We have new neighbors two houses down ~ and a new neighborhood dawggie who is the tamest Golden Retriever ever.

Newman has a new pal   and they play in either of the yards almost every afternoon.

But not till he gives his daily dose of puppy kisses!

It’s kind of cute to see him waiting for the kids to get back from wherever they are coming from (swimming practice in this instance).  When I hear him barking and getting all excited, it means that it’s time to run next door for a sprint around the yards.  A summer ritual ~ while we are enjoying our gorgeous-can’t-complain mild weather.

Gotta love our fur babies!

That’s how many months old she is!  How fast time flies!  And guess what??  We’re babysitting overnight.

And she’s close to walking ~ and  can tell us what she wants by pointing ~ says “WOW” a lot ~ loves to pull the hair off Newman ~loves to share her food ~ adores her Owpa ~ stands on her tippie toes a lot ~ oh so much more this adorable live doll shows off a lot these days!

Right now, it’s passed 10pm and I just finally put her down to sleep.  I’m sharing some pictures I took with friends and family on FB then I’m going to enjoy some Ben and Jerry for a little bit and then hit the hay.  Who knows how much (or little) sleep we’ll get tonite!

And then we get the big little boy on the weekend.

Grandparenthood.  It should’ve come before real parenthood!!  I wish this on all good people on earth!

Ciao!

I keep having to remind myself how awesome it is and  and how blessed we are to live in the most incredibly wonderful Bay Area ~ where in the summer it’s still chilly in the morning ~ cloudy and cool till the sun dissipates all the clouds and the sky is all blue.  Once in a while we have a heatwave or two.  But often times ~ there’s days like today.  We’ve got a bonus breeze, so I did what many people come to this great state to do. Chill and recline.

And bask in the sunshine.

For a glorious hour (maybe more) under the protection of SPF 12 and with my beverage beside me.  I lay out and baked myself to baby the little bit of colored I earned which we were by the water in the east coast.

I even smelled like I was on vacation!

There might be a repeat performance tomorrow ~ I heard we were going to have glorious weather all week long.

I’ll buy that!   Except ~ it’s free.

Right now ~apres sun and after a cool shower ~ me feels like a nap!

I spent the whole day at a Kelby Seminars LightRoom 3 class in San Francisco today and did not regret one single minute of it.  And to top it all, we even had a small 3.5 earthquake!  It really rocked!

I learned a lot of things.  First and foremost, I realized that I already knew a LOT of technical things in the DEVELOP mode, but what I did find useful (surprisingly) was the beginning part of the seminar when Matt Kloskowski taught us how to set our folders up and use catalogs.  I only have about 10,000 photos to rate ~ keep or delete.  Thanks for the tip!! I bet I’ll recover some disc space when I get to that exercise.   As an attendee to the seminar, we received a free copy of Matt’s Killer LightRoom presets and I’ve already been having fun with it.

I also did not realize (till today) that you could tether LR3 and Photoshop!  Cool feature which saves a whole lot of steps.

Tomorrow’s a free Saturday for me so you already know what I’ll try to do.  PRACTICE!

Surprisingly, today wasn’t an information overload kind of seminar.  That’s how relatively easy this cool software is.

Did I forget to mention that they had 600 people in attendance?  Give or take a few?

And yes, I got lost ~ my mom wasn’t surprised   I really wish I still had our family driver!!

Have a great weekend!

“I am writing this post tonite (4/13) but I know it will take me time to get it ‘right’.  I know I’ll backspace a few times and even delete sentences.  I might not even publish this post. We’ll see.  For now, I’m hoping it sees the light of the blogosphere because someone needs to say something about the trash talking going on in the Mommy Blog World.

Seriously, there are amazing writers and blog authors and just this past weekend, I had the privilege of meeting many new ladies through 5MinutesForMom’s Ultimate Blog Party.  While I had my post ready when they started, I was busy with one grandchild on Friday and another one on Saturday.  On Sunday it rained ~ and my husband and I decided to spend the afternoon in the cave and nap ~ for two glorious hours.

And then a girlfriend called me.  About stuff being written online about a mommy blogger.  I had stopped following some ‘bash’ sites until some things were called to my attention.  And then I read. I shouldn’t have.”

SAVE Blog Entry to DRAFT.

DATE: July 22, 2010, today.

My big decision today was whether to MOVE the post above to TRASH or to PUBLISH it and I’m inclined to finish off what I started  a few months ago.  Last night, I read my first blog site which I started way back in 2005 and realized how differently I write when I know that only my closest family and friends are reading.  I was writing from the brain to my keyboard with hardly a thought about what others would say.  It was ME talking and not ME thinking about what others would say.

It was ME writing as I went through life and the dailies.  Writing when I was happy or upset.  More text than photographs ~ and the ones with photographs were only for those who could access my blog.

A way different  blog altogether.  And I kind of miss writing like that.   I even entertained the idea of turning this one private but I’ve made some friends on the same mom space and enjoy sharing with them.

The great thing is that my blog platform (WordPress) allows me to keep some entries private.   There’s logic in that thought so I’m going to hold onto that feature.

What I  witnessed from April 13 in MamaBlogLand and on when I began the post above was and is not pretty.  I’ve been on both camps to know how emotions can run the gauntlet of high and low.  And what makes it worse is how some people take this bloggy stuff SERIOUSLY.

I mean ~ really.  You can’t !!  Seriously?

Many moons ago, I blogged on another platform.  It’s kind of fun reading back some of my journal entries.  At the time, I wrote privately with only family members and close friends reading. I found an apropos article today.  It just so happened that my niece was also posting some old family photos ~ thus the reminiscing.

My thoughts then ~ and now 

I met this family at the coffeeshop this morning and this little 6month old baby was so adorable.  I asked her mom if I could take a photograph and she obliged.  I couldn’t resist her bow!

And then I drove over to have lunch at my sister’s with more of my family.

These two little ones were already playing in the yard.

She wore gold sandals and he wore his first pair of lace-up Jordans.

Simply irresistible

Alyssa’s dad had to go in to work today ~which normally would be his day off.  I was happy to oblige them and spend the morning and afternoon with her.  Here’s what I discovered.  Right about now, she is 10 1/2 months old, almost walking and knows how to ask for stuff by pointing to it.  Early communication skills.

She also owns 1/2 of Toys R Us ~ thus, she is great at entertaining herself.  I carried her twice and only to take her upstairs to get her changed and then to bring her back downstairs after a nap.  Around and in between all of that, she was a delight.

There were shape sorters and trains, a grocery cart and dolls.  Blocks and other interactive toys.  And there was Mickey Mouse.

Yes, she had me wrapped around her little fingers and toes.

This Sunday my family will be having another (monthly) get together and I’ll get the little boy then!  And maybe the little doggie too!

In the meantime, I hope you all have a fabulous weekend.  I’ll leave you in Lyssa’s little corner where everything is pint size small and where she is left to imagine as only a 10 1/2 month old creative  child can.

Cheers, Baby Girl!

Fact: I have happy grandchildren.  In fact, they wake up happy.  The older babyGRAND is a goofball, and the little one will only have to follow.  I’ve photographed them recently and you can be he judge.

You give a kid a water table on a hot day and you can just watch them with delight ~ and lots of laughs.

And the younger one is just raring to go.  She walks with just one of mommy’s finger for guidance.

Miska * Mooska * Mickey Mouse!

Yup, she’s hooked ~ and there’s a sweet little dance that goes with the song.

Officially, we have our hands full ~ but we are LOVING every moment we can spend with these two littles!

Tomorrow, I’m babysitting.

I did a lot of looking UP a couple weeks ago.  Looking UP at the clouds in the sky, that is.   From my vantage point looking over the Long Island Sound every morning, the sky was blue and clear.

We were blessed with awesome weather for the duration of our visit and the heat wave hit as we were being driven to Kennedy Airport.  I could see it on the temperature gauge in the Suburban we were riding.  103 degrees.

While we were there, though ~ perfect weather.  Clear and blue in the morning.  And perfectly still.  This photograph was taken at about 630AM on the last day we were there (I heard the puppy crying and let her out of her crate).

That’s Tom’s boat, parked right where it was nice and still.

On most of the days, the clouds would start to form over the water and looking UP was a favorite pastime of mine.  That ~ and putting my feet up and sipping a cold beverage.  I developed my cloud photos yesterday and came away with two pages of images.  Here’s one of ‘em.  That’s just the daytime clouds!

At night I got some like these ~

I can’t wait to go back and visit.

In the meantime, I’m so glad I took over 2500 photos!!  I didn’t miss anything!

Not even the jellyfish!!

I’ve been working on getting my photography to another level and next week, I’ve signed up for a whole day software training and hope to get two of my other friends to make it a fun day altogether.  In the meantime, I’ve been compelled to play with some images I took from the deck while we were on vacation.

Images such as these:

One on one with Grandpa

Dog Day Afternoon

Cooler By The Shore

Through The Rain

Swing !!

I spent the past weekend with my sister and her daughter in hot and sunny Modesto for the Junior Olympic qualifying meets (track and field) and my niece qualified and moves on to the next competition.  It was grueling HOT ~ but I appreciated the company.  It was also wonderful to come home to my hub and pup.

Now it is back to work, back to life and reality ~ until the next opportunity comes.  In the meantime, live life to the fullest and appreciate all we are blessed with.

Peace!

Hello world!

We are back from one of our most restful and relaxing vacation with family out east.  Ten glorious days by the water, basking in the sun.  I learned how to drink beer (!!) ha!  Well ~ actually ~ I used to drink beer when I was much younger but I wasn’t much of a drinker of anything other than flavored water.  Our daily view pretty much was this:

We didn’t find any need to leave our ‘backyard’.  We did everything out here, including breakfast, lunch and dinner.

And if we weren’t by our chairs basking in the sun, we were up in this treefort looking at the world from a different vantage point.

We fished!  Boy did we fish!

And we got to love two new family members ~ both furry and adorable

We enjoyed beautiful sunsets ~ and even the thunderstorm was fun to watch!

We looked up at the sky and watched clouds form over the water;  seagulls and other birds fly or dive for fish.  When we weren’t looking up, we were looking at the waves and listening to it’s rhythm.

Our 4th of July shindig – 170 people and 2 days long

I took tons of pictures  ~ of the ocean and the sky and everything in between.

It was the best restful and invigorating time off.  No computer, just my Blackberry and Facebook to connect with family and dearest friends.

I did not miss the computer at all.  In fact, I cherished the disconnect.

My husband and I rediscovered why we loved each other (I know, mushy!!) But in reality there were many “I love you” moments just in appreciation for little things we did for each other.

Things we had forgotten to do or say in the course of regular and routine living.

For that ~ we’ll always remember this special retreat from the world.

I highly recommend the time off.

Now it’s back to life ~ and reality.