Jesus is Dead.

The other night, the kids turned off most of the lights in the living room. By Christmas Tree light, Hope started reading a little Christmas tree ornament book to Alex. At one point, she looked up at Larissa, and asked "Will we still celebrate Christmas after Little Lord Jesus dies?"

Larissa, casually looked over her shoulder and said "Oh, Jesus is dead."

Well, Alex started crying, so Larissa piped up again..."Oh, Alex - Jesus has been dead for, like, 2000 years." Didn't help.

We have never seen Alex so upset - he must have cried and moped around for 30 min.

Larissa is not allowed to explain anything to the kids for a while.

-by André

Horses and Christmas

NO, we did not get Hope a horse for Christmas!

This past week I had the opportunity to go along with Hope to her riding lesson. She is a good little rider, and good with her 'horse lesson' horse (pony actually) - called Candy.





Earlier in the day I took a couple hours from work to go and see Hope's Christmas performance at school - she looked so cute up on stage!



-by Andre

Photos from the Workshop

On November 24th and 25th, the Village of Gagetown held Christmas in the Village – where local artisans and shops welcome guests to do some special Christmas shopping. Photo Fredericton organized a Field Trip / Workshop and a number of us went out there and had fun shooting and teaching. While I was initially not overly excited about my photographic results from the day – I had an enjoyable time getting to know a fellow photographer. While I was editing this evening, I realized I had number of photos I was quite happy about.




Christmas in the Village 2007

-André

Recent events

At the End of November - Hope Playing in the snow...

The kids were excited to get our first little bit of snow - maybe an inch. It was enough to make some snow angels and slide around. Even dad made some snow angles with Hope. I had to take these shots 'cause Hope's face was the same colour as her Jacket! By this time Alex had vanished inside.

December 1st - Annual Pre-Xmas Party (and my b-day!)

Our party this year was a little late - we try to have it in the middle of November but we were a little late this year. The party is for friends, family and neighbours - kids welcome. We always collect 'food bank' food...this year we got 69 pieces...and had lots of fun!



We began to put up the tree the day after the party - well we got the tree and the lights up. The next day we (ah..mainly the kids) put on the decorations..... It was Alex's first time, as we were in transit last year, and the year before - well - he was 18 months old. :)

SNOW!!!
The evening of Dec. 3 - 30-40 cm of snow fell !!!! It is WINTER!!!

-by André

New lens - Canon EF 70-210mm f3.5-f4.5 USM

The classic Canon EF 70-210mm f3.5-f4.5 USM, pictured above, with details at http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/eos/EF-lenses/EF80200mmf28L/index1.htm#EF70210mmf3545USM

I was looking for something to fulfill the telephoto end of my kit, since I got rid of my Canon 75-300mm f4-f5.6 USM. I would love one of the Canon Pro 70-200 models (they have 4 models ranging in price from about $800 to over $2,000). This lens is better than my old 75-300, even though it was discontinued over 10 years ago. The auto focus is super fast...and it was about $200 (shipping included) from e-bay. Good enough to hold off buying one of the $$$$ lenses, at least until I can come up with a SANE reason ;)

Enough about the technical ramblings...here are a few test shots taken last night. Flash bounced left and up, Canon 20D, f4.5, 1/100-1/160sec. all focal lengths, and ISO 800.

Aren't they cute?

-André

Jesse Cook comes to Fredericton!

AND WE HAD TICKETS!!!!!

It was a sold out show - with 2 encores and an unplugged version of 'Fall at your feet'. The show was fantastic - what a talented musician.

http://www.jessecook.com/

I must say, it was probably the best show so far - for us - at the playhouse.

YAY!!!

-André

Moncton and Crystal Palace

The Bobers and the Reinders made a trek to Moncton on the holiday Monday (Nov.12). Our destination was Crystal Palace - the kids had lots of fun on the rides. We also stopped for an ice cream and a coffee, and played a round of mini golf!.
-André

Laptop + Starbucks

Well, a first for me! A little late mind you, but I finally made it to a 'hot spot' in a coffee shop with my laptop to do some work.... kinda fun this mobile computing...well back to work! (Photo Editing)
Cheers!
-Andre

Family Halloween Party

We hosted a family Halloween party where we invited family, friends and neighbours to come over and take part in some crafts, pot-luck lunch and some socializing. The kids made pumpkins, bats, and dug through spaghetti 'brains' looking for grape 'eyeballs'. We ran out of time to carve pumpkins, but - oh, well. I think we all had fun.

I took these with my Olympus Verve, paying little attention to form or composition ;)



-André

Sold again.....

We heard from a previous neighbour in Calgary that our old house just sold for about $480,000! We have no regrets though, we also heard that it took them 8 months of renovations and about $60,000 of materials....should look pretty good for that price!
-André

Fall

I didn't get around to much Fall Photography. However, here is a shot I took when the kids and I went to Nackawic a while ago...a couple of backlit leaves on the grass. Fuji 800 speed film in my Canon Elan 7N - I believe I had my 28-105mm f3.5-4.5 lens attached. The imaged was scanned by the lab, and tweaked on the PC to reduce noise and boost the colour a little.



Oh, here is the main reason we went - the BIG AX!



-André