Tofino

Well, Let's start with the last photo I took while we were on vacation in Tofino.

Standing on the porch of our cabin looking out over the ocean, and the sliver moon. There is nothing quite like falling asleep to the sound of the waves rolling on the beach.

And now, the first photo of the vacation...

That's right Mom and Dad - we're going on an adventure! Our anniversary and my birthday both roll around in May. It's about the time that the sun starts popping it's head out in the North West, and Ruth and I start feeling the need to stretch our wintered bones. We honeymooned in Tofino and haven't been back since. This year we decided to return.

But this time we brought my Mom and Dad. :)

My parents know us well, and they caught on to the vibe of the trip pretty quickly. It started as most of our little excursions do; looking for the best coffee, trying the island food, and exploring the local shops.

On our way to the west coast of Vancouver Island, we stopped to take in a few local stops, like some small falls, and the old growth forests. Beautiful trails and scenery.

After some incredibly winding roads that I'd almost forgot (never drive to Tofino in the dark), we arrived at the beach :)

We love Tofino. Not much else we can say about it. I found going back this time, that I felt a deep sense of peace. I really didn't want to leave when we did, and I felt very peaceful while we were there. It really is a special place. When the tide went out, me and Ruth and Dad headed down to the beach to look for sea life!

This has to be one of my favorite photos of me and my Dad so far. Me; trying to hold in the excitement of holding cool creepy crawlies. Dad; not afraid to show excitement at all. The expression on my face; I am a serious scientist. The expression on Dad's face; I am a tourist!

We kept turning over more rocks and finding larger crabs. Ruth knew all about beach combing but it was new to me.

We also decided to take a day trip out on a boat to possibly see some wildlife, but mostly to enjoy the views, and share a meal out in the Broken Islands near Ucluelet. It was a great day.

Apparently Dad saw something astonishing!

We were in between seasons for the whales. The grey whales were headed out of the inlet and humpbacks hadn't quite arrived yet. So they told us not to expect to see anything. What we saw instead was a humpback whale breaching closer to the boat then most people ever get to see. I don't photograph whales, I don't really ever believe I'll get a shot, but one of the other tourists on the boat was a fellow shutter bug and managed to get this shot of me watching the whale just as it leapt into the air. Good reflexes!

And then later in the week, Mom went to the spa while Ruth and I went kayaking. Dad hung around on the beach and then we all went out for dinner, and watched the sun set on the surfers.

We also went on some hikes around our cabin. Such a peaceful place to be.

And when the sun went down we chilled out in our beautiful little cabin, the same style of cabin we stayed in on our honeymoon. It was great.

But after several days, it was time to head home. I spent one last evening on the beach photographing the waves before heading back to the ferry.

On the way back home we hooked up with big sis Joanne and had another great meal. It was a lot of really good meals, good scenery, and good company. We got to relax but we got to have fun too. I personally can't wait to go back. Next time we're doing storm season! :)

Been a while?

I don't disagree.

It's been a long time since we've blogged. I have plenty of blame to pass around. First I'll blame blogger. Did anyone notice how that upgrade to the post editor removed the ability to drag and drop photos?

Lame.

However, they're new extra large photo format...   I dig it. Ruth and I have always intended this to be a photo blog, so anything that makes the photos more presentable is alright with me. I haven't decided what I think of the template yet. This is Minema stretch? Vote yes or no in the comments if you like the old template better. I can't decide, there's a bunch of things I'd like to fix but messing with html for me is like making a sandwhich in the dark.

I'd also like to blame facebook. Facebook really does make it easy to stay in touch with family, upload photos, chat amongst friends. I guess I wasn't even sure who still read our blog regularly. Well regardless of who reads it, these words and photos are going out into the airways anyways.

Ultimately, the blame is mine. I've been lazy and aimless this year. 2009 has not been a year I'd toast to, as it wasn't for many people. I've actually had more time to do things creative this year, and less desire to do them. Not sure how that works but it's been that way for Ruth and I both.

So I'm going to empty the archives and post a few photos that I just never got around to posting. So here's a few snapshots of the last 6 months or so.

This is another thing I blame for blogger inactivity. Home reno's...

The goal is to finish the basement so it becomes an actual usable space. It's been work but not the kind you think. I'm not doing any of it, we're contracting it out, but making decisions and hiring people is exausting. I wish I could do the work myself instead of greeting strangers at the door everyday at 8am to walk downstairs and cause chaos, walk out and charge money for it all. It's nice to be able to afford it. It's difficult to not be able to do it myself. It's just not one of my gifts.

Here's some other great photos I've been hanging onto for sometime (more then 6 months).

Becasue there are no longer employment complications...  I think it's safe for me to post these photos of me on a motion capture set  I went to, to test some equipment for a company I used to work for. The photos were taken by a co-worker for research purposes, but they were also pretty funny.

This winter we got a chance to go skiing with Ruth's dad Eric. It was his birthday present, and our treat. It was great to spend a couple days on the mountain. Beautiful weather too.

I've still been photographing God's scaley critters. This past fall, a friend of mine sent me a fertilized chameleon egg so that I could photograph a hatchling chameleon (one of my favorite things to photograph). Last month on one of my routine checks of the egg, instead of seeing a little white globe. I saw this...

Pretty cool. (To me anyway).

Let's see what else...

We had a grease fire in which God showed us how He's taking care of us despite ourselves.

Ruth made cupcakes for me on Valentines day. Yum!

I mowed the lawn in December. Mowing leaves is better then raking them. :)

Oh yeah, here's a funny one. Last year, Ruth and I posed for my friends board game called Last Night on Earth. It's a zombie game played on a board with cards and miniatures. I was asked to pose as "Victor; the escaped convict", and Ruth posed as a zombie. Some of you might remember my halloween costume from 2008, this is where it came from. This winter the game was printed and made ready for distribution, so we finally got to see some of the photos and press. There are more we will share sometime soon, but this is the pne photo I had handy. That's me in front. Ruth is the zombie over my shoulder on the right.

Well, that's all I got for now. I'll try to post more often but I can't make any promises. I've loved this blog, I really don't want to abandon it.

This last fall while I was filling the yard waste bin, I found this fascinating little blue snail. All yardwork came to an end while I shot it. Now what am I supposed to do with photos like that unless I have a blog? If I stop doing yardwork to shoot a little snail and I don't post, then it's a waste of time. It's just a photo in a file on my hard drive. Now it's in cyberspace where it should be.