Clint, Tara and not-so-baby-Cal...

Here are the pics. from today's photo shoot with my brother Clint, sister-in-law Tara and their 12 month old son Calvin. It was a beautiful day in the Buttes to experiment with my camera...and I had three of the greatest subjects ever!

Trial run...

My brother and sister-in-law have asked me to take their family pictures tomorrow. As you know, I am NO professional, but I do like to learn how to use my camera and explore new places where I can get some fun new shots. Anyways, my best friend Heather and I went driving around today to look for fun places where I can do their photos tomorrow. We found some GREAT places and I'm really excited to take them there. While we were there, we took a few pictures of each other so that I could get a feel for what I wanted to do tomorrow. I'll post the family photos once they are done.

I love how big his eyes get when he explores new territory :)

Weekend at Murphys...

This weekend, Rich and I left Zack for the first time overnight (at the same time, anyways). My sweet sister Colleen was great and agreed to take Zack overnight so that we could get away with our friends for the weekend. For those of you that don't know, my best friend Heather and Rich's best friend Brian (a.k.a. "Barnes") married each other this past summer. To thank us for our help with the wedding, they took us to Murphys, CA for some time away and great wine tasting. Murphys is a lot like Nevada City, with one main street of shopping...only Murphys has wine tasting all up and down the street mixed in with the novelty shops. I can't even tell you how many wine cellars we went to...is that a bad sign? :) We had an amazing time with our friends. It was JUST what Rich and I needed.

The newlyweds :)

Having lunch at the Historic Murphy Hotel.

Murphys downtown park

Look out, Barnes...your wife is hittin' on another man!

Nice red face, Karyn. Lil' too much wine???

I loved this picture of him.

Sunday, we went to Jackson to go antique shopping.

Finally...

Well, we finally chose a foster agency. We've had a difficult time deciding which direction to go, but after phone call after phone call of, "Uh, well, uh, the person that handles that paperwork isn't in today...and won't be in tomorrow...I GUESS you could try back the day after that and she MAY be in, but I'm not sure.", I was ready to finally find an agency that seemed to do business professionally, but with compassion and understanding. I was very pleased with the first agency we had called, but Linda (from the agency) suggested that I call around and "interview" other agencies. I thought that was a great recommendation, however after calling around, I found myself back at Linda's agency. We should be hearing back from one of their social workers by the end of the week, and from there we can fill out the paperwork necessary and start the process of fingerprinting, background checks, etc. We're really excited to get the ball rolling. Now, we need to start working on clearing out our spare bedroom :)