Benj, Melinda, Jason, Kaitlin, and Samantha

Update!

School was canceled again today!!!! We have only had about an inch of snow total all week, but it sure has been fun having Benj home.

Snow day!

Snow in Portland from Benjamin Lloyd on Vimeo.

Benj has had 4 days off of work this week so far because of snow! We think they should just call it a week and cancel school tomorrow too. Got to love Oregon and snow. :-)

I'm almost done with my N64 portable project. It doesn't look like much right now but I think I have everything worked out, I just need to build a case for it all. I'm thinking about using acrylic but I've never had much luck with cutting acrylic. Here are the pics.

Update: Bryan, you wanted proof so here's the progress. I'm just working on finishing the case and I just found out that it doesn't handle having two inputs for the 1st player controller so I have to make a switch that enables handheld mode or plugin mode. Other than that everything is done and working except finishing the sides on the case. It's not the prettiest thing in the world but fully functional.

Pioneer Woman has some new Actions!

Pioneer Woman just added some great new actions on her website for you to download for free! Check out what they can do for your pictures.

Here is Jason's picture SOOC (straight out of the camera). When I fist saw it I thought it turned out really well. The lighting is great and the focus is good. Then I ran a couple of actions and played around with some settings in Photoshop. I love how vibrant the colors look and the nice highlights in his hair and eyes. The changes are subtle, but sure make a difference.

I think this is my new favorite picture of him. I think I might have the stinking cutest kid around :-).

Oxbow Park

We have been having wonderful weather lately here in Portland. Saturday was beautiful so we decided to get outside and enjoy the sunshine. We drove to Oxbow Park. It was really cold, but Jason had a wonderful time throwing rocks into the river and Benj and I had fun taking some pictures.
I love my little boy!
My handsome husband!

Jason LOVES to throw rocks.... of all sizes.....

Project N64

So, I'm really excited about this project and it's coming along nicely. I've finally started practicing soldering and I have been learning a lot and felt more comfortable with it. I was lucky enough to inherit an N64 and as luck would have it our portable DVD just died. The logical next step. . . a portable Nintendo 64. I've already gotten the power worked out so that I am on just one power source. The next step will be to start making some things smaller so they will fit in a case. It may not end up being the most portable thing in the world but I'm sure I will have bragging rights for my creation.

O Tannenbaum

So it's not like we're the only people in the world to have a Christmas tree but we are pretty excited. Our tiny apartment didn't fit one last year and it is nice to have a little Christmas cheer on a cold and rainy day in Portland.

Thanksgiving

We sure love our family and had a great Thanksgiving. We got to spend some time with Benj's family and my family in Washington. We are so thankful for them and for all of our blessing!

Benj's family has a tradition that everyone in the family makes a pie. We ended up with some really really good pies this year.

Jason had a lot of fun playing with all the toys at both Grandma's houses. He especially loved playing with his cousins and aunts and uncles. He sure loves his family.

Cousin Reece and Jason had a fun bath together and even helped each other get clean. It was funny.

My new hobbie

So I have fallen in love with Photoshop and the fun you can have with making pictures look better. A while back I found a killer deal on a great SLR Digital camera on Craig's list. I have been having fun learning how to use it and plan on some day soon taking a class to learn more. I also love reading and learning about Photoshop because if you take a picture that is not perfect you can play around with different settings until it looks better. This picture Benj took at my sister's wedding with our little point and shoot camera. Ok, so I am not vain. I just thought this picture would show a good contrast between not so good and better. Focus on the photo quality and not me :-). You can see that the straight out of the camera (SOOC) shot is way too dark in some spots and way too light in others.

I ran a couple of actions in Photo Shop to show you the difference.

My new favorite website is The Pioneer Woman. She has a section on photography where you can learn a ton and see her amazing photos. She also has great photo shop actions that you can download for FREE! Check it out!

Flame On

The Flam'n Fury 3 Piece won out. Here's what it ended up looking like.

Civic Duty

I need some advice. I am redoing a motorycle seat cover and since I'm going to all the trouble to take off the old cover and fix up a new one, I decided I would invest a little more effort to personalize. I have four different ideas for graphics. They are just as pictured, red on a black background. Which do you prefer?

Quick get outside it's not raining!

The sun was um sort of shinning and the rain stopped for a little while so we went outside to play. I had to take a picture of Jason's great fashion sense. He dressed himself this morning and insisted on wearing all aspects of this great outfit. I was folding laundry and he discovered his pajama shirt made by Grandma Lloyd. After hugging, kissing, and reminding me who made it we put it on.

He is just so cute :-)

Family Portrait Night

We got a little bit bored on this lazy Sunday so we decided to have some family drawing time. Here's the combined effort at a family portrait.

And here's one of Jason's handywork.

Fright Night

Halloween came and went this year and it was a blast. Jason had the coolest costume around, it has matching gloves and mask but he wasn't in the mood for that part by the time we broke the camera out. Thanks grandma and grandpa. We only had the spirit to do one solitary jack-o-lantern but hey, at least we did one right?