Susan’s Photo Blog

I haven’t been posting much in the last few months because I haven’t been taking pictures.  I’ve developed some complications with my pregnancy and it has taken a lot out of me.  I have cholestasis of pregnancy, for anyone who really wants to know what is going on.  My plans for another homebirth have been cast to the side and I will be induced around 37 weeks, at the hospital.  So, in addition to being in misery with the symptoms of cholestasis, I’ve had to deal with the total and complete change in plans surrounding the birth of this baby and it has been a bit of a challenge.

I have been on medication for a few weeks now and it is slowly but surely starting to help with the symptoms.  I wasn’t so sure that it was doing anything at first, but today I realized that I really am feeling a bit better, because there were several times throughout my very normal, ordinary day that I thought, “I need to get a picture of that!”  It has been months since I have even thought about my camera, except for the twinges of guilt I experienced from time to time because I simply wasn’t using it.

In the hopes that this is just the beginning of my return to normalcy, here is one of my “I need to get a picture of that” moments from today.

It’s nothing earth-shatteringly profound, or photographically excellent (it really isn’t even that great of a photo), but it is my two girls on a normal day, doing something completely common and I just *had* to have a picture of it.

It is special to me because I was once again inspired to look through the lens of my camera and capture an ordinary moment.  Who knows?  I might even take a *GASP* belly shot or two at some point here.  LOL!

My sister-in-law and I arranged a photo-session swap.  First, here are the pictures I took of her, my brother, and their beautiful girls:

And here is one of the pictures she took for me:

Did I mention that she is an OB-GYN?  :o)  Baby #3 is on his way and should be here by mid-June!

I was going to post this yesterday, but then life happened, so here it is today. :o)

This is the view we woke up to just about every morning – shot while standing on my bedroom balcony.

And a couple more pictures of the beauty that surrounded us all week.

It took two tries, on two separate nights, to get some family pictures down at the ocean.  The first try resulted in chopped limbs and several out of focus pictures.  The second try may have ended in better results if Jubilee hadn’t been so opposed to the idea, as you can see from the second picture.  So, the keeper is the first one, I do believe.

And, of course, here is Nick doing what Nick does:

One of the gorgeous sunsets:

And, another of the gorgeous sunsets:

One last picture I snapped while walking back up from the beach, after sunset:

We were blessed with a family vacation to Florida’s Marathon Key at the end of September 2009.  Nick’s family, as well as my parents all had a wonderful week at Tranquility Bay.  I have so many pictures, but I did my best to pick out just a few.  My “just a few” is still too many for one post, so I’ll be adding more later tonight, or tomorrow.  Today’s post will be mostly just snapshots from our week.

Walking to the pool with both grandpas.

Jubilee playing with my mom.

Alexis getting ready to use her new snorkeling gear.  She did a pretty good job with it and had fun.

Of course, anything Alexis does. . .

. . . Jubilee has to do as well.

There were geckos EVERYWHERE.  Nick, Alexis, and Jubilee went on several quests to catch one, as can be seen here.

They were even successful a few times.  Those little guys move fast!

There were putting greens right outside our condo doors, so we took advantage of that on a few very HOT afternoons.  Here are the girls with my dad.

And, hey look, it’s another rare picture of me!

Florida post number two will have a few artsy, fun shots, and some sunset-at-the-beach portraits, which means another picture or two of me!  Crazy, I know.