Best Shot(s) and Other Shots Monday--Smorgasbord

It's been a busy week photo-wise, so I'm going to have to incorporate my Best Shot(s) into a blog post to get caught up. Some of the photos below I would consider part of my best shots for the week, and others just part of the story. You can see other folks' best shots for the week at Tracey's Picture This.

My friends Yvonne and Justin and I get together on a regular basis to talk photos and take photos. We call ourselves the Photopeeps. Last Wednesday, we did a little photoshoot at our place with Yvonne's dog Barko and Cadence dressed up in costumes. Cadence barely fit into her catsuit, as this would be the 3rd year of her wearing it, but she was really into pretending to be a kitty. More like a little lion, perhaps...

I have to say, though, she makes a pretty cute kitty.

She's starting to look like such a KID. I mean, just look at that hair. She actually has enough for it to be blowing in the wind. She was such a bald baby for so long, I didn't think this day would come.

Saturday evening, Ted, Dave, Cadence and I headed to University Village for a Half Acre Beer tasting at Lush Wine and Spirits.

[For those of you who haven't heard, Ted is now a resident small batch brewer for Half Acre, which is a new Chicago beer company that just put out a lager over the summer. It's available in a bunch of places in Chicago right now—some liquor stores, a few Jewels, a couple 7-Elevens, some Whole Foods and other specialty grocers, especially in the Bucktown/Wicker Park area. If you like interesting lagers, you should check them out. Andrew Huff, the editor of Gapers Block has given it his seal of approval. Go to Half Acre's website, and you'll see a plug for Ted's brew blog in the right hand column.]

Dave's best friend (and Ted's former roommate) Keom met up with us at Lush. We went to Pompei for dinner, which is an old favorite haunt of Ted's from back when he lived at 800 South (the apartment where he and ALL his brothers lived at one point or another, as well as some close friends).

Keom's one of my favorite people. For one thing, we share a love of some of the same bands and we always talk music together. He's also fun to banter with on just about anything.

After dinner, we stopped in at Keom's new apartment in Pilsen. Cadence was delighted to find that a kitty lived there too, although I don't think the kitty was too happy about Cadence. Poor kitty…

Speaking of poor kitty, we (including Dave) went to Ted's parents' house in the burbs on Sunday, partly to deliver some framed photos of Sniper, the family cat, who died two weeks ago today. Sniper lived a long (16 years?) and happy life, free to roam and hunt in the woods on the property. Cadence was quite fond of Sniper, and I'm not sure she understands what's happened. She knows that he's not at Grandma and Grandpa's any more, but she did ask for him when we visited.

Another reason for our visit yesterday was to attend a bike race in Carpentersville that our friend Dave Norton was competing in. Since it was unseasonably warm out yesterday, Dad and (Uncle) Dave took a ride to the race in his Cobra. Dad took the long winding scenic route, and it was just lovely. I happened to catch this shot of Dave with his arms in the air. With the pretty fall foliage all around, it was quite a pretty drive indeed.

The race was just about to start when we got to the park, and all the riders were bunched together just waiting for the signal to start. This race is part of the 2007 Chicago Cyclocross Cup which will culminate in the final race in December at Montrose Harbor in Chicago.

We located our friend Dave amongst the crowd of cyclists. He looked pretty calm to me while waiting for the race to begin.

Cyclocross racing looks really challenging, as it requires not just cycling, but a variety of terrain AND dismounting and carrying your bike over obstacles at certain points. I think doing this for one lap would be more than enough for me. I don't know how these folks do it lap after lap.

We cheered for Dave whenever he passed us. Unfortunately, we were too far from the finish line at the end of the race so we didn't actually see him finish. In fact, HE didn't even know the race was over and thought he had another lap.

Cadence wore her cycle shirt for the occasion. Maybe watching the race will inspire her to be a cyclist someday. Her name would fit right into the sport, as 'cadence' is a cycling terminology.

Cadence fell asleep soon after we drove away from the bike race, and since Dundee has two microbreweries around the corner from each other, Ted and Dave decided to stop for a pint, while I stayed by the car so Cadence could keep napping. We parked facing the Fox River, and I took some photos of the seagulls soaring over my head. The sky was so blue, and the white birds literally glowed in the late afternoon sunlight as they would catch the wind in their wings and soar higher and higher [yikes, that sentence sounded way too much like a Bette Midler song!]. Watching them, I had to conclude that flying probably never gets old, even for a bird.

We went back to Ted's parents' house to have a little afternoon tea and cake (or limeade for Cadence) before we hit the road back into the city.

Cadence of course wanted to see the neighbor's horses, so we had to stop on our way out by the little pasture. Unfortunately, the horses were in the stable, and we could only see the baby horse's hindquarters.

Oh, the photo above? Cadence's finger was in her nose just moments before it was taken. For Grandma's sake, though, I waited until she took her finger out before I pressed the shutter.

Best Shots Monday--Playing with Color and Perspective

I recently got myself Marina's Underground Set List for Adobe Lightroom. These are basically different settings (presets) that can be applied to my RAW (uncompressed)images in Lightroom to achieve specific looks. They are a lot of fun to play with. You can apply the setting and then adjust the exposure, color, etc to make the photo look the way you want it to. The setting I used for this one is called Mello MaiTai3.

It kind of gives the photos an aged, yet dreamy feel to 'em, which I really like. For those of you who have cameras that can shoot in RAW format, I highly recommend it. You have much more options when you edit photos for correcting exposure and color and whatnot. I've been shooting exclusively in RAW since Lauren's wedding.

Something else that I continue to play with is getting a different angle or perspective on my photos by "shooting from the hip." Basically, that means shooting without looking through the viewfinder. I often put the camera all the way to the ground to get a bug's eye view, so to speak. My aim kinda sucks, so I never know what I'm gonna get.

Like this shot here...That's not what I was going for at all. I meant to get Cadence in the shot, but of course I was too close and my aim too poor. Still, I really like the result, which I think is more interesting than what I would've gotten had I actually gotten all of Cadence in the shot.

Go see more folks' Best Shots for the week on Tracey's Picture This!

Girl Time!

Sunday was girl-fest for Cadence and me. While Ted and our neighbor Chad were sweating away brewing a batch of Nut Brown Ale, we girls spent the afternoon with my cousin Kris. We had lunch at Charmer's Cafe on Jarvis and hung out afterwards at our place. When Ted finished brewing, we all hung out on the porch sipping our beverages and just enjoying being lazy. Of course, Cadence was napping during this part, or there was no way we would have been allowed to be LAZY.

In the evening, we met up with Miss Mia and some of the girls from Team Do!Boo! at a newish Korean restaurant called Su Ra in Wicker Park. Ted brought some homebrews, which was much appreciated, especially by Melissa and her husband Andrew who are thinking of homebrewing. Ted was totally happy to have folks to talk to about beer, I was happy to see the girls and have some Korean food, and Cadence wasn't too bad off either with all the emoh's (aunties) there to dote on her.

Team Do!Boo! is a group that Miss Mia formed a few years ago with some of the Korean American girls she was hanging out with. We formed a collective of creative types, kind of like a Korean American all-girl art gang. We've gotten together to learn how to cook Korean food or study the Korean language. Some of the girls have done spoken word performances together. I haven't hung out too much with Team Do!Boo!, considering I got pregnant right about the time we formed as a group, but I still like keeping in touch and spending time with them.

I promised Mia I would post this photo of nose-picking Cadence and the girls. Actually, I have to consider Cadence a member of Team Do!Boo! because she's been to almost all the events with me, either in my uterus or as a baby and toddler. Like how many kids could say they've been in a Korean American all-girl art gang from the time they were in utero? Not too many, I would think.

Best Shot(s) Monday--Cadence: A Symphony in Multiple Movements

I am sad to say that I lost ¾ of Saturday to a god-awful migraine. I finally got desperate and called my mother to send me real migraine drugs via my brother. I haven't taken any of the more potent migraine pills since prior to getting pregnant w/ Cadence, but I just couldn't take it any more. Thankfully, my brother Jim brought drugs and food, so I was sufficiently revived by 6pm to take Cadence out for the last hour of daylight to play at our favorite park on the lakefront.

Here she is conducting an imaginary orchestra of trees, grass, leaves and pebbles while munching on an apple at the park.

And here she is commanding the lake and the rocks to give her more crescendo. Or maybe she's playing a fiddle? Who knows. She's quite dramatic with the hand gestures as of late.

She did actually get some swinging in, although she seems bored with most of the playground equipment nowadays.

Although she got into some good old-fashioned pole-swinging. I used to do that for hours on my grammar school playground.

And, of course, there was running involved. She sure took a long time eating that apple, too, I might add.

Finally, we're back home taking a breather. Oh, ignore the crumbs on the carpet, please. I didn't feel like taking out the vacuum cleaner just to take a few shots.

And that's it for my best shots for this week. Go see more at Tracey's Picture This!

Birthday Outing--Recap in Photos

Here's a recap of Cadence's actual birthday (Monday the 24th) told in photos, because I am too drained from being sick all week to write a meaningful blog post.

Breakfast at Pauline's, cuz who WOULDN'T want to start off their 4th year of life with French toast and strawberries smothered in real whipped cream?

It's her birthday, and she can make funny faces if she wants to.

She fell asleep on the car ride over to the planeterium, but perked up when we told her we were gonna see the moon and planets and stars. BTW, a really good, cheap place to park downtown is right on that little strip of meters by the Field Museum, Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planeterium. They have TEN (no, not two, TEN) hour parking meters for just a quarter a half-hour. Plus, there's a free trolley stop right in front of the Planeterium.

Oh, and did I mention the Planetarium was free on Monday? It's also free the whole week of October 8th-12th, plus on Mondays and Tuesdays in October and November. Now that I've given you the tip on cheap parking, you've got no excuse not to go.

Looks like Ted and Cadence will be going to the moon. Just like Wallace and Gromit. We ARE a cheese-loving family, so it only makes sense.

After the Planetarium, we headed over to Navy Pier. Ted found street parking on just the other side of Lake Shore Drive, so we didn't have to pay $20 to park for our hour of fun on the Pier. I didn't even know there was a carousel there, so that was a special bonus for Cadence, who absolutely ADORES carousels and anything horse-related.

The main reason for going to Navy Pier was to ride on the Ferris Wheel. I know folks who've gotten engaged on that thing, but after all these years living in Chicago, I had never ridden in it myself. Cadence has admired the Wheel from a distance while driving past it on Lake Shore Drive, so she was excited when Ted told her we'd be going up for a ride in it.

I wasn't sure if she'd get scared being up so high in a flimsy little carriage, but that thing moves so slow, so she was just fine. And her big strong Dada held her close the whole time, so of course she felt safe.

We didn't get home until past 5:30, but we were able to squeeze in a ride on Cadence's new trike before the sun went down.

She still hasn't figured out the pedaling part yet. And yes, sparkly ballet flats are probably not the ideal shoes for riding a tricycle, but then again, why the heck not?! I paid full price for those shoes in a last-minute fit of desperation before the wedding last month, so I want her to get as much use out of them as possible!

And that's about it, folks. I've been sleeping on the couch (when I'm lucky to be able to sleep at all) the past couple nights due to my hacking cough, so I'm pretty exhausted. I stayed home from work Thursday but still had to work all day to be able to finish a project that was due that day. Plus, I had to watch Cadence most of the day, since she decided she'd rather nap than go out w/ Ted on his 3-hour errand.

Tonight, though, I'm getting me some much needed girl time w/ my friend Amy (Cadence's best bud Rudden's mom) PLUS some high culture courtesy of the Strawdog Theater Company, which my friend John (Ada's dad) is a part of. They are performing four radio scripts (one of which John wrote) PLUS it's a free show! My kind of evening, all the way.