I was giving Bob my opinion on how to best handle a certain situation with the kids. I ended it by saying, ‘do that and they’ll be happy as clams’. He was walking down the stairs in front of me and came to a complete stop. Turned to look at me and said,

‘You can’t prove that?’
‘Prove what?’ I said.
‘Prove that clams are all that happy.’
‘What reasons do clams have to be unhappy?’ I ask.
‘That doesn’t matter. What matters is that we cannot prove that clams are happy.’
To which I attempt my very best closed mouth clam smiling impersonation. With my hands I form a clam and make them go snap, snap.
‘That is just indifferent at best’ replies Bob.
‘Well then the kids will be as indifferent as clams’

We should be on a reality tv show Our banter is awesome.

Me. At The Calgary Stampede. Attempting to win a stuffed Barack Obama with my friends(it was a group effort as you had to win 10 times). We did. Then, we took him for a much needed drink.

Happy Wednesday,

~Dana

True story…

Have a wonderful weekend with your family

~ Dana

I have been wanting to update everyone as to how my mom is doing. It’s been amazing to get all the blog comments, facebook notes, emails, etc from our friends and family (and total strangers). We feel all of your prayers and hugs and positive healing energy and it is being put to good use. We had some disappointing news a couple of weeks ago. The cancer was graded as a grade 3 which basically means that it is really aggressive. So, Mom was given the choice to have chemo–a sort of preemptive strike. A measure to help fight against it ever returning. Of course, this does not guarantee it will never return, but it does greaten the odds. So, Mom started chemotherapy on Friday. I went to Edmonton to be with her for her first treatment.

The day itself was actually pretty uneventful. We celebrated by going to Duchess Bakery(which is unbelievable) for lunch. Then, we went shopping a bit. The last couple of days have been rough as was expected, but when I spoke with her this morning, she was sounding more like herself. We are grateful that her BFF from Saskatchewan is coming to join her today. She has promised to treat her with Reiki and Reflexology and just a general sense of peace and healing which accompanies this woman where ever she goes. Right now, we are keeping our heads in the game and fighting this with all we’ve got, but I’m not gonna lie. We are looking forward to the day when it is all behind us…sometime around Christmas. Thank you all again for your love and support. And, a huge thanks to my clients who have all been so understanding.

~ Dana

This is us in our front entry way. Bob made the little cubby all by himself. He likes to repeat the Red Green mantra ‘If you can’t be handsome you might as well be handy!’…of course, I think he’s pretty handsome so I get the best of both worlds! In the first picture, Jack literally dropped the piece of pizza a millisecond before the shutter. The second one speaks for itself…and the third one is as close to perfection as we can get.

June was for me, a very busy month. I was overbooked professionally and personally. Now that school is out, I feel I can finally breathe. I volunteered at Sport’s Day at school manning both the tug o’war and then the three legged race. Georgia came with me and was an awesome little helper. Eager to give everyone their leg straps and be the checkered flag girl. The older kids actually stopped to comment on how cute she was before they took off running(well maybe it happened simultaneously).  Jack wrapped up grade two, but it really just feels like a break because at his school you get the same teacher for two years. It will be wonderful to head back and work with the wonderful Miss F next year. Georgia cried at her preschool wrap up party. To be sure, I was a little choked up as well. It has been such an incredible experience sending our kids to the wonderful Sunshine Nursery School that we are a little sad to bid them farewell. She has changed a shocking amount and is actually eager to make friends and head off to kindergarten in the fall.

Soccer finished with a bang…actually, it was really more of a whimper as so many of the games were rained out that it hardly seemed like a season at all. Jack finished up his baseball season saying he wasn’t going to be back next year. Team sports are really not his thing…we will have to give skiing a real go this winter. Bob went on his annual fishing trip with his dad and the Heal boys. A new addition this year, as the boys welcomed our 10 year old nephew, Landyn, to the mix. I’m sure he learned some new, colorful vocabulary, as well as, some handy fishing tips. Bob left much of the fish with Ryan this year, so we only had to have his favorite, but not all that healthy fish fry for a few days upon his return. After such a busy month, we are all so totally ready for summer vacation…sleeping in, making ice cream and bouncing on the trampoline. Not to mention, adventures in our fancy tent trailer. Bring it on!!!

***this is part of a personal project I am doing with other photographers, including the always fabulous, Tara. If you are participating, please leave a link in the comments section. This is my attempt at getting in more of the pictures. I plan on putting it in an awesome coffee table book when I am finished.

~Dana

 

This is one of my favorite images EVER. E.V.E.R. Even now, after having had the privelege of looking at it for over a month, I still get a lump in my throat. It is that perfect. You might not know, but my family had the extreme pleasure of being photographed by the lovely, phenomenally talented Miss Tara Whitney while we were in California in April. For me, this was a luxury. We were buying for our family a gift of the greatest magnitude. Photographers, like musicians have influences and she is to family photography what The Beatles are to pop music. Being a shy, unassuming sort of gal, she will adamantly deny this and shake her head telling me that I am out of my mind. The Beatles, Dana? Seriously? But, you will have to trust me as I know what I’m talking about

A couple of years ago, I first approached Bob with the idea of going to California to have her capture us…when I lose more weight I would say. One day when I am feeling better about the way that I look, we will spend the money. Then, this fall, I looked at my family one night and I said–we’re doing this. Screw being thin or younger looking or having fancier clothes. Now is the time. Do you know why? Because we here in Pughville have never been happier or more content or more connected as a family and those are the things that truly translate into a beautiful image. Those are the things that I want to remember.

I know that custom photography is a luxury and is not inexpensive. I also know that many people choose photographers based on their budget(and I know that to some degree, budget must be considered). Today I am writing this post to try and explain to you how different it is to book a photographer whose work makes your heart sing. Put aside your budget–the way you did when you booked that luxury holiday or bought those expensive shoes you knew you shouldn’t but made you feel so fabulous that you couldn’t resist. This is a luxury that will bring you joy for so many years that, in the end, you will realize it was priceless. Your research should be more about reviewing portfolios and reading people’s blogs than it should be about looking at pricelists. When you make this leap, I think you will shock yourself with the results. I am kicking myself…wishing I had done it more when my kids were smaller. Even though my children are two of the most photographed children on the planet. I wish I had let another artist capture them through their lens…and, more importantly, capture my family’s love and laughter and life in a way that brought a lump to my throat and a tear to my eye. I will never let another year pass. E.V.E.R.

I had a tough time narrowing down the images I wanted to share with you all. There were so many that made my heart sing. This is what I came up with:

That last image screams ‘Tara Whitney took this picture’… If you hire someone whose work makes your heart sing you will even love pictures of yourself The best pictures of me in FOREVER. Of course, there aren’t many pictures of me from the last few years. Because of this, I was so scared that I would look at the images and be shocked at how old I was, but all I saw was happiness

We were so lucky that night was–by a mile–the most glorious night of our entire trip. Our campground was all in bloom with these gorgeous yellow flowers. And, we had spent the day relaxing on the beach doing nothing but playing together.

These last few images of me and my kids will be blown up into a large wall display. I will post images once I am done. These images of me and my Bob just fill me with happiness.

And, this kite image, will be printed large and put upstairs…I have two spots in mind for it. I’ll photograph it when I actually hang them Tara is designing a book for me as well. I can’t wait to see it. It was super important to me to have her put the images together the way she sees them as it is her work.

Thank you, Tara, for this lovely gift. You simply have no idea. These images were a gift on so many levels–on a professional level, it was a wonderful thing to get a sense for being a client and on a personal level, I am left with a collection of images that illustrate our love oh so well. Thank you for sharing your gift with us!

Happy Monday Everyone!

~Dana

May 2010…Pughville. Crazy town. Mad chaos in the pouring rain and snow. That’s what May felt like here Georgia started soccer. Jack started baseball. Bob started taking on some contract work. Big adjustments. Of course, the snow and the rain prevented many soccer/baseball games, but today was a beautiful day and I finally got everyone in the sun for a spring type photo. 

Georgia is awesome at soccer. We are discovering that she is quite athletic. She is one of the faster kids on her team, but needs to learn what to do with the ball. She doesn’t seem to care about kicking it in and will usually let her team mate do it after she has run down the field with it. She has changed sooooooo much it is shocking. Hard to believe that a year and a half ago the only other kid she would talk to was her best little friend, Kiella, and now she is making friends at the park, at soccer, pretty much everywhere we go. We are so glad that we held her back from starting kindergarten until this fall. As it is, my heart is breaking a little that our last days at her preschool here in town are close at hand. They treated both our children with such love and respect and held our own hands when we had rough mornings(and with Georgia, there were quite a few of those). It will be hard to say farewell.

Jack has found his sport in baseball. He is still mastering catching the ball, but can hit really well and is finally focused and enjoying playing a team sport. Bob is the assistant coach(he is the most involved Dad I know). Even though he doesn’t really know the game, he is out there doing his part. Kids flock to him now. He is such a natural with them. Probably because he really is a big kid himself. Jack also finished Beavers this month and had his ceremony to swim up to Cubs. It was a big camp out over the mother’s day weekend…and, of course, Bob is a leader there as well. They loved being outdoors-even though it was pretty cold!! I think we are all eager to get back out in our tent trailer for some summertime fun!!

Bob started working again. It is super duper flexible and we are slowly figuring out the division of labour in the household. He works from home, so he still does a tonne around the house to help me out. I’m starting to get super busy again with the arrival of spring. It is taking some adjustments to figure out how we are going to split duties and give each other enough time to complete their work. It should get easier when Georgia starts kindergarten in the fall. Until then, we’ll just enjoy the nice days with our kids

Georgia and I went to Edmonton in May to be with my mother on her first major appointment dealing with her breast cancer. Even just typing that seems so weird. It still seems surreal. We are so unbelievably thrilled with the level of care and the organization of it. Mom receives a phone call pretty much every day from her nurse. She has been assigned a physical therapist, a nutritionist and a support group–on top of her team of doctors. She had her lumpectomy and just today we learned that the cancer has not spread beyond the tumor which is indeed good news. Soon her radiation will begin and then we will celebrate putting all this behind us. Thank you for the outpouring of love from our friends and family far and wide. Especially to those who only know us ‘online’ and have taken the time to send notes of encouragement. It means more than we can ever put into words. We are truly lucky given how bad it could have been. Early detection is the key! My mom is living proof of that!

I thought I would just add a couple of images taken tonight on the ball diamond. The light was delicious…happy spring one and all!

~Dana

PS–this is a project dreamt up by the fabulous Miss Tara Whitney  This month also marks the first month I heard someone call her Tara Winfrey…hahahahaha!!

This is my April family image It makes me smile a big soul filling smile April was a big month for us with our epic adventure and we were soooooooo lucky to have had our family images taken by the wonderful Tara Whitney while we were in Southern California. We were also soooooo lucky that it was the most beautiful day of our entire trip. The light was absolutely delish!!! She posted one goofy one on her blog earlier this week and I decided to use a more serious one for my personal project. I promise to blog more about the entire experience with Tara in a seperate blog post as it deserves a post all to itself!

So, April saw us pack up our car and our tent trailer and travel a whooping 7500 km in two and a half weeks. We saw mountains and deserts. Oceans and rivers. Big trees and tiny bugs. We had some concerns over how the kids would manage being stuck in the car so much, but they did AWESOME!!! They even grew tired of their video games and DVD’s and spent time creating their own games together which was heartwarming for us parents who spend way to much time listening to their disagreements. Jack drew some incredible comics. Georgia made up songs. And, we have family stories that we will tell for years to come.

One of my favorites came at our campfire one night. We were unable to enjoy too many campfires for a bundle of reasons, but at one of the few that we had, we decided to roast hot dogs for supper. The kids love doing this and Georgia wanted very much to cook Bob his second hot dog. There is a lot of talk about how to make the perfect campfire hot dog(or marshmallow or breakfast, etc) at our house which includes, often, talk of how much of it should be burnt. Georgia decided to burn Bob’s hot dog. And burn it she did!!!! Until it was a piece of charcoal–giggling the entire time!! When she finally did pull it out of the fire, she looked up and we all said ‘Perfect! Just needs ketchup!’ and roared with laughter. For the rest of the trip, Georgia would keep saying ‘Just needs ketchup’ anytime she wanted us to laugh.

One of the things that really stuck out in April was Georgia’s decision that not only was she going to be a chef(and an artist…and sometimes a doctor or a dentist, but not all at the same time)she was going to have her own ‘restaunant’ and it would be called simply ‘G’s’. For the entire trip, she was listing off the things she would cook for us at her restaunant-including a list of all of our favorites. Once when we went into a restaurant called The Mad Greek(imagine a place where everything Greek was delightfully crammed into every free space of the blue and white building) she was in awe! This was exactly how her restaunant was going to look when she grew up…only the bathrooms wouldn’t smell as bad We also spent an afternoon the the Portland Children’s Museum where they had a child sized restaurant complete with fake food and a phone that rang with take out orders…she did not want to leave. She could have played there for a week. In fact, she asks every day if we can go back there.

Jack’s favorite part of the trip was going to Legoland. It was like the mothership calling him home. Especially Miniature World with all the little cities made of lego. He was in awe. He had a $50 budget while on our trip and spent every last dime in the gift shop. He also learned to chop wood(much to my overly mothering fear) and could have spent hours exploring every square inch of forest looking for odd bugs and weirdly shaped trees.

I think Bob and I were just happy that we survived. We were excited to be able to prove to ourselves that we are ready for roadtrips with kids. Real roadtrips where we cover ground, see new things, and taste the local grub. We will also look back fondly on the people we met–the lovely Salt Lake City family who invited us to their home and fed us one night…the family in Kelowna who I captured through my lens–twice! And who’s son captured the hearts of both of my kids(Jack was sooooo sad to say goodbye and Georgia declared her undying love for him–who can blame her? he’s sooooo cute). And, the lovely Miss Whitney who took the most amazing images of me with my kids. Images that truly make my heart sing. What a great month…

One of the main reasons we chose California. The Redwood National Forest.

Happy Tuesday,

~Dana

I am the kind of person who deals with her issues through humor. It’s true. And, this is one of the funniest commercials I have actually seen on television so, in light of today’s post, I decided to share it all with you.

Last week was a tough week here in Pughville. My beloved mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Last February, you might recall, she was diagnosed with bladder cancer. And she has been done her treatments for a little bit, I was just holding off a ‘free and clear’ blogpost until her final appointment which would indeed pronounce her ‘free and clear’…well, that appointment hasn’t happened yet, but we are all confident that it will after she is finished with her surgery and this round of treatment. Thank you all for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers. Since the best medicine is laughter–do yourself a favor and watch this video. Then go to Breast Self Exam.ca and do it yourself. You can hire Cam if you like(or you can ask your spouse), but just do it.

Happy Monday!

Dana

I hesitated to share some of my personal images from our trip as most of them are really just holiday snapshots and it makes me feel a little like that aunt you love, but she is always pulling out the slide projector and making you go through old slides from your childhood. I, of course, am the only person who enjoys that sort of thing so these are for anyone else who is like that and just happens to read my blog. And, for my mom She’s playing shy and not commenting anymore, but I know she is still my biggest fan.

These were taken at Bravo Farms Cheese Factory in Tulare, CA. Do not ask me where that is. You see…we were driving and we saw these huge signs telling us we really wouldn’t want to miss this stop. And, on this trip, we had decided to stop whenever we could to do whatever just for the heck of it. Soooooo…those signs were a sign, no? Plus, if you know us, you will know we have a thing for really great cheese. Our kids share this enthusiasm ever since we once stopped at a Gouda farm and taught the kids this mantra: Gouda is gooda. It really is!!! Well, Bravo farms did not disappoint! Not only did we get some incredible cheese(and ice cream–it was a holiday after all!), but they had THE MOST AMAZING TREEHOUSE I have ever seen. This place was bursting with character and the kids had the best time. One of our favorite unplanned stops for sure.

Oh–and we knew it was fate when we saw the ‘Griswold’s’ sign as that is what we had been calling ourselves If you do not recognize that reference I am not sure if we can be friends. Seriously.

So, that is one of the most visually busy posts I have ever posted BUT that place is visually busy so I feel I did it justice. If you ever find yourself in Tulare, CA make sure to stop. You won’t regret it.

Tomorrow a session blog post–I promise.

later skaters,

Dana