Riding horseback and milkin cows

My daughter's kindergarten class spent a fantastic day at the Real Life Farm in Canton recently. They got to ride horses and do "chores" on the farm. They fed the animals, milked the cows, held the baby animals. Parents, teachers and children all had a great time - despite the rain! My proudest moments were when my daughter conquered some serious fears... It all started on a horseback riding trip in North Carolina a few years ago. She was too little to go on the ride up the mountain so we stayed behind to ride an old work horse named cookie. We set her on that old sway back horse and before he could move a muscle she screamed in terror. You'd think we put her on a bucking bronco, wild and unbroken! Poor old Cookie didn't know what to do so he just sat down. She hasn't wanted anything to do with horses since. Fast forward a few years to kindergarten and there we were, sitting on the line of hay bales, waiting for her turn to ride the horse. She was certain of two things - she did not want to ride that horse and everyone else in her class was not afraid to ride that horse. Ah...peer pressure is an amazing thing! When her turn came she gritted her teeth and climbed on. The second pass around the barn we even got a smile!
Then later in the day - she milked a cow! Now she was sure she'd never do that! But there was no way we could get her to touch any of those bunnies, baby goats or hold a kitten - no way!

A sneak peek for Caitlin

A sneak peek for Caitlin...

Caitlin is a creative, smart, fearless adventurer. It was a great pleasure to work with her. She introduced me to a great place to shoot - and we spotted deer, up close and personal!

viruses, spybots and worms...oh my!

Worms - We're infested with worms! My computer is anyway. This weekend of getting things done is not meant to be I guess. Who the heck does that?? Create a virus so cunning and invasive - it actually turns off my virus protection software?! My files are {mostly} backed up on an external hard drive so keep your fingers crossed that loss of images will be minimal. So both my computer and external hard drive sit at Canton Computers.... Like rushing a child to the ER I tell you. Nothing to do but wait, fingers crossed, pacing... I hope the jerk who created the spybot worm suffers ten thousand paper cuts, slivers, hangnails and stubs his toe and bangs his funny bone for good measure. Bad karma coming your way buddy...

To add to the frustration of the weekend, my senior portrait session was rained out Saturday. The upside is that though the session didn't happen, I did get to the location and snapped a few set up shots. Discovered a great park that I haven't been to before and can't wait to do a session there.

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Update - After a total system restore, there is no trace of a worm on the machine. And file loss was minimal. Now its just a matter of putting everything back where it belongs. Back on track...whew!

Little Miss...

I recently had the pleasure of photographing Kayla for a Dance competition. The category is Miss Photogenic. She placed fifth overall with lots of sub-categories, even taking gold in one of them! Congratulations Kayla and thank you for letting me be your photographer!

Cool Chicks, Hot Mammas and Baby Boys

I got to hang out with the coolest chicks around last weekend...My old college girlfriends. We don't get to see each other so often now that we all have such busy lives. Since theres a baby boy arriving in June that is eagerly anticipated, the girlfriends threw a shower for the mommy to be. Even though its her second baby, the need for a girlfriend-get-together trumps the rules. Rules schmules... It was so great to see old friends - and meet some new ones! Hangin with those girls makes me feel nineteen again... but now we're like real grown-ups! We're having babies, getting engaged (yay Julie!), buying new houses, renovating old ones, getting real jobs... O.k.- feeling thirty-something again. But man, I sure miss those girls...

The mommy is not only an old friend but a client too. She was nice enough to bring her maternity session slide show DVD to share with everyone. That gained lots of ohhs and ahhs - I felt like a proud momma for minute too. Thanks Laura for the nice compliment!

I'll share a couple of images from our recent maternity portrait session: