.

The mists coming off the ocean. That is a cliff in the background, our cottage was up there.

This is a picture of the residential houses across a small river that runs into the ocean. It creates a nice quiet private beach for the. There is no way to cross the river and walk over by those houses.

At the rivers edge

I got an extreme close up, one of my favorite ways to take pictures of the water running into the river and eroding the sand.

Lone drift wood

This was a beautiful piece of driftwood at the mouth of the river. I almost got drenched by waves taking pictures of it. I forgot to watch and the tide was coming in. I got out of the way just in time.

Reflections

I love the way the sky is reflecting into the wet sand. I wish I knew what the pillars of wood were for sticking up in the sand. It sort of marks the edge of the river, depending on what time of day it is. When the tide is in, those pillars are way out in the ocean.

This is my favorite scenic picture from our trip. My breath was taken away by how beautiful the sun's rays mixed with the clouds and mists in the trees, breaking into streaks of light. I am proud of my little camera.

The Beach

My Dad really wanted to come and stay at the beach again while he was here over Christmas. I got lucky and was able to make a reservation for 4 days, 3 nights at Pacific Beach. There just happened to be a cancellation for one of the ocean side cottages. We got all packed up and headed out just after Christmas for our vacation. I must say, I would recommend staying here to anybody in the military. It's amazing! We ended up with a 4 bedroom cottage right on the ocean. The views were spectacular. We would walk to the water in less than 5 minutes. The whole time we were there it was very cold, but what do you expect from a North Pacific beach in the middle of the winter? We bundled up and made a break for the sand when it wasn't pouring rain. We got lucky there too, it would rain all night and was relatively beautiful during the day. As beautiful as Washington can get in the winter anyway.

I was really glad we managed to fit my double stroller in with all our luggage. It made beach life so much more fun. I could bundle one or both kids and walk along the hard sand. It kept them warmer and make it possible to stay our longer. Leah was having fun digging in the sand and building sand castles. That was soon forgotten once she discovered...

SEA SHELLS!

The kid wouldn't stop searching for sea holes as she calls them. She had her bucket filled many times over with all kinds of shells. They were ever present on the beach. My Dad is the best shell finder by far. I don't know how he does it. He found dozens of whole, beautiful sand dollars. Usually they are all broken by the birds getting at them.

Charlie loved staring at the ocean, but don't get him too close to the water. He'd freak out! I think he remembers getting soaking wet and freezing at our last ocean trek. At least this time he was walking. He didn't get nearly as dirty and wet exploring the sand.

How can you not love this face? Sand and all.

Charlie our for a stroll among the beach rubble.

Charlie and Grandpa

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Everyone! Yes I know January is half over, I've been busy.
Our holidays were wonderful and sad at the same time. Wonderful because we got to spend it with my Dad. I don't know if my Dad and I have ever spent a Christmas together. I loved that he wanted to come and spend his with me and the kids. We had a wonderful visit.

Here are the highlights.

Christmas Eve Jammies

This is a tradition I'm carrying over from my family. Every Christmas eve were were able to open one present and it was always a new pair of pajamas to wear. I wasn't able to find any cute Christmas jammies for charlie so he's wearing spaceships.

Opening Presents.

Charlie didn't quite get it, but Leah was more than happy to chip in and open everyone's.

Leah has great bed head lately. Love this picture with her Cinderella princess slippers. A must have after our visit to San Fransisco. All I can say is thank you Brooklyn and your two daughters for further introducing Leah to the joys of dress up, princesses and ballerinas.

Charlie eating my favorite Christmas snack. Chocolate covered marshmallow Santa Claus. Yummy!

Leah is wearing her present from Mom and Daddy. She got a pink chest full of dress-up clothes.
Charlie Charlie... too cute for his own good.

The sad part of our Christmas was not having Daddy around to celebrate with us. At least he'll be home soon. We were able to talk to him on Christmas Eve, but Christmas day there was too much phone traffic to get through. My dad and I gorged ourselves on my very non-traditional and much coveted Christmas dinner (by my family only, I'm sure). We had a huge seafood spread, Alaskan King Crab Legs, stuffed salmon, scallops, shrimp. There was other side food, but nothing worth mentioning really. This is something we could not have gotten away with if Derek had been home for Christmas.

Christmas Trinkets

I was looking out the window yesterday afternoon at the snow and my eye caught the tree I had decorated up for Christmas. It looked so beautiful with the ice and snow and ornaments. I decided to try my photography skills out and see if I could capture the beauty. My camera isn't the best for this type of picture taking, but I got a couple of nice shots.

Oh, the weather outside is Frightful, but I find it Delightful!

Here are pictures of our crazy snow. We rarely get snow here and right now we have almost a foot. No one is going out and driving on the roads. The city is just not equiped to handle this much snow removal. It snowed wednesday and our road was finally plowed yesterday morning.

This is the sidewalk I cleared with a stupid dirt shovel. I called 8 different stores before this last storm hit trying to find a snow shovel, but they were all sold out, everywhere! I was using our big garage broom, but this stuff was so heavy with moisture it packed instead of pushed.

Leah and I build a snowman on Wednesday. He's still there but hunched over with old age.

Charlie loved the snow until he tried walking directly in it. I haven't been letting him out because he's been sick. He's mad about that, he want to go outside and play in the snow.

Pictures from Derek

Derek called me this morning to tell me a little about the trip he was able to go on this last week. He emailed over pictures as he was talking to illustrate his story. Here are the pictures.

Typical Derek humor...

This is one of Sadam's thrones. It's in his hunting lodge in Baghdad. It was given to him by Yassir Arrifat (I'm too lazy to look up the proper spelling of his name) I personally love the enormous copper tea-pot in the background. Seriously...what is that thing?

This is Derek in the main palace hunting lodge. It is wall to wall, floor to ceiling marble. That is an enormous crystal chandelier in the background.

This is a picture of the grounds of the hunting lodge. A large man-made lake sits in teh middle surrounded by these "houses". Derek said this lake is probably 6 feet deep and miles around. So think of that when you think of all the people dying of thirst and the millions upon millions of gallons used to fill up this useless lake.

This is the main hunting lodge palace. I know I'm calling everything by the wrong name. It's a talent I have.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let is SNOW

I love snow storms. They are so beautiful. Right now we are experiencing quite a blizzard. The snow is thick and wet and falling by the inches. I took the kids for a walk with morning in the snow and we watched all the excited neighborhood kids sledding down our ridiculously small hills. On the way home, there were snowmen dotting the sides of the road. Now I must preface, we don't get a lot of snow here, only once or twice a year. Snow is a big treat. That's probably why I like it so much now. I can't wait to take the kids out after naps and let them play in it and we can build our own snowmen. I'm sure pictures will follow eventually.