Just Starting Out

Too Related

Zach: "I don't like having sisters. They're too ... related. I wish they were my cousins."

Pocket God

Zach's newest leisure-time activity is an iPod game called Pocket God. This game allows you to play the part of an all-powerful being, in complete control of what happens to a hapless bunch of natives on a small Pacific island. You command everything from the weather to the presence of dangerous beasts.

You can help them to achieve a harmonious existence with nature; fishing, harvesting, and living in peace with their environment.

Or, if you are a malevolent god like Zach, you can torture them with volcanic eruptions, shark attacks, falling lava, and a big hungry dinosaur.

To be fair, the "bent" of the game is much more aligned with the latter, and not so much the former.

A Little Afghanistan Right Here At Home

One of my neighbors, a shriveled-up old-timer here since our subdivision was a farm, looks to be into farming again, sort of. He's growing poppies! Not a bad second career I guess, depending on the current state of the Opium/Morphine/Codeine black market.

If he drives up in a Lambo one day soon and a hot 20-year-old girlfriend spills out of it, we'll know for sure.

Straw Hat

Air!

Incidentally...

...can you tell we've been to the park alot lately?

Puddin'

The Golden Hour

Side Car

Seen At The Park

Holding My Sister

The Answer Is Blowing In The Wind

Feeling Much Better

Tattoo

Madison Avenue

Posters

I am almost at the end of the Spotlight Dance project for this year, having clicked and edited my way to fun & profits. One of the last boxes to check is the posters. The previous photographer used to give the studio one wallet-sized print of each student to hang up in the studio. I decided to make posters instead and here they are...

No Fear

Madison is brave. She plays hard, without any thought of falling or hurting. She'll climb a shaky ladder in flip flops. She'll dance on top of a precarious platform ten feet in the air.

There is no fear in this little girl. We think that one day, she's going to stare down the "would-be's" and run it all.

Sangria!!!

I tried my hand at making sangria this weekend. We all needed it, fer sure. It came out great, although I must admit it was hard for me to adulterate a bottle of perfectly good red.

I am like those people who eat steak but don't want to know how it's killed. I prefer someone else do the dirty work required to make me sangria.

Heather, Curly

This is Heather before Madison stole her curls :) I sometimes forget how curly her hair was!

Tractor Rides, 5 Cents

Who ever thought mowing the lawn could be cute!?!

"Hostiple"

G'Day, Tarts & Vicars,

You may have noticed that things have been very quiet out here on World of Wild this past week. We've had quite a challenging one, deciding to forgo our traditional work/weekend arrangement and embark on a detailed critique of all the local hospital emergency rooms.

The first adventure of the week, which we fully expected to be THE adventure of the week, was Zach's pneumonia, hinted at here.

But that wasn't enough for us. Oh, no no no. On Thursday I was home with Zach on his first day back from the hospital, and Brooke awoke from her nap breathing irregularly, her face white and her hands and feet blue. I know a little about medicine, and that is not normal.


So we hopped into the car and sped off to Beaumont, letting nothing and no one get in our way. By the time we got to the hospital Brooke was very bad off, and everyone in the ER knew it - their glances to each other told me in no uncertain terms. They got serious fast and started work. Brooke's temp was 105 and she was shaking violently.

Just as the fourth attempt to get an IV set in Brooke failed, and they were getting out the drill to do an intraosseous one, a nice lady came and took wide-eyed Zach for a tour of the ER popsicle fridge.

Heather told the ER staff that there was no way they were going to drill into her daughter, and that they should try Brooke's scalp instead. Sure enough, they found a vein and continued work.


We were admitted and initial testing indicated that Brooke had RSV and a very bad E. Coli urinary infection, possibly going septic. Further testing revealed that her infection was in her kidneys.

They put her on powerful IV antibiotics and her fever went down and she got much better very fast.


The next step is to see if there is a reverse-flow (reflux) condition in her little bladder that caused this infection to go to her kidneys, a sort of "plumbing problem".

But first she has to get all better. More testing in two weeks...


...The fun will continue...for now we're glad to be back home!

Lexie's Solo

Here's a shot of Lexie during her solo performance in the dress rehearsal. I like the way this one looks, with the blur and the light feeling.

Off Camera

This is one of the photos I took near the end of the dance shoot Friday when we were just goofing around...I liked the way this one looked with the strobe umbrella in it and the girl looking off camera - kind of like a "behind the scenes" model shot. So I did a full edit on it - teeth, eyes, skin, everything.

Half A Year Later...

Brooke is 6 months old today!!!

Zachey Pneumonic

Zach doesn't get sick very often, which is why it was surprising to see him get steadily worse over the last week. Fever, aches, extreme fatigue, no appetite, the list goes on and on. This one had his doctors stumped until early this morning when his fever had climbed to 103.5 and he was looking white as a ghost and clutching his chest and was finally diagnosed at the ER with a bad case of pneumonia. You can see it there in this X-Ray, a big white blob of pain residing in his left lung.

He's in the hospital now, with an antibiotic drip, and getting more blood tests. We'll let everyone know how it goes, and long for the day when we get our energetic and rambunctious boy back...

A Curly Girl!

A big Wild Family congratulations goes out to Ingrid and Al on the birth of their brand-new baby girl!! I am told she's got brown curly hair and she tips the scales at 9lbs 13oz!

No name or photo yet, but I'll keep you updated...

It's A Maddie Monday!

Seeing Is Believing

In a previous post I mentioned my nephew Erik's beer, and how good it was...well, now you can see for yourself...

They Never Call, They Never Write...

In a big hurry, and brandishing brand new fuzzy wings, our three little robins left the nest today. Just like that. Not a word of thanks for the use of our window ledge over the last couple of months. No forwarding addresses (they all flew off in different directions). Just an empty and very lonely nest.


My gosh they grow up fast. Two weeks ago they were just beaks with ravenous appetites. Now they have gotten strong and brave and flown away.

I managed to catch a shot of one of them taking it's very first flaps. Seconds after this picture was taken, they were all gone in a flurry of feathers.

Lots Of Shots

We had an absolutely insane photo shoot on Friday, the second phase of the Spotlight Dance School mega-shoot. We had been warned that this would be crazy, but the reality exceeded all expectations. We took in a big box full of money and shot one dancer after another for hours on end.

Poor Zach though, he had to come with us and he's got the flu so he was laid out on a couch in the lobby shivering under a blanket the whole time.

The rest of the weekend has been devoted to counting money and recovering. It was very difficult on everyone, but it was also one of the best times I've had working in a long time.

Here's a brief moment of goofing around caught after dress rehearsal...