Boots - Cincinnati Childrens Photographer

I think we are all coming down with something and had a long day, so I am making it short and leaving you with this little video clip tonight.

Easton nine months - Cincinnati Children Photographer

Little Easton turned nine months!

He is one of my Baby Package babies and I am going to miss him once he turns one and we are done with pictures... ;(

He is too cute. Such a little man and this tiny little body.











The truck belongs to someone in Easton's family... isn't it a beauty? A photographer dream to use a truck like this as a prop!

The time we saw a black bear

Like I posted before, we would drive every night around to look for moose... really any type of wildlife. Including bears.

On my birthday, after days of moosing... still no exciting wildlife to report.

We are sitting in the car driving... somewhere... when Jake says "I wish I could see a bear".

Seriously 30 seconds later my mom is screaming to pull over and there he was...



a little black bear cub at the lake.

I am sure his Momma was somewhere near by but she stayed hidden.

Thank you Jake for such an awesome birthday gift!

moosing

Almost every night in Canada we put the kids in the car and went "moosing". What "moosing" is you ask?

Driving around country roads looking for moose... and at the same time putting Finn to sleep. Trying to get Finn to sleep in the camper was hard...no! more like HARD!!!!
So, driving around the countryside and looking for moose was a great alternative.

No, we never actually saw a moose but we saw lots of this...





























one early evening we almost ran out of gas. The little board computer thingy in my Mom's car let us know we had only 18km of gas left... maybe not a big deal when you are in a city. But if there is only one gas station in a radius of about 50km and you are driving around at night, with kids on logging trucks road... yes pretty scary and kinda dumb on our part.



Too bad we never actually saw a moose but we almost always succeeded in getting this one to sleep...

the day we went kayaking

There was a time when kayaking consumed every single thought of my day. I kayaked daily, sometimes twice and even skipped school to kayak.
I pitched a tent at our boats house and slept there just for the heck of being able to get up very early in the morning to kayak.



Mornings on the water are amazing. Everything is so calm and you are the only one out there in your boat. Usually there is a little fog just above the water and all you can hear is your paddle hitting the water. I for sure never thought this would change... well then I moved away, sold my gear for an airplane ticket and all I have left are some memories.
I haven't been on the water much since. But on this last trip one of my goals was to introduce Jake to kayaking. I was pretty excited about this. The second day of our vacation we rented a tandem kayak and an hour later we were off for an adventure.



He did really well... I am not just saying this as a proud Mommy, but he seriously did paddle better then some others I have paddled with... no names :)
He was really into it and we spent most of the day exploring islands, talking about kayaking and just enjoying our time together.



We saw tons of turtles sun bathing on logs.



We even came across a crazy french lady on an island who yelled to us from far away "please no my dog is scared of children. don't come here" Because of her accent Jake didn't understand her and kept walking towards her saying "Excuse me? Can you say it again" and she kept yelling back that her dog is frightened when is sees children... the whole thing was pretty comical because she made such a big fuzz about her poodle (of course the french lady had a poodle) being scared...

We decided to paddle around the island and find a poodle free spot.



Jakey did a little swimming while I unpacked our picnic.



He was just in the water for a few minutes, when he came out sat next to me, started eating his lunch when he looked at his hands and said "Something is moving on my hand" I look and I see leeches... not just one or two on his hand, but dozens on his hands, arms, and legs. I am not kidding. Just thinking about it gives me the creeps. I spent the next 20 minutes pulling leeches off my "baby"... we even checked the areas covered by his swim trunks!



For the rest of our vacation Jake would check the water by dipping his big toe in the water to see if leeches are biting.... gross but just part of the outdoor experience.



I really hope to be able to do some more kayaking with Jake (and later with Finn) (actually nevermind about trying to do this with Finn...lol) in the future. I actually forgot how much I loved it and now find myself drooling over kayaks for sale on craigslist... One day!

We are back

The kids and I spent two weeks camping with my Mom in Canada.

It was amazing, beautiful, adventurous and very hard with two kids.

Still I would do it all over again!

I didn't bring my "big" camera with me but only borrowed my Mom's point & shoot. I knew going camping with Finn would be difficult and didn't want to add carrying my camera gear around and protecting it from little fingers.

Over the next week I will try to get a few detailed posts up... I just don't think one post will do this trip justice.

So stay tuned and enjoy a few pictures right now of Jakey being goofy at Harold's Point.