Monday, August 09, 2010

8/8/10 On the lam


8/8/10 On the lam, originally uploaded by betseeee.

Went on a wine-tasting tour of the North Fork of LI. The group was a bunch of girls who are friends with my best friend. I knew them in varying degrees. We had a stretch Escalade, which was pretty funny for a bunch of suburban mamas. This guy worked at Pelligrini Vineyards, where we had a great time. I have no idea how these crazy girls convinced him to get in the car, but it was some good hiliarity for sure.

Saturday, August 07, 2010

8/7/10 Time marches on (219 of 365)

Another beautiful day ends at one of my favorite beaches. What's most interesting to me about this shot, though, is comparing it to July 4th's sunset. Just one month later and look how the position of the sun has changed. Over the water in early summer, over land (Asharoken) in midsummer.

Still plenty of summer left, though.

Friday, August 06, 2010

8/6/10 Blown schmown


8/6/10 Blown schmown, originally uploaded by betseeee.

Yeah, there's that giant thermonuclear blown area on Lilly's dress and a slightly smaller one on her face. A small price to pay for the look of utter devotion. <3

8/5/10 Lilly cooperates


8/5/10 Lilly cooperates, originally uploaded by betseeee.

Seriously, write down the date! Though really, she's more likely to do so than her sister.

I've been playing around with back-button focusing and shooting wide open. Her posing is a little cheesy--maybe she's going to work at Kiddie Kandids someday. But in the end, she's my beautiful girl and I like the shot because of that.

8/41/0 Bacon, it's what's for dinner

Who can argue with a BLT, even if you have to put it on a hot dog roll?

8/3/10 Ice poppin'


8/3/10 Ice poppin', originally uploaded by betseeee.

I still had peach puree (no rum added!) left after making the daiquiris the other night, so I used it to lure them off the beach today. After baths and dinner (which you will note they didn't bother to dress for) we put it in the Zoku. I was pronounced "best mom ever" by Miss Lilly here. :)

8/2/10 Swinging into the night


8/2/10 Swinging into the night, originally uploaded by betseeee.

We spent most of the day at our friends' house, swimming. Then the kids watched a movie, and by the time it was over, it was almost 7pm. Got a text from my husband that he would be home by 8:30, so I decided to throw caution to the winds, and suggest to my friend that we go up to Crab Meadow (5 minutes from her house) and watch the sunset. Clouds on the horizon made that kind of a bust, so I decided to play with silhouettes. That was actually pretty tough, too, because of the low clouds. This was the best I could do, achieved by lying on my back, propped up by the backpack I was wearing, between Kate's (pictured) swing and Lilly's. I deserve hazard pay for this one, except I don't get paid for this. ;)

7/31/10 Sophie


7/31/10 Sophie, originally uploaded by betseeee.

I was so close to her that only one eye ended up perfectly sharp at 2.8. But she's no less gorgeous for it.

8/1/10 Good use of CSA fruit


8/1/10 Good use of CSA fruit, originally uploaded by betseeee.

We had a lot of wonderful organic peaches that were perfectly ripe and probably overripe by morning. I told Ryan I was going to puree them so we could make ice pops. He said he had been hoping I would say daiquiris. You don't have to ask me twice--threw some ice in, grabbed the last bit of rum we had in the house, and there ya go. Delicious!

7/30/10 Not-so-dirty dancing


7/30/10 Not-so-dirty dancing, originally uploaded by betseeee.

I looked at this photo and all I could think of was the scene where Johnny Castle tells Baby "This is my dance space. This is yours. You don't go into mine. I don't go into yours."

That philosophy is completely alien to twins, by the way.

7/29/10 Princess My Ride


7/29/10 Princess My Ride, originally uploaded by betseeee.

I swear my kids have never watched MTV and never seen a stretch SUV with a swimming pool. Apparently, it's a universal desire to be able to swim while driving. Belle, Aurora, and the twin Ariels sure seem happy about it.

7/28/10 Monkey bar redux (209 of 365)

This is Kate tackling the same set of monkey bars as Lilly did on May 20th. Different twin, different vantage point. I like the less-cluttered background. I was also pretty happy with myself for managing to (I think) nail the exposure in full sun with the sun at her back. At the very least, nothing was blown out. Golf claps, please!

7/27/10 BFFs (208 of 365)


7/27/10 BFFs (208 of 365), originally uploaded by betseeee.

We went for an impromptu nature walk at the Sweetbriar Nature Center today. On the way back, I lagged behind just to watch them. This was not posed. <3<3

Monday, July 26, 2010

7/26/10 Asharoken gull


7/26/10 Asharoken gull, originally uploaded by betseeee.

As far as I can tell, there are two good ways to get a nice shot of a flying seagull. One involves a long lens, image stabilization, and luck. The other involves a couple of four-year-olds and a bag of tortilla chips. Guess which I used?

Sunday, July 25, 2010

7/25/10 Straw wars


7/25/10 Straw wars, originally uploaded by betseeee.

When I'm filling out my Mother of the Year (MOTY) award application, please remind me to include "Taught children how to blow the wrapper off the straw and into other peoples' faces" under my achievements.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

7/24/10 Bowler over


7/24/10 Bowler over, originally uploaded by betseeee.

You'd think with that much windup, Lilly would have gotten some decent momentum on the ball. But we still had to wait a good minute-and-a-half before it managed to get down to the pins.

7/23/10 Lilly of the backyard


7/23/10 Lilly of the backyard, originally uploaded by betseeee.

I just rented the 85mm 1.8. I think I'm in love with it. So much sharper than my other lenses.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

7/22/10 Sunflowers (203 of 365)


7/22/10 Sunflowers (203 of 365), originally uploaded by betseeee.

There's a small farm and farmstand not too far from my house. Every summer they have a beautiful field of sunflowers, and every summer I think to myself that I'd like to photograph it. Today, the girls were at my parents, so I decided to just do it. I walked into the farmstand, asked one of the women who works there (who I think is part of the family that owns the farm) if I could take some photos of their beautiful sunflowers. I don't know what cynical part of me was expecting her to say no, but I'm glad it was wrong.

There were a ton of bees out there, and I started getting a little freaked out after a few shots. I wanted one with more sky, but the direction of the sun was wrong. That whole thing about sunflowers turning to face the sun? Not true for all sunflowers. These were squarely pointed east while the sun was working its way west. So, the only decent angle included the utility poles and also required a pretty good amount of work in ACR to look right.

7/21/10 Worth the trip


7/21/10 Worth the trip, originally uploaded by betseeee.

Deanna has convinced me to start blogging my 365 photo project. I debated starting a new blog, but the more I thought about it, I rather like this one as a document of betseeeevolution. I started this photo project on January 1st, and have gotten a lot of satisfaction out of it. Since I usually write a pretty good story on flickr, I'm just going to cut-and-paste the same here. Hope you enjoy!

The girls and I spent the day swimming at the home of some really wonderful friends. When we left, Lilly really wanted pizza, and asked so nicely and with such longing that I agreed. As we walked out of the pizza place, a girl next to us looked up at the sky and went "Whoa!" It looked like Armageddon up there! We hurried back to the car.

And then, like a good mama, I asked my girls if they wanted to take a ride with me up to the beach to see if we could take some pretty pictures (with them safely inside the car) of the storm clouds. Like good photo-mama daughters, they agreed, and off we went.

The serious rain and thunder never actually materialized where we were, but the sky was glorious. And when we got back to our house, 8 or so miles south, the puddles were a good hint as to where the rain had actually gone.