My little sister, Lacey, is very pregnant with her second. I honestly believe that pregnant women are beautiful and my little sis is…well, she is amazingly beautiful. For all the hard times I have given her (she is only two years younger than I, and I was the consummate aggravating older brother!), she turned out all right. I am so proud of the woman she has become. Her husband, my brother-from-another-mother, Danny is a great guy and together they have an enviable relationship. They live out in the country and have a precious little daughter who is a few months older than my youngest, Jillian. She is two and her name is Lily Mae.

Sneaky, sneaky! Anyway, we only had a few minutes to do these photos on one day (the 4th of July) and about 10 minutes a couple days later…The reason for the sneakiness is we are surprising my brother-in-law with the photos. We had to be very quick, we literally just shot the pics and ran back inside in a span of about 10 minutes. They were shot at my folk’s 400 acre farm.

Oh! And my sister is due in just a week or two.

Celebrating our Independence is always a great thing. We spent the day with family. It was hot early in the day and I enjoyed riding the ATVs on my folk’s 400 acres, blasting through the creeks and mud! I had to change clothes three times and took 3 showers…I was a mess. The whole crew shot skeet a bit later. I didn’t do as hot as I usually do, but I was having an “off” day.

We have been trying to get a portrait in this chair of Lily Mae (my little 2-year-old niece) for a while. That day she actually cooperated! These were shot with aperture priority on my 50mm with window light only.

Ashlyn had to put in her two cents…

Hopefully, they will always be close cousins!

In the late afternoon the rain moved in and cooled things down. It stopped in plenty of time to light fireworks and create our own little display.

In my mind, there isn’t much better than family get-togethers, grilling, laughter, story-telling, food, dessert, beautiful weather and fireworks…A wonderful day. Here are a few more pics from the day…

I am not one to take photos of sunsets, but this day I did…this sky was amazing and the color is not adjusted on enhanced at all on this photo!

This poor teensy-weensy frog had the misfortune of getting caught by our gang of 2-5 years olds.They played with him for a long, long time…INSIDE the house!

During my recent foray into Seattle for the Anti-Workshop, I was overwhelmed by the awesome culture of the city. I really enjoyed my time exploring with my fellow photogs. Here are some shots from my perspective.

An old Fisherman.

World famous Pike Public Fish Market.

I spoke with the gent on the left for a while. He was a nice old fella who had a plethora of impressions of old-time actors…this was his Jimmy Cagney face. The couple on the right had just departed a swanky gala event on pier 66 and were quite drunk and singing in French. They were elegant nonetheless and I loved their clothes and spunky attitudes.

The market was way cool. The Pub was where we had our daily ‘workshop.’

I really thought that guy had to have a photo taken of him. He was jammin and was pretty good. The building shot was snapped as I saw this old truck barreling down the road. I figured if I got it in the frame it would add some vintage appeal…it did.

I hope you all liked my sharing time. I will post more Anti-Workshop pics soon…of lot of my new friends! Look out for your beautiful mugs to get face-time on my blog, yo!