Last week after spending altogether too much time in the car I took the girls out to a field near my parents house that I’d had my eye on for a long time. Big patch of weeds in several directions, a little brick building and green grass. Josie was in a good mood, Celia not so much. But we all got some good running in.

To get these shots I have to run up ahead of the two of them far enough that I can stop, turn around kneel down and focus before they run past me again. Otherwise I end up with a lot of shots of the back of their head.

One of my favorite full body shots of Josie now. Right up behind the wall on the hill we saw two bunnies eating the grass! They stayed around long enough for Celia to find them!

I put the camera on the timer and actually got a picture of the three of us! I ran and stood at the wall and somehow this enticed them to do the same and actually look at the camera.

I love the single splash of color. These pictures I also learned how to bring back the sky a little, meaning when I take the picture to make Josie’s skin look right, the sky looks just white because it’s so bright. I learned how to use lightroom to bring it back to a bit of blue and some clouds. But it really was a cloudy day.

This was Josie’s idea for a pose, I don’t think she believed I’d even take the picture. We do a lot of play with sticks and dirt lately.

When it was time to go Celia just took off and ran in the opposite direction and so I had to bring her screaming back across the field. The only highlight for her was finding this ball and watching the lacrosse players setting up for practice. But she was not happy when I made her give it back.

This weekend we went for our quick getaway weekend at the Cape Codder Resort in Hyannis. Yep Cape Cod in the middle of winter. We swam outside, we went to the beach, and jumped over waves. Yes, really. OK so the waves weren’t at the beach, nor was the swimming but we did all three. Our lovely neighbors Christina, Chanh, Ethan and Zach joined us again.

We drove down Friday afternoon, hit some traffic from an accident so we stopped after 2 hours and got some yummy ice cream. Celia refused to eat any of it, looked at me like I was trying to poison her when I gave her some on the spoon. She ate some goldfish instead. We got to the hotel around 4 and unpacked and went to the pool before dinner. Celia hasn’t seen a swimming pool since last summer so she was a bit cautious about the whole deal, but often opted to send Jordi chasing after me (holding her) when I’d go deeper with Josie. We had dinner in the in-house Italian restaurant which oddly had very few pasta dishes, and a wine list twice as long as the menu. While getting ready for bed, I played with my high ISO settings on my camera with the girls to see what I can capture since my speedlight is broken.

For all of those photos but the third, there is only one light on in the room. We put the girls to bed, and later that night our neighbors arrived with sleeping kids, who promptly woke up and decided that a late night walk around the hotel was needed. Our whole family is sick and so we all crashed. Jordi got sick during the night, possibly food poisoning. In the morning we went to Dunkin Donuts and got some food before hitting up the pool again. Celia was less nervous this time and enjoyed herself more. Why aren’t there any pictures at the pool? Because the room is really humid and everything is wet and we don’t want to risk the camera. Plus we have all agreed to no adults in bathing suit pictures.

After swimming the men took naps while us moms took the kids over to the mall. Celia napped and the big kids went on the carousel as per tradition and then we lunched. Back at the hotel for more swimming. But when we finally went to get ourselves to the pool, it was closed for cleaning or something. So we went to the other pool, which is new. It’s heated, but it’s outside! Did I mention it was snowing on Saturday? By this time it was mostly freezing rain but we braved the outdoors and jumped into the pools. It felt good inside the pool, but of course your head was still outside and eventually Celia was done. I took her in with many howls till we got inside the door and Jordi and Josie hung out playing some more. Josie even made friends with another girl named Clover who was probably 6. The whole pool just steams constantly from the temperature difference.

Here’s some photos of the girls outside earlier in the snow. Remember how we’re all sick and they’re not wearing coats? Yeah I’m such an awesome mom when I want to get pictures. They’re wearing more than their bathing suits!

Friday night we tried to go to a Thai place, but it was full, so we went back to our standard Mexican restaurant which is loud and good for kids while serving food. That night when we got back the four of us went to roast marshmallows on the bonfire the hotel lights up every night! It was still freezing rain a tiny bit so brrr it was cold, but it was fun and we had the whole place to ourselves.

I also tried to take advantage of the natural light through the big doors and windows so I set up some photos out the door with the remote, and in the big huge bed since we’ve got nothing like it at home.

Sunday morning we had more of the same food and swimming before we got all cleaned up and went home. On the way out of town we swung by the beach, at a really bad time of day (noon) and it was freezing so we had a super short photo session, most of the time was getting the girls in and out of the car. Have to do more this summer!

It’s always good to be home, but it was a fun weekend getaway. Tonight going to bed Josie asked “Is tomorrow Sabado?” [Saturday for the non-spanish speakers] Sorry kid, but that WAS the weekend. Tomorrow we’ll all focus on getting healthier some more.

This is Celia at Waldo Park, she keeps trying to throw herself off the structure. I’m not sad that we can’t play there much as it is winter, but today it was almost 60 degrees, so we played even though it was sopping. Josie asked why so many dogs had peed all over the park. Uhh that’s melted snow dear.

Look at all those teeth! Don’t notice that her eyes are out of focus because I had such shallow depth of field. But I don’t get many good views of her mouth like this!

Here’s Josie reading, in her cinderella dress. I’m liking my compositions lately peeking around door frames.

Another common theme for me lately has been figuring out how to do back lighting and getting dreamy hazy photos. I find they make me feel warm and fuzzy and nostalgic. I thankfully didn’t have to even ask for these poses, they just walk down the street like this now.

Yes they’re sorta yellow on purpose.

Two of our mom’s group families (one of which is our neighbor) are moving away this summer sadly. We had a goodbye party with almost everyone in attendance and I played photographer. We’ll miss them dearly but new job opportunities have called them away. Here’s some of my favorite photos from the day.