Our 3rd Annual "Great Escape"

A few years ago I heard there was a new indoor water park a couple hours away in Lake George, New York, and I knew it would be a fun way to beat the winter blues. So we've packed our suits and headed for an overnight at The Great Escape each winter since.

Baxter plays with the water.
What a nut!
Summer and her pal, Brigitte.
Baxter prepares to ride the waves...

Totally pro!
I'm sure even the best surfers have lost their shorts.
My boys!
Summer and yours truly.
Summer's pal, Riley, on the Lazy River.
A little snapshot of me and the kids...before...



...and after! (sorry Summer)

Style Me Pretty

A huge congratulations to Robyn and Keith for having their gorgeous wedding featured on Style Me Pretty yesterday!!

Robyn is a devoted fan of the site "for the style obsessed bride" and visited often for ideas and inspiration while planning her wedding at the Round Barn Farm.

You can see it featured by clicking HERE, HERE, and HERE!



xo

TODAY! (yesterday)

The TODAY show is taking a winter break from their NYC studio and brought the whole team to Sugarbush ski area here in Vermont yesterday to broadcast the show. I was fortunate enough to photograph it for the Burlington Free Press and had a blast documenting the hoopla and meeting the cast and crew, who were all so friendly.

I briefly met the whole TODAY show gang, but my favorite was Ann Curry. As I told the metro editor of the Free Press, she was the kind of person I felt I could be pals with.

Here are a handful of my favorite published images and outtakes from the day.

Ann Curry, Natalie Morales and Al Roker joke around before the camera rolls.
Natalie and Matt Lauer
Al
Ann and Al
Al and Matt get a ride from Sugarbush snow patrol.
Matt
A furry fan
Hoda Kotb has her first snowboarding lesson.

You snowboarding fans will recognize this Vermont celebrity. It's olympic gold medalist Hannah Teeter.
My pal, Mike Riddell was in a ski wear fashion show. Everything was going great until...
...oh, thank goodness...he's just showing off the board shorts under the pants!
Nice work, Mike!!
Our local NBC weather personality, Tom Messner, is on the far right.
The scene
On the far right is the TODAY show photographer.
Koko, another furry fan
Natalie and Hoda
young fans wave to the NBC camera
Joel Banner Baird, the writer from the Free Press, stayed toasty warm in this hat.To the delight of the crowd, Meredith Viera took time out for hugs and autographs.
Warren friends!
The fabulous Ann Curry!
Joel from the Free Press snapped this happy photo of me before we left.

What a great day! :-)

Orchids

No, unfortunately, I didn't fly off to Tahiti to take these orchid photos. I just journeyed upstairs to my bathroom. Admittedly it's difficult to live in a place with 6 months of winter, so if I need a break from the grey, dismal, frosty days I can soak in a big tub surrounded by windows, and walls painted the color of a Bora Bora lagoon.
Of course, the sad reality is that the kids are the only ones with time for bubble baths these days. Oh, and the cat, who loves to lounge in the empty tub and watch the water drip.
The good news, is that it only takes a moment to enjoy the beauty of this amazing plant. I don't know too much about these exotic beauties, but this one is called a Phalaenopsis or "moth orchid" and it lives on the edge of the tub. It is the perfect flower for me because I neglect it and it loves me anyway. It blooms a couple times a year and the flowers last for months.

I captured these images in natural light with my I.S.O. set to 125, with a 70-200 Canon I.S. lens, at F-stop 2.8.

Happy Valentine's Day!

xoxo

Fun in the Bay Area

I spent a week visiting family and friends in the Bay Area. It rained almost every day, but when the skies cleared up, I snapped up some memories to share with you.
Enjoy!

My first stop was to visit my grandparents in the beautiful Berkeley hills.
Unfortunately, my grandmother "Gigi" hurt her back the week before I arrived, so I was happy to sit and chat and lend a helping hand. My grandmother has a wonderful blog and you can read it HERE!
My Grandfather Otto.
Well, I suppose if you must sit in bed with a back injury, this is not a bad view to look out at!

The front door that greeted me since I was just a little sack of sugar.
On Wednesday, I met up with my mom in Emeryville for some power shopping, tasty food and a little jaunt over to the Marin Headlands to photograph my most favorite San Francisco landmark, The Golden Gate Bridge. The light was amazing!



Do you see the little orange starfish?
My cute mom with her nifty new camera!
A couple days later, I met up with my pals, Patty and Romy, and we had a super fun girls day out. We started with a yummy breakfast at The Sunny Side Cafe and then headed over to Azul Spa in Berkeley. It was soooo relaxing. Well, except for the part when "Ilana" tortured me during a facial. ;-) But other than that it was wonderful.
Here's where we spent most of the afternoon...
Ladies of leisure...(doesn't Patty looks like she's going to kill me for taking this picture?)

Romy has the most awesome space imaginable in Emeryville. She's a very talented artist and photographer and has a super cool old camera collection.Meet one of her cats, Pepe. This character was trying to escape in my camera bag.
Romy had a beautiful fresh flower arrangement in her hallway.
Here's Bucci, Romy's second cat, who thought he was part panther.
My pals.
When we were growing up, Emeryville was a trashy industrial town, and not a place to visit. It's had a fabulous makeover since and is now home to Pixar (the geniuses behind some of the best movies ever like The Incredibles, Toy Story, & Monsters Inc.), great shopping and good eats. I snapped this photo on my way to visit my brother in Danville on Friday evening. Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe is another cool spot in Emeryville. My brother and I heard a rumor that it was owned by Mike from Green Day and so we had to eat breakfast here on Saturday morning. (Yo, Mike, get some real maple syrup!)
Urban art in Emeryville. I have no clue what this means. Any ideas?
Here's K.D., my brother and sister-in-law's feisty and funny little dog!On Sunday, my brother, sister-in-law and I took a trip over to Sausalito to visit our dad and step-mom at their house boat. This is the dock that leads to their place.
Fun things along the way...
I love the view from their houseboat.
My brother, Loren, sister-in-law, Terri, and K.D. the super dog. I have to take a moment to brag about Terri. In 2007 she took the honor of Teacher of the Year in California AND recently nabbed the title for the entire Southwest. She is now up for the national award. Very exciting!! Hooray for Terri!!!
Terri snapped this photos of me and my brother.
Me and my dad, Darrow, and my step-mom, Marnie. My dad is growing his hair long for peace. Not sure how that works, but he has always had a different spin on life.

The end.

Raggedy Pote

Since Daria is away, I'm showing the blog a little love!

Way back before we had kids, we had a rather nomadic lifestyle, traveling all over the place. Oftentimes I'd have to leave weeks at a time and would miss Daria sooooo much, so we would find creative ways to be together. Well, most have heard the story about Raggedy Ann and Andy--the "raggedy" and the "andy" has always fit well on my part--but Raggedy Daria quickly made her appearance. Over the years, our nicknames evolved for each other until we officially became Pie & Pote (short for compote, if you must know). Naturally, our two dolls became Raggedy Pie & Raggedy Pote! Anytime we had to be apart, then our raggedy partners would accompany us (usually sneakily stowed away into the suitcase for the person leaving or under the covers for the person staying home)!

Since Daria headed out to California last week, I found Raggedy Pote hiding under the covers at home (and, of course, Raggedy Pie was traveling west too!). Summer and Baxter miss mom sooo much, and you can see below that Summer fell asleep with Raggedy Mommy wrapped snuggily in her arms!



Yeti looking a little camera shy.


Sometimes the snow doesn't quite happen...the other day we first got freezing rain, which ends up enveloping all the vegetation in a beautiful icy casing, and then we got a few flakes to dust everything!