Benjamin's class at school put on a memorable night of performances by "Famous People" last week. Each child picked a famous person to portray at an event called "Writer's Cafe." Benjamin went with someone who shares his name, Benjamin Franklin. Grandmas, Grandpas, Aunt, Cousin and Godfather all made it out to watch him do a very excellent job. We also saw performances from such notables as Pope John Paul II, Barack Obama, Marco Polo, Helen Keller, Marie Antoinette and others.

Of note - I used my oft neglected theatre degree to help build his costume and wig. It was so fun to throw everything together with him.

Last weekend we celebrated our nephew AJ's 7th birthday. They had everyone over to their house for a Mad Scientist show and a rocket launch.

Benjamin had a big day at school on Monday. All of the kids in his class were asked to give a presentation so they could work on their public speaking skills before they have their big performances at the Writer's Cafe (which is next week). They were able to choose whatever topic they wanted, so Benjamin decided to give his presentation on theatre. We spent a little time at my office a while ago putting together an outline of his presentation and the PowerPoint slides. He was very excited, but as you can see in the video below, when it came time to get up in front of everyone he was also very nervous. The child who usually is the loudest one in the room didn't speak much above a whisper. But he did an awesome job!


My photography class has been going well. I only wish I had more time to spend reading all of the lessons. I had been considering upgrading the lens that I use the most (50mm) and when I asked my instructor about it, she suggested renting the better lens to try it out. Well, the 50mm 1.4 came in the mail yesterday and I took it for a spin in the house and then at the park. It.is.awesome. I've already listed my old one on Craigslist, hoping to be able to buy the new lens soon!

We celebrated Easter a little differently this year and it was wonderful! We decorated some eggs Saturday afternoon, which surprisingly went very well. Even Lucy handled the eggs delicately.

Sunday morning the kids woke up to a living room full of plastic eggs. They hunted around for candy filled eggs and then each of them found their Easter baskets.


Once everyone had played with their new goodies from the Easter Bunny, we all drove up to the Minnesota Zoo where we met Grandma Chris and Grandpa Ed for a little non-traditional Easter celebration. It was a chilly and windy day, but we had a lot of fun walking around the zoo and seeing their spring Zoo Babies exhibit. The baby animals were adorable!

I am very excited, my photography workshop began today. I've decided to post my assignments here on the blog to document my progress. Our first assignment was to provide an "emtionally perfect" photo that we had taken prior to the workshop. It didn't have to be technically perfect, but rather display or evoke emotions. I chose this photo:

And here is what I said about it:
Mode: Auto
Aperture: f/2.0
Shutter Speed: 0.017 sec (1/60)
ISO: 320
Lens: EF50mm f/1.8 II
Focal Length: 50 mm
White Balance: Auto
RAW or JPG: JPG
Photographer's Comments: This is a photo of my son popping off one of those champagne bottle poppers on the Fourth of July last year. I hate the holiday because fireworks scare the living daylight out of me, so this is as far as we go to celebrate. I think the photo shows two emotions - one being the excitement on my son's face at his popper exploding and two my own emotion of fear from the popper shown through the shakiness of the camera and the lack of focus in the photo. I'm pretty sure I edited the photo's exposure and maybe color saturation through picnik when I uploaded it to flickr.

Our classmates are asked to provide constructive feedback on the photos and the instructor also does the same. Can't wait to get my first comments!