Day 269 - Sept 30th

Peter fell off the bed today and we thought he had fractured his wrist. Our nurse neighbor, Lynn, took a look and splinted it with a wooden spoon, but he didn't want to move his whole arm at all. Jill took him to the doc, they X-Ray'd...nothing...The doc started looking around and POP! she put his shoulder back into the socket! Suddenly he could move his arm around with only mild soreness! Yay, no broken bones! But if he had a dislocated shoulder, I could certainly understand his reluctance to even move the arm.

Day 268 - Sept 29th

The leaves are beginning to fall...

Day 267 - Sept 28th

Took family photographs today. You know, it can be a challenge to get five kids to all look in the same direction and smile at once!

Day 266 - Sept 27th

Sophia near our local pond. We found some nice rocks for her to sit on.

Day 265 - Sept 26th

I asked Maranda to lean against this tree to take her picture.

Day 264 - Sept 25th

Today I decided to try a photography technique I learned from one of my absolute favorites, Gavin Hoey. Not only is Gavin a fantastic teacher and a great photographer, but he roughly has my hairline. Always a plus.

Gavin posted a training video on Sept 16th on how to replicate a darkroom technique called "cross process". I did forget to take the original in tungsten white balance, so my results weren't as "blue" as his, but here is the post processing picture.

Day 263 - Sept 24th

Jill and I took a short walk over lunch and I had my camera with me with the 200mm zoom. A red dragonfly did a flyby and landed on some rocks in front of us. I crept as close as I could and zoomed all the way in capturing this pic. I have a fascination with dragonfly's!

Day 262 - Sept 23rd

Today Sophia learned to ride a bike without training wheels. She wanted Lydia to teach her. One great thing about home schooling is that kids of different ages work together. The older ones form a habit of mentoring the younger ones. It took Lydia less than 10 minutes to teach her. It was awesome. She's still a little shaky of course and when I took the training wheels off her pink, princess bike, it proved to be a bit high for her to get both feet on the pedals. So she'll practice on the smaller bike for now.

Day 261 - Sept 22nd

This week we have temperatures in the low to mid 80's. Probably the last really warm week of the year, if history is an indicator. So it's beautiful outside. Our cucumber plant (just ONE!) is STILL producing volumes of huge cukes. I don't think we've ever got this much produce off a single non-tomato plant. We must have harvested a dozen 12" or larger cucumbers and there are 8-9 of that size now still on the plant and several smaller ones. Intense!

Day 260 - Sept 21st

Three of the kids playing a game their grandma sent them.

Day 259 - Sept 20th

Haven't felt very good today. Lots of gastro pain. Woke up, went back to bed almost immediately and slept until noon. Got up, mowed the lawn and was too exhausted to do anything afterwards so laid down for another couple hours. Blech!

While mowing the lawn, I came across two frogs. I have a thing about harming frogs since as a kid, one of the guys at church had a sadistic bent towards frogs. Every since then I haven't wanted to see a frog harmed, so I made sure these two got away safe. One, however, jumped into the sewer grate, so I hope he's ok. The other one is nestled here in the newly mowed lawn. It looks like I need to sharpen my blades based on this close up.

Day 258 - Sept 19th

Happy Birthday, Ken! I do believe it's your Birthday today, isn't it?

It rained this morning. I love the sound of rain on the trees in the morning. I went out and saw rain on the rose bushes and snapped a few pics using the 200mm zoom lens. I like this one.

Day 257 - Sept 18th

As it is my birthday, I thought I should share a self-photo. Which I don't like. Too many bags under my eyes. Then I went downstairs and snapped this photo of the beautiful half of us.

Day 256 - Sept 17th

Happy Anniversary to BOTH my sister and Karl but also to Carmen and David! Both celebrating their fourth anniversary's today.

Today my birthday gift to Jill showed up. She is very happy :)

Day 255 - Sept 16th

Tonight I grilled hamburgers for the family and served them with garden grown tomatoes and onions - I also grilled the onions :) It all devoured! They specifically asked if next Monday night, the next night I am off, if I can do it again. We have a LOT of garden tomatoes...

Day 254 - Sept 15th

Outside my office window is a shepherds double hook with this at the top. A lamp is currently hanging from one hook and I have a hummingbird feeder for the other one.

Day 253 - Sept 14th

Jill got a new cell phone with a text plan. Actually, we just converted to the family plan, so it's a low cost solution for us! She's enjoying the text messaging and learning the phone. We have enjoyed having the flexibility of texting each other - especially when one of us has a quick question for the other. It's such a cute little phone packed with features.

If anyone would like to add Jill (or me) then email me for the phone numbers. philnjill at gmail dot com. :)

Day 252 - Sept 13th

My friend Carmen and her four week old Anthony. Almost five weeks :)

Day 251 - Sept 12th

I'm replacing the bark walkway around the herb gardens with rubber mulch. This is an in-progress shot! I liked the light effects.

Day 250 - Sept 11th

Sophia came downstairs carrying 10 pound weights in each hand. She's trying to get strong! So I had her show me her muscles. She's wearing a leaf crown her sister made her.

Day 249 - Sept 10th

Her smile was the first thing I noticed about Jill, all those many years ago. It drew me into her life and to this day, it melts my heart. I was actually experimenting with using "fill flash" outside taking these but they turned out nice :)

Day 248 - Sept 9th

Happy Anniversary to Jill's brother and sister in law! It's their 9th anniversary on the 09-09-09!

This day, after work, I replaced the back screen door. Our littlest has been using a small hole as a door handle and it had grown into a very large tear. I had never replaced a screen before. Kind of fun! I had two of the kids hold corners tight. Afterwards, I attached one of those dog screens on the outside to give Peter something to grab onto. That's when I found out I'm missing several important sizes of drill bits, so I had to improvise.

Day 247 - Sept 8th

Shovels do not like being left in the rain. Grrrrrr.

Day 246 - Sept 7th

Happy early birthday to me! Harbor Freight had a sale for Labor Day. Alexander and I drove down to Bellevue to pick this baby up. This is one of three parts - it's a really nice tool chest - about 5 feet high assembled. Quality wheels and rolled edges on the anodized steel - all things to watch for on these. Alexander assembled nearly all the screws with only a little of my help. It was nice working with him on this!

Day 245 - Sept 6th

Happy Birthday, Pops! Jill's dad has a birthday this day!

I took all the kids out to McDonalds and Bridges Pets tonight. Had a LOT of fun! Saw an Arowana fish - we had seen those in the Wii game Animal Crossing but never seen a live one. Plus, of course, puppies, kitties, scorpions, tarantulas, bunnies, etc. This is an iPhone pic of the very loud playset area of McDonald's.

Day 244 - Sept 5th

YAY! Jill, Lydia and Sophia are home! Huge thank you's to Kristin for picking them up at the airport. I know flash photography isn't always flattering but I was just too excited to have her home!! I'll probably pull some pictures off her camera and do an interlude of her trip later.

Day 243 - Sept 4th

'Twas a dark and stormy night. One thing I love about the Pentax K10D is that it's waterproof. No worries about being in the rain!

Day 242 - Sept 3rd

Everybody loves the car cart! Lowe's did not have what I needed.

Day 241 - Sept 2nd

Happy Birthday, my love! And to you Lindy! (for those that don't know, Jill and her sister are exactly one year apart in age). I wish you were with us on your birthday but I know your dad appreciates your presence there. I took a picture of your favorite type of flower today. The carnations are blooming on three of the plants right now.

I still remember the day vividly. I think it was February 1983. We had been dating about two months and I was talking with Sharon E. on the phone. She asked if I had gotten you flowers yet. Being completely clueless, I said "Why?" That's when I got a lesson by Sharon on what a woman wants. I'll be forever grateful for that! And when she told me that carnations were your favorite. I remember how awkward I felt holding them behind my back and how that awkwardness vanished the moment I saw how your eyes lit up when you saw them. It's a treasured memory for me and one I relive every time I bring home a bouquet for you.

Happy Birthday, precious one.

Day 240 - Sep 1st

Happy September! Everyone always takes pictures of the front side of sunflowers. I kind of liked this view.

Day 239 - Aug 31st

For dinner, I grilled hamburgers and we ate on the deck. Peter was wearing a clip on tie with a white t-shirt most of the day. Cute and different, I guess! Maranda asked me to teach her some photography tips, so I took a lot of pictures with her showing her different layouts, different focal points, different depth of fields and different lighting. As I was reviewing the pictures, I liked this one. A bit distracting on the background, but Peter was happy.

Day 238 - Aug 30th

Taken with the iPhone. At Fred Meyer, our garden center looks so empty! We are in between seasons so few plants, but no pumpkins yet.

Day 237 - Aug 29th

The end of August is the state fair in our town. And on Saturday was the fair parade. We went and had a good time. I should've charged my batteries first! Oh well, I did get a few pictures before the camera stopped cooperating. The weather held and we happened to run into friends, so we got to stand with some folks we knew.