Dallas and Maddison

A few weeks ago my nephew Dallas called me and asked if I would take some pictures of him and his new fiance Maddison.  Little did they know when they came they'd get to see a t-ball game too!  ;)

The weather wasn't perfect, but I guess if I was forced to choose between humid overcast and overly sunny for picture day, I'd choose humid overcast...

Since I've never done a shoot like this before, Maddison and I sent a bunch of example photos back and forth to each other, and we even kept our phones handy to help with posing.  :)  Haha!  That's me...all professional and holding up my phone next to them to get poses right.

Lucky for me...these 2 are pretty photogenic!  :)

T-Ball

I can't believe it's already here!  Anna's playing t-ball!  T-ball is hilarious.  And there's just no sense in being competitive.  The kids are so unpredictable.  At one point during their game today 2 of our boys playing 2nd base and shortstop, just started racing each other out to the left field fence.  Haha!  They've had two practices so far, and it's amazing how quickly they improve.  Day one it was all about here's how you put on your glove, here's 1st base, here's a ball, try to throw it.  

For Anna's second at-bat, she was actually tagged out on her way to 1st, but it's so non-competitive that when she didn't leave the base to go back to the dugout, they let her just stay in and "run" the bases.  She was actually tagged out 4 times in all as she made her way around, but she never seemed to notice.  :)  

Warm-up with Dad.

It's kind of a nasty day, and she didn't like how the ball was getting dirty...

She's getting pretty good at fielding grounders!

Her first at-bat!  OMG!  Please just hit the ball and run to first.....!

It may look like she's walking here as she's headed to second.  That's because she WAS WALKING!  Haha!

At least she looks like she knows what she's doing!  :)  

Meredith was squirmy as usual.  I think everyone took turns holding her.  It's exhausting to hold her!

And by everyone...I mean EVERYONE!  Anna had quite the crowd for her first t-ball game!  You'd of thought she was a first grand-baby or something. :)  11 people there, including me  That's a heck of a turnout!

Wallace is a typical younger sibling around the ball park. 

Just running around like a crazy person.  Josh bought him a glove, but most of the time he'd rather pick flowers...as would Anna.  :)

Cascarone Time!

Easter with Josh's family has developed into a day of getting smashed on the head with cascarones.  :)  The kids love this.  I think Josh brought a couple of dozen a few years ago, and now every one of the kids gets their own personal dozen eggs.  It's funny to see how some, like Anna, horde their eggs until everyone else is done, and how others, like Tanner, use up their dozen in less than 30 seconds.  Ha!  Usually the kids refrain from getting me, but even I was a target this year!  Confetti was everywhere...and I mean everywhere...

Anna has this pouring technique that she likes to use.

Poor Tanner.  He brings this on himself really.   :)

Haha!  They're not for everyone...

Poor Cy...he really seems to hate the cascarone thing.  "/

No one is safe from the cascarones.

No one....

Anna was so sweet.  She'd wipe Meredith's head off every now and then.

Aside from the cascarones, the kids had a great time playing with the puppies Leah's got leftover from the last litter.  Anna was especially fond of this fluffy little guy.

Wouldn't leave him alone all day....

And there was also the egg hunt.  :)

And the candy sorting...

Anna (who's suddenly decided she doesn't like candy) was super pleased to find a couple of dollars!

After a little coaxing, Meredith decided she likes kitkats.  :)

Aruba...

So....Josh and I never go anywhere together these days.  It's sad to say, but I think it's probably fairly normal for couples with young children to stay relatively close to home.  So, when he called to tell me he'd managed to snag a trip to Aruba, it didn't take much convincing to get me on board.  We only had about 2 weeks to get everything in order before we flew out, but fortunately between my Mom, Josh's sister, and our dog trainer, we got all of our affairs in order and took off last Wednesday.  

Contrary to what the resorts would have you believe, Aruba is actually quite arid!  I saw more cactus there than I've ever seen anywhere...and that's saying a lot considering I did a long stretch of field work in south Texas.  

I only took a handful of resort photos, and I think I'll refrain from posting them on here since 99% of the island is not artificially tropical.  After looking high and low I did manage to find a few small cactus beds at the Hyatt, so I guess they referenced the native landscape, but it wasn't the right cactus.  

Aside from the cactus...which I think was saguaro, I'd say this was the tree you'd see the most of.  The wind constantly blows so much from the south that all of these trees tend to grow in a northerly fashion.  

And depending on which coast you are visiting, you either have tranquil seas with sandy beaches....

...or powerful crashing waves with rocks.  Yep...that's me attempting to pose and look cool.  :)  I know...I'm just exuding coolness.

I found myself much more inspired to take pictures on this coast.  :)

How many pictures of pretty, blue water can one person take?  Hundreds, apparently...

Having the Caribbean as a constant backdrop made me realize just how much I tend to lean when I take pictures...  "/  I think I only got 2 that didn't need straightening out.

Josh is typically looking caught off-guard in my pics (because I catch him off-guard) or he just isn't looking at the camera because he doesn't know I'm taking pics of him.  He hates taking pictures.  So, I finally get him to sit for a picture, and what do I do?...manage to screw up the focus.  It's close enough though.  A good pic of Josh looking at the camera and smiling!  Hallelujah! 

There are caves on Aruba too!  I got to test out all sorts of new places to take pictures. 

We initially thought Aruba had some weird rock stacking cult following thing going on....

Turns out the tourists have a strange habit of stacking rocks while they're on vacation there, and the natives have no idea why...but they've embraced it.

We did a whole lot of this...

And we went down in this submarine.  It got us down to about 140' below!

It's not easy taking pictures through a porthole.  But I got a keeper!  :)

And lastly...we paid a visit to the elusive donkey sanctuary.  Took forever for us to find it on this tiny island.

Donkeys are funny...  

So, I know I said I wouldn't put any resort pics on here, but I found it comical how hard it is to actually escape America!  :)

And that's it.  We missed the kids so much we picked them up from my Mom's at 10:30 once our flight landed Sunday night.  Woke Meredith from a deep sleep and really upset her, but it was worth it.  :)  

The Redbud

I think it's funny how when you move into a new house you don't really know what all trees you have until the spring rolls around and they start flowering.  I remember being pleasantly surprised by a mountain laurel at our old house.  We'd moved in in August, and I walked by it every day until February and never noticed it.  Then one day the beautiful purple blooms were out and made it impossible to miss!  

The same thing happened again.  We managed to move in August a second time!  Which is crazy because it's a thousand degrees here in August!  This time it was a redbud tree.  Had no idea it was there.  Redbuds are the neatest trees.  All of their blooms come out before the leaves, so it's just gorgeous!  When Rachael came over to help out with the cake smash last weekend she actually pointed the tree out to me.  With how our house is arranged on the property I hadn't even seen it yet because I never really see the front of the house when I come home every day.  She told me I should be sure to get some pics of it because it was just so breathtaking.  Redbuds hold a special place in her heart because she was married under one when it was blooming.  :)  I bet that was a beautiful ceremony!  

I'm not really into vegetation photography, but this tree is seriously amazing right now!

And then I got a little artsy fartsy.  

Sure would be nice to have a macro lens for stuff like this.  :)  I made do with my 85mm.  

I'm so glad she suggested I take pictures of this thing.  I think these pics will make a great cover for the 2015 family photo album!  :)