Spring Break Quick Trip

Spring Break this year was supposed to be a low-key week of getting things done around the house. We had no plans on doing anything, that is until we got an invite to visit our friends in Alexandria, Minnesota. It was an offer too good to pass up! In a highly uncharacteristic move, we decided to do something spontaneous and ended up packing up and heading to the USA.

This is a statue of Oli. Sven is probably around somewhere…

A trip to Legoland in the Mall of America. Very fun!

Iphone picture taking fun.

The start of the holidays started with what I figured would be the last ski of the year in Sandilands. Realistically, I could probably have skiied today, had I wanted to, which I don’t because IT’S ALMOST APRIL and skiing is soooo last month. WILL WINTER NEVER END???

Last ski of the year in Sandilands.

Winter Wonderland

This reminds me of a Beef ad that had a thick slab of beef dressed up to look like a huge cliff…

I snapped these pictures after our last snow storm just to see if I could capture images emphasizing Line and Shape – concepts that I teach my photography students to communicate in their photos. I ended up with some good examples demonstrating texture. I also wanted to see if I could make late season snowfalls seem appealing…

A soft mattress of snow on top of the Sub.

A snow “dune”

Flying High

Jakob is enthralled with anything connected to aviation. He devours books on airplanes and knows the difference between a Blackbird and a Spitfire. So when the opportunity to go for a flight out of Harv’s Air above Steinbach came up, I knew it would make his day.

The aviator in front of the plane we were taking up.

The view from up high…

The headsets were voice activated so we could hear each other over the noise of the engine.

The complete city of Steinbach. The water tower is dead centre, and you can see the mountains off in the distance…ok, so maybe not. Sadly, we live in one of the flattest places in Canada.

This flight simulator is rented out at 30$/hour for student’s at Harv’s to practice on. It’s pretty cool. When you’re flying it, you have the complete sensation of motion and shifting the “wings” up and down threatened to make me motion sick.

Now all I have to do is figure out what to do to treat Leah and Elijah. I think Leah would think a trip to the beach in Mexico would be a fair trade, seeing as she’s always talking about it!

Strapping Young Lad

Elijah turned seven months old on Dec. 17th and recently had a check up at the Doctor where we found out that he’s in the 99th percentile for height for his age. Apparently he’s the same size as an average 12 month old. That’s big. Anyway, he pretty much gets the short end of the stick when it comes to pic’s, so here’s my attempt to right the balance a little.

He’s a really cheerful kid.

Elisha figures he looks like her brother, and has her eyes.

2012 Cannes Lions Winners

This past week I tagged along on a field trip with our Advanced Photography class to the 2012 Cannes Lions Film awards at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. The festival runs through the world’s best advertisements for the past year. Of the dozens of great ad’s, here’s the one’s I found most entertaining…

These first two got the biggest laughs, and it’s almost hard to pinpoint exactly why their funny.

The following two are also humourous, and are also Canadian – bonus!

The following ad plays on a common perception/joke Norwegians hold against their neighbours, the Swedes.

You can kind of see that I prefer the funny ones, but just to show you some of the great ones that aren’t…

Tear jerker alert.

Grand Prix WINNER for the Film category.

Leah Prepares to Battle Monster

I finally got around to reading the Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, and I can’t quite see what all the fuss is about. Granted, it’s a book aimed at teens, but I know more than a few adults who quite enjoyed the book. In my opinion, it doesn’t hold a candle compared to the Harry Potter series, which were also largely written for teens. Hunger Games was interesting enough, but all credibility was lost with plot twists that seemed unbelievable and too “easy”, ie; “oh, the gameskeepers have changed the rules!”, to “oh no, they’ve changed them back again!!!”  In any case, the following video has almost nothing to do with the book other than Leah is playing with a bow and arrow, much as Katniss, HG’s main heroine, does.