On Friday night, instead of heading up to the lake, like I had planned, we stayed home. The kids all had plans, so I spent an enjoyable evening dealing with all the photos on my hard drive. Thousands of them. In a variety of folders. All needing to be organized.
I worked on them for hours and felt pretty good once the night was done. I had cleaned up about 800 of them, and deleted a whack of others, freeing up 15% of my hard drive memory space.
On Saturday, the kids were far more open to the idea of getting out of town. I was packed and sitting in the truck at 1:00 pm. Clint started to get dressed about then. We left the driveway at 2:00. After a quick stop for groceries, we made it into the lake area at 3:30 pm.
It as been a longstanding tradition for me (5 years or so) to take pictures of the kids on the Thanksgiving weekend. The colours are spectacular and they still have a tennsy bit of summer glow left on their faces. By December they look pastey and pale, so I like to take our annual Christmas Card photo in october.
At 3:30 pm on Saturday it was cloudy with a few sunny breaks. "If we hurry, I might still be able to get some nice shots" I thought to myself. However. I was not driving... and as we twisted past the Marina, Clint noticed Kevin's truck in the parking lot.
"Kevin's here!" he said excitedly. "He must be buying clothes."
He pulled a U-Turn on a curvy stretch of road and parked beside his uncle.
"I'll be right back. Just wanna see if there's any deals..."
We arrived at the cabin at 4:45pm.
"Can we go straight to the dock for some photos?" I ask.
"It's too late now. Besides, I need to go up to Stillwood." Clint says.
So after we unpack the truck, he heads out with my Durango, and I take my camera for a walk.
The clouds drift out of the way, and just before the sun slips behind the moutain, it shines on the shoreline, brightening up the golden trees.
Clint comes back 15 minutes later, so I call for him and his brothers to join me at the lake for a few photos.
They saunter out with an assortment of props (caps, jackets, head bands) and do some outrageous Zoolander poses for me.
I'm working as fast as I can, but the sun is setting and it's really far too dark for portraiture.
Naturally, the next morning brings clear skies and brilliant sunshine. But with all the fiddling I did the day before, I have limited battery power and even less space on the card.
Even so, I manage to take a great collection of casual shots of the kids while they play with guns, take turns riding the quad and do a few more Zoolander poses.
With 12 shots left on the camera, we packed up to head back home.
"Hope you guys don't mind if I stop the truck if I happen to see some breathtaking scenery that I have to capture..." I warn them.
"I'll drive," Clint offers. "And, lets go up through the valley. I bet there are some great shots out that way."
So we head up into the valley and get spooked by dead end roads, shotgun shots, and weird- looking hitch hikers on desserted back roads. But they all got into the "hunt" for a great scenic photo.
Sunday night, with the kids at their dad's for Thanksgiving, I found myself home alone with my computer.
It took two and a half hours to download the images from my camera onto my computer. Then each image needed some photosphop work because they were taken in the dark. I worked on them for 6 hours ...putting them into new files when they were done, and deleting the untouched version from the original file as I went along in an effort to keep my memory usage as low as possible.
I lost my spot at the computer at 11:00 pm when they got back.
Clint wanted the pictures of him sent over to his computer via MSN. And Max wanted to play with the images of him on my computer. They were very pleased with the results.
My turn to get back on the computer came at 4:30 pm this afternoon. Thanksgiving dinner and October birthdays were being celebrated here, so when my dad and mom arrived, I ushered them over to my computer. I brought up the files I had made of the kids and set it to "Slideshow" so they watch.
The file was empty.
"Oh well," says Clint. "That's never happened to me on my computer."
"Don't worry about it mom," says Max. "It's no big deal."
My brother in law looked for the missing images for hours tonight.
They're gone.
It took the fun right out of Thanksgiving.
Clint went through my costume box and re-lived his childhood with gleeful abandon.
That green top Clint has on under the chopped up elephant costume? It was the Peter Pan tunic he wore when he was 4. Back in '91 it covered his body from his neck to his knees. He's grown taller. But not wider.
