More Guitars

This past weekend I took more photos of guitars. My client brought more for me to capture. The 1928 also made a reappearance. This has been a real learning curve for me as I have never done any studio work with lighting etc. I learned lots form last week's shoot and put those new lessons into this shoot.

Here are some of the shots from this past weekends shoot.

Old and New

This past weekend I was asked to take some pictures. Pictures of some guitars.

I was up for the challenge, especially the challenge of capturing a Gibson guitar from 1928 and it's modern remake.

I fell in love with the 1928, it looks it's age but it is so beautiful, Paul even played it and it sounded amazing! 

The guitar even still has it's original tuners, amazing.

I love this picture. You can see how much this old guitar got played!

So, recently, Gibson took all the measurements of the 1928 and remade it. The owner has both guitars, it was so cool to see them side by side and capture old and new.

The new one was really beautiful too. It photographed really nicely.

I can see why people collect guitars. It is for sure an expensive hobby but the beauty and craftsmanship in these instruments are amazing. I enjoyed the challenge of showcasing these guitars, letting their beauty shine through. 

Basketball

Over the past few weeks, basketball has been the talk around here. 

The grade 5's at the school had the opportunity to join the basketball team this winter. They started in January with practices before school a few times a week and just last week had their first game. There are 44 kids on the team, so they split into 2 teams that will face other schools in games. The games are really casual, they don't keep score, they just want the kids to get out and play! Cici has really been enjoying it and said she loved the game even though she was nervous at first. The team did great!

Some Things Never Change

Like this little man.

In fact, he still wears the same hat.

Other things that don't change... 

Blogging infrequently. 

A Christmas Post

Yes, finally the dust has settled and I can post about our Christmas. Perhaps you were wondering if we even did Christmas this year. Well, yes we did, and it was very lovely.

We have had a very busy Christmas season in our house. Between the kids all doing things with their classes as they wrapped up before the break, skating with our church, church services and kid's production and an amazing Christmas Eve service, I am finally starting to feel like I am relaxed. 

Our Christmas Eve service was a real highlight and challenge for me. I played the cello which I am teaching myself. I don't get too nervous much on stage anymore but my hands were shaking as I played this instrument in front of strangers for the first time! It went well and am proud of myself for pushing out of my comfort zone and doing something scary!

Christmas Eve was also memorable for our girls who happen to both loose teeth on this night! Crazy right? Never happened before. Cici lost hers just before we left and Bean lost hers during the service! Didn't know if the tooth fairy worked on Christmas Eve, but she did and deserves some overtime for it too!

It is a tradition in our house to open our stockings right after we get home from Christmas Eve service. The kids were very excited and as expected, we all got new Christmas PJ's to wear to bed.

It is also a tradition or ours to take a picture of the kids first thing Christmas morning. 

Here it is.

We have had better "in front of the tree pictures."

This is one of J Man's toys that has now become my nemesis. It looked like such a great idea in Costco.

He opened it and was overjoyed to have a marble run. He opened the box and out spilled bags, lots and lots of bags with lots and lots and lots of tiny parts. Oh, boy. The first instructions are to count all the pieces and see if they are all there. Ya, right. Anyway, as the morning progressed he decided to open many of the bags and dump out the parts. They were all together on the floor, no big deal. Until though as I began to put it together and realized all the bags were numbered and to put it together you needed to match the numbers with the pieces that matched the instructions. Oh, boy. I did put it all together though. It took 4 hrs. 4 long, long hours. It required much patience as I turned each page on the instructions and found all the mistakes I made in the pages before as the pieces would not match up.

 It is together. It works. It is NEVER coming apart. 

We were honoured to host Christmas dinner at our house this year and blessed to have my parents, Paul's parents and my grandparents over for dinner. It was such a great time with them all and the meal was very yummy! My grandpa always rejoices in "4 generations" under one roof. That is something to rejoice in!

A few days later, we headed to Paul's brother's house to celebrate with them and Paul's parents. Again, so great to see them and spend time with family. We ordered in Chinese Food, also really great!

Well, I guess the year is coming to a close. We will take down all Christmas things soon and get our house back into order. I always miss Christmas when it is gone but am looking forward to a new year and what it will bring!

Our Guest

This is our house guest. She has been a bundle of energy and joy around here for the past few days. She is my parent's puppy but has been our guest for a few days. 

She has fit right in. The kids are over the moon for her and she is never bored with the kids around! We have kept her busy with hour long walks in our forest, meeting neighbourhood dogs and getting lots of cuddle time. We call these walks "socialization by immersion." She has had no choice but to follow her new pack and meet lots of kids at the school and lots and lots and lots of big dogs on our walks. 

People we meet on our walks marvel at our family and think we might be a bit crazy having 3 kids and a puppy. Thats when we say she isn't ours and we are just puppy sitting. They sigh with relief.

There are never any dull moments in our house and adding a puppy to the mix has been lots of fun. Will one of our own be in our future,? Don't know, but we are getting some great practice in!

It's Beginning....

Dec 1 has been a tradition in our family. For the past 5 or more years, we take the day off, break out the Christmas music, set up the tree, bake gingerbread men and decorate!

Yesterday was our first time doing our tradition in our new house. 

One other first was our tree. See, every year we cut down our Christmas tree, but for the first time we set up a "fake" tree. Yup, we caved. It was really fun though to break out that box and let the kids have turns "fluffing" the tree!

Though there have been some new additions to our first day of Christmas tradition, there are still those that last year to year. Like the hats and the gingerbread men. Those stuffed men have been with us since 2004 and are the most anticipated item in all the Christmas storage boxes.

The Christmas train has been with us for 2 years but it may have seen it's last Christmas. It was near disaster when we realized it may not work. Tears started to flow from our little conductor, but daddy came to the rescue and got it working again.. for now.

He enjoyed every minute of it once it was working again. 

This little guy is joining us for his first Christmas. By the look of it, I may have to watch out for him, he has a mischievous twinkle in his eye.