Dec 13th and 14th, Warning: This is a Long One!

Rachon and Jared invited us to their church for a Christmas dinner. They had a Santa for the kids...it didn't go over well with the little ones :(
Here's Nikki (they go to Rachon's church, in fact, Rachon and Jared teach Jufu's primary class)...

Here's Max...

Rachon to the rescue!

And Sam...


Sam and his best buddy...they has SO much fun before, during, and after dinner...





Sam's first candy cane...

After dinner, we headed to the opening night gala at the Riverside Art Museum for our friend, Jeff Soto. We'd never been to anything like this and it was so cool! We couldn't stay super long, with bedtime looming, but we had a great time while we were there!
















Sam and Max continued to entertain each other...


Rachon, Jared and Max...

Jennifer and Shannon (the artist's family)...

Us...


April and Mike (fellow Canadians living in the next city over) came over last night. April and I went to a craft night, while the boys watched some kind of horrifying action flick that they both enjoyed. I laughed so hard that tears stremed down my face all night. I'm declaring that Cheryl and Paula are required to attend all MNI events...they're practically a comedy duo! I took only one picture last night and it's of Tami's gifts to give away, so I'll refrain from posting it on the off chance that her son Tristan checks the blog :) I've just got to say that I have the bestfriends that anyone could ask for! Every city I live in, I add a few more to my collection of lifer's (you know the ones, that even if you haven't talked for a year, you hear their voice and it's like you just saw them yesterday and you pick right back up again). I'm starting to get sad at the thought of leaving everyone next year, but we promise to come back to visit! And we've got lots of promises to come visit us.

Just messing around this morning with my new lens...the quickest lens in its class (the lighting got progressively better as I spiratically shot Sam throughout the morning)! I'm so excited, it's supposed to be a must have for wedding photographers (I'm excited to try it out on my newly married BFF Lindsay and Shaun at their wedding reception Dec 23rd!!!). (there's some test shots at the end of this post for Katie and Jan)















Here's my room, poorly lit at f 5.6 (the lower end of the aperature of the lens that came with my camera and of my zoom lens when zoomed over about 50mm)...


Same shutter speed, f 3.5 (the lower end of my zoom lens at 18mm)...


Same shutter speed, f 1.8 (the lower end of my NEW fixed 50mm length lens)...