Lunar Eclipse

Early Tuesday morning the Earth passed between the Sun and the Moon causing a lunar eclipse. While not particularly rare, lunar eclipses can be very interesting to observe as the moon turns an eerie brownish-orange. Tuesday was no exception.

The event didn't start until a very inconvenient 1:51 AM PDT. That in itself wouldn't have been so bad if it happened quickly, but of course the Earth isn't known for its quickness. It takes Earth's shadow about an hour to cover the Moon, spends another 90 minutes completely covering the moon in an event known as totality, then finally meanders its way back across the moon in the other direction for the next hour. So watching the whole thing is a pretty serious commitment. On this particular Tuesday morning that would have meant you wouldn't be able to go back to bed until 5:24 AM PDT.

I'm not that hard-core. I'm used to staying up late, so staying up until 1:51 wasn't a problem. Around that time I went outside with my tripod and camera and set out to photograph the eclipse. Earlier that night we went out and picked up a remote switch for my camera. This allows me to control the shutter on my camera without physically touching the camera, which turns out to be really important when you're taking pictures at night, because just the slightest movement will blur everything in your photo. I also looked through my camera's manual and figured out how to lock the mirror up, because apparently even the movement of the mirror in an SLR camera can shake the camera enough to ruin some low-light photos.

So I felt fairly prepared and I took a bunch of pictures of the moon and finally gave up around 4 AM after nearly 2 hours just as totality was ending. I figured I had already seen the first half and the second half would probably be pretty similar. Plus I was really tired and had to work in a few hours.

I ended up with a bunch of photos and I think some even turned out alright. I took a few from the various stages of the eclipse and put together in this montage. You can clearly see the Earth's shadow creeping across the moon from left to right until it completely covers the moon. At that point, the only light reaching the moon to illuminate it is passing through the Earth's atmosphere, which filters out some of the colors, leaving us with this interesting color of the moon.

Macro Me

As I mentioned before, I recently bought a new lens for my camera. One of the reasons I wanted a new lens was because I was getting bored with my camera and its normal lens that came with it (which, if you believe people that spend all their time posting on digital photography forums, isn't the best quality). So this new lens seems pretty nice and was reviewed pretty well for its price. So far I've been very happy with it. It has motivated me in a way because now when I look through my camera, I see a completely different world than I was used to with the old lens.

So I got all excited and I started reading a bunch of stuff on photography websites. One of the things you'll find if you spend a little time reading photography forums is there are some insanely talented photographers out there with unspeakably expensive equipment producing awe-inspiring photos. I don't know whether I am more inspired or discouraged by their work. I guess I'm usually inspired at first, but then when I sit down and look at my photos I get discouraged.

So anyway, as I was reading about all these other photographers, their equipment, and looking at their incredible photos and I started noticing and paying more attention to their macro shots. I've always thought macro photography was interesting, but I've never known anything about it. So I started reading and evaluating my options on what it would take (and cost) to experiment with macro photography. As it turns out, there is a relatively inexpensive lens attachment that can turn my 70-300mm telephoto lens (that I just bought and use for Rian's soccer games) into a lens suitable for macro photography. It's called the 500D and it just screws into the front of a lens like a filter.

Last weekend I placed a big order at adorama for the 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM, the 500D, a 4 gb CF card and a UV filter protector for my lens. The total was a lot, but was actually less than what I payed at Best Buy for just the lens -- including 3-day air shipping. The lesson here is don't buy expensive stuff at your local Best Buy or Circuit City or whatever. Find a good deal online at a reputable website and buy it there. I actually planned to do this all along, but I initially bought the lens at our local Best Buy to make sure that I liked it because it's a lot harder to return things that you buy online. I returned it last week a couple days before my order arrived.

On Friday my shipment arrived and I started taking a ton of really bad macro photos. Since then, I've been taking a bunch of horrible, out-of-focus, blurry photos of really small things: a dead beetle (not to be confused with a dead Beatle), a bunch of activity at the entrance to an anthill, Rian's toys, Lacey's eyes, and anything else I can find. It's actually a lot of fun if you can handle the disappointment of every single photo looking like crap. The fun part is getting up next to something and seeing it in a way that perhaps you've never seen it before.

Fortunately out of a few hundred I actually found two that I'm not embarrassed to share. The first is of a very small dragonfly eating something (it looked like he was eating, but I know nothing about dragonflies so he could have been doing something else) on one of our huge, larger-than-life, fire hazard tumbleweeds that are growing impossibly quickly in our backyard. The second is just a leaf that was growing on a tree in our backyard. It's not actually very interesting, but the remarkable thing is that it isn't horribly out of focus or blurry, so that's why I'm posting it.

This experiment with macro photography has gotten off to a disappointing start, but I think I'm learning and I'd like to think I am, or soon will begin to, very slowly start getting better. So look for more macro shots in the future. Hopefully next time I'll have something interesting to show you.

As always, comments are enabled and I'd love to hear what you have to say.

Soccer Week 3 - Rams vs. Hamsters

Today the Rams won their third game! I'm so proud of them. It's really fun watching these kids play. Before the start of each game the parents all line up in two rows while the teams are announced over a loudspeaker. When the kids hear their names being called out they run through the "tunnel" getting high-fives from all the cheering parents. This is one of Rian's favorite parts about playing soccer. It's pretty cute.

Another one of Rian's favorite parts about playing soccer is the throw-in. He's getting pretty good!

Rian always looks like he's having fun on the field.

Team huddle at halftime!

Rian and Abby sharing a knock-knock joke during a water break.

It's a.... baby turtle!

Yes, it's true. According to Rian there is a baby turtle in mommy's tummy. He informed me while placing stickers on my stomach "for the baby". He then told daddy and even spread the good news to the cashier at Winco. I love Rian's ideas.
We had our 16 week check today. I can't believe how quickly the weeks fly by. We were able to hear the baby's heartbeat again which, according to the nurse, is "perfect". She spent a few seconds trying to get the heartbeat, had it for a split second and then lost it (of course in that split second I started to panic). The nurse moved the Doppler instrument around and found it again, this time the beating was louder and consistent. Rian sat straight up in the chair, his eyes lit up and he exclaimed, "Baby's heartbeat!" This is all so amazing what makes it even more fun is that Rian thinks so too.
We also have an ultrasound scheduled for next month!!! Eek, I can hardly wait!

Soccer Week 2 - Rams vs. Kangaroos

Rian's soccer team, The Rams, played their 2nd game on Saturday vs. the Kangaroos. Everyone had fun and fortunately this time there weren't any tears.

Nobody really keeps score at these games, but we have a couple of kids on the team that score a lot, so I think if anyone did keep track, the Rams would be 2-0. This soccer league doesn't encourage keeping score and does a pretty good job of ensuring equal playing time for all the kids. So it's all friendly like that.

At one point in the game one of our best players scored a goal after having made quite a few earlier in the game. There was a feeling of disappointment in the air like this kid was slowing the game down for some selfish reason. You could see it on the faces of the coaches and parents. It was kind of funny because this kid was trying as hard as he could, and then when he scored everyone kind of sighed and there wasn't much celebration.

Anway, on to the pictures. I had trouble narrowing the field down, so there are quite a few this time...

Rian jumps and calls for the ball as a teammate looks to inbound.

Lacey was working the sidelines.

Looks like someone is about to get hurt.

Oh, thanks for blinking and ruining the picture, buddy! Be warned, Rian does not take botched photos lightly.

Moments later, whatdya know. Rian gives him a REAL reason to blink.

Corner Kick!

Rian Loves the Piano

We got a piano a little over a year ago, but until recently Rian didn't seem very interested in it. At some point in the last month or two, he saw me playing and wanted to come sit next to me on the bench. In the past he had been content to just hit random keys and make some noise, but recently he started noticing that I wasn't just hitting random keys and there was a pattern to what I was doing.

His interest grew, and he began watching my fingers more closely. He expressed interest in learning some actual tunes, so I showed him how to play what I believe was the first song that I learned on the piano. If I recall correctly, my mom showed me how to play this song at a school or church we were cleaning that happened to have a piano in one of the rooms.

I don't even know the name of the song. In fact, I don't even know if it's a real song. But I know how to play it, and so I showed Rian how he could use his knuckles to play the 3 black keys from top to bottom, then Eb twice, repeat, then the 3 black keys from bottom to top, then C#, repeat, etc. It took a little while to get the pattern right in his head and to train those little hands how to hit the keys so they go in the right order, but after a few tries he had it. Instantly, he was hooked.

Since then, he has mastered that first song I showed him and has requested that I teach him how to play the ABC's, Fur Elise, and of course, a Car's song (he's still waiting for me to teach him one of those). Sometimes when he is thinking about it, usually right after we get done playing, he'll sing that first tune he learned and play it on an imaginary piano in front of him. He gets pretty serious when he plays, and if I spend too much time showing him how to play, he'll insist, "ok, Rian's turn." This usually means I need to back off and just let him play (I'm usually barking at him like a drill sergeant - I think it's the best way to teach).

I took some video of him playing a couple weeks ago, but I don't think my computer is capable of editing the video right now, so that's going to have to wait until I get a new computer. This one has lasted me quite a while. I initially bought the parts about 4 years ago, so I think I'm about due for a new one. :)

Rian's First Soccer Game

Rian played his first organized soccer game on Saturday. I think he had a lot of fun. We had one awkward moment when he was getting a little frustrated out on the field and then noticed me on the sidelines and decided he'd had enough. He came running to me with tears in his eyes and I had to push him back out onto the field. Coach John pulled him out and talked to him on the sidelines, and after that everything went smoothly.

All of these pictures were taken using my new 70-300mm telephoto lens that I bought myself for my birthday. I've never really tried to photograph a sporting event before, but it was a little harder than I expected. I missed some really great moments by being just a second too slow, and some shots were ruined by accidentally focusing on the wrong subject. Soccer at this age has some unique challenges due to the fact that the kids tend to bunch together, making it quite difficult to get a good isolated shot. Anyway, it turns out the kids are pretty cute.

Rian looks for a teammate to inbound to as Abby takes cover.

Rian strolls across the field.

Rian surveys the field with Coach Mommy.


Rian, Noah, and Clay size up the competition


Rian perfecting his kick.

Week 14 Photos

I took some pictures of Lacey and Rian this weekend with my new camera lens. I intend to take more photos every couple weeks so we can look back and see her belly grow as we close in on the due date.

I took a set of photos in front of our living room curtains, but I really wasn't happy with them. We don't really have any studio-like places in our house where I can put up a background (even if I had one) and control the lighting, so it was hard to find a place where Lacey and Rian could stand without having a messy house behind them. I ended up throwing a bed sheet up over a couple doors in our bedroom, and it seemed to work out alright.

These photos are low-quality web versions of the originals. If you'd like to have one printed so you can hold it in your hand or put it on the fridge, let me know and I can either print it out myself or send you a print-quality version so you can get it printed.

Catching Up

I have some stories that I should have posted last month but obviously didn't so.....
July 21st: Rian and I were sitting on the couch reading and I leaned back to get more comfortable when the couch squeaked a little which caused Rian to sit up and gasp "Hear that Mommy?". I told him it was just the couch but he didn't believe me. I moved again to show him and this time he told me that the squeaking was the baby talking. He then leaned over to my stomach and said "Oh, hi baby. Good, how are you? Oh, I love you too baby." Then he kissed my stomach and gave me a little hug. Precious.
July 23rd: We had a doctor's appointment today and we were able to hear the baby's heartbeat. It was amazing! Hearing that heart beating at 160 bpm made this whole being pregnant thing so much more real.