Friday Night Lights (and Saturday Morning too) 4/11/14 -4/12/14

Since I've been relatively immobile, I haven't been able to enjoy my normal photographic inspirations as much.  But when the aurora forecast coincided with a few days of cloudless skies, I was inspired to stay up late and see what happened.  As soon as it got dark I'd go outside an check the night sky looking for a glow over Deer Mountain.  Finally about 10pm I thought something was starting to appear.  A half hour later I walked out and looked up and saw spires of light emanating from behind Deer Mountain and extending directly overhead.  I hobbled over to the car with all the speed of a slug being restricted by one of those drag racing parachutes and then raced toward what is normally an easily accessible northern sky view.  

Everything seemed to be conspiring against me.  To get to my photo spot I sneak around the caretaker's residence with my headlight off, onto the beach and around the corner.  Usually not a big deal.  Except that the landowners cut and fell a bunch of alder on the beach.  No problem, just walk around them right?  Not this time -  high tide was preventing that.  So instead I got to crawl over and through the alder.  At night.  Without the aid of a headlamp. Balancing on alder slash and dragging along my all but useless leg.  It took me until 11:30pm to snap my first image.  Then this feeble glow was all I was getting for the first 15 minutes of shooting.

To my delight the sky brightened with the aurora and started to throw some reds in the picture as well.   I had to bust out the fish eye lens to attempt to capture it all.  About this time I was wishing I could hike a mountain and get the high elevation view without obstructions - but this was pretty nice too.

 Non-distorted version.

Decided to try my hand at a time-lapse video.  The aurora cooperated, I'm going to have to start bringing two cameras when I do this.  Processing this video inspired me to upgrade my computers memory (24 gb now) and set up a stand-alone SSD scratch disk just for rendering video.

After an hour and a half of time-lapse photography, I was getting antsy and wanted to compose some different shots.  Just as important, the tide had gone out just enough for me to squeeze by the downed alder. This was the final shot at George Inlet for the evening.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Canon's 8-15mm fisheye lens, there is something I should explain.  When you see the black vignetting in the corners, it means I'm maxing out the lens's field of view.  The field of view from the vignette on one side of the photo to the vignette on the oppose side of the photo is 180 degrees.  In short, the aurora was BIG.

Rotary Beach, with the swimming hole in the foreground.  The moon was very bright but not quite full.

One of my favorites from the night's endeavors.  The time of the photo is 2:23am.  

Tide's dropping fast.  The rock in the foreground is the same one surrounded by water in the two previous photos.  2:39am.  

At this stage, I acknowledged that this was the best aurora I had seen in Southeast Alaska.  I simply sat down and watched the show... with my shutter release in hand.  At this point the sky was changing so rapidly and was so bright that I had to shoot in bulb mode and close the shutter when I felt that the image had been exposed.

This shot seems to have an eagle perched atop the aurora.  Plus a meteor made a guest appearance.  

180 degree field of view in all directions.  

When I got home I decided I had to snap one last shot with the light show overhead.  3:30am.  Sure do remember this night a lot better than I would have remembered any dream.  Well worth the effort.

Sister Love 3.29.14

Jeralyn loves her little brother.  At this point she didn't really see him a whole lot because he slept so much, but she liked to hold him a little.  She says, "Hi Joshua!" And then she will tell him what she's doing.  It's really sweet!

Neighbors 3.28.14

Our neighbors came over to meet Joshua for the first time.  He was just finishing up his bath, so his hair was nice and fuzzy.  Ha!  We have the best neighbors.

Bath 3.28.14

This was Joshua's first bath at home, and second bath in his life.  He wasn't all that impressed with it, but he did okay.  He really doesn't like when we take him out of the bath water and it probably because he was so warm and cozy in the water.  Poor little guy!

Presents 3.28.14

Jeralyn loves opening mail and packages.  She was interested in this one because she knew there was something in it for her.

Stickers and coloring book!  She loves to color and she loves playing with stickers!

And a shirt with a turtle on it!  Super cute!

And this photo is being posted especially for someone I love very dearly (you know who you are).

Thank you, my dear loved ones!  xoxo

Sand Castle 3.27.14

There was a book we had borrowed from the library about a little girl who goes to the beach and they build a sand castle.  Ever since then Jeralyn has been building "sand castles" in our living room using blankets.  It's really cute and I love watching her imagination coming out in play.  

So we were excited when there was a really low tide one evening.  I stayed home with Joshua, but Quent, Natasha, and Jeralyn went to the beach with some sand toys and plans to build a sand castle.  There's actually real sand (and not just course, rocky) when the tide is this low, so it was really neat!

It's fun to look for the starfish hiding in the rocks.  They all huddle in the rocks, sometimes in groups.

Popping seaweed, or whatever that stuff is called.

She loves to carry the starfish around.

Making sand castles!  Yay!

Aunt Natasha and Jeralyn walking around on the beach.  There's always fun things to explore when the tide is low.

Running through the woods above the beach.

Painting 3.27.14

Jeralyn has really been into painting and coloring.  And recently, she's starting to paint/color more in the lines.  You can see proof of that on these pages she painted.

Pretty Toes 3.25.14

Jeralyn was getting ready with me in the bathroom this morning and she pointed to my toes and said she wanted toes painted like mine.  So that's what we set out to do.  She sits so still and knows she has to wait until the paint is dry.

Eyes Open 3.25.14

 Newborns are sleepy and they sleep a lot.  So seeing their eyes wide open is a treat!  Joshua's eyes are definitely blue!  I love me some baby blues!

I think he wore this outfit twice before I had to retire it to the "too small to wear" pile.  He's a growing boy!

Friends came to play 3.22.14

We enjoyed some absolutely beautiful weather this particular week!  We spent a lot of time sitting on the deck soaking up the sun (when there wasn't a baby to tend to inside).  Jeralyn's friend Abby came over with her parents one late afternoon.

Both girls wanted to ride in the car, so we stuffed them in there.  Cute!

Baby! March 21-22, 2014

A couple of photos of Joshua:

Blanket Time 3.20.14

I didn't take this picture, but it was on my camera.  Someone was playing with the new fish-eye lens.  Anyway, this is Jeralyn during blanket time.  And a fish-eye view of our living room and dining room.

Bath Smiles 3.17.14

One last bath before baby brother enters the world...

Joshua's Birth Day 3.18.14

When I ask Quent (which is quite often I realize) if he's "ready" (like to go to the store, out for a walk, etc.) he will respond, "I was born ready!"  Which means that he was born on his due date.  I was 5 days late, so I suppose I cannot share in that readiness.  Cough.  Anyway, now someone else in our family was also "born ready" since he was born on his due date.  

This is me, in labor, between a contraction, dilated to an 8.  I don't know why I am smiling.  Ha!  But really, this was an awesome labor.  Intense, but peaceful.  I even talked about having a 3rd child between contractions.  And I laughed.  This was SO different than my labor with Jeralyn.  Anyway...

And then Joshua Robert was born (long story shortened of course).  He was born at 8:03 am, weighing 8 lb 3 oz and 21 inches long.  He is perfect!

Those little toesies!

Quent captured me taking a photo with my phone.  This was the photo I emailed and texted to family and friends to announce his arrival.

He didn't like being poked, prodded, weighed or measured.  He's much more vocal than Jeralyn was at this point.

He's glad that was over.  Here he's with one of my favorite nurses, Tiffany.  Her middle name is Christina, so we pretty much hit it off right away.

Getting his feet printed.

His first bath.  He didn't mind it...too much.

I was told to sit in this chair while he was bathed...I happily obliged.

My babies...Jeralyn loved meeting her brother.

Here she is eating my apple that was part of my lunch.  So now when we go to the doctor she talks about eating an apple.  Silly girl!  Oh, and she brought Shelly, too!

I think she was "kissing" him in this photo.

And then we had some visitors.  This is my friend Samantha.

And our friend Vicky.

And here's Joshua, wide-eyed and ready to take on the world!