Tired

Like my blog title says, "Never a Dull Moment..."  Doctors appointments for me mostly, but some for the kids.  The kids started back at Latvian school a few days after my last post.  Lane's in over his head with school work.  I started oxygen therapy which is helping but now I have a sinus infection that I have to find time to treat (making an appointment to see my primary doctor and get on antibiotics).   Eriks is starting Cub Scouts.  We have birthday parties the next 3 weekends in a row that one or both kids is attending.  There will likely be another one somewhere toward the end of November.  It's complete chaos right now.

I have at least one thing I need to blog about but I still haven't even uploaded photos from it.

I'll try to catch up soon.  I really want to.  Just need to find the time.

Here Kitty, Kitty

This weekend as it poured here thanks to the remnants of TS Isaac, I pulled out my camera and decided to play with it.  Practicing focus, ISO, lighting, aperture, etc.  Especially with my first job shooting a wedding coming up.  My kids were hiding in the basement in front of the DVD player and I had to find a good subject so I picked this handsome little guy.

His name is George.  He's almost 15 if you can believe it and loves me unconditionally even after I yell at him for puking on the carpet or under my bed (which thankfully doesn't happen often).  Don't get me wrong, I love Lane and the kids more than anything but this little guy is my living teddy bear.  He follows me everywhere like a little puppy.  He's insane.  Chases laser lights, string, feathers and other cat toys like a 6 month old kitten, not a 15 year old cat.  Stares at shadows on the walls.  Seriously hilarious to watch him do that.  He helps keep our bug and spider problem to a minimum because he kills and then happily eats them.  A little protein can't hurt right?  He loves his stomach rubbed - completely unusual for a cat.  His most interesting quirk has to be his nightly ritual.  Sometimes it happens right before we shut out the lights.  Sometimes he does it right after the lights go out.  But with out fail, every. single. night, this little furball will go into our master bath where his food and water are kept, eat or drink a little and then like a lightning bolt, run like hell from the master bath out of our room and down the hallway and back.  If the lights are on when he does this ritual, he'll run back into the room and look at us like, "You got a problem with me doing that?"  Every night, it causes me to have the same response - a giggle and a shake of my head.  Lights on or off I shake my head and giggle.  I have no idea what I'm going to do when the day comes that I go to bed and I no longer hear or see it.  It will be extremely hard and weird. Crazy, lovable George.

I Took the Plunge

Photography has always been a love of mine and within the past 10-15 years a passion.  I could honestly sit on the computer and look at photos all.day.long.  I also love taking photos.

I guess it started the day my parents brought home their first and only Canon film SLR camera when I was about 5 years old.  I think 1980ish is when they purchased it.  That thing has been around so long, I've lost track of just how old it is.  I was mesmerized from the get go.  I loved watching the lens be focused.  I loved hearing the click every time a photo was taken.  I can still remember when my parents used black and white film in it.  I don't remember how old I was when I was first allowed to pick it up and play with it.  But I do remember sliding the lens in and out of focus and clicking the shutter to take a photo.  I remember how exciting it felt.  Sure, I probably took my fair share of out of focus photos when I was allowed to touch it.  Heck, I still manage out of focus photos from time to time.  I remember the first camera I ever owned.  It was one that used 110 film and one of those long rectangular disposable flashes.  Of course I've come a long way since then, my equipment has gotten better and so has my photography.

Over the past few years the dream of doing photography on a professional level has been at the forefront of my brain.  What had been holding me back is my confidence.  After exchanging a few emails with some professional photographers in other states whose work I absolutely love, they have all pretty much said, "You just have to take the plunge and start.  You'll make mistakes and you'll learn from them."  That's pretty much what they all said but if you don't start somewhere, you'll never learn.

Rewind to May.  I attended two weddings two weekends in a row.  The first one I stayed out of the photographers way and took a bunch of photojournalistic photos.  I edited them and put them on Face.book.  A friend in a different state who also has a passion for photography and takes beautiful photos of her kids sent me a message asking, "Did you start your photography business?  I saw the wedding photos on FB."  I sheepishly had to respond, "No.  Those are just photos I took at my cousin's wedding."  Based on the photos she saw, she thought I was finally in the biz.  The following weekend, I attended another wedding for one of Lane's family members.  At that wedding, I found out that one of Lane's cousin's kids was getting married.  I asked who was doing the photography.  I was told they hadn't hired anyone yet.  That's when I took a big swallow of air and said, "I'd really love to photograph it."  What I'm being paid for it is not what my pricing will be when I launch a blog/website with my work and fees.  Mostly because this is family and I had to take the plunge somewhere.  I did show them my work and they liked it.  My main focus will be weddings but for now, I'm happy to get any work I can - babies, kids, families.

The name I decided on was Liene A. Photography.  My middle name starts with A and in discussing it with Lane, Liene T. Photography or using my entire last name just didn't have a nice ring to it.  So I let him have a say in it.  With that, I'll leave you with some of my favorite shots of the two weddings I went to in May.  Wish me luck this Saturday as I have my first gig as a photographer.

Pre-K Field Trip

Emi had her first of what I have been told will be quite a few field trips.  I was told by Emi's teacher last year that the 2 Pre-K teachers really like getting the kids out of the classroom for learning experiences.  As summer is wrapping up, they are teaching them all about summer activities, things to do during the summer, etc.  Just the other day, the kids were talking about the ocean and the beach.

Last Thursday, the class went to a splash park and a local beach to participate in summer activities.  The parents are always welcome to participate but I was kind of disappointed that I was the only parent that was there.  Oh well.  I had fun anyhow.  The kids had a good time too.  Although they went to the splash park 1st and the water coming out of all the fixtures was not very warm and Emi was shivering after only a short amount of time playing.  I think it would've been a better idea to go to the splash park 2nd not only because it would've been hotter in the day but then the kids could've rinsed off all the sand from the beach.  Emi enjoyed playing along the beach more than she liked going into the water.  She's not really fond of going in water where she can't see the bottom very well.  I have no idea where she gets that from.  I too am not a fan of swimming in places I can't see the bottom.  I'll do it, but I'm not completely at ease doing it.

Enjoy the photos from her 1st field trip!

State Fair Time!

A few weeks ago we took Emi and Eriks as well as my niece L to the state fair.  The weather was fantastic that day.  It was warm and sunny but not hot.  My kind of weather.  Edite, my sister went too so that we had 3 adults and 3 kids.  My sister was going to go with us that day and that morning, L was with my sister and was begging to go with us. Edite told L she had to call and ask us if she could go.  It was so cute to hear L's little voice on the phone say, "Can I go to the state fair?"  How could you say no.

The kids loved the animals, the food and especially the rides at the Midway.  I think their favorite of all the rides though was the giant ferris wheel.  We got to the fair about 3 pm and left 7 hours later.  All the kids fell asleep on the way home and slept late the next day.  Here are the pictures of our fun day.

Insert Foot In Mouth Moment

While Eriks was in Texas with grandma and grandpa at the end of July, we had a bunch of time with Emi all by herself.  It's amazing how differently your children behave when the other one is not around.  Don't get me wrong, Emi had her moments and there is the possibility that being by herself without her brother for 10 days helped turn her into a sassy little diva (more on that in another post), but Emi was a well-behaved and fun kid to be with.  Not the normal whiny, clingy kid she tends to be when her brother is around.

Anyhow.  The insert foot in mouth moment actually happened with my daughter when I had some time with her all by myself.  Lane left the house for some alone time and Emi and I were playing.  I unfortunately was cursed with cuticles that are dry, brittle and tend to rip easily.  That's exactly what happened while we were playing and I started bleeding.  Because I'm on blood thinners, I tend to bleed easily so I went to the bathroom to get a band-aid.  Here's the conversation between Emi and me and the insert foot in mouth moment.

Emi - What's that? (She's watching me take the band-aid out of the package)
Me - It's a band-aid.
Emi - What's that?
Me - It's a band-aid for mommy's owie.
Emi - Oh.  What's that? (Pointing at band-aid)
Me - It's a band-aid.
Emi - Ban day?  Owie?
Me - Yes.  Band-aid for mommy's owie.
Emi - What's that?
Me - It's a band-aid.  Mommy hurt herself.
Emi - What's that?  (And I'm guestimating she asked me about a dozen times total before I finally said...)
Me - It's a BAND-AID.  What are you deaf?  (Insert foot in mouth)

Of course she's deaf.  She hears nothing without that very expensive hearing aid on her head, which she did have on her head at the time.  I realized later on, she's at that age where they're gaining independence and really grasping onto things and now that her new hearing aid is processing sound better and amplifying it better, her brain is processing the information more and more so she learns sounds, names of objects, etc.  All things that were harder for her to recognize with the old piece of garbage she had for a hearing aid before.  She had just had the the new hearing aid for about 6 weeks when this incident happened.

I laughed hysterically at my gaffe.  Everyone who I tell the story to laughs at it.  This morning when I ran into her teacher from last year, I told her the story and she laughed harder than I think I've ever seen her laugh.  She herself is the parent of a hearing child and a deaf child just like me and she says all of us have done stuff like that.  Sometimes we work so hard to ignore the disability and treat them like the average kid, we forgot and so the insert foot in mouth moments happen.

We'll see what else life will bring us as she continues to hear better and her vocabulary continues to grow.  One of these days I'm hoping to get her saying the word, annoying on video so I can post it here.  She does have her I'm going to be a complete pest moments with electronic objects like her play cell phone, her leap pad, etc. and she's pushing buttons over and over again and I have to say, "Emi please stop pushing the buttons.  It's annoying." She in turn says, "Annoying?"  Yes.  Totally.  Utterly. Annoying.  Hearing her say the word is so cute and funny.

And with that.  I will leave you with a photo of our cute, sassy, diva on the rise, Miss Emi.

Unintended Hiatus

I took an unplanned break from blogging.  A few days after my last post, my in-laws arrived in town to pick up Eriks for his 10 days of fun with grandma and grandpa.  We went out of town every single weekend between then and the 1st weekend of this month.  So for 3 straight weekends we were in Michigan with my family at their summer place.  What's nice is next year we will have our own summer place around the corner from my parents thanks to their help.  After our last weekend in Michigan it has been a frenzied few weeks getting everyone ready for school.  Emi went back this past Monday.  Lane starts this upcoming Monday and Eriks starts school on Tuesday.

So here's the last thing we did before we took off to Michigan.  We met up with grandma and grandpa, as well as my sister-in-law and her 4 girls - L, B, A, and I for some fun at the Indianapolis Children's Museum.  They had a blast playing and exploring.  They spent most of their time Hot Wheels exhibit.  They did explore the dinosaurs, and an interactive area where they could play with water and other things.

 Diamond encrusted Hot Wheels Car.  I don't remember the value of it.

Friday Night Baseball Game

Although it was nice and hot last Friday night, we enjoyed watching the Indianapolis Indians play a game of baseball.  Lane had a meeting with the Indiana State Bar Association that they held in one of the suites at the stadium and then invited family to watch the game after the meeting.  Luckily we were in the open air deck and got a great breeze so it made watching the game extremely pleasant.  We had food, beverages and snacks available the whole time.  The problem was that the kids kept seeing the vendors in the stands just below us and were upset there was no cotton candy or ice cream for them in the suite.  Oh well.

This was Eriks' 3rd minor league game and Emi's first.  Neither of them was really all that interested in it unfortunately.  Emi especially.  She just wanted to run all over the place.  It might be awhile before we take the kids back to a game because they got bored easily.  I on the other hand, wouldn't mind catching another one sometime soon.

We left the game during the 8th inning as Emi wanted no part in it anymore.  It was getting late and one of the lawyers that was there with his wife and 2 kids bowed out during the 4th inning.  He had a younger son that had the same mindset as Emi.  He was having no fun and I think his other 3 kids were also getting a little restless.

Dziesmu Svetki in Milwaukee

Every 5 years the Latvians hold a song and dance festival here in the US.  In 2007, it was right here in my hometown of Indianapolis.  There are Latvian song and dance festivals all over the world.  Next year the largest one will be in our homeland of Latvia.  The Canadians do one as well that I've attended multiple times in my life.  I'm sure there are others all over the world where Latvians live.

Last Friday, Lane, Emi and I hopped in the car and drove the 4 1/2 hrs to Milwaukee to see Eriks dance in his first ever songfest.  We originally had no plans on going as it's an expensive trip between hotel, food and all the other activities.  But, when it came down to it, we could NOT miss seeing Eriks participate in his first one.  So we found a way to come up with the money to go up for one night to watch him dance.  Eriks had left on Wednesday with my parents and sister.  He had no idea we were coming.  He thought we were staying home.  So when we arrived and knocked on the room door, he opened it and couldn't believe we were standing there.  He was happy but then went right back to playing his DS.

Friday night was the big dance performance.  I was told that there were roughly 600 dancers participating from all over the US, Canada and Latvia.  I enjoyed the dances and it was fun to watch both my sister and Eriks dance.  However, I do have one big complaint about the program.  Whomever choreographed how/where the groups were dancing and choreographed the lighting for the performance should've been fired.  It was horrible.  So many of the dancers were dancing in darker areas of the arena it was not only hard to see them, but hard to see the actual dance.  They also used some weird colored lights on some of the dances so it was hard to see because of the colors of the lights.  That was truly disappointing and a huge complaint by most everyone I've talked to since the performance.  They all thought the same thing about the lighting especially.  Although everyone who has seen my photos from the performance loved them, I was disappointed because lighting played a huge part of it and I didn't want to attach an external flash with a bounce card and distract someone who was trying to watch the performance so all my photos are taken without flash and using the lighting that I had in the arena.

We go to see friends we hadn't seen in awhile and got to meet some new people.  The main hotel where the song and dance festival was based in was always busy.  On Saturday, the second to last day, we got drinks from the bar and the bartenders said they had already run out of certain brands of alcohol.  I wish they'd listen to the organizing committees when they're told to order extra liquor.  We had the same problem here in Indy 5 years ago.  The hotel that was home base didn't listen to the committee and started to run out too.  I'm sure that hotel made more money though in those 4 days than they ever thought.  I'd love to find out what their profit was for those 4 days.

So here are some photos from the fun festivities.  I really wish we had been able to afford to go for the entire time.  With that being said, I'm glad we got to see Eriks in his first ever big performance and that we were able to go at all.

 Eriks and my sister in Latvian folk costumes.  My sister is actually wearing mine!

 Indianapolis' dance group - Jautrais Paris (in English the Happy Couple). 

 Chicago's dance group - Dzelmiesi 

 Eriks dancing!

 Our very small kids group.  Three of the members stayed in Indy and didn't participate.  Half of those dancers are related to me as one is my son and 3 of the girls are my nieces!

 This is a wide angle shot of many of the groups dancing one of the 25 different dances in the program.

 My sister dancing with Jautrais Paris.