Even in a time out Kennedy is just too adorable.  I am so weak, couldn’t resist those eyes.

Of course, I had this vision that while we were there, I would shoot all sorts of stock photos, maybe hire some models, scour every inch of the islands (Tahiti and Moorea) for the best shots, possibly to shoot a story..I wanted to make the most of my time there.  And I did make the most of my time, but not in the way I had initially thought.  Ultimately all I did was hang with my mom.  Partly because I was too worried to leave her alone, partly because, well, we were on vacation, but mostly because I genuinely enjoyed spending all that one on one time with her.  I will cherish that time with her more than I ever would the “perfect” shot.  Sitting on the beach watching the sunset with her, while she gets a little tipsy from one piña colada, listening to her tell me stories about her life..that’s the stuff that matters.

I’ve mentioned it before, my mom is not a fan of me pointing a camera in her general direction BUT, I can’t help it, I love photographing her.  I imagine there is some psychological component as to why, but I’m not ready to explore that just yet.  For now, I’ll chalk it up to the fact that I love her dearly.

So here is a little montage of some of the shots I took of her with my handy 1st gen iPhone.  Most of these were shot using the Hipstamatic App and a few were shot with the ShakeItPhoto App.

Stay tuned for another iPhone Tahiti post.

Here are a few pics of my family in Germany last summer.  They are part of a long term personal project I’ve been working on over the last several years.

Snowshoeing is my favorite winter activity. Well, other than laying on the couch with Cec, next to a warm fire, reading a book, while puffy white snowflakes are falling outside. Anyhoo, I digress. Over Martin Luther King weekend we rented a house up in Breckenridge with a group of friends. Breckenridge a favorite winter spot of ours.  It’s not too far of a drive from Colorado Springs/Denver and there’s a lot to do which is great when your spending the weekend with 16 people.

This shot was taken on the Lily Pad Lake Trail, which technically isn’t in Breckenridge, it’s closer to Silverthorne. Great trail, the dogs loved it!

I’ve been working on a personal project for the last several years photographing my family in Germany.  To see a few more photos from the project you can go to my post, A Walk Along the Rhein River

Quick Smantha story:  During this visit, she was playing hair dresser and pretending to cut my hair.  Suddenly, she kept wanting to lift my shirt.  When I asked her what she was doing, she said she had to trim the tiny hairs on my back.  Oh, the honesty of children.

In October my mom had surgery to repair a tear in her rotator cuff. I was pretty nervous about it, so what did I do, took photos of course. The surgery itself went fine. Her doctor and all the people in the surgical area were great. Super nice and they seemed to take good care of her. She checked in to the hospital at 6am had the surgery at 7:30 was out of the OR by around 10 and discharged by 11:30am. Which I thought was a little odd, a 67 year old woman with a history of high blood pressure and heard disease would being discharged so soon after having surgery. Well, sure enough when we got her into the car, she started having chest pains. Technically she was having chest pains earlier but neglected to say anything about it…that’s my mom. I went back into the hospital, told her nurse, and they immediately checked her back in, but to the ER. The ER staffed sucked, they were absolutely horrible. I was pretty pissed. No one could tell us what was wrong with my mother, her nurse seemed completely apathetic, and the Dr, well in the 7 hours we were in the ER I only saw him get up from his chair twice times: once to grab a doughnut, once to do rounds. I wish I had taken photos during the ER experience so I could publish their faces, but I put the camera away as soon as we got into the ER. Thankfully my mom is ok and her rotator cuff is healing just fine.

This was the first time I’ve ever truly thought about the reality of loosing my parents. It was scary and and it freaked me out. But at the same time it reaffirmed how much I love my parents, my family, and my friends. And it helped me to let go of some of the crap I’ve been carrying around for a while. Although, I doubt I will ever forgive my mom for telling me that leaving my shirt untucked made my ass look big. As a result of that comment, I even wore my shirt tucked in during gym class. Yes, I was that dork and it scarred me for life. But I do love you mom!

Today is World Aids Day and Starbucks is donating 5 cents for every drink sold directly to The Global Fund and throughout the rest of the holiday season, there will be special (RED) drinks available at Starbucks.  So go grab a cup of coffee and help fight HIV/AIDS.   If you’re like me and have a T-Shirt and/or shoe fetish, you can also help fight HIV/AIDS by purchasing RED products from The Gap or Converse.  What’s cool about the Converse 1HUND(RED) Shoes Iniative is Converse brought together a hundred artists from around the globe to design a unique shoe for the 1HUND(RED) Collection.  And for music lovers, (RED)WIRE is launching today.

To find out about more ways you can help eliminate Aids in Africa go to www.joinred.com.

Nothing like a really bad senior portrait to motivate me to post something else in this category.  So, last month was my 38th birthday.  Obviously this isn’t a recent photo.  It’s from about 30 years ago…I’m pretty sure it was taken at my 8th birthday party.  This photo brings to light three things about me: my bad memory as I only remember two people from this photo and one of them is my older sister, my great fashion sense , and my love of CHOCOLATE CAKE.  But not just any chocolate cake…the PERFECT chocolate cake.  My mom made this cake for me on just about every birthday.  To this day, when I go to visit my parents, she still makes it for me.

As a treat to you all, here is the recipe for the PERFECT CHOCOLATE CAKE (it’s seriously called that):

INGREDIENTS:

Cake:

• 1 cup unsifted unsweetened cocoa
• 2 cups boiling water
• 2 3/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 2 1/2 cups granular sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Frosting

• 1 package (6oz) semisweet chocolate pieces
• 1/2 cup light cream
• 1 cup butter or margarine
• 2 1/2 cups unsifted confectioners sugar

Filling:

• 1 cup heavy cream, chilled
• 1/4 cup unsifted confectioners suger
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

PREPARATION

Cake:

In medium bowl, combine cocoa with boiling water, mixing with wire wisk until smooth.  Cool completely.  Sift flour with baking soda, salt, and baking powder.  Preheat oven to 350F.  Grease well and lightly flour three 9-by-1 1/2 inch layer cake pans.

In large bowl or electric mixer, at high speed, beat butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla, scraping bowl occasionally, until light – about 5 minutes.  At low speed, beat in flower mixture (in fourths) alternately with cocoa mixture (in thirds), beginning and ending with flour mixture.  Do not over beat.

Divide evenly into pans, smooth top.  Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until surface springs back when gentely pressed with fingertip.  Cool in pans 10 minutes.  Carefully loosen sides with spatula, remove from pans, cool on racks.

Frosting:

In medium saucepan, combine chocolate pieces, cream, butter.  Stir over medium heat until smooth.  Remove from heat.  With wisk, blend in 2 1/2 cups confectioners sugar.  In a bowl set over ice, beat until it holds shape.

Filling:

Whip cream with sugar and vanilla, refrigerate

ASSEMBLING

Cake:

On plate, place a layer top side down.  Spread with half of whipped cream filling.  Place second layer, top side down and spread with rest of the cream filling.  Place third layer top side up.

Frosting:

With spatula, frost sides first, covering whipped cream filling.  Use the rest of the frosting on top, swirling decoratively.  Refrigerate at least 1 hour before serving.  To cut, use a thin-edged sharp knife.  Slice with sawing motion.  Serves 10 to 12.

A little side note on the frosting.  It’s really good but was always a little too sweet for me so my mom would make more whipped cream filling and use that to top off the cake instead of doing the frosting.

Last month was my 20th High School reunion, Chandler High School Class of ’88, which I did not attend.  Thankfully, I was on a Colorado Fall Colors assignment (not that I had even planned on going to the reunion).  But to commemorate the occasion, I thought I’d post my senior portrait and share some embarrassing details from my teen years.

I was kind of a nerd:  First off the sweater says it all…I LIVED IN ARIZONA!  Who wears a sweater in the middle of summer in Arizona!?! Oh, and yes, those are pleated jeans.  Ahhh the 80s.  What else,

1. I was in Jr ROTC
2. I was a member of the National Honor Society
3. My favorite class was Chemistry but only because I had a crush on my teacher
4. Contrary to current popular belief I did not play any sports
5. I almost signed up for band (I’d played the trumpet and the flute since grade school, I wanted to play the drums but my mom said absolutely not).  When I found out it was a marching band, I opted out
6. I only skipped school once, to go to an airshow.  Back then I wanted to be a fighter pilot.

The three highlights of my high school years were:

1. Getting accepted into the US Air Force Academy Prep School (after a year there I went on to the Air Force Academy, Class of ’93)
2. Seeing U2 live at Sun Devil Stadium
3. Winning my first art award

Riveting, I know.

And to avoid wearing a bridesmaid’s dress, I volunteered my photographic talents.  Thank goodness for canon auto focus because I probably spent 60% of the ceremony and bit of the reception in tears.  Let me tell you, taking photos when you have tears welled up and streaming down your face is somewhat of a challenge. 

This is my favorite photograph from the bunch.  It was taken at the rehearsal and was the first time Stephan, my sister’s then fiance, had met my grandmother.  I was, and still am, moved by the sincerity and love you can see in Stephan’s face.  It was a great moment to witness.

Here is are a few more of my favorite moments:

My older sister Lorraine getting her hair done the morning of the wedding.  I absolutely love this shot because it’s payback for all those years she tortured me when we were younger.

I walked out of the ladies room where my sister was getting ready to see if Stephan had arrived yet and in the hallway was my dad decked out in his tux.  He looked so handsome, sweet, and very proud.

My nephew Alex get’s the squeeze from my cousin Lynne.  What I love about this photo is that everyone is smiling.  In my family that’s quite a feat, especially with my mom.  Usually when I point my camera in her direction she gives me some sort of wacky expression.  I was lucky enough to catch a few more of her with a smile.  The one of her dancing with Stephan is just adorable…she looks so cute.  And the next one was at the end of the night…she’s basically telling me to get the camera out of her face but she does have a smile on her face.  I think at that point she’d given in to my jedi mind tricks.

Another favorite moment was the “father/daughter dance.”  My sister opted to dance to the song, Rubberband Man by the Spinners which is one of dad’s all time favorites.  I spent the entire song laughing and crying because they were both so adorable and it just brought back a waves of memories from our childhood.

Lastly, a shot of just my little sister.  Except, she’s not so little anymore.