Ore to Shore

The weekend of August 10th, we went up to the U.P. Michigan for the Ore to Shore bike race.  It's a race Becky's dad participates in each year and takes grandkids along.  He rented some cabins on a lake near Ishpeming and all his kids with nearly their complete families were there.

The bike race starts in Ishpeming and ends just blocks from Lake Superior.  We went there for some lunch and water fun.

Becky got up early the next morning for some sunrise pictures on the lake where we stayed.

 

And other cool pictures.

Ben found a rainbow of rocks.

Tabby got to play with the cats one last time before Sherry took them back to Michigan. And we got one last picture of Tabby before Becky cut her hair short.  We'll have to get pictures of short hair Tabby sometime later.

MORE! Even MORE Pictures!

Fun pictures with the kids.

Awesome nature pics.

We went to a local kite festival.

I don't remember if this was for a lighting assignment or just because Becky wanted to practice lighting.

 

We visited Mikey in Wausau and he took us out on the Wisconsin River in his boat.

Ryan came home with us for a weekend. We went to a local boat launch onto the Fox River for pictures.

Would you believe this wasn't set up?  Ben was just playing around and Tabby started copying him.

 

Ben set this one up.  "Hey Mom, get a picture of me holding the sun!"

 Becky had an assignment where she was given a list of concepts.  She had to take picture that embodied each concept.  One had something to do with enticing food, though I don't remember what the word was.  I don't think she ended up using this one, but I really liked it.

I don't remember what this word was either, but a cute girls in the flowers captured it.

 

One of the words was "weather".

 

The word she probably had the most difficulty with was "70s".  Until one day Ben walked up the stairs in his Pink Floyd t-shirt and that was it!  Get that boy a bandana around his hair, take him down to the school that had some nice 70s era construction, add in some color fading/grain  and bam!  I think she nailed it.

Becky found a wheat field right out on the east side of Green Bay that screamed "photo op!" to her.  I've got to admit my mind doesn't work like that, but she knows what she's doing.

She even let me take a picture of her.

The weekend before Tabby's birthday, Sherry came up with her crew.  She even brought their cat, Olivia, and her 5 kittens.  Tabby was absolutely in heaven.  The cats stayed in our garage, so Tabby did too.  They made cat cupcakes on Monday for an early birthday celebration before they left.

We actually held the birthday party at Eau Claire Dells since they were heading out to Wausau and its a beautiful park on the way.  There's a nice jumping rock. Here's Sam jumping off the highest point.

Jack (in red trunks) and Brandon (in blue) trying to harass Cheyenne into jumping.  She never did.

But Jack did.

On Tabby's birthday we had another celebration at home.  With fireworks, of course.

More nice nature shots.

Even MORE pictures!

One of Becky's best subjects is, of course, Tabby.

 

 

She also likes taking pictures of Tabby & me holding hands.

 

Remember that Becky likes taking pictures at Fonferek Falls?  We went hiking around there as a family once.  Or a couple times. This is one of them.

 

We saw a snake there.  I guess this is an eastern milk snake.

Becky found some nice spots out by the zoo.

One day we visited Jack in Sheboygan.

Becky invited a family from church, the Raus, to come out to Bayshore park with us for pictures one evening.  As she was taking their picture by a tree she turned and caught this one of me.  Then promptly told me to get out of the way, she was moving the Raus there to get a picture of them before the sun disappeared.

Early in the photography class Becky just finished (with a solid A!) she had an assignment to capture an emotion without showing faces.  10 of them.  That was a challenging creative endeavor.  Becky worked very hard and did an awesome job.  Here are a few.  I especially like this first one of Tabby in line for the ride at Bay Beach.

Of course, while at Bay Beach, Becky also took some pictures that were just for fun rather than for class.

For her midterm assignment (I think?) she had to pick a community related theme and create a portfolio of pictures showcasing it.  Becky picked the Fox River as her theme.

Another assignment Becky had was to take a picture of anything... like these next two of kids playing in a fountain or Ben sitting on a river bank at Pamperin Park.  Then she had to change the picture from something normal to extraordinary by altering something such as lighting or perspective.