A Business Update & The First Day(s) of K

First of all, a quick business item...

I've now closed the calendar to new bookings for the remainder of 2011. If you'd hoped to schedule a family session or a newborn session or a birthday appointment for a little one, please accept my apologies and know that I truly wish I could take every possible booking. I love sharing in your family's milestones and capturing those special memories. Unfortunately, the reality is that my time is limited and at this point, I balance work with a very busy family life. I never want to shortchange my clients or my family, and so I need to be mindful of not overextending myself. I hope that you understand and are able to maintain balance yourself -- whether it's work, the start of school, new lessons, sports seasons, a combination of these, or whatever else has you occupied this fall.

Moving on to the purely personal side of things, and because a post is never complete without a photo (or two or three...), here is some documentation of the Clausen kids' first couple days of school. On a side note: Thank goodness the first week was a short one! I'm not sure which family member was most tired last night, but we were ALL in the running...

A quick shot of all three before we headed in to their new classrooms:



And then the focus fell mostly on the little miss, who was starting kindergarten -- and was practically bursting with excitement about it all.













The next day was her first time riding the bus, so I brought my camera to the bus stop to capture a little bit of that as well:



Could that backpack be any bigger?? She wanted one with wheels, and it sure looked smaller online...







And she was off!

The first three days of school, at least, we great ones for all three Clausen kids. Let's hope the remainder of the school year is as fun and as smooth...

Ballerina Girl

Foxy performed in her second ballet recital this past weekend, right on the heels of our big family road trip. I was a little worried that she'd have some trouble -- she'd missed the last four classes leading up to the show -- but with the help of a friend who emailed us a video of the dance, she knew her stuff and was thrilled to perform. It helps that the teacher takes the stage along with kids this age!

She wasn't into taking many photos, as she much preferred to get her fanny backstage and hang out with the performers. But I did snap a few, just to document how very grown up she seems in full costume and make-up.











And the venue didn't allow videography or flash photography, not that that stopped a lot of the parents in the audience. I'm a rule-follower, though, so I was grateful for my flashless still camera.





Today she has her pre-kindergarten doctor's appointment. School starts in just eight days!

Long Time No See

Are you one of the handful of people who read my post awhile back which declared I would blog every day for the rest of the summer? And did you wonder what the heck happened to that promise?

Well here's my answer in a nutshell: I was crazy.

Actually, I did know that I had a couple of exciting trips coming up, and I thought that with that kind of material, it would be a lot of fun to post a few shots each day. But blogging from the road is harder than I thought. First, the logistics of travel, plus the time change and access issues in England made it a challenge to keep up daily blogging while there. So I kind of failed right out of the gate.

Then, when I returned from the UK, I ran smack dab into a hard reality: I had THREE DAYS to prepare my family for a two-week RV road trip. As I sat down that first morning with my cup of coffee and my notepad, the to-dos rapidly stacked up and before I knew it I had 39 on the list. And the list just kept getting longer.

And then. Then! I did hit the road for the RV trip, and I blogged those camera snaps from the first night. But I also spazzed and thought that I would be a HUGE dope if I broadcast to the world -- aka, the dozen or so people who might stumble onto my blog -- that we'd be out of town and our house would be sitting empty for two whole weeks. Doesn't that just scream, "Why don't you bust in and take the few valuables I have?" Not that anyone reading my blog is that kind of a person, but hey... You just never know how things will go.

However, I did want to share photos of our trip with friends and family, and I did want to keep up blogging, so I set up a new site and sent the address to my mom and Brian's mom and a few others. And now that our trip is coming to a close and our house will be reoccupied in short order, I figured that it made sense to post the link to that second blog here.

If you've read this far, and if you have any interest in seeing a lot of vacation pics of these little nut jobs, then by all means click here.



And please accept my apologies if you happened to have been sitting around these last few weeks, waiting for me to make good on that promise. I hope you had other, more trustworthy people keeping you company here on the Internet. :)

Road Trip!!

I know that I fell woefully short on the blogging this week, and I promise that all will be explained.

Eventually.

Just not right now.

For now, I give you: iPhone snaps from an itty bitty little roadtrip.

I'm Like A Bird

I'm flying away from England tomorrow. As sad as that is, I've got a lot to look forward to in the next few weeks. The remainder of the summer will be good. And it will be photographed. :)



Mr. Bird, above, is courtesy of Sunday morning in Hyde Park.

Saturday in London

Brian and I arrived in London Friday evening and -- after dumping our things at the appropriately named Darlington Hotel -- walked along Hyde Park and down Oxford Street before meeting our friend Roufa at (again, appropriately!) a rooftop bar.

That was the start of a very long, very fun evening. Among other things, we dined on tapas, mugged for our cell phone cameras, and popped in and out of a number of nightspots, including the Ice Bar. (Talk about tourist experience with a capital "T," but we loved every frigid minute!) I hadn't realized that it would stay light until almost 10:00, or I would have brought my camera along. Ah, well... we filled our phones with cell snaps that prompted many hearty laughs the next day.

And that next day was soooo much fun. Despite getting a rather late start, we ended up seeing a great deal of London by foot and by bike, starting with a walk through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens:





Then we met up Roufa again at the amazing Portobello Market.





There were oodles of antiques, plus sights and sounds abound...











I found the most AWESOME souvenir at this print shop; I picked up intials for everyone in our family and a funky way to display them.



After that, we procured some rent-a-bikes and set out to see more of the city. I was a half-second late on this snap; I meant to catch him checking out Page 1 of the 35-page rental agreement:



I believe that the words being uttered here were "Awwwwwwww yeah!"



Then we were off. I snapped this one at the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain, which is a very cool place for kids and families to splash around:



Then, after a quick ice cream, we were off to cycle by many more parks, monuments and ideal subjects for touristy snaps...



















Westminster Abbey:



Then some snaps along the waterfront:







And finally, we cabbed it over to Brick Lane, where we enjoyed a unique dining experience. Just as we were warned, men lurked outside every.single.establishment, wheeling and dealing and trying to smooth talk us into choosing their restaurant (A round of free drinks! Twenty percent off! TWO rounds of free drinks!). It actually got a little wearying after a awhile, so we selected and waited a few minutes and then enjoyed a great Indian meal to a thumping techno beat.



After our experience on Brick Lane, Roufa (uber host!) walked us around and into a couple of watering holes before we finally cabbed it back to the Darlington and collapsed. I was TIRED.