Adventures from the Past: 1999

Continuing with my past stories...

In 1999, I turned 11. The main thing I remember about that year was our family vacation. It was the first time I had been to my uncle's ranch. It was teeming with kitties! I quickly made friends with most of them. There are only a couple of the original kitties still there. I spent a lot of time checking out the ranch and seeing all there was to see. My aunt set me up with feeding the horses and I got to ride them once while there.

We made a trip to see my grandparents as well, but I do not have any photos from that jaunt, so unfortunately I do not remember any details from the trip.

Next, it was to my sister's place. Went swimming at the pool at her apartment. Alaska kids don't get to swim outside unless in the Lower 48! It's always a special treat for sure.

The last thing we did on that trip was take my dear sister's kitty Eva home with us. A Tortoiseshell Persian, she was a real character. She was a lot of fun to have around. We had her for a year before she passed away.

Thus began my saga of taking millions of photos of my cats. I have tons of photos - digital and film - of her. She always tolerated my abuse and photoshoots.

Adventures from the Past: 1998

I figured I'd try something new for some blog posts. Posting photos of my childhood and teen years that I think are fascinating!

1998 was an interesting year for me. I was full blown into my rock and geology obsession. I was 10 years old and convinced my dad that when we went on our family vacation that we needed to seek out ROCKS! So we did. On our trip down the Alcan, we stopped at a couple of different rock shops. In one town, I had researched an opal mine that I wanted to go to a dig at. Unfortunately, we could not go on a dig, but did go to the gift shop and I got a free rock with a small section of opal in it for "coming from Alaska specifically" to see them. Boy, was I excited.

We went on an excursion through Oregon looking for thundereggs. It was quite an adventure. We found a cave that Dad and I hiked up to and Mom took pictures of us from the ground. When we got back to Seattle, we went to a rock and gem show there. Woo, I was really excited by that. Mom and Dad spent a bit of money on my collection that day!

A random stray cat had six kittens in our yard that summer. I named them all. They were wild as could be, but I caught a few of them. They were all black and some with white spots. They were awfully cute!

 1998 was a good year. Age 10 was a great time!

Photo Love!

By Kevin Mcneal

By Michael Anderson

By Freeskiing

By Michael Anderson. Simply stunning. A must see large!

By Swordtemper

By Photologia

By renwest

By Aaron Feinberg

By Drewyboy

By Hoschie

By Lowapproach

By Colorrrs

By Jen Crum

By Nickwheeleroz

Please go give them some love. These are amazing images!

My Friend Lo

Have you ever had a friend that was so different from you that you can hardly believe you are friends?

Us in 2004...so young!

My friend Lo and I are about as different as can be. Personality wise, anyway. She is outgoing, beautiful, has 800+ friends on Facebook and makes friends extremely quickly.

Playing with leaves in the fall

Somehow, we started hanging out my sophomore year. Our main conversations were about boys. As time went on and we both attended the public school, we tried to stick together. Ever since then, we have not hung out nearly as much as I would like, but we ave kept in touch. She has been at Bible school the past two years, but we've still kept in touch.

Fall 2009. Horses and hay bales

She and I are into photography together and it's so fun to go crazy with our cameras when we are together!

It's been amazing to see the transformation in her life as time has gone on. Yesterday, she revealed that she is in her first relationship! I have not heard the details yet, but it sounds like it has been an amazing God thing! I am really excited for her and I can't wait to hear all about it.

Blue Sky and Snow

Gazing up at a glass ceiling laden with snow with a brilliant blue sky is simply an amazing sight.

Date: 3/11/10
Aperture: f/3.5
Shutter: 1/200 sec
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 23mm
Tripod? Handheld

After the Blizzard

Snow, snow and more snow! We have gotten up to 3 feet in the past week and more with snow drifts! I've been wanting to take some shots of fields of snow but I haven't wanted to venture far, in case of getting stuck!

Date: 3/10/10
Aperture:  f/4.6
Shutter: 1/1250 sec
ISO: 200
Focal Length: 34mm
Tripod? Handheld

P.S. What do you think of my new logo? I'm enjoying it!

Officially Done with Snow

Well. On Monday, I spoke too soon. I hadn't seen anything yet. Tuesday morning I was up at 7 to start finding out if I was going to jury duty. I was not. I couldn't have gotten there if I tried. The police were warning everyone to stay off the roads.

Tuesday morning dawned with this much snow. Well over 2 feet. I couldn't find my yard stick to measure it. The wind blew and blew and the snow just drifted everywhere.

It wasn't really this deep, but it might as well have been!

Part of the drift + our shoveling + more snow on top of it

The middle section is a foot tall. The second is at least two feet.

Wednesday morning dawned with more blizzarding conditions. I was forced out by jury duty. The roads were insanely bad. I made it home ok and by about 2pm, the sun came out. We had blue skies till Thursday afternoon. Then it suddenly started blizzarding again. Today has been decent. Cold, but sunnyish.

I am officially done with snow for this winter. I hope it is finished! (yeah right!)

Snow Shadows

After our blizzard, my yard has been covered in a lovely, soft blanket of snow. The clumps you see are from snow drifts from the high winds. I just love the long shadows in the morning sunlight!

Date: 3/7/10
Aperture: f/2.8
Shutter: 1/4000 sec
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 100mm
Tripod? Handheld

Blizzard?

Time for another blizzard! We have...I don't know now how much more snow. At least 8 inches. Probably more. Now it's blowing like crazy and still coming down. Small group was canceled for tonight, thankfully! Nothing's been plowed yet.

And I called to find out that I get to go in for jury duty in the morning! Great. We'll see if I can make it out!

Icicles

I have been waiting for the icicles this winter. They've been a long time coming! I blogged on my personal blog about our March blizzard we just finished with. I was really intrigued by the red and admittedly upped it a bit.

Date: 3/6/10
Aperture: f/2.8
Shutter: 1/200 sec
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 100mm
Tripod? handheld