the Girls are Out of Town!

Vera sighting!

Just call me Vera (Cheers fans will get that one...) Since I'm always the one taking the pictures, I am rarely in them, (which is fine with me) but every now and then I'll say to Mike, "Take a picture of me with the kids so they'll know who their mother was."

This one is cute because Austin is actually smiling and showing his teeth! I've also been playing around with borders in photoshop, so I thought it would be nice to post this.

It's been a while since I've posted anything here. Just like real photo albums or scrapbooks, they're hard to keep up with. I've been so busy trying to learn my new camera and posting to my photography websites that I've let the family blog languish. To allay my guilt, I will most likely toss a few photos up here and there without much consideration for the artistic value of them. But that's what my other endeavors are for anyway, so if you're looking for "pretty" pictures, best check out my other site, There is something in my eye.

Birthday Boy

Boys and their guns.... he's 13 today, so I'm trying to loosen the reigns a little, which means I let him play on the football team again (ok, so I started loosening little last year...) and I let him play with guns. NOT real guns of course, but it's still a big step for me. The look of mischievous joy on his face is bittersweet, to say the least!

He had 5 of his friends for an all-nighter in the basement, and I must say they were all very good. At one point they were stomping around the entire house pelting each other with the Nerf "bullets" when I had to leave. All that testosterone and noise in this tiny house was more than I could take. (Plus I promised I would take Emma to the mall! Smart, huh?)

Letterboxing Day

The day was in the 80's and perfect for a bike ride, when it rained. We decided to make our 3rd attempt at finding an elusive indoor letterbox that we've been hunting for over a year.

Unsuccessful yet again at finding Do You Copy? , the three oldest B's decided to take youngest B to see the first ever found letterbox by The Busy B's (that's us, in case you're confused!). This is Emma's encounter with that letterbox on the page where we originally stamped (Emma wasn't with us that day). She got to stamp her own home-made stamp this time. She was freaked out by the location of Smithsonian Beginnings and so the look on her face in this picture.

Jackbear is the planter of these two letterboxes, and a master at that. Finding Smithsonian was a treat and was what got us hooked on letterboxing. I know we won't be disappointed once we find Do You Copy ~ it will be worth the time and energy.

Are you ready for some FOOTBALL?!

It's really hard to make football pictures interesting, but here are my best shots at it.




Well, Austin had his 2nd game today, and they killed the opponent 57 to 7! Yikes! He played a lot this time, and even was sent out to catch a pass play that the QB ended up running in. I was very proud of him, and I hope he gained some confidence today.

Austin's First Game

Austin had his first football game of his 8th grade season Saturday, and they killed the opponent 50 something to 13!

Here's his "Awww mom, cut it out!" look. His number is 81 - he was very happy about that! This picture looks great in black and white; I'll end up posting it on my photoblog soon, so check it out over there.

Summer Vacation

Long time no posts - almost a year, and so much life in between.

This summer we spent 2 weeks traveling in Maine and Prince Edward Island. First we drove to Maine, and stayed at a lovely home in the tiny town of South Addison.

We were on a quiet bay (actually, they're all quiet!) and had many places to explore.Our wonderful hosts even took us out on their lobster boat one beautiful morning.