meet holga

holga is my new best friend. she’s bright red, a lot of fun, and gets a lot of attention. she’s really unpredictable, a little mysterious. some of you have seen her hanging from my neck because i don’t go many places without her right now. we’re getting to know each other. she was my date sunday night at the hollywood bowl. very entertaining and she made us laugh more than a few times. she’s cheap too. well kind of. SHE was cheap, but her film and developing, not so cheap. i am learning how to use her, along with her good friend, diana. i will share some of my diana goodies later when i can get the scanner down. they both use 120 film. we’re talking old school. like crank the film old school. like you can hear the flash warm up old school.

here are some from my first roll with holga. i will never touch the holga pics, these are just straight from the negative, and i like them just the funky way they are.

right after swim class.

sunday night i went to the hollywood bowl with the girls and of course holga helped me document our fun. she has color flashes that we were experimenting with. she’s definitely a keeper.

and yes that would be box seats we were enjoying, and i won’t even mention how sweet the valet parking was.

good job holga! i think we will have a long and fulfilling relationship.

empty nest

i know what you’re thinking. empty nest? you’re 29! are you talking about your own mother’s empty nest? because you can’t possibly be suffering from empty nest, your nest is full. your nest is overflowing with little chicks!

wrong. it’s me i’m talking about. my grets went to her first week of preschool camp last week. 4 days, 3 hours a day. it just so happened to coincide with my first one day official work week. i have been wanting to go from 2 days a week, down to 1, and i recently got the OK to drop down to just mondays. with the economy things have been a little slow at work and i’ve been getting fairly busy with the photography business, so it was the perfect solution.

there i was with only 1 day of work, and 3 days, and 9 hours left of solitude. i easily filled the first 2 days with errands and cleaning, it’s amazing the types of errands i can do without a little one in tow. we’re talking car wash, bank, lumber store, target, book return, and all this in the first hour and a half. i even had the option to stop and pick up a salad at baja buds! yep. i got to eat an official lunch. no string cheese and soggy cheerios for me that day!

then thursday came. her last day of camp, all my errands completed. i decided to drive down to the target in manhattan beach because i’ve heard it’s great and it just so happened they were the only target that carried a piece of furniture i have been obsessing over for awhile. on the drive back home it finally hit me that she wasn’t in the car. and with 2 hours left til i picked her up, what was i going to do? i could’ve come home and worked on the never-ending pile of laundry, refilled the fridge for the bottomless pits i call children. but i just cried instead. i had expected her to have a little bit of a hard time without me. a few tears. maybe a whine for me to stay a bit and play. but she loved it. she was completely content to be on her own. and here i am completely non(un)content to be alone.

i haven’t really been alone in almost 8 years. i am used to always having someone with me. i always have a buddy on hand. a little person to keep me company. and yes, i have complained about my lack of privacy, lack of sanity, lack of “me” time, but after having all that. it’s not all that great. being alone is fine for a bit. like 45 minutes. but after that, it’s kind of boring, and well. . . lonely.

so the tears flowed and i vented a bit on the phone. of course, i kind of chose the wrong person to vent to. auntie rachel, childless and thinking i’m crazy for crying on the 405 freeway after just leaving target because i was lonely wasn’t my best choice. especially because she had just landed in ohio and was waiting for her luggage. she was happy grets was doing so well and i should be happy for that too. true. but i couldn’t help but think about all the years ahead of me where it’s just going to be me. i will drop them at school and pick them up and all that time in between will be me by myself.

it’s been a long time since i’ve had that much time. and i’m sure it won’t take very long for those hours to fill up. my house may actually stay in some type of order for longer than 30 seconds. i may actually cook an entire meal from ingredients instead of bags and boxes. i may even take a regular walk. i may go to the mall, alone. i may walk into coffee bean to get my coffee instead of use the drive thru.

i will however be in those classrooms. i will be “that” mom who knows every classmates’ first and last name. i will be the one who volunteers for the field trips and the art projects. i will be the mom whose kid is not surprised to see her walk across the yard and wave as she’s on her way to the office to drop off some papers.

but despite all this, i will have to get used to an empty nest. i guess it’s part of growing up. for me, that is. not them.

a little break

i will be back in a few days with more exciting posts. i had 2 really fun photo shoots in the last 2 weeks but i can only share one of them, for now. the other is a surprise til mid august. but the one i can share with you is adorable. a beautiful mama and her ADORABLE boy. and you throw in a wonderful sis and niece, and that makes for a perfect photo shoot for me. perfectly my style.

nothing too crazy going on other than i had way too much time on my hands this week. Greta went to her first week of preschool camp, she’ll have 2 weeks in August and then start preschool officially mid september. i had to work monday, but the other 3 days, i had 9 hours and i really didn’t know what to do. i got a ton done, little house projects i will also share with you soon. but i was sad. she’s getting so big. but it’s bittersweet because she is so excited to go, she’s doing fabulous, with no anxiety or crying, it’s me who is driving home from Target in tears. but that’s another post too.

we have been ridiculously busy which to me is what summertime is about. i love having so much fun for the kids every day. although i am looking forward to our scheduled weeks of nothing. i spaced them throughout the summer to give us some calm and help us get into some really good books. for now we are at daily swim lessons, photos to come soon. the boys are at the local park from 10-3 having a blast with field games, cooking activities, art and tomorrow soso is extra excited for superhero dress up day.

i love having the lazy mornings though. the kids are finally waking up a teeny bit later. they usually roam into my room anywhere from 7:15-8:00am. We lazily have breakfast and play until 10 when they get to go to camp. Then it’s pickup with a little bit of veg time and a huge truckload of food to refuel them for their swim lessons. it’s the first year that aaron or i don’t have to go in the water with greta. she’s in her own class. and she’s loving it. gunnar is doing fantastic. he’s swimming beautifully. and soso is a fish. that boy will dive in anywhere. he’s particularly proud that his teacher took the class and taught them in the 6 ft deep part today. i love that my kids get to have the summers i remember. swim lessons everyday all summer long. prune-y fingers and a confidence that is immeasurable.

we finished The BFG and are about to start another Roald Dahl book tonight. Not sure which one they’ll pick, it’s between James and the Giant Beach or Danny Champion of the World.

that’s about it for now. i am signing off for a few days and will be back next week sometime.

just reading on a picnic blanket one afternoon

swimwear

that time of year. i think these suits are adorable.

this first one is  from Target.

and these next two are from of course, Anthropologie.

RIP Slurpie

Yes, our beloved Slurpie, Greta’s fish died. Sad. Sad. Sad. We had a little funeral service for him and we let Greta do the honors.

party time

If you live in Los Angeles you MUST have a party at this place. I found it a few years ago when Gunnar went to summer camp there. It’s uber expensive but almost worth every penny. They have swim lessons daily, horseback riding, rock climb, archery, I can go on. Poor kid, his little sister unexpectedly arrived and our summer camp budget went down a bit. It is kind of hard to go from Tumbleweed to the local park, but honestly he doesn’t complain. In fact, I think he loves it just as much.

But back to my story. I found out about 6 months ago that they do parties here on the weekend during summer. I quickly researched and it was decided that Sawyer’s joint graduation party with his 4 other little friends would be held here. So the Fab 5, Sawyer, Ethan, Maddie, Julia, and Mason celebrated their triumphant graduation from preschool at this fabulous place. We had numerous activities to choose from, and the ratio was one counselor for every 10 kids. The counselors were fantastic.

For the kids we chose to make Instant Mini Volcanoes, Archery, Petting Zoo, Treasure Hunt, and at the last second we chose to add the Tumblewheel for the bigger kids. But I actually think the adults liked it even better than the kids. The Tumblewheel is this ride type thing that they strap you down to, 4 kids at a time, or 2 adults at a time, and you can go back and forth or they swing you all the way around. Once you are upside down, they stopped it and made you sing a song until you were brought back down. No doubt, the parents and aunties lined up for that one.

You can kind of see in the photos that it’s an old school type of camp. Extremely outdoorsy with the most beautiful land. You wouldn’t know it’s smack dab in the heart of L.A. with all the hills and trees.

And everyone knows I love me a good kids’ party, and fortunately for us, Uncle Dave and Auntie Rachel were still in town to participate in the festivities. They were all over this party, okay, maybe only Auntie Rachel. But Uncle Dave did come to support it.

Here are some highlights.

It was my turn to try, and Auntie Rachel’s too.

Gunnar on the Tumblewheel.

And Tati’s.

Cupcakes for all, and then all the parents brought a wrapped present for their own child(ren) to open. Fun indeed!

photo booth fun

greta is quite the little poser. we were goofing around with photo booth the other day, notice my new very red lips, purchased in vegas, not the lips, but the color.

greta’s signature Anaconda Squeeeze !!!

and these girls crack me up together

the race

Auntie Rachel and I indulged the kids in some racing the other day. What started off to my advantage quickly changed when I had to pick up a kid mid race. Costing me the win. But I prevailed later on even though Auntie Rachel cheated and tried to hold me back. Gunnar was the photographer.

In sad news, I turned 29 and am pretty bummed. I am not ready to be done with my 20s. Strange, because most of the time I feel like I am 45. But 30 is just too big a number when in my head I think I’m only 18.