Crescent Bar 2012

We truly had a wonderful week away in Crescent Bar last week.  The weather was SO HOT!  I mean, 93-100 degrees everyday!  We had tons of pool, canal, ice cream and playground time.  The kids had a blast on golf cart rides, putting on the Slip 'N Slide Olympics, knocking around the golf ball and spending time with Grandma & Grandpa Kiehl. We're thankful for a fun family week away enjoying a really beautiful part of our state.  Enjoy photos of the chaos family fun!

Pool time shenanigans

 

Sunset

The kids had SO much fun playing in "the lake" (canal).

We sent the kids on a playground treasure hunt.  Here they are on the beach digging up their treasure.

Hamming it up during the "Slip 'n Slide Olympics".  Stay tuned for videos...

Sam loved showing us his farmer tan muscles all week.

Surf 'n Slide Water Park in Moses Lake

Charlotte had a ball!

Jane could have done this ALL DAY.

Off the high dive.  This was awesome!  I think somebody was inspired by the Olympics.

Gorgeous girl at sunset

I just love sitting in my pj's, drinking coffee and reading my book as the sun comes up on these cliffs each morning.
One of the special vacation moments I look forward to.

Sweet, sweet Janey

The Kiehl Family in Crescent Bar, WA

This is no joke.

GET OUT!!
No, seriously.  That's what I told myself as we drove home from the girls' school this morning and Sam said, "Mom!  Look!  A rainbow!!"  And sure enough, not only one rainbow, but two!  As we turned onto our street, (note Curran Lane sign) I literally told myself to get out and take a picture.  Lucky for me, my camera was riding in the passenger seat.

It appeared that the rainbows were perfectly positioned above Curran Lane and looked as if God himself were shining a flashlight behind the lower rainbow.  Remember the LiteBrite we all played with in the 80's?  That's how vibrant the colors were.

So unbelievably cool.

This is SOOC (straight out of the camera).  Looks like our house is glowing.

What a great way to start the day.

Ho, ho, ho!

Merry Christmas from the Kiehls!

How did she get to be 9?

Charlotte and I had a great afternoon together a few weeks ago.  First we went to the Ft. Steilacoom Park to take her "9" pictures.  There are great backdrops at the park with lots of colors and textures.  After our photo shoot, we went to Starbucks where we had fun sipping our drinks and downloading the "app of the week".  It turned out to be quite an entertaining app, and we howled and laughed the entire time.  It was a great mother-daughter day!

My friend Jenny mentioned that this ought to be Charlotte's CD cover.  I think she's right.

This one just kills me.

We found these numbers written on the side of this building. It was a date, but of course we zeroed in on the "09".

This photo seriously happened by accident.  I was checking the settings on my camera and said, "Hey, Charlotte.  Turn around for a sec."  And this is what I got.  Love it.

 

I don't always love pictures of my kids in B&W, but I LOVE this one!  I feel like I can look right through her eyes.

Notice how she didn't smile "with teeth" the entire time?  She's getting braces next week.  Hopefully she'll soon be more comfortable flashing her beautiful smile.

I love you Charlotte.  Please don't grow up too fast.  You still need your mommy.

Show Off Your Shot

Ladies and Gentleman!!!!  For the first time ever, I'm linking up with a photography "challenge".  It's on my friend Rachel's blog, and her photo challenge called "Show Off Your Shot".  This is a sunset shot from Maui while we enjoyed a beer at Lahaina's Cheeseburger In Paradise.

Hope I "win".

What a beautiful morning!

And we were lucky enough to see it on the way to the bus stop! Five minutes later, on my way back home it was gone. Timing really is everything.


A to the K

Our Magical Week Away

We truly had such a relaxing week on Maui.  Thanks to Brett winning us the plane tickets, our family friends letting us rent their condo and the grandparents doing major tag-teaming, we allowed ourselves to put the 'R' back in R&R.  We hit the beach early, then went "home" for lunch on our lanai.  Then we'd head over to the pool where we were fixtures for the afternoon.  Our big adventure each day was going to dinner.  We had some amazing meals, and witnessed some incredible sunsets.  And best of all, I hung out with my favorite person for literally, 24/7.

Here are just a few (out of 350) of our favorite pictures.

Outside the Hula Grill in Whalers Village in Ka'anapali Beach

Ka'anapali Beach
Our condo is just out of the frame of this photo on the left.  It was 25 steps to the pool, and 33 to the beach.  Yes, I counted. 

We left home at 6:30am PST, and landed in Hawaii by 12:30 Hawaiian time.  We were walking along this beach by 2:30pm.  I love when you practically get a whole day in your destination city.

Kapalua's Plantation Course - GORgeous!

Dinner at The Sea House in Napili Bay

Our last night, in Lahaina

Our last Hawaiian sunset.  Sigh.
(For your photography buffs...this is SOOC!)

Seriously?  There were SO many rainbows.  I took this moments before we left for the airport, and afterward it started pouring down rain.  Yep, time to head home to Washington.  Plus, I was starting to miss the kids. :)

PSE 9 - actions

So I'm pretty proud of myself for figuring out how to download and install actions for Photoshop Elements.  What's an action?  Well it's sort of like a recipe someone has already put together with various Photoshop tools, adjustments, etc., put in one handy-dandy "action".  You download actions from the web (various photography sites have actions for purchase and lots for FREE), then install them in your PSE program.  You open up your picture, click on the thumbnail of a particular action (or 2 or 3), and PSE applies the "recipe" to your photo.  It's pretty simple, and you don't have to waste a jillion hours adjusting every little, blessed, tweakable thing in PSE.  So below are two pictures from the first day of school that I played around with.  You've seen them before, but not with these fun actions applied.

For Charlotte's photo, I ran Coffee Shops "Define", "Eye Bright" and "Polaroid Effect".

For Jane's I applied Coffee Shop's "Perfect Portrait" & "Rounded Corners for Web".  I really like how it warmed up her already tanned skin and darkened the red in the brick.

It's fun playing around with this stuff, but I need my guru, Rachel, to give me a workflow tutorial.  Guess we need yet another meeting for "BWB" (Broads Who Blog). 

It doesn't take much of an excuse - especially if Rachel brings Pao's donuts.

Kiehl Family Photo Shoot

Did I fool you?  It's not the Kiehls 5.0, it's the Kiehls 3.0 - my brother-in-law, sister-in-law and niece!  They wanted an updated family photo, so we did a shoot yesterday in the Curran Apple Orchard across the street from our house.  It was a unbearably muggy cloudy day, which made for great lighting.  I wanted to use my new 18-135mm lens, but was afraid I wouldn't have an f-stop low enough to create that great bokeh (soft, blurry background).  However, I found that using my fixed 35mm, stopped down to f/1.8 made it very difficult to get all three people in focus (since they're at different depths).  I took the first several with the prime lens, then switched to my new one.  You'll see in the photos of them on the blanket, that my 18-135mm stopped down to f/3.6 still made for some great bokeh.  Now enough of this photography mumbo-jumbo.  Check out my super cute relatives!

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