My photos of UVA

In my previous post, I showcased favorite photos that the kids took while we walked around UVA on a spring afternoon. Now, I get to share my favorites that I took, and I think the timing is great since the students are moving back in this weekend! I've enjoyed the quiet of the summer, and miss being able to walk unimpeded through Grounds, but it's also nice to see it come back to life.

I've taken to shooting in both RAW and JPEG so that I have the RAW files if I ever have time to edit/process them, but I'm also focusing on camera settings so that I don't HAVE to process them afterwards; I'm happy with how they look straight out of camera. This was a batch that I did not have the energy to edit, and didn't really feel the need to!

She's such a pretty subject. And capturing her eyes without needing to edit is hard! Thankfully I think I'm getting the hang of it.

 

The kiddos were so cute. I loved capturing them capturing their favorite images.

Henry out there did understandably give me some pause...he was a bit precarious! But Evan was nearby, just out of camera view, ready to intervene. Plus, he was so excited to shoot from that perspective, it was hard to say no.

And I love this one of N and I taking photos of each other!

I really love getting to share photography with the kids. Natalie is reaching the point where she wants to learn more about composing an image, what she can do with the camera, etc. Henry still just wants to take photos without any interference from me, which is fine! But I'm hoping I can teach him a few things down the road too.

Wiggle butt!

I stumbled across these two videos we took of Lucy in January and thought I'd share here. We've joked that her nickname is "wiggle butt"...I think it's pretty obvious why in these videos.

She just gets SO excited when she sees the kids, or knows that they're coming home.

She's even learned roughly when they'll be coming home from school every day, and about 20 minutes before the bus arrives, Lucy gets antsy and starts pacing around, staring out of all the windows for them. We've taken to putting on her electric collar and letting her have some outdoor fun time for that period, when weather permits. She's learned to stay up by the house, waiting for the kids to greet her as they get off the bus.

We've even started to walk Lucy up our street without the leash on; I want her to get to the point where she will listen and stay with us even when off leash. I did it this morning with both kids and she stayed with us quite well! Ran some with Henry, stopped when she got a bit ahead, and didn't wander off to sniff any other dogs. Very proud of her!

A December snowstorm in Charlottesville

On the day before Natalie's birthday, we got hit with quite the snow storm! Unfortunately for Natalie, that meant that her birthday party had to be cancelled (since no one could drive anywhere), but we managed to still make it fun for her (more on that in the next post).

It did mean that we had a very gray snowy Sunday together as a family! It really was a perfect snow storm - light weight, fluffy, and deep enough to have a lot of fun in. I think in total we got about 10" of snow; definitely the most we had seen in a couple of years.

The kids, Lucy, and I bundled up and headed out for some fun, even though it was still snowing. Can't stay inside all day!

One of Natalie's friends (who was supposed to come to her birthday party) was able to come over to play for a while, so at least she didn't totally lose that time with her friends!

Oh yeah, I did manage to drag Evan out in it for at least a little while :)

And we discovered just how much fun our yard is for sledding - just as much fun as we thought it would be!

Lucy loves the snow (no surprise there!), although I will say those giant snow balls that adhered to her fur were NOT fun to take off. But I couldn't keep her locked up inside, knowing how much she loved playing in it.

Lucy - December 2018

This month, on December 19th, Lucy turned 1 year old! I can't believe our tiny puppy is now this 62 pound pile of love. Yep, that's right - at her one year checkup last week, we learned that our "should be 45 lbs" puppy is actually 62 lbs! And she's not overweight either - just big. I remember the breeder saying that Lucy's dad was about 60 lbs - I can't believe she's that big. We have a monster girl!

My post for November was about all of the new things that Lucy encountered; well, we had one more new thing for her this month: an invisible fence. We have an acre of property, and I really wanted Lucy to be able to go outside with us without us worrying about her going down to the road, or running after bicycles, or up to other dogs (all of which she did during the first couple of weeks). We had it installed in early December, and she learned the boundary so quickly! She's been shocked about 4 times, and now won't go anywhere near the flags that mark the boundary. I love knowing that she is safe when we go outside.

For example, this video was shot before the fence went in. You can see that as she races away from me, it would be VERY hard for me to catch her! With the fence I don't worry about it as much, and she still has tons of room to run around.

In December, Lucy got to enjoy her first big snow storm - 10" of snow we got! She absolutely loved it, although we discovered that the light powdery snow we got, while the ideal snow for us, was terrible with her fur - poor thing was covered in these snow balls! But she loved it so much that I couldn't keep her from playing.

Amazingly, that snow was gone in about 6 days, which meant she was able to be back outside with the ball before too long.

As everyone on the east coast knows, it's been so incredibly rainy that unfortunately our yard has been very muddy for much of the time since we moved in. I'm looking forward to it hopefully drying out soon so we can really make use of the space - I know Lucy will love that!

...not that she really seems to mind chilling on the couch either.

Lucy - November 2018

November made for lots of new adventure for Lucy, as we moved into our new house! Our first big walk was actually the day before we moved into the house, when we stayed at a hotel for a night before our stuff was delivered the next day. The hotel did not allow dogs, so we were planning to have Lucy stay at the house overnight (we had a nice spot all set up for her in her crate!). Before we left her alone in a new, empty house, I wanted to give her some good exercise, so she and I went for a few mile walk along the Corner and through Grounds. Here she is on the steps of the Rotunda for the first time!

While I enjoy walking through Grounds, it isn't always the easiest to get to (mostly due to parking), so Lucy and I have tried a few different places. One of the first we tried is the Rivanna Trail that runs along the parkway by McIntyre Park. It goes a lot further than she and I have done so far; we need to try the whole thing and see if it is similar enough to the W&OD for us!

Lucy also got a new bed - Evan wanted to put one in his office, and while I was at PetSmart one day they had them on mega sale. Lucy absolutely loves it, and actually sleeps in there each night now, not in her crate!

She has a "new" couch to lay on - it's not actually new (it was in our basement previously), but she didn't go on it often. Now it's in my office, so she loves lying on there while I'm working - and I love having her there!

She also got to experience lying in front of an open door, in the sun - our screened in porch allows for this, when it never would have happened at the old house! Too much risk of bugs. It's been too cold to do this more than once or twice, but I know she will love it when it warms up.

Speaking of my office, Lucy also discovered that the wooded area outside of my office is squirrel playground during the day! She loves standing there, watching them run around. And often, she literally sits on my feet (as in the pic on the right, below) and watches. It's adorable and annoying at the same time!

 

And finally, I have to share these two photos because I just love the both of them.

Lucy has been such a trooper through this whole move; she's been so adaptable and I'm really proud of her. We have such a good puppy!

Lucy - October 2018

Looking back at these photos of Lucy from October, it registered that these were some of the last photos of her taken at our old house! It's so nice to look back and see her outside on the patio, which she loved.

And sitting on the trail (we got in as many walks as we could before moving!)

 

On one of our neighborhood walks, she discovered the geese, who were coming back to the pond as it got colder. You can just make them out in the photo above, but trust me - Lucy definitely saw them!

Of course all of that walking and playing makes for a tired puppy.

But then it's time to run around like a lunatic some more, in a fun new game that Henry made up. This had all of us cracking up so much. She really did not like him hiding next to the crate!

Dog Swim at AV Symington

Not quite two weeks after our final group trip to AV Symington for the summer, I went back for a special event - the dog swim! They do this every year, after the pool closes on Labor Day, and I always thought it would be so much fun to go, but Calla HATED the water so we never really had a reason to. Knowing how much Lucy LOVES the water, I immediately signed her up for the event!

Unlike when we had gone just two weekends prior, the day was quite overcast, and frankly a bit chilly! But Lucy doesn't care about that, right? Nope, not a bit.

We didn't spend too much time in this area of the pool (where it's easy to just walk in), because not long after this a dog had a pretty bad #2 right there and I really didn't want Lucy to be wandering through there.

Some of the other dogs really enjoyed swimming in the lazy river (the labs, for example, really liked the current moving them, I could tell). Lucy wandered through the lazy river entrance a bit, but decided it wasn't for her.

What she really loved was the pool where the big slides spit out. There were a lot of tennis balls floating around for the dogs, and she loved having us throw the ball into the water for her.

This was definitely fun, and I'm really glad we got to go! We went pretty early, and there were probably about 50 or so dogs there when we left. I heard it got busier; we left once it reached the point where Lucy was just kind of running around and not really swimming anymore. Other dogs are distracting! Here's hoping there's an event like this in Charlottesville next summer.

Lucy on the first day of school

I previously posted  about the kids' first day of school photo shoot. Well....you didn't think we'd leave Lucy at home during this photo shoot, did you? You're right, we didn't! And, as the kids were playing around a bit on the playground before our photos, I used our gorgeous pup as a model to get my lighting correct.

I can't get enough of that tongue! Too darn cute.

And of course we had to bring her into a few of the staged photos.

What a lovely family I have!

Lucy - September 2018

As I trained for my half marathon, Lucy went on lots of walks with me in September! I go a bit slower when she's with me (cause you know, we have to sniff EVERYTHING, MOM!). But still, she's a lot of fun to walk with.

Plus, it tires her out! She does love cuddling up in soft spots, particularly when the kids are there.

Or, her favorite position on the floor (and we won't say any more about that! Keep it clean!).

Lucy started doing a couple of new things in September, as the school year began. First, she likes to sometimes lie outside of my office, on the landing, and occasionally sits there looking all cute. I swear we don't put her behind bars!

The other new thing Lucy started doing is learning what happens around 2:50pm every day...it's when the kids get off the bus! Around 2:30, she typically wakes up (because, you know, afternoon nap time), and starts pacing near the front of the house. When she sees the bus come down the street (the bus passes in front of our house on its way to the bus stop), she gets all excited and watches out the window for the kids. It's too cute!

And of course, some playtime videos! One of the new things Lucy got to do in September was meet our friend (and realtor) Gwen's new puppy, a beautiful Great Dane who was littler than her at the time, but isn't any longer!

And, we discovered that Lucy learned how to catch, all on her own! Look at that use of feet. It makes me think of when my dad taught us to use both hands with the glove to catch a softball.