Monkey in the Pumpkin Patch

Photography mission:  Halloween Gobins and Ghouls.  I didn't have a model to photograph... my grandson who is going to be a skeleton for Halloween lives in Texas... I'm in California.  Second best idea: call a friend of ours who has a son just 2 days younger than our grandson and they both share the same name, Jackson! Can I borrow him? Yes.  Problem solved.  We agreed to meet on Wednesday.

We went to a local pumpkin patch and Jackson was quite the inquisitive one wanting to hang onto my camera for me.  Bless his heart, he just didn't understand why I said, "No way little one"! I told him he was just too cute, but even for all that, I wasn't about to let him have my camera!  He eventually got distracted by a dog in the next field and said, "woof".  We applauded his vocalization and he joined in on the clapping!

He finally had enough with the monkey hat and tried to take it off, so we decided to call it "done" freed him of his monkey hat. Thank you, April for letting me photograph Jackson.  He certainly does help make up for missing my grandson!

Speaking of Time...

A couple of weeks ago I was looking thru an old photo album that I unearth from the bottom of my closet. I found a photo of me and Mike at my Senior Prom. Now that was quite some time ago... OK, it was back in the dark ages!  I thought with all of my teenage heart that I loved him more than anything. Oh, what I could tell myself now! After 32+ years of marriage and 3 years of dating, I love him more now than I ever thought possible.  With time and age, we've come a long way.

And Speaking of Time...

I was looking thru an old photo album a couple of weeks ago that hasn't seen the light of day in quite some time and found my Senior Prom photo. Mike took me to my Senior Prom!  So I thought, OK, here is proof of the passage of time. As much as I loved Mike back then, I really had no clue! 32+ years later, I love him even more.

Time

Time. It means different things to different people. Some times it goes by so slow, you think you're going to scream and sometimes it goes by so fast, you wonder where it went.  

I've been working back in time. By that I'm talking about the genealogy. I've been working on a "time line" for my Kelly family. The Kelly family is my father's mother family.  When I submerge into working/researching and deal with the names and dates, it becomes second nature to think about "what was it like back then"? 

I found some city directories from the town the Kelly's lived in in Massachusetts. They skipped some years in between, but from 1886 to the mid 1960's, the Kelly's were alive and well.  The city directories are fascinating in reading from one year to the next as you follow the families growth and dispersal over time.  They tell you when someone in the family "removed to another town". They tell you when someone died when the survivor is listed as the "widow of".  They tell you where your ancestors were employed and on occasion, the address of where they were employed. You can tell who is related by the number of people residing at each address. Even children that were students in High School were listed. That's a great number of years in those city directories!

                 Kelly Brothers circa late 1920's early 1930's                      

                 Kelly Bros.building in 1996

My great grandfather, John B. Kelly owned a furniture manufacturing company in this town. At one point or another, he employed more than 75% of his relatives living in that town. Not that he employed them all at once, he didn't, but over time, he did. Over time, the company went from making reed baby carriages to living room and dining room furniture. 

Over time, the family moved on. My parents moved south to Tennessee. My siblings live in Tennessee, Louisiana and California. My children live in Texas and Tennessee. 

I was in Texas when my grandson was born. I was there when he turned six months old. He has just turned a year old last month. That time was gone in the blink of an eye.  This month, in a few days actually, my oldest son will turn 29.  Now where did THAT time go?  

Time. Hold it softly, it won't be here long.

Worldwide PhotoWalk 2011

The weather was beautiful, the photographers were fun to be with and the Mission of San Juan Capistrano was absolutely gorgeous with all the flowers in bloom, the swallows flying everywhere, the hummingbirds dive bombing and the butterflies flitting inbetween the two! I tried to avoid looking for images of the Mission before I went and I'm glad I did because I was truly seeing it for the first time. A lot of history there and the place where we ate lunch is one of the oldest residential neighborhoods in California. Such a neat place! All the houses were right on the gravel road (yes, gravel!) and most of them have been turned into antique shops, tea shoppes, cafes, pottery studios and the like. Very "artsy" crowd down that way.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the walk.  The last one is my favorite photo of the day- and it wasn't even taken at the Mission.  In fact, it was taken at the cafe where we were scheduled to meet after the walk was over and have lunch. I got there a bit early and went inside to get a smoothie. As I was waiting for it to be made, I walked over to the window and that was the view.



Worldwide PhotoWalk 2011