passport woes

i called the passport agency and actually got a live person on the phone. this person was so nice.. and compassionate... but i think she read the script that was put before her. it went like this...

"your passport is nearing completion and i'd be surprised if you didn't have it within a week"

i'll keep you updated

tomorrow i'm having all of bill's family to this house.. for the first time. we've lived here about 8 months and no one from his family has ever even made an attempt to visit. all but one of his siblings and his parents, live within 20 miles of here.

anyway.. no i'm not moved in yet.. not totally anyway. no i haven't painted the rooms that were renovated. no the pool area and garden aren't in good shape. yes the house is cluttered, dusty and full of animal hair (i do have 3 cats and a dog you know!) but....

yes.. i have a great meal planned and lots of things for the kids to do

i suppose i'll see if they are coming to celebrate those who were born in august.. or if they are going to point out how human i am. (i already know the answer to the question of what they'll do, but i like to give the benefit of the doubt.. who knows.. maybe after 20 years of this.... someone will surpise me)

on the menu:
*salmon grilled on ceder planks
*grilled mushrooms and asparagus
*sliced tomatoes
*spinach salad with dried cherries, apples, red onions, toasted pecans and pureed raspberries mixed with balsamic vinegar (my own version of raspberry vinaigrette)
*fresh michigan sweet corn
*fresh melon (honey dew, watermelon, cantaloupe) all locally grown

beer (the kind i know my brother in law's prefer)
wine (the kind i know my mother in law drinks)
lemonade aid

someone else is bringing a traditional birthday cake and my mother in law will bring a veggie tray for snacking before we eat

of course i have plenty of hotdogs and hamburgers for the kids.. cuz i'm pretty sure a piece of grilled fish isn't what they call "party food"

we'll be eating outside around the pool, the weather is supposed to be nice. i have some nice paper plates and partyware.. considering i don't have plates to serve 28 people.. and wouldn't want to wash them anyway.

this is a hard crowd to please... i bet they would be much more happy if i served bratwurst and doritos, but that isn't gonna happen.

can you tell i have a wee bit of anxiety over this party? maybe i'll sample the wine before everyone gets here ;)

project complete

ok.. so i'm not very good at blogging when my daily routine is tossed out the window.. but here is whats been going on :)

i've been traveling.. as you know. canada has become one of my most favorite places in the world. it isn't that far from me.. .the people are friendly, and its a beautiful country. i can see myself spending much more time there in the future.

i did finish the real estate pano project i was working on. i learned a lot in the process.... i learned that doing 360 panos indoors is HARDER than it seems. straight lines are a nightmare. outdoor panos are easier. also doing a 360 pano in a space that has a lot of blank walls makes it very difficult. i learned how to take the images and layer them together so that the view out the window was visible... i learned how to manipulate control points so that the "auto" part of my stitching program could do a lot of the work for me. i learned that i have wonderful friends who are willing to help me with technical things.. just cuz i asked them for help.

here are the links to the real estate panos.. i realize there are errors.. but overall it was the learning experience that made the project so valuable to me.

http://beth.imageination.co.uk/kitchen.mov
http://beth.imageination.co.uk/masterbedroom.mov
http://beth.imageination.co.uk/livingroom.mov
http://beth.imageination.co.uk/basementbedroom.mov
http://beth.imageination.co.uk/basementlargeroom.mov

i still need to come up with a way to market my photography....maybe the studio stuff is what i'm better suited for.. when it comes to making money. i enjoy studio work... i just don't have a place to work from... maybe thats where i should be concentrating my efforts.

i'm working towards exhibiting and hopefully selling some of my work at an artshow next summer. deciding which images to frame, mat or make into notecards. i'm glad i have several months before the first artshow...i think once i do one or two.. i'll know understand what people are interested in a bit better.

my passport was stolen about 10 weeks ago.. i've applied for anew one, but it still hasn't come. i should have expedited it... :( now i'm getting worried about my trip to europe in september... the US govt said my passport would arrive in 10 weeks..... i still have 4 weeks before i travel to europe. please keep your fingers crossed for me.. cuz when i call the government i get nothing but recorded voices.. when i track my passport online.. it says "being processed"

i have a family party here this saturday.. and then a trip scheduled to visit the ocean (near my parents).... you'll hear more on this subject i'm sure ;)

i woke up with one of the worst migraines i've had in a long time today.. the medicine is finally making some progress so i think i'll take my shower and start the day.

b

busy busy busy

the above pictures are some that i took at my last photoshoot. the girl with the dogs is my friend's daughter. her name is Jen... she has been going thru a really hard time lately and she traveled across the country with her dogs to spend a few weeks visiting her mom and dad and collecting her thoughts. her dogs mean the world to her.. they have been her source of comfort during these horrible times.

i found that letting Jen and the dogs just play in the garden was the best way to take pictures of them. posing 2 HUGE dogs was never going to work.. besides that... i really like the spontaneity of the images i did end up taking. Jen is happy with them too... the collage above just shows a few of the pictures we took that day.

now i'm off on another adventure... not nearly as big as the last one ;) i'm going with a friend to canada for a few nights.. to a lake. its called lake simcoe. we wont be doing much hiking, just more laying around on the beach and reading :D and having a few nice dinners i hope.

i'll have my computer, and internet.. so again.. you may see me online

be back in 3 days!

monday

ok... so i've lost track of the days... and thats a good thing :) its monday morning, but the only way i knew that was because i saw the date on a sign.

we've been hiking several times, and took one drive to see what we could see. all of us prefer hiking over driving. there is nothing like turning a corner and seeing a beautiful waterfall or an a wolf or coyote? i'm not sure what this creature is.. i'll have to look it up when i get the chance... but luckily he wasn't angry that we were there.


the weather here changes so fast its weird. we can be driving with perfectly sunny skies and within minutes a storm comes up out of nowhere... here is what one of those rain showers looks like from about 12k feet.

the same thing happens when we are hiking but we've been lucky so far and the rains haven't lasted more than about 15 minutes at the most.

this last image is of Mill Lake. we hiked there a couple of days ago. the hike was extremely challenging. the altitude and the steep climb sure helped us sleep well that night.

we're having a great time... actually we are on our way to hike one last time today before we pack up and start the drive home tomorrow.

i'm not sure of the route yet... maybe thru wyoming and on to south dakota and eventually back to michigan :)

i'll update you from the next stop!

days 3 and 4

yesterday was kinda yucky weather wise.. rain cold.. wind.. lightening... but that didn't stop us!

we got in the car and drove up a dirt road that is only open for a couple of months in the summer the rest of the time its closed due to the snow. the boys ended up with headaches after we reached the alpine tundra (above the treeline) but they are doing fine now.

here is just a couple of shots from the rainy day on the mountains...


alex had my camera set on iso 800 :| but its fixed now.. so todays shots will be much better i hope!

also the sun is shining today.. .and we have a 4 mile hike around bear lake planned. (hope to see something other than a bear)

this picture is alex.. actually helping sam out of a sticky situation... see??? miracles can happen.

the clouds were so low most of the day it was hard to see the tops of the mountains.

malcolm.... .for google earth.. check rocky mountain national park... .bear lake :)

its just a bit north of estes park, co.

ok.. hopefully tomorrow i'll have internet again so i can actually spend time writing in my blog :)




bye for now!

bye bye DES MOINE + S

i had to leave iowa because the people there were upset that i couldn't spell the name of the town i stayed in ;)

now i'm in colorado.. which i can spell.. and i'm on my way to the campground in just a few minutes

gemi.. now you can stop reading cuz its the same blog you've already seen *giggle*

the trip is going great!

although finding a hotel room in Ft. Morgan, CO (tiny town) turned out to be difficult. we continued down the road to Greely, CO where we were able to snag the very last hotel room available. apparently everyone gets tired after 700 miles of corn and looks for hotel rooms at the same time.

i was lucky to get the room i got. besides just being lucky.. my faith in human kindness was restored when the hotel clerk gave me the room for 50% off because i told him it was over my budget. he spent a few minutes talking to my boys about the trip.. asked them if they had been good on the trip.. and then told me that since it was after midnight he could cut the rate in half for me :)

now its morning.. my boys are grazing at the breakfast buffet and i'm about ready to hop in my last "clean" shower for the next 10 days. today the plan is to drive the last 90 minutes to the campground and stop before we get there to buy groceries and ice. the weather is GORGEOUS.

the mountain weather will be a lot cooler than what we've had in michigan. 40s at night and 70s during the day.

perfect for hiking ;) i made my boys buy some hiking shoes at a Cabellas in the middle of nebraska somewhere. although they are convinced that their skateboarding shoes are "perfect" for everything.. i know better

ok.. i'm off !

byeee

b

Des Moine

well i'm on the road... des moine, iowa to be exact. the boys are still sleeping in the hotel room.. and i'm looking forward to another day of driving before we arrive at the rockies. (no i'm not joking.. i actually enjoy the driving part of our trips)

its me, alex, sam and a van of way more things than we will ever need.

hannah is staying home with her dad for the next two weeks... spending 10 nights in a tent with 2 "smelly" boys wasn't high on her list.

we got a later start than i had hoped yesterday.. but that wasn't a big deal. we ended up leaving monday late morning and it took us quite a while to actually get out of the detroit area .

once we were on the road and looking at our mapquest route (3 pages worth) we realized that we will be on one road, I-80, for more than 800 miles lol..... so i guess getting lost wont be a problem.

we started in michigan, pasted thru indiana into illinios (south of chicago) then into iowa. just as we were passing into iowa we came into an extremely nasty thunderstorm. this thing was HUGE.

the sky turned black/green. ... the winds were blowing sideways, and we were driving on a flat freeway with nothing but corn fields on each side of us. i have to admit... i was a bit nervous. the radio said it was 70mph wind gusts and 2 inches of rain per hour. some tornados were spotted just east of where we were. there was NO WHERE to go. i did find a small bridge to park under and wait out the storm. there was NO way i was going to get any pictures.. so i didn't even try.

after about an hour wait... the winds stopped blowing the rain sideways under the bridge.. and we started (slowly) to drive west. we finally saw the sky begin to lighten up a bit towards the west and saw the big black storm behind us in the rear view mirror.

there is probably an anology in there somewhere.....

the sky in front of us turned pink/purple/orange... it was perfect. soon after that we all realized we were exhausted and decided to find a place to sleep. Des Moine was the biggest city around so thats were we are.

our camping reservations don't start until wednesday. i have about 600 more miles to go until we are in estes park. depending on the drive today, we will spend 1 more night in a hotel before we start camping.

the boys are being good.. very little bickering or complaining. lets hope that continues ;)

thats all for now... :)
b