Happy Birthday Lauren!!!

My little mosquito-bitten faced niece turned one two days ago!!! Tonight we celebrated with a fancy tamed-down luau at Chuck E. Cheese. I finally got the photobook I put together following her first year with pictures in the mail. It is a little late Christmas present for my sister and I was so excited to give it to her. She teared up...I have never seen her cry. She always makes fun of me for crying. Well, she's also pregnant with twins, so she is getting double the hormones.

So, now I don't have to hide all the pics I have of Lauren. This one is my fave. This one is called Sunday naptime. Sunday afternoon is Scott's ritual naptime. The two of them fell asleep and left me watching tv all by myself. I was a little nervous that Scott was going to kick my baby niece in the face but she remained intact.

Wait...wait: one more note, if you are thinking that the darling dinosaur baby blanket is the nine month old's...you would be mistaken. That blanket belongs to my husband..actually, it belongs to me now. I use it. He must have said something to his grandma because she made me one of my own for Christmas. I think Scott was hoping then he would get his blanket back. whateva!!! Now I have TWO blankets.

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

One of the coolest parts about my job is that one of our responsibilities is to document and display crime scenes through the use of photographs. If that scene is large enough, it may need aerial photographs. And that means I get a free helicopter tour of Oahu. It is spectacular. Now mind you...this is not a cushy helicopter with where you are encased safely away from the wind and rain. It is a helicopter shell with one window in the front and gaping holes in the side of copter where there should be ...I don't know what you call it...doors? There's just barely room for four adults and you sit on metal frames with seat belts. And then you fly with wind gushing over your lap around 500 to 800 feet above the ground.

It is so cool!!! We had to take pictures of Kaneohe so we flew over the Koolau's following the Pali Highway. They were also searching for a stolen van so we drove...oops, wrong word, we flew all the way to Haleiwa and Wahiawa and did a full circle. It's amazing. They can see everything, they scanned all the neighborhoods, parking lots, and road. And if there was a questionable car, they would just circle in tighter and lower until they could read the license plate and then they would call it in and check if it was stolen. One of my pictures has a car with a surfboard, that car raised flags because it was just sitting on a dirt road out in the farmlands. Once we got too close, I guess it spooked the driver and he booked it to the nearest highway.

Picture 1: I sat right behind the pilot so I could direct him to where I needed to shoot from. I like this shot and I tried the "texturizing" effect that Nely's tutoral explained.

3 kids...2 dogs...100 fish....1,000 bugs

Merry Christmas! It used to be Christmas Eve up until about two hours ago...why am I still up? It has been crazy busy with parties and shopping and sleeping, I just wish there was more of the latter. I will post again later this week, I have pictures from my job where I took another ride around the island in a helicopter and then there was Benji's 30th Birthday Party and the most elaborate birthday cake you have ever seen.

But, I did want to take my three cousins out again before the christmas lights dimmed. So we picked them up from my auntie and took them fishing AGAIN. This time I took Scott and an extra dog. We're dog-sitting our friend Trisha's dog, Jordyn. She's a real cute dog but she and Charlie aren't exactly friends. At least they tolerate each other but they've staked out different sides of the yard and never cross the imaginary border.

We went hiking farther down the stream this time...the one thing I hadn't planned was the later time of day meant bugs bugs bugs everywhere. The kiddies looked like monkeys as they squatted by the water and scratched themselves silly with one hand as they held the net in the other. So keep that in mind as you look over the pictures, Jasen was too preoccupied with scratching to stop for many pictures. Jasen was a little more active this time...he actually moved and ran up and down the side of the stream...and he actually caught more than rocks. He managed to somehow catch a little tadpole which Charlie almost accidentally ate when he was drinking out of the poke container makeshift aquarium. Jasen did give up fishing after that, he peaked early...and he began launching every free-standing rock into the middle of the stream. Poor Jaren and Sierra were sitting patiently on rocks with their nets poised over the water and just when they seemed ready to spring, Jasen's rocks would scatter all the frightened fish.

Sierra and Jaren were so well-behaved and polite. We wanted to give them an afternoon of playtime but they were constantly watching over Jasen. Scott has always liked Sierra and Jaren a lot but now he has fallen in love with Jasen. Probably because Jasen learned his name. Scott is such a softie. Karen says it is because Scott has a picture with the mighty morphin power rangers in our christmas newsletter, it makes him cool. And Jasen gave him hugs and kept asking "where's unko cott?" every time Scott wasn't in his direct line of sight. It was real cute.

We took them to church but Jasen refused to go to the nursery. He wouldn't even go up the stairs near the nursery, his eyes would water and he would mournfully plead "no. i want to go home." Oh, it was so sad. So he just played in the courtyard. Then I took them to see christmas lights on Namoku Street. People had working train sets, inflatable snow globes and ferris wheels, and there was even a T-Rex. If you ask Jasen what his favorite part of the christmas lights was though, he would tell you "mighdy pawr mornin razahs." I'm not quite sure where he thinks he saw those.

Rockie the Christmas Tree

Check it out...I tried to add a widget at the bottom of this page. It will email you whenever I update my blog. Let me know if it works =)

Here are pictures of our tree "Rockie" after we put our lights on last night. We had to wait until today to hang our bulbs and our whopping two ornaments. I think he is absolutely beautiful. Now it really feels like Christmas.

Hey, I just noticed...doesn't it look like the hula dancer is heralding the tree. cool.

For the past two months, I have been working with the kids in children's church during Friday nights to learn "One Way, Jesus"to sing to for our Christmas song performance. This past Friday was their performance. Boy, I wish I could put it on YouTube.They managed to start the second verse 10 seconds too early and ignored my frantically waving arms and my attempts to sign language "Slow down." So every line after that was thrown off the melody. They made it their own. I threw up my hands and laughed..what could I do, they were determined to sing it their way. And sweet little Isaiah, Pua's son, who was in Florida for the past two weeks so he never learned the hands motion. It turns out he didn't need them. The version of the song we practiced to had a guitar solo, and I guess Dane might have told him five weeks ago that he could be the star doing the guitar solo. Too bad the version we performed to didn't have that guitar solo.And apparently, it didn't matter to Isaiah, he strummed his air guitar the ENTIRE SONG. He played his heart out like he was playing the hard level on guitar hero III.

I had my very first supervised case at work today...umm, if people would just NOT do drugs or drink alcohol, then my life at work would be so much easier. Luckily, I don't think this case is going to court cause I'm hoping they don't look at my scene photos. For such a brilliant aspiring photographer, I stupidly left my camera on bracketing. Nah, it should be fine even if they actually look at the photos. Scott led worship this morning and I'm bummed that I missed it. Oh, that reminds me, we stopped by his parent's house last night and I snuck a peak at their fridge. Hmmm, no sight of our christmas card anywhere. When I brought it up, his mom ran omewhere and foraged it out of thing air. I guess we weren't granted fridge status. And there's the small possibility that she foraged it from out of the trash can.

11 days until christmas survey

Umm...I don't have a photo...sorry...it's just silly nonsense fun...I'm such a huge fan of surveys...but fun original surveys....

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper all the way. Um, Big island never had gift bags growing up. What is that? That's some newfangled fancy thing that martha stewart people do.

2. Real tree or artificial? Real trees, today, Scott and I bought our first tree together. And I named it "Rockie." If it was possible, I would have cuddled with the tree when we got it home, instead, I had to settle for an awkward prickly hug.

3. When do you put up the tree? TODAY!!! Well, whenever we found a tree that was in our budget. Scott mocked my bargaining skills today when I was playing hardball with the tree selling teenager.

4. When do you take the tree down? I compromised and told Scott we would take it down the day after Christmas. Little does he know, that just means I'm going to put Rockie in our backyard with the other regular trees so he has a chance for a little normalcy again. When I was a kid, I kept a skeleton of a christmas tree in our backyard until march.

5. Do you like eggnog? NOPE!!! Are you surprised?

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Oh boy, the nerd in me is going surface. My TWO favorite gifts were...when I was six, I begged and begged for a typewriter so much that both my parents and my grandparents gave me typewriters for Christmas. I used them until their ink ran out and then I would run a watercolor marker across the metal keys for every word. My second favorite gift was a toy microscope I got when I was in the fifth grade. I wish I still had it.

7. Do you have a nativity scene? Nope, but give me time. We had one and only one box of ornaments and decorations growing up and they remained consistent throughout the years. It consisted of some broken muppet head ornaments, a christmas tree I made in kindergarten, out of a toilet paper tube covered in painted cotton balls, and a nativity scene that had seen better days. Baby jesus was missing a few limbs and joseph had disappeared leaving mary a modern woman and single mother. But I could play with that barnyard scene for hours.

8. Hardest person to buy for? Scott...I think I'm going to take him on a surprise date to the Honolulu ballet. Not because he likes the ballet...but because I have no ideas and I came up with this plan. I'm going to act so excited about having this huge surprise for him that he'll feel like he has to act like he loves it and constantly reassure me that it's a great gift. I also have a hard time with people you need to buy gifts but you don't know very well. Because then it's gift cards but I am not satisfied until I find the cheapest deal.

9. Easiest person to buy for? My cousins Sierra and Jaren...I give them all the things that I wish people would give to me.

10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Any type of food or goodies. You get a lot of "fluff" gifts as a teacher. I still remember getting a rose carved out of soap. The girl was so sweet, I actually held onto it for almost a year because I felt so guilty.

11. Mail or email Christmas cards? Hopefully, you'll find out one way or the other.

12. Favorite Christmas movie? Already covered this one.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?Any day now.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? food...I'm sorry, that's too vague. Good food.

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Clear

17. Favorite Christmas song? Have yourself a merry little christmas...or "o holy night" is a close second.

18. Travel for Christmas or stay home? Stay home...but we are going to New Orleans for New Years.

19. Can you name all of Santa's' reindeer? What are those? I think his surfboard is named "nalu."

20. Angel on the treetop or a star? I don't care...I prefer nothing...it's my traditionistl hubby who's raising a big stink about finding the perfect tree topper.

21. Open the presents Christmas eve or Christmas morning? Ummm, if you open them on Christmas Eve, then what the he** do you do on Christmas morning? It kind of defeats the whole idea of Christmas.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? the pressure to buy gifts for people who you love and really do want to give things to...but you don't necessarily have anything you particularly think they'd enjoy. I hate the "pressure" gift.

23. What I love most about Christmas? the lights, the music, the atmosphere...I almost can imagine it is cold outside.

Thinking of better times

I've had an especially bad day today...let's sum it up. I had a big test in my training today, I studied and knew everything and yet I still only "barely passed" were the words. So, I really feel like tirading out my frustration but I don't reallywant to memorialize this moment. Taking notes and moving on is the step I'm on.

I would rather think of happier and better things that made me smile this week. Like visiting my sister, who brings me much joy. Now, you may wonder why I don't have pictures of her, that is because she gives me stink eye if she ever catches me trying to lean the camera her way. But I do manage to capture my little niece Lauren. I think this pictures is funny because I added a little color with photoshop because it was looking too "blah" but now she looks like she was trying on make up.

When I was in the sixth grade, I wrote a essay about my little brother and it was entered into a statewide competition where it took honorable mention. You would think this might be enough to win the respect of my older sister and mother, but instead, they mocked the fact that I described my brother's "rosy cheeks." I know it may sound girlish, but Jordan really did have rosy cheeks. So, the next day, I went into my mother's make up bag and applied blush to my brother's cheeks....oh, the poor boy. He was only two, the poor thing had no clue...he just looked at me with those big trusting eyes.I blushed up his cheeks and sent him toddling on his way. And it was so worth it, when later that afternoon when my mother was cooking and she did a double-take as my brother walked by and exclaimed : "his cheeks really are rosy!"

"YES!!!"

But then I had to admit what I did and my brother promptly got his face washed.

I also had a laugh at Lauren...let's remind people that she has a fascination with licking fabrics...it doesn't matter where or when...pillows, blankets, couches...anything. We were at Wal-mart and Cassan went to look at the DVD's and I took the wagon to the fabric section to buy fabric for our curtains. I chose two reams and tossed them into my wagon and was looking through the clearance racks when I looked...and Lauren is sitting there in the wagon contentedly licking one of the reams of fabric. I lunged and grabbed it but there was already a big wet dark spot. "I guess I have to buy this now"

If you've been watching Project Runway, Lauren was just making a "spitmark" to measure the fabric. I've also concluded that when I have kids, I am going to be the ghetto mom. Instead of buying toys for my niece, I took her to the toy section and let her crawl around. I took down the toys she couldn't reach and made an obstacle course in the aisle and then I studied which ones she played with the longest. Who needs to buy toys for them? Just take them to Walmart every day and have them pretend they own the toys. My sister did get real mad when she found out I let her daughter crawl around on the floor in the store. Who would have figured?

Working in the church nursery

Scott has been bugging me to post a blog...and I really want to...I happen to just be leading a very nondescript life presently. I have a fake trial on thursday as a part of my training, and until I pass that trial, I'm not allowed to take any cases....and we really haven't had any cases. Last night, I tried to break the monotony by doing lunges and squats in my cubicle. I definitely hope my ninja skills let me go unnoticed because I would have looked the sight...as my head bobbed up and down over my cubicle wall. I even tried to do pushups but I'm a little too tall and my head sticks out into the hallway...and, at such a close range, I discovered that the rug was probably not originally brown andgreen to begin with.

It's only Monday but nursery was probably the highlight for me. I stepped in at the 8 am service because they seemed to have a lot of kids and 40% of them seemed to be wailing as if their little hearts were breaking. I focused on "mahina" since she was a first-time toddler and I tried all my tried-and-true tricks. I did the bouncing...the swaying.....the bubbles...the money and none of it hindered the flow of tears or the hanabata now all over her face. And then Scott was adding to the pandemonium by trying to talk to me over the nursery gate and I was trying to pay attention when I heard a small little sound...and years of working in the nursery and some smelly past experiences kicked in and I promptly leaned to one side as mahina projectile vomited over my shoulder, right past my hair and onto the floor. All I can say is, thank you, victoria. She was a little girl who had a thing for crying so hard she made herself sick. Getting thrown up on every saturday for 4 months gave me quick reflexes. And there are only two places where that reflex may come in handy...nursery and college.

This is an oldie but goodie.

When is Santa coming?

Lullaby and good night...

Yesterday, Scott and I went to Windward mall to return a video game and we were standing

line when someone came over to talk to Scott...he does know someone no matter where

we go. I was more distracted by the guy behind her holding this cute little boy with

these big eyes that looked so familiar. I kept staring and I was pretty sure I knew where

I recognized this little cutie when Scott introduced me to the girl he was talking to as Nely's

sister. Hah, I knew that little boy because I recognized him from Nely's blog. Hah, I thought

that was real funny. What a small world.

Well, that probably won't happen with anyone reading this particular post. I don't think anyone stands to recognize my little niece from this picture alone...but I think it's cute and full of character. No, she's not really sleeping...she was playing on her sister Darilyn's bed when she tried to get down and couldn't quite make it. But it worked out for her great because she just stayed there and licked the blanket. She has the strangest fascination with licking fabric. My sister said she caught her the other day trying to lick the hardwood floor.

Oh, Christmas is coming...I'm so excited.. Last night, "the National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" was on, which I love, and it reminded me of my favorite christmas movies(not listed in any particular order).

1. Elf

2. the Santa Clause (with Tim Allen)

3. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

4. Mixed Nuts

5. A White Christmas(I had a huge crush on Danny Kaye, well...maybe substitute "have" for "had")

6. While You Were Sleeping

Am i missing any? I have never seen "It's a wonderful life" or "the christmas story" and I have vowed never to watch them out of pure defiance.

Man...kids are fast

So my previous entry about our fishing trip adventure was created for my uncle who is deployed to Iraq...man, I am bummed to find out that the government won't let him look at blog websites. Sorry!

I looking forward to my next assignment for myself...but I've run into my first and biggest obstacle. I may be one of the first photographers to try to break into children portrait photography without actually having any kids of my own. Thus, this makes my chances at practicing very limited and few between. I'll have to plan ahead and borrow "kids" whenever I get the chance. My next targets threw me for a loop when they decided to take their three kiddies on a two week trip to Florida. They stopped by to pick up something this morning. I ran over to say hi and swung the back door open. There was sweet little "Lala" sittin in her car seat

with big sorrow-filled eyes and a lone tear running down her cheek.

Me: Why so sad?

Momma: She hates her carseat.

How can you turn down those sad eyes? I set her loose and decided this proved to be "challenge." So, I'm not real happy with the pictures I took but I grabbed my camera and ran after her.

Challenge #1: Little kids are fast

I've practiced action photos in flag football games before but this little girl operates at warp speed, a velocity that no known adult can possibly reach. I must have deleted 70% of my photos because she was nothing but a rosy-cheeked blur.

Solution: I also realized that my camera has a tendency to "best focus" and it catches the doorway and steps in perfect detail but not my little buttercup. I figured out how to change the focus to "spot focus" where it focuses on just a certain preset spot, a setting I'm much more comfortable with. Unfortunately, this breakthrough came well after the Del family had left. I will also have to just learn to up the shutterspeed. There's nothing worse than a beautiful crisp picture with one of their little hands blurred.

Challenge #2: I don't seem to inspire a lot of smiling

I read Audrey Woulard's blog and she says she just talks non-stop to the children and gabs away until they forget about the camera. I tried that trick but it takes way too much skill to double task like that. Plus, I don't think this applies very well when your subject is only two and doesn't seem to understand most of the garble coming out of my mouth...and what she might have understood didn't really interest her. She was a little pre-occupied with more important issues...like the fact that she only had two minutes to try on all of the fifteen pair of slippers that we have on our doorstep.

(I created and overlay layer in PS, and used a paintbrush to brighten the blues and darken her hair)

Challenge 3: Sometimes, closer is as good as it gets

I read a lot of photographers who say that "light is the key to great pictures." So, I've been trying to watch our yard over the past couple days and study what the colors of the foilage look like at different times of the day. This was complicated by the forty days and nights of rain that seems to be storming in our backyard. But, when Lala was running in and out of our house, she hit the jackpot of "light" in our front doorstep...it lit her profile up beautifully and I screamed out "eureka, stay there." And, not surprisingly, she ran right past the beautiful spotlight to the dark corner with all the pretty rubba slippahs.

Challenge 4: The Headless Horseman

"look at me...look over here...yoohoo...hui....manong"

I tried it all and I ended up with exactly one picture where she's looking at me...and she's blurry in it. Aargh. Who could blame her? Who wants to look at auntie with a black camera where her head used to be? I have to compete with objects much more deserving of fascination. Even when I could catch her eye, as soon as I raise the camera up...oh, eye contact broken...and she's gone.

(I used a new layer "overlay" and painted the lower red with warm reds to darken, I also added a "lens effect" filter)

Solution: I've decided I will have to paint a realistic image of my face on the camera. Trickery is always best.

two boys...a dog...and a stream full of fish

I had the most wonderful day fishing with my two cousins..."Big-J" and "mini-j". I was a little nervous about taking them for a few hours but Scott told me how to get to the stream nearby. Loaded down with a bag full of bread(for the fish but Charlie ate most of it...charlie is our dog), empty poke containers(poke is fish...it works out), nets, my camera gear, and "mini J"s spiderman backpack, ...oh, and I almost forgot the towel and rubber ball(I didn't want to run out of things to do), we had to hike around the block to get the stream. It was a small miracle that we managed to get there at all with me dragging Charlie and endlessly yelling "stay on the grass" to the boys.

Big-J was in little boy heaven. He clambered all over the stream bank and caught so many little fish with his net that they collected themselves into a little dark cloud at the bottom of our container.

My biggest fear was "mini-j" falling into the stream...I stood him on a patch of rocks where he could reach water and his little booted feet did not move the entire time we were there. I brought some bread to bait the fish. I showed "mini-J" how to carefully pull little pieces off the roll and drop them in the water to entice the fishies closer. He watched closely and when I had repeated the motion a few times, I broke off half the roll for him. I figured it would be enough for ten minutes. He promptly grabbed the roll and threw it one fell motion into the creek. The tiny minnows now seemed desperate to avoid this gargantuan iceberg of dough.

Me: No...no....little pieces....see? like this...little bitty pieces

I handed him the second roll and watched as he launched the entire thing...this time, further down the creek. Hmmm...let's just skip the whole bait thing and just fish.

"Big-J" proved to be an ingenious fisherman...he found spots with larger fish and found they were too fast for his red net. So he threw rocks into the middle of the water to scare the fish towards him and into the path of his trusty net. He did seem on the verge of launching himself into the water at certain times.

"mini-J" had a "mini-net", Stanton's little green aquarium net. With his feet anchored firmly, he swung his little net and bashed the shore until he had scared away any aquatic creatures on his side of the stream. He did manage to catch two medium-sized rocks...it was a proud moment for us all. Being a kind-hearted fisherman, he released them back into the wild to grow into more medium-sized rocks.

I thought this pic was a nice end to the day. I may want to lighten "mini-J" since he is being silhouetted and his features are darkened. I did promise to take them back...Next time, I'm bringing Scott instead of the dog.