Memorial Day Weekend 2011 | Day 1

I love that I get ALMOST as excited about seeing my photos from a vacation, as I do about the actual vacation. 

Seeing my guys’ excitement over our plans for this past weekend was enough to slightly blind me to the actual feat we were attempting – camping for the first time with our 3 boys … one being only 17-months-old.   We’ve been looking forward to this trip – a 3D Traditional Archery Shoot in Tygh Valley, Oregon (put on by the Traditional Archers of Oregon) – for nearly a year, and let me tell you … we’re already looking forward to the next.

So, let’s begin…

First, this is never a good way to start a Memorial Day Weekend road trip.

… so we went straight from there to get donuts, to bring our spirits back up…

Over Mt. Hood we went, and through rain and snow I peeked at Matt out of the corner of my eye, and asked, “What are the chances we will be camping in snow?”  He assured me, ‘not very good.’  Good thing he is usually right.  By the time we got to Tygh Valley, the blue sky was massive, the clouds puffy and white, and we were very hopeful for a wonderful time.

We couldn’t have asked for a better location to camp.  The shoot was settled on the top of a plateau above Tygh Valley, which is quite literally in the middle of no-where.  So the views were crazy amazing and I (as you will see) couldn’t quite get over the beauty of the landscape.  Enter kids having a great time, and the photo ops were in abundance.

Friends from our hometown were also attending and we planned on camping ‘next-door’ to each other … and although our kiddos know each other pretty well, it was hilarious to watch them slowly get reacquainted.

Um, is this awkward or what??  Even the dog looks unsure…

Thankfully, it didn’t take long to get comfortable.

Once we got our camp set up (including our obnoxious but rather totally necessary 12-man tent) the shooting began (archery – my photography shooting was well underway).

Matt with a sleeping Kaden on his back …

Gager….

… and Coop…. yes, that is a 4-year-old, drilling a fake buck with a bow and arrow his daddy made for him.  Gotta love it.

I’m not sure if I have ever seen anything as cute as these four little boys shooting their bows and talking ‘technical’ about hunting.  I wish I could have recorded their smack-talking.

“Hey guys!  Do you think I can hit it in the kill zone?!?”

I love this shot … both because of the landscape, but also because it shows the guys trying to figure out which-in-the-heck-way-to-go.

My parents and older brother, Bart, showed up a few hours after we did and our camp grew, as did the good time.  Here’s Matt, putting up the ginormous tarp my dad brought, to protect us from the anticipated rain …  in case I’ve never mentioned it, Matt’s half-monkey.

The crew took a break from playing to get down to bid-nis and do some chores …

Here’s a hoot … our little neighbor boys, showing what it is to play “bull-ridin’”.

Alrighty … enough talking … here are some that don’t really need any explanation …

(Oh, except, below is my brother Bart, carrying Cooper.  He (my brother, not Cooper) was SUCH a huge help with our boys.  They just love him.)

So, that was our first day, and if I could have just paused the camping trip here, and skipped to the next morning at 6:00am, I totally would… more about that tomorrow!!

{For any photogs viewing this, I took all of these photos with my 85mm 1.8D and did all of my editing of ALL of my images in ACR, with the exception of a tad bit of cloning out distracting things and my resizing/sharpening for web.  That is the WAY to go when you’re editing 88 photos in one day!}

 

 

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