Oh Where Did the Summer Go?

The girls start high school today and after a busy weekend, I'll post a few of the other pix I took of Maria. We hope to get out again for a few more (and with different outfits).

Tied to the Tracks

Katie, Class of 2010

This past week, I took more senior pictures of Katie. We went by the bridge and to other spots downtown and ended up by these railroad tracks. Well, that's not where the night ended. Her mom, an old friend of mine from my actuarial days, and I went out for ice cream at Coldstone where I had the coffee lovers sundae. Mmmm-mmm.

I worked with Katie's mom for about 15 years and remember when she was born. Now that makes me feel old!

Flash Back Friday 130

Maria's First Day of Kindergarten, August 1997.

Senior Year!!!

Maria begins her Senior year on Monday (Bridget will be a freshman). Maria and I finally went out the other night to take some senior pix. We had a great time and ended up downtown to watch swing dancing again. I haven't had the time to go through them all, but this one is a definite favorite!

Fotography Makes Me Forget Things

A few days ago, I took photos of the big family of my neighbor's sister, Mary. What fun! This little granddaughter was so precious as she was loving the camera!



I took photos of various groupings and of course, the whole gang. Mary's backyard was the perfect setting!



This one of the grandchildren turned out pretty cool even though I was shooting up into the bright clouds:



I was so excited to bring her a DVD of about 200 photos yesterday that I forgot about my haircut! Thankfully, my dear Shari squeezed me in later!

Chi-town!

Maybe you thought we disappeared in Chicago. Well, never fear, we returned safe and sound after staying a night in the big city where just walking around is an event. We had some great pizza at Bella Bucinos and went to see Second City. In the morning, we had breakfast on the sidewalk at the Corner Bakery where I had an awesome cup of coffee and a very chocolate muffin. This was the view from my seat:

Flash Back Friday 129

Jonh & the blogger, 1988, at a Cub's game in Chicago

Today, John & I are headed to Chicago for a night downtown like we used to do before we had kids.

Swinging

My nieces Yara & Annelies are up visiting from Venezuela. We thought we would give them a taste of the American life so we brought them to Swing Dancing in downtown GR:

Bridget and her friends Jessica, Jon (& Eric) showed them the moves. I wasn't supposed to be anywhere near with my camera, but I cannot NOT take pictures.

They also did some line dancing. It's so much fun to watch!

And no public place would be complete without the statue guys!

Kayaking on the Pere Marquette

Photo by Melissa "DB" VanderTuuk

John & I spent the day Saturday up north on the Pere Marquette River at the cottage of friends from church. I didn't take my camera on the trip down the river, but my friend Melissa did. She gave it to another friend just before she & her hubby flipped over, thus saving the above pic. Phew!

The Funnest Game in the Whole World

Ping and Pong play the funnest game in the whole world!

Last Friday, I received a call from my friend Cathy who was so excited to tell me that she had finally gotten a pool ping pong game!!! And it happened to work out perfectly for me to come over and help her break it in. We couldn't believe how much fun it was to play and we documented the occasion with her "Golden Girl" camera, a 1.5 MP beauty that is over 5 years old, since I had forgotten mine. It captured a great memory for us, so that was a good thing.

Flash Back Friday 128

Jewels & Daughters, June 2005

What to Do on a Rainy Day When Stranded on an Island

Take photos in the rain.

Try to make it to the grocery store to buy cheetos. If you get stranded on the porch for awhile, you just pose for pictures. (Bring a photographer along and you will always have fun)


Eat the cheetos with grandma on the couch while watching Julia Child on TV.

The rain turned out to be a good thing! It did clear up. The following photos are posted especially for Sharon who wanted to see more of the island and maybe not so much of the babes on the island.

The yellow building with the green roof is Kelleys Island Venture Resort, the hotel built by my dad and his partners.

Maria, Bridget & the Queen Mother head back to the mainland on the ferry!

A Slice of the Island Get-away

One evening whilst on the island, we decided to go out for pizza. Dad had already gone back home, so it was just us girls. What made it exciting was we could order a white pizza with spinach on it since we had no great desire for meat. I took advantage of the wait time outside to do some casual photographs so we could hold on to the memory.

Maria finally expressed her frustration at having a photographer for a mother! She felt like she was continually surrounded by the paparazzi.



So she decided to give me a taste of my own medicine.



I didn't think it was that bad!

MDW Island Retreat

This past weekend, I went on an MDW with Maria and Bridget. MDW is Bridget's name for our mother-daughter weekend. We went to Kelleys Island in Lake Erie and stayed at my mom & dad's condo there. Mom had told me that we would be on island time there and it was true! We felt like a whole week had been lived in the span of a weekend! We had a wonderful time!

We had fun with mom & dad... we saw some awesome sunflowers and had white pizza and watched Julia Child bake bread on the Create channel and heard about the Living Bread in the little island church and took pix in the rain and rode big yellow bikes and went swimming in the new pool and and ate lots of ice cream and did the O-H-I-O cheer and Hung on Sloopy...

Today, I'll post some sunflower photos:

Flash Back Friday 128

Maria, August 2007

Only going back 2 years today :)

Sitting on the Lap after the Nap

Leo hasn't been on the blog in awhile and was insisting on a post