Balance

Okay, I'm supposed to be a blogger, photographer, teller, student, cook, housecleaner, and launderer. On top of staying fit, spiritual, clean (um, that one is a little weird, but I know some people do indeed neglect cleanliness... trust me, I see them all, every day), and eat healthy. 

Well, I was realizing that I need to balance it all a little better and be a little more temperate with my time.

I have a personality that just wants to get the task completely done and out of the way and move on to something else. Yet I find out every time that doing that throws off the whole equilibrium. 

Right now, I want to have all of the photos of little James done and edited for a complete blog post. But today, I decided to clean the house, do laundry, exercise, spend time reading and praying, and go to work (of course) so I have a short little post. It bugs me doing it this way. But it also bugs me to not blog for a week. So, here we go!

-MarLeahJoy

James

He's so cute. Perhaps all babies are cute, but when you are with them in person they are cuter!

And he just turned one. 

I used his Mommy's canon mark III and 50 f/1.2 for the whole shoot. :) 

It was intimidating to think of using it at first, but when the day came I was pumped for it and relaxed about it all... which made it a great session.

More to come.

-MarLeahJoy

Dreaming

Someone please tell me that I'm not the only one who thinks about the future so much and about money and what I want to buy. 

I am so looking forward to buying a prime lens. I'm dreaming and drooling over the Canon 35mm f/1.4.

Watch me say this and then something go dramatically wrong and I won't be able to do it...  D:  But I'm shooting for buying it in November. Hopefully, it should still be at least partially green outside and good enough weather so I can enjoy it outside right away!

So... on I go dreaming.

La, La, La

-MarLeahJoy

Conservation Center

I forgot to mention in my last post what happened to my camera while we were kayaking. Before last weekends I added a little post script to one blog post: "I'm going to try something different today. I'm getting a little risky and bold with my camera and water... We'll see what kind of photos I get :D"

I was actually referring more to jet skiing than kayaking, but it happened while we were kayaking. I was getting my camera close to the water getting the picture of the flower that was dipping over the water. I was using my LCD screen and it started flickering white. o.O I never told anyone about it because there's no need to worry everyone if it's going to be fine eventually. And it was :) Thankfully I actually used Sannetta's camera for the session that evening or it would have been a little hard to review the photos on my camera.

But on Sunday it was back to normally and we took a little nature walk in a conservation area with the Doolittle's that I was staying with.

They told me there would be lots of deer to take photos of... and they didn't disappoint! I didn't count, but we saw probably at least 10.

Chewing ;)

Noelle :) 

I had a lot of fun with her :) She is so sweet!

-MarLeahJoy

Saturday

Thinking back on this day... it was a little hectic with a blown tire, lots of driving, kayaking and a session in the evening. But, you know, I've learned that life is beautiful. And particularly on this day, I learned to just be happy for experiences. That's been my thing as of late. I'm in love with experiences of all types. 

Drew was the all-in-one: cowboy, fisherman, and kayaker ;)

Kayaking was slow compared to the little speedy jet skis we were on the day before. I think we were all really wanting to be on a fast flowing river where you had to dodge rocks and fun stuff. :) Due to my blow out, though, we weren't able to make it down to Buffalo River, so we stopped at White River -- there's a big difference between how fast the two flow. But we played tag with out kayaks which kept it quite up beat at times ;)

Some old gear laying on a dock

There's Ranelle down yonder :) That was while Drew, Darren and I parked our kayaks on the shore and climbed the waterfall just to see where it came from :)

This is a little peek of what the session looked like on Saturday. 

It was sweet baby James' first birthday. :)

So you can imagine there was a little cake smashing involved.

-MarLeahJoy

Let's Go Fast

I've always dreamed of owning a little SeaDoo or some kind of jet ski. Problem was: I hadn't even ridden on one. My persistence of bringing up the subject (and pointing out every one I ever saw) finally took toll on our family and we planned to rent two on Friday and have an afternoon on the lake.

My dad was very reserved and hesitant about the whole thing and almost called it off on the day we were supposed to go. Thankfully, we decided to at least try it once, though! 

We all found out that there is really not much to fear when you are riding them. And soon we were going full throttle around the lake.

And of course, I packed my camera along in bag on my back and four ziploc bags incase we tipped. :P But I pulled it out while we were riding and took pictures along the way.

My parents... when they were being a little more cautious about the whole thing. Later, my dad had it really going and he was leaning forward to get the least amount of resistance ;)

We stopped and got out to swim for a bit.

Then I switched Ranelle spots and she got to see what it felt like to not be in control of the thing. ;) 

Haha, I got a few screams out of her :)

Daddy took the last few right before we took them back to the dock. 

It was a happy, happy time :)

-MarLeahJoy

P.s. In regards to the topic of my last post... I finally made it home from Springfield at 1am this morning with my car. I had a great time in Springfield, though, and I took a hike with the Doolittle family and got to shoot a lot of wildlife :)

A New Couch to Sleep On

You will never do anything different from what you would normally do or have normally done until you have a few curve balls thrown at you. Let me tell you, my life has been pretty interesting this last year. I've done a lot of things I would have never expected. 

Today's adventures started with a drive to Springfield in my '69 beetle. Then boom. I heard a sound, felt a thump, and saw the tread of my tire flying around the road behind me in my rear view mirror.

My family was following me, so we got a spare on... no problem. I drove on into Springfield and parked the car so I could have it for a photo session I was doing in the evening there. Then we went on to Branson to kayak. When I was back in Springfield and we were driving out to the location for the shoot, I felt it thumping and bumping along, so I pulled over and hopped in the car with them. Long story short... I'm staying the night and resting my head on a new couch. A comfy couch. :) With a hospitable family from church. 

Some times it's easy to get riled over things like this that go wrong, but I want to take it with grace and just be thankful that I was close to precious people in town that I am comfortable staying with. And I'll be thankful for the opportunity to do something different and just have more experiences in life.

I was going to post pictures from yesterday's day on the lake... but it appears they are on my hard drive at home. Eh. So it's a picture-less post.

-MarLeahJoy

Monark - pt. 2

I really didn't get too much of a variety of pictures at Monark because they were wanting me to take pictures of the children, but I wandered into the kitchen and got some of the workers. Other than that, enjoy the sweet little faces from children's meeting :)

The kids love their popsicles so much!! :) It's like the thing us older kids associate with Monark now, because you always get them each day after children's meeting :)

With my good, good friends! I am so blessed :)

-MarLeahJoy

p.s. I'm going to try something different today. I'm getting a little risky and bold with my camera and water... We'll see what kind of photos I get :D