Sunday, March 14, 2010

Storms, awards and footy training begins!

It has been one week since we experienced a "once in a hundred year super cell storm"! It was very wet last weekend and we had some thunder and heavy rain in my neck of the woods but not much else. It was bought to my attention the next day when my Dad phoned to see if we were okay: "sure Dad, why we wouldn't we be?". I then turned on the news! YIKES! And this week at work to hear the stories of others and the flash flooding and hail damage to their homes and cars ... well we were obviously very very lucky! Monday was a public "labour" day holiday and we went to the Botanical Gardens in the city. There we discovered the aftermath of the storm as the paths were littered! Still we had a lovely walk - me taking photos, the children bonding and Den sneaking in an iphone status update when he thought I was not looking! LOL!




We were very proud during the week for Hugh to be presented with his SRC (student representative council) badge for his class in an assembly at school. And the collage below shows a little sister proudly looking on from the masses in the school hall.



After much talk our local suburb has decided to start it's own junior football club - Hugh could not be happier. He does love his Aussie Rules Football. Training started this week and Friday night was a gorgeous autumn evening for me to sit and watch my son doing something he so loves.




Of course there is a certain someone else who is equally thrilled at the prospect of weekly training/games - well at least while the sun shines anyway! Katie gets to play with all the other little sisters!



I loved this photo below and had loads of fun playing with it in LightRoom and using a 'preset' (thanks Selena!). I am currently using the free month trial of LR and quite impressed at the finer tuning it allows. I was considering using it as my PCF Challenge photo of "awakening" as it's such a joy to see my little girl waking up to the big wide world and running off to play with new found friends. Don't you just LOVE the way little girls skip and hold hands!


On the weekend Den's nephew turned 18 and we had a family get together. The children delighted in playing Wii - something we don't have. I LOVE that shot of Katie - not only for her 'action' but gosh! that 50mm lens is GOOD!




Onto photo challenges for this week: First my P52 - easy choice this week with my boy and his presentation. I took this photo with my phone and tried saving it in Light Room.




Here is my eventual selection for Selena's PCF Challenge of "awakening" - Katie with her beloved 'Wattle" (teddy). Awake, retiring of a night or feeling poorly or sooky throughout the day - he is there! Once again SOOC with the 50mm - for a girl who loves to edit photos there is still such a buzz with taking a shot that you think requires NO editing ;)




Develop on Friday new assignement is up (check the sidebar for links). It was a great lesson on using natural light - quite a challenge for me - here are my results:






Final selection:


Scrapping for this week - please click on all pages for credits:
We set another super challenge on the Rocking Girls blog and the super talented Nini came up with this outstanding template - you can collect for FREE. Using all Nina's goodies it was fun to document our week:


This week's spotlight at Oscraps is on frames and I delighted in using the talented Shutter Sisters goodies:


It is with great sadness that Leiko is taking a break from designing. I owe much to this very talented lady who gave me my first big break in CT work. I will miss her greatly. So be sure to check out Oscraps and grab yourself a bargain before the 15th March!


Ange came up with a kit "Miss Pink" ... could I use it? Could I what! My girl LIVES for all things PINK! LOL!



Dawn Inskip (catscrap) has a super fun new kit out called Fairyland (what would I do without my girl for all these pages????)


And leaving the best for last ... my very precious friend Val! Gosh this girl works hard and having a baby due soon and all! She has this fabulous template out for FREE and running a challenge to win goodies. So be sure to stop by her blog to check it all out. This page was also created using a kit of Kitty's and can you believe this kit (and many others!) are for sale for the huge sum of $1 until the end of March. Be sure to stop by Oscraps and check it all out.



Thanks for stopping by and have a super week everyone!

11 comments:

Val said...

helen, I so knew you would LOVE this 50mm... isn't so exciting to get " no editing needed shots?"
I love love love it, ok, excepet that I am getting frustrating to being able to take shot "like I want" ( meaning laying down sitting n an improbable position) so I am just not shoting at all *sick*
But sure it will be back... You know me !

Your LO are wonderful too, well what is not wonderful here, tell me?
Take care sweety... another long and busy week ahead ;-) wish it will be sweet and full of love for you ... down there ;-)

val

Leah said...

I always amazed at how our minds work alike. I'm also using the free trial of Lightroom this month too. I find it a bit hard to use though.

Love that you are loving your 50.

Congrats to Hughie for his award!

As always the scrapping is beautiful.

kym said...

Helen, my favorite photo of Katie is the large one just under the picture of Wattle. I think it really shows beautiful natural light. I'm glad you guys survived the super storm without harm or damage.

Amy said...

Great work Helen. That 50 (and it's operator) are very talented!
I used the trial of LR and liked it too. but the perchase price sent me back to picasa and picnik. Having 3 days of rain here. Hoping to have some natural light to work with later this week. Great job Hugh.
Have a great week Helen!

margote05 said...

I am very satisfied to read that the storm is crossed far from at home! To us too there were storms almost everywhere in the country but we were saved! And when I see the result almost everywhere, I thank the sky;)
I like enormously photos for the challenge on the light! Katie is beautiful! And you too are magnificent with Hugh! And as gorgeous!!!! Good week to you and to your family!

MariaT said...

I hope Hugh likes his new football team and that photo of Katie holding wattle is fantastic! Glad you guys didn't get hit with that bad weather :)

Nancy said...

i love those pictures of the kids playing wii, you're rocking that 50! that one of den with the phone is a riot! congrats to hugh and hope he enjoys football.

Sue said...

Eeeeek, mother nature can be very fickle, but I'm glad you guys missed the worst of the storm.

WTG Hughie on becoming SRC member ... and better still on joining a local Aussie Rules football team!!! I've seen a match on Sky TV, but it confused the heck out of me ... kinda like a cross between regular football (soccer) & rugby. Weird. LOL!

Katie looks so sweet skipping along with her new friend and such a princess, albeit one that likes to play on Nintendo Wii & DS (pink of course!). Great job on the "natural light" shots BTW.

Hope you have a fab week ahead. Take care my friend & enjoy the autumn sunshine!

Hugs
Sue
-x-

Heather Landry said...

Oh my goodness! The photography love in this one is amazing! I loved your natural lighting shots. And Katie is really looking more like you every day!

I am so very glad that you made it through the storms okay! The weather lately all over the globe has been wild. We've gotten snow in South Louisiana twice this Winter.

Life in Colors said...

Love your weekly update!! Didn't heard anything about the heavy rain and storms you had. Love all your latest photo's, Katie looks so grown up in some of them, specially the one with the other little girl on it, certainly she looks a few years older, can it be because of school, probably ?!

Jodie Redman said...

We had no idea about the storm either til we saw it on the news the next day! WTG Hugh on becoming the SRC rep! Amazing photos and pages as always. Love the one of Katie & Wattle! Have a lovely week!

Blog Archive