Florida Sunrise

Every vacation trip needs pictures of a sunrise. And every day in Florida is sunny, right?

WRONG!

I had good intentions of getting up early one morning on our recent Florida vacation to get sunrise pictures. I also figured any day would do since its always sunny in Florida. Well, the day I picked to shoot a sunrise was not sunny. In fact, you could barely make out the colors of the sun. This small gallery is what I was able to pull off with no real sunrise that morning.

Gabrielle Afina's Flowers

When Gabby was first brought home from the hospital in 2002, I thought it would be interesting to take some pictures of her nestled in the flowers that grow in our yard each spring. Somehow I've managed to keep the tradition going every year and this year was no exception. Gabby posed for the 2008 "flower shoot" just after her sixth birthday. Yes, she does pose now.

From 2002-2008, I've gone through two Fujifilm Point and Shoot cameras and this year for the first time, I was finally able to take the shots with a new Digital SLR.

This gallery covers the time from just after her birth in 2002 through her birthday in 2008. She's our Angel Gabrielle and we are so fortunate and blessed that she has remained a healthy, vibrant, (and yes talkative) little girl.

Wedding Reception

Can you believe this picture is from a wedding reception?

Saturday night we attended one of the most unique wedding receptions I've ever been too. It was held at the Ontonagon County Fairgrounds in Greenland. There were antique cars, steam engines, lots of home cooking, a table loaded with homemade pies, and even steamed corn.

All the antique equipment made for some interesting photo subjects. Gabby and I even walked up to the top of a hill overlooking the fairgrounds and found some interesting flowers (and bugs) to take pictures of. The last two pictures were taken on the way home just north of Twin Lakes.

Cottage Lupines

Photos from a dreary evening at Whitecaps Cottage. Even though the weather was "under the weather", the lupines were still showing their pinks and purples.

As Gabby would say, "Miss Rumphius has been at the cottage".

Puppy Love

My niece works at the Copper Country Humane Society. When you visit their home you never know what dog or dogs she may have visiting for the night.

When I visited this Wednesday, she had two puppies home for the night. Of course I couldn't resist a few pictures.

Gabby's Golden Birthday

Pictures from Gabby's Golden Birthday Party. Aunt Sharon and Uncle Bill were kind enough to let us use their house and pool so she got to have her friends over for a pool party.

Cute kids make the best subjects especially in the swimming pool.

The indoor shots were taken with the Nikon D300 pushed to ISO 3200.

Bradley Ball

Pictures of our nephew Brad playing coach-pitch baseball. What an athelete.

Howie Mandel

Pictures from the closing keynotes at HP Technology Forum and Expo 2008 featuring Worldplay once again and comedian Howie Mandel.

Of course there were speakers from Intel, AMD, HP, and Brocade as well.

WorldPlay

The opening band for Matchbox 20 and the house/corporate band for the Expo was WorldPlay. They performed covers from the 70's, 80's, and 90's like nobody's business. It seems difficult enough to find one female singer that can scream, but this band had two. Here are the pictures from their performance prior to Matchbox 20.

Matchbox 20

I had the privilege of attending the HP Technology Forum and Expo 2008 in Las Vegas again this year. The closing act was Matchbox 20. I managed to squeeze into the fourth row of wild geek fans to grab shots of the band and lead singer Rob Thomas.

Bridgefest Parade

Pictures from the annual Houghton/Hancock Bridgefest Parade.