Sunday, June 27, 2010

Our Adventure to the Olympics

Well no sooner than Travis took leave did we hit the road. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Olympic side of Washington. It is one of the most beautiful places that I have ever been and there is just so much to do. We stayed in the same cabin at LaPush, I highly recommend this for anyone heading this way. It is such a beautiful place and right on the beach. If you wanted you would really never have to leave to enjoy yourself. And not to mention the people there are just fantastic.

On our first day we Travis got off of work and we drove out to the cabin. We had dinner in Forks at our now favorite pizza place. Shortly afterward, while shopping at the Thirfty-Way Gracie lost her dinner in the middle of the store!!! Can you imagine the mess? I felt so bad for her, she was so embarassed, but felt almost completely better afterwards. I guess better out than in is right!

The next morning we headed out to the HOH Rainforest. The HOH Rainforest can get over 12 feet of rain ever year. It is also one of few rainforest in the US. Not know how the girls would do hiking we decided to start small, really small. So we stopped at the Big Spruce, not kidding this is what it is called.


Then after our very quick hike we headed for the visitor center and to start our Jr Ranger badges and our next hike. We decided to do the Hall of Mosses. The weather was just beautiful and the sun was starting to finally show its face.

Gracie is hard at work on her Jr. Ranger Badge.
I can see blue skies! 
The girls getting sworn in as Jr. Rangers. 

After the Rainforest, we headed back to Forks for a late lunch. Then onto another hike to Second Beach. This hike was the real tester for the girls and how they would do a longer hike and with some incline. It is a 1 mile each way with a little over a 200ft elevation climb. Once on the beach we just had to carry JuJu and Hunter over all the washed up logs on the beach. It was so worth it too! The tide pools were so amazing! 


The next day was heading home day but we had a couple of stops planned on the way. First we stoped at Madison Falls. I very easy walk, paved and a wonderful place to visit. Thanks for the tip Tim! 


After a visit to the Falls we quickly stopped for lunch in Port Angles and then headed up to Hurricane Ridge. Hurricane Ridge is 5300 feet up and you can see the Olympic Mountains and all lands and Oceans surrounding it.  It was such a beautiful drive up and we even stopped along the way to look at wildlife and have a snow ball fight. 

Can't say that I have ever seen this kind of sign before! 

Our Sound of Music Pose. 


So we decided to drive this road past the visitor center. This is the curb and the amount of space we had on the side of the road. 
Yep that is a tree and a drop off. 


So are you guys singing, "The hills are alive..."? This was a fantastic trip and I can't wait to go back. There is so much to do and see. I think next time we will hike a little further and stay more on the North part of the Olympics. 

We leave tomorrow for Yellowstone. If there is internet, yeah right, I will try to blog often.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Rock Your Camera 201- Week 4 Clicknmoms

Well this is the last week of my workshop and I am extremely sad to see it end. I love all the women that I have met and most importantly the skills and self confidence that I have gained through both of the classes that I have taken.

This week is all about candids, Lifestyle photography, and shooting in a high ISO and making it work. We also through this class have learned the entire Lr for editing, more than I ever knew! This week was making our own presets and converting our images to black and white.

Here is what I did:

My candid:


My Lifestyle shoot: I decided to use my whale watching photos. I forgot my long lens so there are no pics of whales. But boy oh boy did we ever see some! 89 to be correct! 














My thrilled little beast. 
Also my high ISO shot. 1600 the highest my little crop camera can do. 


Can you tell Gracie is excited about seeing so many whales?
Another high ISO shot. ISO 1600


Gosh, what a hard goodbye to such a great class and what a great thing I did for myself. I am proud of how far I have come and how much I have learned.  Looking forward to the next workshop, GET TO WORK LYNNE! :)

Friday, June 4, 2010

Rock Your Camera 201- Week 3 Clicknmoms

This week was my absolute favorite week! We had the assignment to do a silhouette, reflection/shadow, and a night shot. With no sun lately here in the PNW the sunburst and shadows were completely out of the picture, no pun intended. But I was able to get these shots and really like them a lot.


Silhouette 



Reflection-
I snapped this one at the Vancouver Aquarium, in between the rain showers. 



Night Shot


Fun Night Shot- The neighbors must think we are super crazy waving the flashlight around at 11pm. 


I got very good CC, this week. I was surprised considering how boring a couple of my shots were, but I really did have a super great time this week! 
This week is our final week. We are suppose to get some pretty interesting shots. Can't wait to show you next week!


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