Ping & Pong's Three Cheese Birthday Celebration

Last evening, I met my dear bright and shining star of a friend Cathy at Olga's Restaurant to celebrate her Birthday Eve. This is the third year in a row that we have celebrated by having a delicious 3-cheese Olga (so appropriate for 3/3) and it was time to capture the memory in photographs. We had a very sweet waitress named Treonna who was happy to help us celebrate! She brought us a tiny bowl of curly fries since we didn't need a whole one.

Then she happily tried her hand at my big old camera to take the Ping and Pong 3-Cheese Birthday Celebration Portrait.

Then, bless her heart, she brought us these wonderful chocolate mousse cups. Just the right ending to a perfectly wonderful birthday celebration!

The Ping Pong World Cup

This past Saturday morning, I met Cathy, aka Pong, and her son Ben at Boston Square since I had heard through Facebook that they were sponsoring the "Ping Pong World Cup"! We signed up to be part of the action and I'm very happy to say that Pong advanced to the Golden Paddle Round and Ben was the semi-finalist in the Silver Paddle Round. I did ok too.... had some extremely long volleys with Won Lee who was the 2nd place finisher.

Ben & Cathy participate in the funnest game in the whole world.

If you go to Google and click on Images at the top, the type in Funnest Game in the Whole World in the search box, you will find an amazing thing!

Two Teenage Daughters and a Homecoming Dance

This past Saturday evening, Bridget & Maria both went with friends to the Homecoming Dance at South Christian High School. I went to the mall with them last month to get their dresses, but they did the shopping and picking out themselves. They both did allow me to come to their friends' houses for the pre-dance photos with their friends. I was so happy to oblige.

Bridget, on the right side in front, went with a group of 15 of her freshman friends who were very happy and excited.

Maria went with Frick and some of their other friends.

Or should I say, she went with Mr. Darcy?

January Antidote, Part 3 - Reflections, Warmth and Colour!

When our fingers had reached the freezing point, we decided to head over to Calvin College. We found a warm cozy place in the Prince Conference Center complete with 2 roaring stone fireplaces, a grand piano and some dried flower arrangements, aka the colour we sought.

It was a good, good day!

January Antidote, Part 2 - Rushing Water

After brekkie, we headed from Eastown to downtown GR after a brief stop at Deirdre's home in East Grand Rapids to pick up our camera equipment. We are amassing a fairly large arsenal though Deirdre's backpack is now bigger than mine! :)

Our first stop was near the 6th street dam across the river from the fish ladder. Above is a view from the south of the infamous Sixth Street Bridge which I usually picture from the north. We took photos of the water rushing over the dam and it did feel good to listen to it flowing by.

Looking south on the river into Grand Rapids, I saw these bridges which reminded me of the bridges over the canals in Amsterdam for a second.

As I look again at these photos of the icy cold water rushing underneath me, I am recalling with gratitude Deirdre's warning to me to be careful.

Later that afternoon in my own bedroom, I tripped over a cord and bit the dust on the soft carpeting and that was bad enough!

An Antidote for January

Liquid energy

When the deep cold and grayness of the Michigan January settles in, truly one of the best remedies is to meet a friend for a combined breakfast and photo shoot. This past weekend, my friend Deirdre and I headed out on a quest for colour after a wonderful breakfast at the cozy Brandywine Restaurant.

Deirdre ordered the Eggs Timothy, and I thought of how the Queen Mother would enjoy it because of its corned beef hash and the english muffin toast on the side.

I had the Greek god Omelette which was also very amazing. We impersonated Japanese tourists and photographed our food, while the chef looked on from the kitchen with approval.

To my astonishment, I ate the whole omelette without getting a stomach ache which was a good thing as we headed into parts 2 & 3 of our photo journey. To be continued...

Oh. Wow.

Her name is Willow.

It seemed like yesterday, my neighbor & I were out watching our kids play. Now her oldest is home from Alaska for the first time with her new baby. She asked me if I would take pictures when she was home and of course I was more than happy to!

This is the first one I took of about 200:


Isn't she so sweet??? What a good baby!

We sat around and chatted, drank coffee and took pix. Here are a few:

Willow and her grandma, Faith.

Willow looks up at her mom, Jenna.

Fall Photo Shoot

You know how when every Fall the leaves are changing and you know soon the colour will be gone and it will be winter for a very long time? This is when I feel the need to get out and capture some of it with my camera. Deirdre was up for the adventure, so we headed out Saturday, October 17. Well peops, Fall is late this year! We still have a lot of green left on our trees.

The Flat River reflecting some of the green and gold in Lowell, MI

Well, if the leaves aren't quite ready, I always love to do people shots...

We turned our attention to this milky stream in Fallasburg Park. It was dark enough there in the late afternoon for 5-6 sec. shutter speeds. Fun.




Real fun.

Ping & Pong's Epic Island Adventure

I have been very lax with blogging here (or busy doing other things) but I do need to go back and tell about one of the side benefits of going to Kelleys Island last weekend. I invited Cathy, aka Pong, to go with me. She's so.much.fun.

We met the Queen Mother & Dad at the ferry and rode the stormy seas over to the island. Friday night, we hung out with my sisters & the family and stayed at Kelleys Island Venture Resort where the wedding was on Saturday afternoon.

After the wedding, Pong picked out a yellow bike to tour the island.



We rode many miles around the island...


and explored the old winery ruins.


We stopped by this old house which could have been taken from Alfred Hitchcock's, The Birds.

The birds were calm at the moment, but we didn't stay long to see what they would do.

Pong watches the island recede into memory.

The Freshalopes

Eliselope, Bridgelope and Jessalope

They were sitting on the couch there last Friday night and they didn't know if John was telling them the truth about the existence of the Jackalope. I had to take this picture for them!!!

Sweeeet!

This past week, I did the Senior pictures for the daughter of Char, an friend and schoolmate from the old 4 room school house in Celeryville. Her daughter is just as sweet as Char is and we had such a good time!

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!