I know a girl…

I know a girl who fills a room with joy.

I know a girl who can listen to the unlistenable ones.

I know a girl who finds her escape in the pitter patter of her own running.

I know a girl who was just a girl when she found the perfect man who was just a boy.

I know a girl who is a queen and she sometimes forgets it.

I know a girl who has so many sisters I can’t even keep track.

I know a girl who dresses up for Halloween with unabashed enthusiasm

I know a girl who has as many stalkers as she has friends, and they are one in the same.

I know a girl who has a magical husband who can turn vhs tapes into DVDs!

I know a girl who stands up for herself and then apologizes for it.

I know a girl who is all girl raising three boys.

I know a girl who makes me feel like I’m always enough.

I know a girl who can cook my problems away.

I know a girl who left her heart in San Francisco.

I know a girl who I love so much I don’t even feel lame writing her poems on her birthday!

miss you. love you. happy birthday Camille!

I'm still holding out for our couples cruise without husbands (is that an oxymoron?)

Nicole Hill Photo Class 101

Well, it has been an interesting 4 weeks. I've kinda been taking a break from blogging because I've been working on this class and learning how to manually expose my pictures. I definitely have learned a lot and wanted to post a few of the pictures that came out of my assignments. It was surprisingly challenging. More so than I thought. I would recommend it to anyone who lives in SF.

These are all shots that I manually exposed and let me tell you it is a whole other ball game. I miss auto already!! Also, these pictures are sooc, which means straight out of camera! No editing, which Nicole was really adamant about. She really taught us to control for as much as we could before we even get the image to the computer! It makes you have to work harder but I think there is a difference in the quality in the end.

  

This was our model at the lighting demo. It was freezing in the city!

 

This was a texture collage I did.

   

I can't tell if I enjoyed the class more, or the reason to go to the city with Whitney and have a little adventure. I think the combination of both was well worth it!

 

As far as my bubble goes... does being offered weed on the trolley car, almost being puked on and getting lost in the tenderloin count as bubble popping? I sure hope so because I don't think I can take anymore!

Let it rain.

Growing up in Oregon I have memories of splashing around in puddles and getting soaking wet. To a California boy like Ben this is outrageous. He doesn't let the kids outside if it is below 55 degrees. I finally convinced him that William would be safe and wouldn't die if he got a little wet outside and enjoyed all things rainy! It didn't take William long to "warm up" to splashing in the rain. It felt like childhood to me.

He thought he was pretty funny pretending like he was surfing on this piece of wood. Cute.

Poor June was stuck inside with daddy. She wanted a piece of the action so bad!

Scrunchy face...

I can't remember when it started but somehow we got June to respond to the words "scrunchy face" in the following fashion. It is bazaar! Without fail she squints her eyes and scrunches her nose and puckers her little lips. The problem is now we are so addicted to seeing her do it that we find ourselves requesting it at an abusive rate! When she sees the camera she immediately pulls out scrunchy face. I'm not sure this is what I want my family portraits to look like so we might have to start weaning her off of it!

 

this one is just obnoxious! I can't help myself! I'm addicted to scrunchy face!!

it's about time...

Okay, so I'm a bad mom for a lot of reasons but one of them is because I'm just now getting my son a bike and he is almost five. Aren't kids in Switzerland riding bikes without pedals at like 2 years old or something!? The thing is that we have been trying to get William a bike for every Christmas or birthday for the past two years and he is the one who has refused! He simply has not wanted a bike... albeit begged for us not to buy him one!

So, I was at Target by myself the other day (by the way that happens once a year so I figured I better take advantage) and decided to bite the bullet and force him to like it once I got home!

Why would a little boy not want a bike? This is the question I ask myself. It is more of a question of opportunity cost. William is two things 1) cautious... which doesn't go well with biking and 2) efficient... in toy terms. He thinks if he gets a bike he won't get a new army set or police car or star wars gun. He is usually right, so he always objects to the bike purchase in order to get something else.

Well, it was starting to get weird so I put an end to it and bought him a bike for Easter. That way he can't object because it was either that or nothing. Here are some shots from our first attempts...

Ready?

set?

 

GO!!