Miles and his two best friends

Photography Homework Week Two

My photography class ended already. Three quick weeks. So much information. It was great. The learning will go on now as i continue to take pictures, read and learn. Still wish that i had started this many years ago. I look forward to taking future classes too.

These pictures are the class-voted favourites from the second week. We were instructed to take pictures in different lighting, at different times of the day, etc. Portaits, nature, etc. Looking again for lines, triangles, rectangles, circles and a mix of it all.

The Future of Food

Over the last number of years, while shopping at PCC, i've seen a DVD case for a movie called The Future of Food. For a while they had it up by the cash register. I always wondered about the content. Always thinking oh yeah, gotta add that to the movie queue.

Last weekend, we finally got around to watching it. (It is available through KCLS). Even as someone who feels somewhat familiar with this topic, it was an eye-opening experience. The Future of Food makes you think about your food choices, the bigger food picture, and how big business can really have a plan far greater than you ever realize.

Add it to your movie queue. Especially if you care about food, farming and the planet.

valentine treats

One of my favourite parts of being a mom is the creative/celebrating/"simple wonders" side of it. Simple pleasures like making heart-shaped pretzels. Here is a seasonal book full of great inspiration. I was able to find this book through the local library system.

Valentine Treats -recipes and crafts for the whole family

Happy Hearts Day!

Life in the mountains

Sunday has become a ski day for us. It feels so good to get away and stretch the legs. I've been working on the art of taking pictures while skiing. When i'm doing this, i ski without the poles and probably look rather silly.

Mina on her first pair of skis.

Shots from along the Hyak ski trail.

Mina, our ski racer. XC skiing is now her favourite sport, topping the list that includes running, biking, swimming and hiking. She is a natural racer, as already apparent in the pool or on a track. One Sunday turned out to be a "treats on the trail" event hosted by the Snoqualmie Nordic club. Great treats and great inspiration.

Lunch on the skis.

The home stretch.

Shifting from A to M

Lately i've been spending my free time behind the camera looking for circles, squares, lines and triangles. I've been taking an introduction to the SLR/photography class. Here are the favourites from my first week of homework. Shooting manual is 150% new to me so the learning curve has been rather high. I am loving it.

I have a dream

Lately we've been talking about Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks and of course, Barack Obama! Elections, holidays, assemblies and inauguration... When I asked Mina what she knew about MLK Jr. she stated that "he knew that love could make us strong".

Last Friday was our very first Martin Luther King, Jr school assembly. Check out this video!

Family tries to live without plastic

Family tries to live without plastic

This article was part of our dinner conversation tonight...the environment, consumption, food processing... I think that our family might make a chart of our plastic consumption per week. Half because this would be a fun little project for little fans of charting.

One related website that i love is resusablebags.com This is the place that we got Mina's cloth lunch bag and a bunch of their organic cotton muslin produce snack bags. I LOVE LOVE LOVE these snack bags. We also have a collection of the mesh produce bags. Their only hazard is that they often get lost in the assortment of cloth shopping bags. I love them when i can find them!

My "purse essentials" also include two ultra-compactable Envirosaxs. These have really made a difference. Handy when you need just a bag or two, and especially helpful if the cloth bags are outside in the car. In the parking lot at PCC, they have a sign that reads "a bag in the hand is worth two in the car". I agree.

Snowshoeing at Hyak

Mina's new shoeshoes finally came! She was RATHER excited to get out on the trail in them. We went out to Hyak sno park for the first run. We were out for three hours. It was awesome.

Mina on the snowshoe path and Rich in the middle of the XC ski trail.

By the lake.

Potty break!

Forget the alarm clock!

Right before the winter break, we had five snow days. Five! During that time, the kids and i stayed at home and didn't leave the house in the car for a solid week. We left by foot, snowshoe, ski and sled. It was awesome. Rich put chains on the car and went out twice for gear and groceries. Once the snow had largely melted, and then into the official school break, we stocked up on fun family outings. One of our last activities on our family advent calendar was making the "what to do on the winter break" list. We went to the zoo, to BBG, the children's museum, the tea shop, winterfest, family swimming, and got out to the mountains. It was a very fun first real "winter break" and we savoured each of the extra five days. I didn't mind the respite from awful thing called the alarm clock as well.


Another highlight outing was going to PacSci to see Lucy, the oldest, most complete, and best preserved adult fossil of any erect-walking human ancestor. She is 3.18 myo (million years old). It was a great exhibit both in terms of content and wonder, and great for kids of the age of five and up. Mina loved the audio headset. At the exhibit, a PacSci employee came around with a measuring stick and told Mina that she was taller than Lucy. That really made an impression on Mina, as well as all the facial hair on this early human/ape gal. They have some cool displays showing how to measure the fluid capacity of the brain, walking abilities of apes/humans/Lucy, how fossils are made, and how paleontologists deal with a fossil puzzle. Not to mention little Lucy herself!


Biking around the zoo. New Year's Day. It was somewhat cold and quiet but we had great views of the animals.

And Rich really wanted to make fresh pasta over the holidays! Mina really got into this. She is a great bagel, tortilla and now pasta maker.