Last Endeavour

This morning was the 134th space shuttle launch and the historic last launch of the shuttle Endeavour.  Because we live only about 45 miles from the Kennedy Space Center, we can see the launches from our driveway. There was some cloud cover this morning, so the shuttle disappeared into the clouds quite quickly and I wish it could have waited about 5 minutes to blast off because by then the clouds had blown out of the way...but I still got a shot of the lift-off before it went into the clouds and an after-lift-off shot of the rocket trail in the sky.

Not surprisingly, the cows grazing in the pasture didn't 

even notice the historic significance of the moment.

Within 5 minutes of lift-off the shuttle was 375 miles from Shuttle Pad A  

and all that remained was the rocket trail.

Children at Play

Having Melissa go out of town this past week to help her sister with their new baby was perfectly timed for me to be able to practice doing a photo shoot with her kids on the day I was scheduled to tend them.  They had so much fun digging into the Halloween costumes, showing me the ladder and swing on one of the big Oak trees in their back yard, jumping on the tramp, dancing, sword fighting, playing musical instruments and just being really cute kids.

 Origami hats and musical instruments!

 This is Lily. It was her birthday, so we made a birthday cake and later that day,

they had a birthday party for her :)

 We have 5 puppies at our house - puppies are always a hit with kids!

52 Week Project - Week 17

LOVE 

First "real" family photo shoot

As part of the online photography class I'm taking, my assignment this week was to prepare a shot list (proposed poses) and then find some subjects to be photographed. The Skousens were so great to work with and I felt really good about my first shoot even though I didn't remember to check ALL the details as far as the composition of the shots went all the time and even though I probably should have taken more pictures to ensure that all 6 sets of eyes were open in some of the shots. Because Dan is the manager over the orange groves, we used the Doxey Grove and the bright red barn with its white door for our location.