Canal Trail

Almost every day, I walk or run along the canal trail behind our house.  I always enjoy this outing, and it has become a ritual of relaxation for me.  Under the guise of exercising the dog, I traipse up the hillside and off I go into a world all my own for a half an hour to an hour or so.  The scenery is beautiful, but it has become so familiar to me from seeing it so often that I rarely think to photograph it. The other day I was so struck by the intensity of fall colors along the trail, I returned to the house to get my camera.  I didn’t take any panoramic shots at all.  Instead, I found myself lost in macro mode, discovering textures and details that I had never seen before.  I came back from my walk refreshed and exhilarated, humbled by all of the beauty that I had been missing as I walked right past it every day.

Orange

 

I've been enjoying participation in a local group of women photographers who have all taken a wonderful class entitled Momtography, led by an amazing professional photographer who found her passion taking photos of her children.  She has graciously set us all up on a group Facebook site where we can share the joys and challenges of photography and motherhood, among other interests.  She is also motivating us to explore new themes with a weekly "assignment" to photograph and share with the group.  This week's theme is ORANGE.   I missed the "deadline" (if you can say that there is a deadline--it's a pretty relaxed group!) because I couldn't choose which of these to upload.  Which one do you think is the orangest of the orange?

Hulse Family Portraits

We posed our own family portraits down at Hydro Park on Saturday with varying degrees of success, but a good time was had by all!  We did our best to make a tried-and-true location on the walking path bridge work out as a backdrop, but most of my favorite photographs from this outing are the spontaneous ones that presented themselves on the way back to the car.  Timmy was crazy motion, and following his antics was crazy fun!

Someday I'll figure out how to photoshop a smiling face on Timmy for this photo, but I couldn't resist posting it as is because of Emily's joyous wave and expression of delight.

Pop and Nana with the kiddos.

Nana with her posse.

Standing still to gather his strength for some serious running around.

And so it begins:  sand-kicking man.

Climbing rocks at the beach.

Running man.

Nana and Timmy.  He picked this spot and said, "Come sit with me, Nany."

One more pause to gather strength...

...and off he goes again!

I asked Timmy who was taller, Timmy or Pop...

He thought that was pretty silly!

My Baby

Timmy and Emily were frolicking on the floor, crawling around and giggling near bedtime.  I eventually scooped  up the baby to settle her down for bed and Timmy got very pouty and unhappy.  I thought perhaps he wanted to be held, too, so I asked him "what's wrong, buddy?"  He replied, "I don't want to share my baby."

A Perfect October Day!

Daddy scoops Emily out of her bath in the sink and shows her how to drip-dry!

Nana reads Who's Peeking to Miss Emi.

Leaves too pretty to resist.

"Helping" Daddy with the raking.

A mid-afternoon hike up Saddle Rock.

Every day seems as if it may be the last sunny day of the season, and then, mercifully, it isn't.

My ever faithful hiking companion, Isabel.

A corn field by the cliffs at sunset.

My little pumpkin found an even littler pumpkin.

And Pop discovered a rare find: a white pumpkin.

Farm house by the pumpkin patch, overlooking the Wenatchee Valley.

It was a positively delightful excursion to the Pumpkin Patch, but in the end I decided to go home with the same two punkins I had before we came, and I would pick them again every time.