Getting Ready for Winter

The weather's turning, and our days of playing outside are becoming few and far between. Even on these days that we're stuck inside, the girls get along so well. Except for refereeing the occasional fight, they're pretty much self sufficient most of the day. All day long they constantly make up games to play with each other, or read each other books or color together.



It's hard for me to imagine being so close to someone as my daughters are. For every day of their lives they've been together, first poking and prodding each others faces, learning to crawl, and helping each other walk. In fact, rarely are they not in the same house. They do play by themselves though; we all need "alone time", as they'll tell you.



Lately they've happily taken on some responsibilities. They take turns running out to the mail box to check our mail (which requires a key to open), they get to play their own CD's in our CD player, and they're in charge of feeding the cats. (Next up: Changing the litter box!)


As for me, I'm getting ready to wind up my Anatomy & Physiology class for the fall term. During Christmas break I'll be working on getting my foot in the door with some stock photography agencies, as well as try to get my little photography business a little further off the ground.

Fall is Here

Fall is here! Along with Spring, it's one of my favorite seasons. But Summer and Winter are pretty good too. I've been keeping busy with the kids and classes, but I've been trying to get out to shoot some fall colors. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of great color up in the mountains (compared to New England or the Rockies). Sure, there's maples, but that's about it. Everything else just turns brown. But in our home town there's lots of trees turning.

I recently went to a photography conference and heard Darrel Gulin speak. His images are probably more famous than he is, but hey, he's successful and had lots great advice. He travels the globe 9 months of the year, to Africa, South America, Antarctica, the Arctic, and around the western US. And which of his images sell the most? The ones he takes in his back yard garden. Granted, it's a nice garden, but hey, he's not a gardener. So next spring we'll see if we can't plant some things (and strategically place a fence or bird house or two) and see what happens.
My class is going well, for me at least. Human Anatomy & Physiology is a tough course for non-biology majors. Very interesting, but still tough. The challenge for me is to keep the material at their level. I try to get them to the point where, if they hear about some disease or aliment, they can say Hey! I know a little about that! I'm not cranking out med students; just students who actually know what a stem cell is, or why broken bones are better to have than torn ligaments.

With the comming of winter, my photography is going to be mostly limited to indoors, which means lots of pictures of my girls. Might not be as exciting as climbing up mountains or wading through streams, but it's still good practice. I'm slowly gearing up to try to make some money at this. I've done ok so far, but I'll need to devote a lot more time to it.

Procrastination

So, it's been well over a month since I last wrote to the two of you reading this ;-) Our summer ended with a fabulous camping trip to Klamath Lake, Lava Beds National Monument, and Hyatt Lake in southern Oregon.

I think the Lava Beds was my favorite site of the year. Since we went after Labor Day, the campsites were vacant. But it was still warm enough for us to sleep out under the stars one night. The girls (both 3 1/2 years old) did great spelunking. We hiked into several caves, sometimes 2000-3000 feet in, and officially rated as "difficult". Difficult for tall adults, but a breeze for my kids.

Hyatt Lake was another gem of a campsite. I understand it's a madhouse during the season, but not when we were there. We had the whole southeast corner of the lake to ourselves, complete with bathroom and showers (full-sized showers with two shower heads opposite each other), sandy beach, with a large play structure for the kids. And no one was around.

After that trip, we had one last family camping trip to Sunset Beach, near Coos Bay, OR. That time we stayed in a yurt, and "Masonandjulie" (as the girls call them) joined us. It was nice out there, but I really wish I had brought our canoe.

After all that, it was back to school for me. But, last weekend I was able to sneak out and get in one by-myself-camping trip in, over to eastern Oregon. Smith Rock, and 2 of the 3 John Day Fossil Beds. It was very nice, but cold and windy. Lows were in the low-mid 20's, and in my tent it got to around 35 degrees. I brought along my pillow (one of those memory foam ones), but it turns out the memory foam does not work when frozen; it was hard as a board.

Summer Vacation at Last!

For me at least, summer vacation has finally arrived! Of course, when I teach summer classes we always have Fridays off. That allowed us to get a lot of weekend getaways in. But still... Class is over now, but that was followed immediately by our first art show. Now, life has slowed down (sort of). I'm filling my weekdays by going to the gym, and taking the girls out on hikes and bike rides. We're also working on tuning up my web page (jeffdfennellphotography.com), updating our portrait and wedding packages.

We've got a big week-long camping trip coming up, to Southern Oregon/Northern California. We have tentative plans, but we'll be playing some of it by ear. The weather has really started to cool off, which I love. Still clear out though. I'm thinking about cashing in one of my "Camping Coupons" from my wife and taking off for a weekend alone in October to try to catch some fall colors.

Recently I got the opportunity to take some pictures of our friends kids. They said that they're hard to get pictures of, but they were pretty cooperative for me. Just get them to say Poop and the smiles come out!

2008 Albany Art & Air Show

Well, we survived our first craft fair last weekend. The toughest part was getting everything ready; actually sitting there and selling wasn't so bad. We did ok, but we're thinking of trying to hit a holiday fair if possible, and some more next summer to try and recoup our costs a bit. It was great getting all the positive feedback and making a few dollars at the same time. Thanks to everyone who stopped by!

Canoeing & Camping

We had great weather this past weekend up at Hosmer and Sparks Lake, west of Bend in the Oregon Cascades. We spent the first night in a Forest Service campground on Hosmer Lake. It was nice, but full of other campers. The next morning, while driving out to Sparks Lake for a little canoeing, we spied an available, private campsite right on the water! So, I dropped off the girls and headed back to toss all of our camping gear in the van and moved camp. It was truly a great site.

In Her Eyes

Taken at the Albany Timber Fair. You can see me in her eyes, both literally and figuratively...