Fenwick in the Evening

I love living close to the beach. Living in southern Delaware means that we are close to Ocean City, MD and Fenwick Island, Bethany and Rehobeth Beach all in Delaware.

On Wednesday, Jason called me from work and asked if we wanted to meet him after work to go to the beach for a couple of hours. He works close to Fenwick, so I got the kids ready, packed our bag and was there when he got off work.

When we got to the beach it was perfect. Barely any crowd, cool sand, warm breeze and even the water was much warmer than when we first went a couple of weeks ago.

Mia still loves the water more than any kid I've ever seen. She immediately heads for the water's edge and stays there playing in the waves until we drag her out to go home.

The tide was high and there was quite an undertow that evening so Jason made Mia stick close and hold his hands.

Daddy dug them a "pool" to splash in.

Anakin doesn't play in the water as much, still choosing to play in the sand and dig for sand crabs.

Mia did come out of the water long enough to lay in the sand and become a mermaid. :)

My favorite shots of the day:

Independence Day

Well, it only took me five days to upload the pics and then another day to post them, but here I am! lol

This year we went to Laurel's Independence Day celebration again. This year it was on the third due to the fourth falling on a Sunday and Jason had to work so I took the kids for a little while that afternoon. We went back after dinner to enjoy the carnival and fireworks. I took my camera but it's a lot harder to keep track of all the kids in a crowd and take pictures so I gave up and just enjoyed myself.

I did want to attempt pictures of the fireworks again and even remembered to put my tripod in the van this year. However, I never got it out in time. I kept telling Jason that it was probably time to find a good spot to sit and watch them and he kept telling me we had time. Guess who was right?

I did attempt some hand held shots and a few weren't bad but it was incredibly frustrating for me to not be able to get good shots. I also really need to get a wide angle lens. I've been looking at them for months now and can't decide what I want or how wide I want to go.

When we came home we set off a few small fireworks. I did get my tripod out and get a couple of shots.

New fun blog photo contest!

So, I was reading a blog I follow and found another site that does weekly photo contests. I love contests like these because I love seeing others people's entries and I love getting the feedback from others so I decided to join in on the fun.

This week's theme at Trendy Treehouse is summer fun. I have tons and tons of pictures of my kids enjoying summer activities ranging from eating melty-sticky popsicles to playing on slip and slides, or hanging out at the beach which makes my choice a difficult one.

In the end I chose a new edit of a picture I took last summer which still stands as one of my favorite beach shots. This is a picture of my oldest, Jesse heading out into the ocean with the boogie board for his first time.

I Heart Faces "Pets" Week

So, I didn't think I'd enter this week but decided to share an animal picture anyway. We don't have any pets (well, not since Magic the beta died last week) and even then he was very camera shy. I know because he'd always hide behind the plant when I stuck my camera up to the bowl. lol

I really like this squirrel picture and I decided that since I kept him quite fed and happy through the winter of blizzards, that he counted. :)

I actually took this picture one snowy day this winter as he was sneaking down to steal the bird food I'd put out. I guess he was waiting his turn.

More Editing Fun

The Pioneer Woman is having one of her photo contests this week and this time the theme is bugs and creepy crawlies. They are always fun to enter (one of mine was even featured once!) so I decided to go back through some old shots and find a new one to play with and enter.

I love taking a second look at my shots after some time has passed because I always seem to find shots that I didn't notice before. I never even looked at this butterfly shot twice when I took it, but today it inspired me to play with the edit, upload it and enter it into the contest.

Before and After

This afternoon I was bored and decided to go through some of the pictures I have taken recently and find one to edit. I decided on a pic of Claudia in the pool this weekend. (Yeah for summer weather!)

I decided to share the before and after because I like how it turned out and because I used Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 and not photoshop or lightroom like the majority of photographers and enthusiasts (I got it cheap and it's very easy to use so I've stuck with it. I've used Lightroom and love it but would rather put the $ towards a new lens or other item right now.) :)

I'm still learning and exploring all the changes I can make and what looks good and what doesn't, but I don't think I do too badly.

BEFORE:

AFTER:


I will probably go back and make more adjustments sometime, but for now I am happy with it.

Play!!

I had a hard time deciding on a picture to enter in this week's contest at I Heart Faces. Of course, having five kids, I have tons and tons of pictures of them playing. In the end I picked this one:



I love the expression on his face. And there's those green stripes he painted on his face. Because you can't really be a super-ninja-jedi-warrior without green stripes on your face. :)