Thanksgiving - California Style

 We had a great time in California for Thanksgiving having a wonderful time at Disney, the beach, and getting to meet some wonderful extended family!

 One of the many highlights on the trip was having a lunch with all of the princesses!  

 Andrew enjoyed his Octo-Dogs and Mac

 The kids loved Splash Mountain and went on it over and over again while the line was short!  I went one, sat in the front, and got soaked!

This had to be Amelia's highlight, she LOVED Minnie and Minnie loved her!  Afterwards Amelia had a little "tea party" in Minnie's house.

 Andrew honestly tried to keep it off his face...

  Thanksgiving Day - After three fun filled days at Disney we headed over to Newport Beach for some fun in the Sun.  The water was a little chilly but nothing a wetsuit couldn't fix!  We all had a blast playing on the beach!

 After the beach we headed over to Kim and Fred's house for an amazing Thanksgiving dinner - Can't thank you guys enough for inviting us all over, we really had a wonderful time!!!  We made a quick get away down to the beach for some family sunset photos with Catalina Island in the background.  Amazing!

Quintessential Summer - Unsalted

This was an amazing summer this year!  The kids got to spend a lot of time in Michigan on the water and Kate and I got to spend a little time with them there as well!

 Andrew and Elizabeth spent a lot of time with their cousin, Addy, who all spent nearly as much time in the water as they did out.  They had a lot of fun together!

 We got a couple of opportunities for a family photo, this one turned out the best after a great dinner in Lake Ann.  The food in this area is unbelievable, and these communities do it right.  Well out of the way of all of the tourists sits this cute little community on a small inland lake complete with its own micro brewery complete with live music and a solid restaurant next door.   (Philly Cheese Steak Pizza was definitely worth going back for.)

 While out wine tasting we stumbled upon a place to pick blueberries and brought the whole family back to do some picking.  These were some tasty blueberries!

Kauai - 2016

We had another AMAZING vacation in Kauai this year!!!  Most of our beach days were spent on what has to be considered one of the most spectacular beaches in all of the world - Hanalei Bay.  The surf conditions were perfect for Boogie Boarding on the heavy surf days and proved to be perfect for the kids to learn how to surf on the light days. 

Amelia really had a great time this year exploring Kauai.  She LOVED all of the roosters, playing in the sand with Andrew and Elizabeth, and by the end got much more comfortable in the water.

 We found a new beach this year that we visited for a couple of sunsets.  Secret Beach has some breathtaking scenery.  Its funny hour a short dirt road and a steepish 10 minute hike are more than enough to keep all but the adventuresome tourists away.

We had some big firsts this trip, Andrew and Elizabeth are now officially surfers!!!  They can't wait to get surfing again!!!

The Milky Way

I've been wanting to try to photograph the Milky Way for a long time but have never had an opportunity where I had the necessary equipment (or at least some of the basics) and a clear sky on a summer night where the galactic center is visible.  A few nights ago the skies were nearly perfect, I have the basic equipment needed, now for the big question: would the Milky Way be visible through the light pollution?

 For my first try, I'll take it... clearly there are some optical artifacts and noise artifacts from a slow lens and high ISO long exposure.  All that said, I was shocked to find that it actually worked.  I can also see that this kind of thing requires some serious time in photoshop, and see the immediate advantages to finding darker skies for better signal to noise.

While I was out, a couple of kids in the neighborhood were having a little fun with long exposures and I joined in!  The photo turned out pretty cool, fortunately they did have a fire extinguisher with them which it turned out was a good thing, they only started a small fire...