foto friday: somewhere that's green

yesterday i:

dragged my kid all over to run errands all morning,

threw out half my closet full of hole-y, ugly, boring clothes,

organized my shoes in my new shoe cabinet,

washed and folded 4 loads of laundry,

dismembered and cooked a whole chicken for some chicken salad,

completely ignored dinner,

dragged my hungry and tired family out for another failed photo shoot idea,

sat in a car for 15 minutes with a screaming child whilst the man i married came up with yum, albeit later-than-necessary, mexican food,

stayed up till 3am reading the 400-something blogs on my reader and pinteresting what to do on my new mantle cause i have a reoccurring case of insomnia,

and then had to write it all down to shut my brain off...

this morning i woke up around 6, got lots of work done,

then when B got up, we went for a walk to find somewhere that's green.

{a broadway tune... you know it, you win points!}

i feel like i have been MIA lately, running around, project-ing, and filling my day with so many extra things that i needed the excuse to 

stop and snap the world as i see it.

{though it meant a few failed attempts to get out to do it this week.} 

i love that i live somewhere that is always green.
everywhere is green.
and yet, if you were to ask me what color i think of when you say San Diego, 
i'd say blue.

for the nerds:

this foto is an HDR. 

high dynamic range.

basically smooshing "bracketed" photos into one
to suck out all the detail and bring it to life.

i wanted to learn to do a new skill this week, and there are billions of tutorials of how to do it in photoshop and photoshop elements.

i just used photomatix pro.
{which just compiles em for you and then lets you tweak it if needed.

i will be using this more, lots more...

it means trucking around with a jogger stroller and a camera on a tri-pod, but, as my mom always says, S.O.C.K.S. 
{it is what it is.} 
 

more green-loving photo-ers:

christine

kristyn

rose

hAha

i hope you are all going to have green pancakes tomorrow 

in honor of st. patrick, that one guy.  

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this

this is the beach that we always came to on vacation growing up.

the one that we visited as newlyweds and watched as all the young families
walked their little ones down to the water and we thought,
"what a fun place to raise your kids"
we would leave those mini-vacays and say stuff like, "lets live here someday...."
and laugh it off.

this little sand-loving dude will get to play here all summer long.
and his mom is stoked about it.

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foto friday: behind the music

the theme today is music.

a typical day at the clifford abode begins about the same as anywhere.
a little crying, a light breakfast,
and lots of dancing and loud music.

lucky for us, boss is as into music as his inclined parents.
he beats drums, dances,
and sings his approval/distaste for music i play in the car.

its serious business.

not that these fotos are anything fancy,
but it makes me smile to see my little guy play with bright toys
that might lead him to someday begging J-Lo for a career....

now see what's in the music with my lady friends:

christine

kristyn

hAha

rose

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the part we'll remember

in pencil skirts and power shoes, 
we clifford girls filed into a full chapel.
many relatives, neighbors, former colleagues, church members, and friends.

amazing speakers,
great stories
for a dear old man.

a retired veteran and fireman
means the circumstance comes with great pomp.
just seeing the tribute, and dear gifts from old friends was enough to start me.
 

and the happy news is the news that this isn't the end.

i told gramma jean she wasn't allowed to wear black.

she looked stylin, and enjoyed her family around her with a smile on her face.
my own dear granny would call her one dandy lady.
which is of the highest rank of endearment i know.

the sad news is, that cc and i will always remember this day
as the day we made one poor parenting decision.

 

after the beautiful service,
{that we surprisingly made it through with a busy 1-year-old},
we stopped to grab the little tired/hungry/wet kid something more solid than the 2% milk from jack-in-the-box that he downed hours earlier.


cc waited impatiently for some teenager at the grocery deli to make sandwiches
{instead of handing him a ready-made something}
since we had only minutes to be to the burial site.

of course boss fell asleep in the car, and thus wouldn't be eating it anyway...

then we proceeded to hit every. red. light.
and missed the entire ceremony at the cemetery.

apparently the firemen were all there,
the firetruck was parked on the hillside
where all the family stood watching,
like a scene from a movie.
there was a 21-gun salute,
and aunt valerie played her beautiful bagpipes.

lucky for us, on that beautiful hill where grandpa was buried,
on a perfect day in northern LA,
for only us few,
the bagpipe genius played again.

a tender mercy to remind us:
it really isn't the end of the world.

and what a happy thought that is.

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what you missed at the iParty {part 2}

we had only barely finished unpacking, buying a couch,

and settling in,

but within hours of all of our cute nerds arriving,

we were up and ready and

geekishly clad,

with a happy, well-rested kid who has no idea he's 1.

B was so happy to see all of his family and friends

and loved all over his first ceremonial piece of cake.

it was a little bit of an out-of-body experience.
sometimes i can't hardly believe he really has been here a whole year.
and sometimes i can't believe it's only been a year!
yes, all you moms told me it would go fast,
and you were right.

this one about sums up the night.
nerds, technology, apple products, food products.
the end.

the nerdy dad had even hooked up the apple tv to play all of the photos taken throughout the night from his iPad so they showed up on the slide show playing on the big tv.

it was fun to see all of the photo booth pictures show up so our cute and nerdy guests could see what we saw...

we were so entertained we didn't even need to whip out the iPad Pictionary...

{the photo booth was built by our friends who let us use it for the night, 

and then came to help take pictures too. 

sidestory: they built it as their first date! cute, right?!}

i must say, i can't stand how cute a guy is with the nerd glasses and an up-do... young, and old.

thanks, everyone, for such a fun night!

already dreaming up boston 2.0

cause we can't wait to do it again.

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