Beach 2017: Favorite shots from the beach

So I think this year may have been the fewest pics that I took on vacation, but that doesn't mean there weren't a lot to go through - between my brand new Canon 5D Mark III, my water proof point and shoot, and my phone, I still had hundreds by the end of the week! Oh, and photos taken by my friends too (as we all shared). That means it can be difficult for me to choose just a few favorites to highlight here, but I've done my best to cull them down according to topic, and share those faves here with everyone. First up: photos that we took at the beach!

In my previous post, I showed photos I took of the beach itself. Well, the kids were with me and I wanted to practice with my new camera, and lens. They were pretty accommodating, and oh do I ever love these shots of them.

 

 

I did not want to take my 5D down to the beach with us during the day (just leave that bad boy sitting on the beach with our stuff? Risk it getting destroyed by sand? No thank you!). Instead, a couple of times I did bring my 60D with me (which is now relegated to "back up camera" status) to take some good shots of the kids while they were playing on the beach.

I love this one of them all heading down to the water!

Henry and Zane being super cute while jumping in the waves.

I did get quite a few great shots with my waterproof camera. I'm definitely more willing to be adventurous with it since it can get wet (and even go underwater).

We purchased a couple of boogie boards and that led to lots of fun out in the ocean! Dragging Natalie out was quite difficult; that child would have been in the water for HOURS if we let her. She's a fish for sure! We were even able to let her and Zabby go into the ocean themselves (while us moms were back on the beach), as the two of them could be trusted to be safe in the water. That was a first, at least for us with Natalie!

Evan isn't a huge fan of the beach, and so he only went in the water a couple of times. The first couple of days the water was COLD (which meant Evan was not going in, although a bunch of us did - yowza it was cold!), but then it did warm up some.That let me get at least one fun shot of Evan throwing Henry!

Henry wasn't a huge fan of the water while it was cold, but he did go in every day to dodge the waves for at least a little while. I'm glad I have two kids who do enjoy going in the ocean!

One unique thing this year was that the water was CLEAR. Typically the Atlantic Ocean is not known for its clarity, but most of the week we were there, the water was clear enough to see all the way down to your feet at the bottom. I took a few shots of Natalie under water; this one was my favorite! Love the bubbles around her.

 And, of course, we used the waterproof camera for a couple of selfies. It's hard to tell if you're getting a good pic when shooting it, but I managed to grab this one of the 4 of us.

 And also this one of the ladies! I think this is the only shot of the 5 of us together from the week, so I'm glad we managed to remember to take it.

Beach 2017: Beach photos

My previous post contained my favorite photos that Natalie took on the beach, so I thought I'd follow that up with my favorite photos that *I* shot of the beach.

On July 2, our second night, there were storm clouds circling around us that made for some incredible contrast between the light and dark. Yes, I did edit these some, but only to bring out the colors a bit; the clouds really were that dark.

These next 4 are from the next night, the same night that Natalie's were shot, when we went down to the beach at sunset.

And after wanting to go take sunrise photos each morning, and being blocked by either clouds or rain, on July 5 we were finally able to go capture some of the sunrise. Sadly, we never had a perfect sunrise where we could see the sun coming up over the horizon, but these came pretty close.

Then, those clouds at the horizon started to thicken, and fog rolled into the beach. I have a couple of full color shots, but I love the mood I was able to create in this edit.

The Outer Banks has truly gorgeous beaches; it's always a pleasure to capture them!

Beach 2017: Natalie's beach photos

On our third night at the beach, Kathy and I went down to the beach around sunset to take some photos. We took a few of the kids with us; Natalie wanted to also take some pics, so I gave her my waterproof point-and-shoot camera. Her eye is getting better and better, so I wanted to share a few of my favorites of the ones she took. I didn't edit these except for straightening a couple of them.

She actually got a few great shots of the waves breaking. I really like this first one.

Here she captured some great detail in the foam.

She also grabbed a few great shots of the sunset.

 I didn't know she took this one until I went through the photos; love her capturing me "in action"!

 Excellent use of leading lines and focal point, Natalie!

 And then a nice one at the end of the evening of Kathy and I.

Beach 2017: First night at the OBX

Immediately after Natalie's jazz camp finished, we had to run home to finish packing up for our 2017 beach vacation! Early Saturday morning, we headed down to the Outer Banks for a week away with our friends. We rented a house with the same group as last time, in a house only a few miles from where we were then (that one was in Duck, whereas this one was about 5 miles south in Southern Shores). The house was great: plenty of room for all of us (10 adults and 10 kids!), and right on the beach. A pool in the back, and even an elevator to help us bring up all of our stuff and groceries. We definitely liked this house! Here's the view of the back, from the ocean access.

Traffic was of course not great on a Saturday in the Outer Banks, but 3 of us families arrived within about 20 minutes of each other. We waited for the last two to arrive, picked our rooms, and got settled in! The kids were getting a bit antsy waiting for dinner, so I took a bunch of them down to check out the beach. The plan was to just go walk around some, but of course the kids couldn't stay out of the water. Oops! Whatever, it's vacation, right?

 

I didn't take the kids alone, as some of the littler ones wanted to come and I couldn't watch all of them myself (as evidenced by two of the littlest taking tumbles into the water). Evan joined us, so we took our first beach selfie of the year!

My latest finished project

I have to jump out of order here, before I start my MANY posts about our summer beach vacation, to show off my latest finished cross stitch project! I am so excited for it to be done, as I've been working on it for over 4 years. It's taken this long because a) I've had less time in general to stitch than I used to; b) I spend a lot of my evenings on photos now, not stitching; and c) I did switch to one other project in the middle, which delayed this one.

I found this pattern on my favorite website, MysticStitch.com. I bought it a while back when they had one of their deals (they often will do buy 2 get 2 free), and it was one I was very excited to do. The plan has always been to put it in our library area (you'll see why below), but it was daunting to start given that it's the largest cross stitch that I have ever created! Uncounted hours of work have gone into this, and I could not be happier with the finished project. So, time to show it off!

Note that these photos were taken with my iPhone, before it has been stretched and mounted, so please forgive that there are some wrinkles and bumps in the fabric - I did my best to eliminate those!

There's so much in there that I want to give you some close-ups so that you can see the detail.

I love how the colors in the peacock feathers change. It's subtle, but I think you can see below that the white in the top and left peacock markings changes to a light blue as you go down and to the right. It's a bit more obvious in person, and imitates how the colors of the feathers would change in reality.

I said above that this was the largest one I'd ever done; I had Evan take a photo of me holding it for scale. This thing is easily two feet tall (I think it may actually be more); it really is the most work I've ever put into one of my creations.

I know this is NOT going to be cheap to frame, so I've got to find a good framing deal before I do it. I can't wait to pick out a mat and frame to match, then get it up on the wall of our library!

Jazz Camp #1 - Summer 2017

This summer was the summer of summer camps! Because Evan and I worked all summer, and we couldn't use Essie for daycare any longer, we had to sign the kids up for summer camps. Henry was pretty easy: he spent 5 weeks at Ida Lee fun camp (which he loved!); Natalie was a bit more complicated. She was required to take junior jazz camp at dance school, and we also signed her up for a two week theater camp with some friends. She actually did both jazz camps offered, even though she only had to do one, and then we filled in with Ida Lee fun camp.

Her first jazz camp was two weeks after school ended; the girls did such a great job! On Friday, they did a performance for us all. Last year I had to miss the performance, so I was very glad to be able to go this year. The girls started off by showing us how they warm up.

This first dance was "Attention" by Charlie Puth. The girls definitely liked this one, as each duo got to help choreograph their own part, and there's a nice freestyle part in the middle.

The girls definitely enjoyed "Better When I'm Dancing" - such a fun song!

A favorite, though, was their lyrical piece. I believe they are going to do this for a performance this fall, and I can't wait to see how it grows.


I was showing a friend how to capture still frames from a movie on my iPhone, and I got these favorite shots of Natalie from it.

They did this song again during Jazz camp #2, and it already was better since some of the girls already knew it; I'll show that in a later post!

Of course we had to get group shots at the end. Here are the 8 girls.

And then with their teacher, Ms. Mercke!

Natalie and Aly

Natalie, Lily, and Bridgette

Ava, Natalie, and Bridgette.

Henry had to get in on the photo fun too! Luckily, he was able to come with us to the performance - he loves watching Natalie dance.