Senior Pictures For Ammah

Maybe posting these pictures I took of Ammah will help me come to terms with her impending high school graduation. (Probably Not!) I'm having a very difficult time thinking about her being out in the "adult" world and her not even being a real adult. She just turned 17 you see and I wish I could send her to school for the year she skipped. More photos to come a little later.

Hollywood or Bust

In November we took a much needed weekend vacation to California. The "PLAN" was to leave at 4:00 a.m. and drive straight to Hollywood, take in the sights there, shop and then head to the beach for bike ridding and family pictures at sunset. We did get out the door at 4:25 a.m. which is an amazing feat considering 4 girls that had to do all their pre primping for pictures to be taken 12 hours later. We arrived in Hollywood in record time 5 1/2 hours. Ate lunch and headed out into the great WEIRDNESS of Hollywood. There were cross dressers and a lot of impersonators including a black Wonder Woman, Batman with dreadlocks and Cat Woman who looked like her costume had been through a few to many battles. Elvis was our favorite and decided to have our picture taken with him. This same Elvis has been on the Walk of Fame for many years because I've actually taken another picture with him 5 years ago.

As we were walking around Hollywood David spotted a place where vacation brochures are plenty and a black and green cover pamphlet caught my eye. It was for the musical "Wicked" a Broadway musical we have always wanted to see. We found where the theater was, walked the 8 blocks and asked for prices and times. Now it was up to the girls. "Do you want to see this amazing show (from nose bleed seats) or ride bikes and take pictures on the beach at sundown”? Hands down we all wanted the show. Plan changed! These clothes were all we had on us and we didn't want to make the long trek back to the car to TRY to find something more presentable for a Broadway show. The show was to start at 8 p.m. that night which left us with plenty of time for shopping and eating. When 3:oo rolled around we found ourselves spent and wanting to sit and have a nice long rest but there was no place to do that and we weren't hungry. We decided to see a movie and HSM 3 happened to be playing at the Hollywood Disney Theater. It was a beautiful theater and we had our choice of decks. We chose the front seat of the upper deck and then were treated to a pre-show entertainment which included a sing along with games and prizes. HSM 3 rocks! Best of the three for sure.
Following the HSM 3 we ate at the Disney ice cream parlor and then headed to the musical via the LA subway sytem. Who knew they had a subway??? This was the girls first time ridding on the subway and it was fun wathching them experience it. As we took our seats for Wicked Amelia promptly fell asleep and I was having serious 2nd thoughts as to why we pushed ourselves this much on a “vacation”, alas the orchestra began and Amelia refreshed from her 15 minute cat nap woke up and enjoyed the whole show with wide eyes. It was both her and Andelyn's 1st big show and they loved it. We all did. It was witty, funny and the two main characters (Ga) Linda and Alphaba were played by amazingly talented women.

Upon leaving the theater we discovered Edward Cullen from the Twilight series making an "appearence" and Ammah just had to steal a sweet kiss.

We didn’t get to bed until 1:00 am that night and dragged ourselves up the next morning to get the girls to Disney Land where all three were performing with their dance studio. Disney was practically deserted for the fist ½ of the day and we were able to ride and re ride everything we wanted with out much of a wait.

We did have to suffer a little from all the ash and nasty smoke cloud that had swept over Disney Land from the Santa Barbra fires. We felt bad that we were enjoying a family vacation while others were loosing their homes to a fire. We thought we would leave when the park closed at 11 p.m. but pooped out at 10:00 and headed back to our Hotel for a much needed good night of sleep! We always need a vacation from our vacations. Someday… maybe we can have a “relaxing” vacation that's not all crammed into a long weekend!

TRADITIONAL TREE

Our Christmas tree is not a beautifully decorated tree with matching shiny ornaments, one color scheme or themed as I have seen in department stores and other peoples homes. We call it the "traditional tree". It's filled with ornaments that we as a family have collected or made over the years. Every year the girls get all the ornaments out one by one and "ooh" and "aah" and remember. They always linger on a few special ones they have loved more than the others and gently try to find just the right spot on the tree for it. I even have a few favorites. There are the ones that Dave and I made by hand and gave away as gifts to family and friends, mementos of trips we have taken, some the girls made in school and some that bring me back in time to when we started as a family. This year I gave a brief thought to having a more "glamorous" tree with matching balls and ribbon and lights and flowers but I would have been sad to see our ornaments sit in a box untouched for the year. I didn't even bring it up to the girls and I'm sure the idea would have been vetoed quickly. We love our tree and all that it represents, of course the Christmas tree and ornaments and bows and candy canes all have their own symbolism's but really, our "traditional tree" symbolizes FAMILY to us.

IF YOU GIVE A KID A CAMERA

If you give a kid a camera your gonna end up with silly faces galore!! With this new age of digital cameras a kid can take as many silly, sneaky, crazy pictures as they please. As a young girl it was a coveted event that Mom would let me take a camera on a school outing or to any kind of activity. One roll of film was all that was allotted per event and developing that roll was never a priority of mom's. Things sure are different now. My kids come home and I have a whole slew of silly faces, random snips of video and a few posed to perfection shots. I actually enjoy looking at these pictures especially since my two older girls are a little more reserved. For some reason.... if you give them a camera... inhibitions are shunned and the posing begins. Of course if it's not quite right.. just hit the delete button and try it again.