This has been an amazing season. I have watched my daughter change and grow as a player. I have been amazed by these girls that I have watched take the field for the last 8 years. They are amazing. This was her last year at this level so I made sure I documented it with pictures. I took over 3000 pictures this season, at least 1000+ were just of my child. I grabbed a few that I really liked. I may add more or do another post but for today I wanted to give these girls some recognition. Way to go ladies!

Our Summer vacation, yeah I know (remember I am catching up).  We took a trip to Gatlinburg for our summer vacation.  We all loved it.  We took a drive to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.  We decided to do the Cades Cove Loop Road Tour.  During the whole drive Connor kept saying he just wanted to see a bear and that it would make it this his most perfect day.  At the end of the drive just before we left the loop we saw a black bear.  An actual live, walking and looking for food, black bear.  It actually came right up to the cars and walked between the cars that were stopped in the middle of the road to take pictures. 

Wonder Works

Our Family -  See if you can pick me out of the group.

Proof that I was actually there.

Mini Me

Gatlinburg at night

Ripley’s Believe it or not Aquarium of the Smokies at night

Before the driving trail we stopped for a picnic lunch.  A couple people riding horses came through and actually stopped so that the kids could see the horses up close.

Mini Me take 2

Some sites along Cade Cove Loop

A young elk

OK, so I am obviously playing catch up with my posting.  These are things we did and pictures I took that I just never found time to share.  So, I am sharing now.  In October we decided to have a “mini vacation” weekend in Columbus, Ohio.  We had never been to the Columbus Zoo, so we went.  Here are some of my favorites from that day.  It was absolutely perfect.  It wasn’t too hot, it wasn’t packed, the animals were out and people were friendly.  The only issue we had was it was off season so most of the vendors and shops were closed.

In October I attended and photographed the OACHE Conference in Marietta, Ohio.  There was a great turn out, lots of people and amazing sites to see.  We were at the historic Lafayette Hotel along the Ohio River and Washington State Community College and of course I took a few pictures.  These were taken right after the ride on the sternwheeler, the Valley Gem, on the Ohio River. 

This week I had the opportunity to visit the National Museum of the USAF with my daughter on a field trip.  Being so close to the base, any Air Force base, brought back so many memories for me.  We had fun and I had the chance to tell my daughter about my Air Force days.  Here are a few pictures from our day at the museum.

Super Girl Saves the Day!

So I had an engagement session last Friday morning (yes, it was cold; 7 degrees).  I had a few minutes after I dropped of the kids at school so I took a quick detour to the Ashland, KY boat docks.  The combination of the morning sun, the mist on the river and a passing barge was too much to resist.  Here are a few of my favorite shots.

I saw this scene as I was crossing the tracks to leave for my session.

Happy New Year!  2007 was a great year for my family and my business.  I am looking forward to 2008 with 10 weddings on the books and a few seniors already scheduled, this year is already shaping up to be a great year.  So, today we went Geocaching.

Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for GPS users. Participating in a cache hunt is a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of a GPS unit. The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache. 

Here are a few images from today.  It was so much fun.  We definitely plan on doing more Geocaching.  The only difference we would make is to do it on a warmer day.

This is the geocache that we found: Crawford’s Acre

The Geocache was on the edge of a cemetery.  I love cemeteries.  Here are a few of my favorites from the cemetery.

Every year I make homemade candy and we give it to co-workers, teachers and family friends as gifts.  Normally, I would have done this a few weeks ago but since I have been so busy capturing memories for all of my wonderful customers I haven’t had time (this is not a bad thing).  Well, tonight I made myself do it.  Actually, I didn’t have a choice.  Tomorrow is the last day of school and I still needed to get my teacher’s gifts together.  I made milk chocolate covered pretzel rods, white chocolate covered pretzel rods, red and green (white chocolate colored with food coloring) covered pretzel rods, butterscotch haystacks (chow mein noodles covered in melted butterscotch) and white chocolate haystacks and finally peanut butter balls (AKA buckeyes).  I made milk chocolate and white chocolate buckeyes.  I took over the dining room table.  I had to grab a few pictures.  Enjoy.  Unfortunately some of the white chocolate pretzel rods didn’t make it.  My family made off with about 10 of them. 

Yesterday while driving to Pikeville, KY to shoot Julie and Garland’s wedding I noticed the annual signs for the Durbin Farm sorghum and apple butter sales.  At this farm they not only make sorghum and apple butter, but they also grow the sorghum cane used to make the sorghum. 

So, what is sorghum and isn’t it just like molasses?  Well, I asked that question when I first moved to Kentucky over 14 years ago.  In fact I had never even heard of sorghum.  Now I really like it.  So, what is the difference, well, Sorghum is made from sorghum cane, and molasses is made from sugar cane. Molasses is the by-product of the sugar making industry. The juice of sugar cane is boiled down to make sugar. The syrup that is left after the sugar is strained off is molasses. It is a strong, dark syrup. Sorghum has a milder flavor. The molasses that is purchased in the store is usually blended with corn syrup to make it milder. 

The reason for the different types of cane used is as was explained to us today, the length of the planting season.  Sugar cane takes at least 10 months and up to 2 years to be ready to harvest. It takes 3 to 4 months for sorghum cane to be ready to harvest. Sugar cane is planted by cane stalks being laid in the row, and sorghum is planted by seed each year. Sugar cane is grown in South Georgia, Florida, Louisiana and other southern states. So, around here they make sorghum every fall.  It is really amazing to watch.  There is even a sorghum festival in Carter County every fall.  Here are a few pictures from our trip.

The Ross family who own the farm are members of the Sorghum National Organization.  The compete every year and they are the 2007 National Champs.  They explained that in order to even be considered sorghum has to be 80% brick (sugar) and not less that 80% brick and this year theirs was exactly 80%.  They were very proud of all of their awards.

So, recently I realized I have over 100 blogs that I have set for RSS feeds.  I never realized I had that many that I followed.  Then I saw this on [b] Becker’s blog and did the test myself.

58%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?And realized I don’t have a problem.  My blogging is completely under control.