People

12:59:59 12/31/2012

The clock in my camera was about a minute and a quarter off from the clock on the television (which was also off when compared to my phone, so it may have been wrong). In any case, as measured by whatever network we were watching, this it the last photo of 2012, taken at 11:59:59. It is, not too surprisingly, very similar to the final photograph I took last year, standing virtually in the same spot and with many of the same people. Thanks to all for making it a memorable year and for putting up with my camera in your face so many times. I’m looking forward to the year ahead.

I also passed a milestone this week, passing the 50,000 mark on my two year old camera. This picture is number 50,132 on my camera. That means I took 22,633 in 2012, down a bit from the 27,263 that I took in 2011.

Karlee and Dorothy

I had a pretty quiet day today. Cathy went to work. Dorothy and her cousins took their grandma out to lunch and then went to see the new Les Miserables movie. In the evening I picked her up and we picked up Dorothy’s friend, Karlee and the four of us (Cathy was home from work) went to a little Thai hole in the wall that we really like.

I know this isn’t a great picture but it’s the best of the few I took.

Christmas, 2012

We had our traditional three-fold Christmas today, starting with our simple Christmas at home with just the three of us. We moved up from that to our favorite breakfast of the year at Cathy’s mom’s house. Pancakes, eggs, bacon and sausage along with orange juice and freshly brewed hazelnut coffee. It doesn’t get much better than that.

We went from there to my mom’s where we had our traditional, if somewhat unorthodox enchilada dinner, with plenty of extras. We played our also traditional gift swap game and generally had a good time. We hadn’t taken a picture at Thanksgiving but we did today, which turned out nicely, I think.

Candle Light Service

Candle Light Service

One of my favorite times of the year is our annual Christmas Eve service. I enjoy the singing, although I try to sit far enough from other so they aren’t bothered by whatever key I happen to sing in. “They asked me to sing tenor… twelve miles away.”

My favorite part of this favorite evening is the candle light song at the end, with the lights down low and everyone holding a lit candle, as we sing (which I guess is what a “candle light song” implies). I took a few pictures, but don’t worry, I was still singing as I did it (although I wasn’t holding a lit candle).

These are my two favorite pictures from the evening. The first has Trish and Ben (although you can only see the top of his head) and some of their family. The second is of two sisters, Sasha and Stasia. Beautiful people, all.

Rainbow

Somewhere, under the rainbow, are the friends we went with to Brookside Gardens’ “Garden of Lights” this evening. We can never see enough of Mike and Krystal and it was wonderful to see Sue, Tom and their three children, Daniel, Matthew, and Alyssa again after so long. My how they have grown (the children, Tom and Sue are pretty much unchanged). We were also happy to get to know Mike’s mom a little bit. What a joyful person she is. Thank you so much for including us in the party.

I took a lot of pictures, as you would probably expect, most of which were intentionally blurry. In general I find pictures of Christmas lights to be rather boring, even when they are pretty in real life. This picture was a bit tricky because I wanted to balance the flash lighting the people with the lights making up the rainbow. It turned out just about right.

After we left the garden we want back to Mike and Krystal’s for pizza and a fun time of chatting, laughing, and basically having a good time.

Live Nativity

We had a great time this evening at our friends’ annual living nativity party. We gathered in their barn, which was chilly but at least out of the wind, had a pot luck dinner, and went through the Christmas story. As the various characters were mentioned in the story, anyone dressed for the part went to the front, adding to the pageantry. Christmas carols appropriate for each portion of the story were sung so everyone was involved, dressed for the part or simply watching. In this picture, there are four Marys, which isn’t strictly speaking accurate (that is, there was only one in the true story) but it was fun for the girls involved. There is also a pig and a monkey in the stable with them, which my not be completely accurate, either. No matter.

After the Nativity story was finished, we went into the warm house for cookies, a visit from Santa, and a chance to catch up with friends.

Preston

We had the X-Factor Christmas Party this evening and I took quite a few pictures. There are a lot of good pictures to choose from. Actually, I’ve been meaning to post another bunch of pictures of people onto Facebook but frankly, there are way too many to do that. I pulled out people pictures from August through November and realized I was going to have to throw out a lot of good pictures to cut down the pictures from nearly 1,900 pictures to few enough for a Facebook gallery.

Anyway, of the pictures I took tonight, we liked this picture of Preston the best. He’s always been quite photogenic and with good looking parents, he definitely won the genetics lottery. Now, he has gotten old enough that he actually sits still for long enough that I can get his picture. Here he is modeling the slippers he got in the Yankee Swap gift exchange game. They were subsequently taken from him but he got them back later, so he ended up with them, which made him happy.

D and Donna

Since I have a good picture of him, I thought it would be a good excuse (like I need one) to post a picture of his parents, D and Donna.

In this picture you don’t get the pleasure of seeing Donna’s beautiful smile but that’s life (“that’s what all the people say”). The picture makes me smile. Guys, we love you and are so glad we have you working with our youth.

Hannah and Dorothy

School is out for Christmas break but Cathy and I still had to go to work today. Dorothy was able to spend the day with her friend Hannah. By the evening when I went to pick Dorothy up, I still hadn’t taken any pictures. I asked if I could come in and take a few pictures of them. They were nice enough to let me. Most of the pictures are of them mugging in various ways but this one turned out very well. I’m not sure what Hannah’s hat is in aid of, although it was raining quite hard outside.

Christmas Caroling

Suzy, Fiona, Trish, and Cathy

A few folks from church had an idea for doing a little Christmas caroling this year, took the initiative to get it organized and seem to have started a tradition. Rather than simply walk through a neighborhood singing the plan was to rig up a trailer behind a pick-up truck. The back of the truck would have the drum set and room (just barely, as it turned out) for guitar and base players. At the front of the trailer was a keyboard. The rest of the trailer was set up for the singers, sitting back to back on bales of straw. The whole thing, pick-up truck and trailer, were lined with Christmas lights.

Taking flash pictures of Christmas lights is a bit tricky, particularly when they are moving. The flash is so much brighter than they are that they disappear. The first picture here does a decent job of showing you the lights, although it isn’t a great picture of the carolers. The second is a bit better, showing Suzy, Fiona, Trish, and Cathy. On the right you can see Dave holding a flashlight for Amanda on the keyboard.

Everyone had a fun time and it sounds like something we’ll want to do again next year. Put it on your calendar now and don’t miss it.

Henry

I don’t know a lot of other people named Henry. At times it has been a popular name but there don’t seem to be a lot of people my age with the name. I don’t know if this is enough of a sample to say the name is coming back into fashion, but I photographed two little boys named Henry in as many days. Yesterday there was a couple with two children and the younger of the two was a Henry. Then there is this Henry, who has been coming to our church for a little while (with his parents, of course). This isn’t the best picture I’ve ever taken of him but it’s the best I got today. He’s a wonderfully cute little boy. It helps to win the genetic lottery and have attractive parents.

???, Elizabeth, and Elsie

Elizabeth

After the dreary morning yesterday, I was a little afraid that today would be a washout. Instead I woke to a beautiful day and it only got better as the day went on. I spent much of the day at a craft sale at Rocklands Farm, offering my cards and prints to whoever was interested. I’m sure the gorgeous weather played a part in making it a pretty successful day. Not only that but I got to see friends whom I see far too infrequently. Finally, there were a host of cute kids there and for the most part they were happy to pose for pictures.

In the first picture, I’m not sure of the name of the girl on the left but the other two are Elizabeth and Elsie. I’m fortunate enough to know their parents and I’ve photographed both of them before. The three girls were using some of Janis’ wreath making supplies to make themselves a bit more more festive.

The second picture is another of Elizabeth, modelling a hat. I was impressed with the pot holders that Elizabeth had made for the craft sale. She stood with her wares and happily pocketed the money earned. What an adorable girl she is.

Katie and Ilene

We had our group holiday lunch/party/thing this afternoon and I took a few pictures. It’s a little weird. Some places I go, people are not used to seeing me without my camera. Other places, they are not surprised when they see me taking pictures, although I don’t always have it in front of my face. Work, however, is the other way ’round. I do go outside at lunchtime some days to take pictures and a few people are used to seeing that. On occasion friends and co-workers will have their children at work and I often get to take pictures of them (the children). But it’s pretty rare for me to be snapping pictures of my co-workers themselves. This is the second year the small group I work in has gone to the party with this larger group at work and I only really know a small fraction of them, which adds to the weirdness, I suppose.

That’s a long-winded way of saying, this is a picture of two of my co-workers, taken at our holiday party/lunch/thing — Katie on the left, Ilene on the right.

Hannah

It would have been better if we had a bit more room but this evening Dorothy’s good friend Hannah was doing one-hand cartwheels and I took a few pictures. I think this is the best of them because it looks as though she is standing still on one hand. She’s actually moving from right to left in this picture.

Hannah On Ice

Some Of Hannah’s Fans

Dorothy’s friend, Hannah, has been skating since she was seven years old. Dorothy has seen her skate before but I hadn’t, so when she announced that she’d be performing today, I thought it would be good to come. Dorothy wanted to be there, as well, and we heard that a bunch of other friends from school were planning to be there. The first picture for today is one of quite a few that I took of her on the ice. I don’t have a lot of experience with photographing skating. Also, it’s not all that bright in the indoor rink (and it was dark outside in any case). In order to get a fast enough shutter speed I needed to set my camera’s ISO to 6,400. That let me shoot at f/3.5, so I had a little depth of field and 1/800 second. I got a few pictures that I’m happy with and a bunch that are not very good. Sorry it is so grainy, but that’s life. Hannah, on the other hand, was lovely throughout and all her fans were happy to cheer for her when she was finished.

The second photo is some of those fans. This is actually probably about half the people who came specifically to see her. They are, from left to right, back: Jessie, Libby, Dorothy, Cat, Louie, Hannah, Abagail, Brandon. Front: Tyler, Alex, Kyle, Connor, and Garrett.

Iris, Tsai-Hong, Ralph, Maya, and Stephen

After two days of Thanksgiving, we had a somewhat unexpected extension into a third day when Stephen and Maya invited us to their new apartment for brunch. They have a nice apartment not too far from their work and close to all of us, which is nice. Here’s a picture of them with with the rest of the family.

Thanksgiving, 2012

Although less thankful that we should be, we are nonetheless thankful. It’s true that we should be and indeed are thankful every day of the year, it is right that we set aside one day specifically for the purpose of being thankful. We were fortunate, this year, to have guests with us as we celebrated and gave thanks at Cathy’s mom’s house. On the left are Josh, Diana, and Jake. On the right are Kendra, Dorothy, Marge, and Cathy. Margaret is at the head of the table.

Kendra and Dorothy

Cathy and Dorothy picked up Kendra and I met them at Cathy’s mom’s house after work. They helped cut bread for stuffing, peeled potatoes, and made jello for tomorrow’s meal. When they were done working, Kendra and Dorothy sat at the piano and made up songs. You won’t hear any of them on the radio any time soon but we enjoyed their efforts (for the most part).

Ben and Trish

Two of my favorite people were leading the singing together this morning in church. Do I describe a lot of people as “of my favorite people?” If so, then I guess it just shows how fortunate I am! I don’t know if it is Ben that picked the songs or if they are picked because he’s leading. Either way, I especially like having Ben lead because of the songs we sing when he does. Thanks, guys (and the rest of the team, as well).