Woo Hoo

Exciting news - my son's colllege has a bunch of webcams. You can check them out here:

http://webcam.oregonstate.edu/

It's also a new link in my sidebar. Speaking of webcams and sidebars you can now watch the snow slowly falling on our mountain tops. Quite an exciting day for crazy webcam viewers like me.

The Ride

This past Sunday, some of my favorite boys came over for a ride.

Hubby was invited to go too.

There's lots of discussion about the route they will take.

This bike always turns several heads wherever it goes. It's just so classic. And old.

It's decided then, they'll stop at the college to say hello to Logan and then go on up to the highest peak across the valley.

Gentlemen, start your engines.

Buckle on those helmets and let's ride.

Ruh, Roh...

Yep, she's leaking oil fast.

Thus ended hubby's participation in the ride for today. We'll have to reschedule that real soon. But this bike will need to make a return visit to the repair shop tomorrow. At least they caught it before it blew up the engine or something.

Just more fun

We are thankful for any trucks that come our way these days.

And if you're gonna load a truck or drive a truck

isn't it just more fun with gummy worms on the side?!!

Safe and Sound

I got to have both of my boys home this weekend, one came to load up more stuff for his room and the other came for hunting. Sadly for the second, I can tell you that the two little Bambi's in our neighborhood are still safe - and so is their mother. But they should beware, he's coming back at Thanksgiving, and he might have better aim then!

My Motives

So there I was, just walking along the beach in the morning taking photos of interesting things that had washed up in the night.

There's jelly fish

and sea palms

and then this! It had another body part that I will spare you the sight of, but it looked like a large fish belly, only fatter and with fins in the wrong place.
Hubby wasn't so sure I should be getting all these shots but that very same day the paper carried an article about these guys, squid they are, rarely seen on our coast but are now suddenly showing up everywhere.

And he thought I was just going to make a post and list all the weird things I saw on the beach and then show a picture of him. That thought never even entered my head, I can't believe he would think that. I was just after the nature interest stories.

Well, there is this one shot on my camera. I took it because of the very unusual rock and sand formations. And hubby was just there to give it the proper scale. And because he's handsome.

Draw your own conclusions, I am not responsible for them.

Be Spontaneous

When hubby calls at 4:15 pm and says are you up for something crazy?
You should definitely leave your little castle in a heartbeat and say "yes". Sadly it took me about 6 minutes and 13 seconds. But I did come up with the right answer.Because he has really good ideas - like day before yesterday when he took me over the hill just in time for the sunset.

If you live in our state and you don't visit the coast in September, you are wasting your existence and endurance in those long rainy months.

Only at this time of year can you watch the sun till the last short chord disappears beyond the water.

Because by the next morning the horizon has disappeared once again.

Moving On

While I have enjoyed photography with long haired subjects

Curly, dark hair -

that frames the face,

straight blonde hair -

that glows in the sunlight.

I imagine that I will also like photographing short, trendy hairstyles, maybe even hair covered up by football helmets. Stay tuned - more senior photo fun is in the works.

Hats!

Happiness is going to the Saturday market with your cool hat daughter and her cool hat students.

Pathetic

That's the look in the eyes of one mama bird as another mama bird approaches the last open bunk she is guarding in the sleeping porch. She exclaims relief that she found a place to fluff up the nest of her freshman youngun but is met with a sorry, it's taken reply. Don't worry, says the sophomore boy, the older guys will finish moving out shortly and there will be plenty of open bunks by tonight. He doesn't get it, the fact that mama birds NEED to lay claim to the new sleeping quarters before they can leave him for the night.

Maybe I should have given it to her, but I just couldn't.

Slipping out quietly

We're never quite sure how he does it but he always manages to stay under the radar. Just when we thought we were having our last night home with him and maybe even fix him his last breakfast in the nest, he phones and says he's spending the night at his buddy's house. So without our even being aware of it he had already left. His room was already vacated and life as we knew it had already changed. Sigh...

But we are excited for him - a great co-op to move into, new friends to meet, a campout to kick it off. We just hope he remembers home as the fun place -
and not just the work place!

Creativity

On the agenda for today is a field trip with a Creative Writing class. Not sure I will be doing any writing but I am packing my Nikon/

Oh, and about that countdown, last night I drove through the college town where my son is moving tomorrow. And I can proudly inform you that I shed no tears there - I wasn't feeling pink heart happy, mind you, but at least no tears. Tomorrow... well anything can happen.

In the Pink

Feeling very pink-heart happy today. BTW, this hydrangea is not called "pink heart happy" but rather, "shamrock". Go figure.

Anyway most of the pressing, stressing things are done for this week. AND I'm in the process of scheduling another 2 senior sessions for the near future. Plus I'm adding some geometry and algebra tutoring to my schedule. Life doesn't get any better than that, right?

Gone without a trace

One day it was here and the next day it was gone.

Actually it was here for months, maybe a whole year, so long, in fact, that I really bonded to it.

I felt like it was my special train car, with it's antique look

and very cool paint colors,

we had so much fun photographing beautiful people with beautiful dresses with this very special background.

even a bride.

But now it's gone and I don't know where to find it. They didn't even ask me or give me a 2 week warning.

Life is so uncertain.

Faster than a speeding ....

This is my daughter playing volleyball. She moves pretty fast

which makes her arms and legs disappear into a pixel pond of blur

but you sort of get the idea of all the action going on

Not sure this is a standard volleyball move. Maybe she should have gone out for kick boxing!

The Other Son

This past weekend we followed our youngest daughter's team to away volleyball games. They just happened to be near our other boy's home. So he got us up very early to go out on the lake.

He wanted to show us one of his favorite, secret fishing spots.

We are not the only ones up early out here.

We bought a can of worms and even put the pole in the water.

When you get to the very narrow part of this bay you have to use your little motor - so it doesn't scrape the bottom AND so it doesn't scare the fish. Did you know you can drive the boat around with this foot pedal, so your hands are free for fishing of course. But it is harder than it looks, hubby could only spin us in circles with this contraption.

The fish were not biting but I didn't mind. I just came for the view.

And to be with my boys of course.