little fish.

to add to the thousands of water shots we've already taken this summer,

here are some more.

haha.

aiden has the "whyte tongue" like his dad.

sticks it out when he's doing things.

i guess callie does, too.

emily loves the pool,

but not all of the grass and yuck that aiden kept bringing into it.

she and the swing had more fun together.

back to school.

so...i'm in this photography class.

andilikeit.

a lot.

here's a couple shots from last week.

this week we shot at the keeper of the plains.

we dodged the high river water,

managed to not fall off any rocks,

ignored 'do not climb'

and 'no one beyond this point' signs,

as well as jaywalked(justin loved hearing about all

the lawbreaking that we did),

and were even reminded of the odd people of wichita.

one guy asked a girl in my class.."do you think the high water is the result of the oil spill?"

then there was the grandma hand cuffed to

her 6 yr old grandson.

that was classic.

since i didn't capture any of those fun moments,

i'll just show ya the ones that i did catch.

i know you've seen my "through the bench" shot at the keeper

before.

my teacher had never seen anyone do it,

so this is for his benefit.

(i found out when i got home, that there are actually cameras that monitor the area

that everyone was doing their rock climbing and walking over roped off areas.

there are speakers that they use to tell people to get out of those spots. haha)

if you go down to the keeper island,

you can see this from the lower level.

if you didn't know,

you'd think wichita had been invaded by tourists.

if you're from wichita,

you know that will sadly never happen.

taking a shot of my classmates without actually getting them.

um, so if you've ever been down to the river,

you know that this is suppose to be an area where the water drops off,

flowing through a huge pile of broken tree limbs and all.

we've had a little rain.

blasted river came up past the banks,

over the sidewalks.

i hit a mud spot on the sidewalk and slid.

thankfully, i had a classmate standing right next to me,

a witness to it all.

did you know we had a troll underground??

i didn't.

even the city of wichita employee in my house didn't.

well, hope you enjoyed my field trip...

in your nice comfy chair...

without having to tromp around wichita in the 90 degree heat.

haha.

that was for eric...

he said we would all go home and curse his name

for making us be out there.

seriously eric--

it was a good photo day.

saturday somewhere.

saturday's are meant for sleeping in.

watching cartoons.

lounging.

well, somewhere in the world somebody was doing that.

not me.

here's my saturday.

9:30 a.m. photo shoot with 5 kids.

that's right.

5.

lunch at sugar sister's with my mother-in-law,

sister-in-law and someday sister-in-law.

followed by the country bumpkins garage sale.

everything was 75% off.

um, we found a few things to take home.

i spent $11.

it was awesome.

when we got home from shopping,

aiden was doing this.

by himself.

just jumps in and kicks.

well, it looks more like running in water.

whatever.

and i got to watch this.

very excited.

can't wait for italy to play!!

maki twins

you wanna see twin boys, right??

of course you do!!

hop over to the photo blog and see their photos.

spanish house.

the kids started spanish school today.

or as emily says,

"it was a spanish house."

our friend ashley is a maize high spanish teacher

and started a preschool age summer class.

and it's being held in a house.

spanish class is every wednesday,

30 minute sessions for each age group

(2-3's and 4-6 yr olds).

i didn't get any photos of aiden,

since he is sitting next to me,

but you can see emily is them.

into the woods.

today was a 5 kid day.

i hate 5 kid days.

not having the 5 kids,

but the fact that mine always act like

they've never been around other people!

we picked up the oldest cousin at a camp

held at maize south hs

and stopped at my new favorite photo spot.

don't ask me where it is,

cause i don't want to share.

(well, if you're out of town i'll share.

and i'll share with you, sarah shah.

but that's it. ; ))

it was a dark and cool day today in wichita.

the storm at 4 am woke jus and i up.

since the field was void of huge bees today,

the kids ventured in it and did some "flower" picking.

and "flower" wearing.

aiden is always trying to keep up with his big cousins.

he had to pick flowers, too.

all of his flowers were pulled up,

roots intact.

by no means was this shot intended.

emily and aiden couldn't seem to stand with their cousins

long enough for me to get focused.

they kept running back and forth to me.

(if you look behind emily, her cousin brendon is trying to hold

on to aiden. squirrelly boy.)

so when emily came up i asked about her flowers.

all ya gotta do is ask.

they're happy to show them to you. :)

my shots of brendon and aiden were quite grainy.

we hit a dark spot in the woods and i haven't figured out

what setting my camera needs to be on for that type of thing.

however, when you get these two boys to stay still long enough,

you use whatever photos you can get!!

brendon is a.d.d. and has terrets

(not the shouting profanity type, but the kind with ticks...

he blinks his eyes a million times,

so getting an open eye shot is a miracle)

and aiden is trying out for brendon's a.d.d. club.

good grief.

they both have the prettiest eyes and i love to capture them.

i start my photo class on wednesday.

wednesday cannot get here fast enough!

side note to leslie-- 5 kids went into the woods. 5 kids came out. just saying.