Recovering from her first day

 

It was Savannah’s first day at pre-school this week. Here are couple of quick pictures of her in first day dress and Primrose bag with her favorite Eeyore tucked inside. This first day was pretty tough on her.  For the last few weeks, she had been surrounded by two other family members during the day.  Now, it was time for school and they would not be around.  Can be pretty scary.  Well, when I got home from work that day, I was able to lend a consoling hand to situation.  I am really glad that both Sophie and Savannah were able to assist me in making a positive change in Jackie’s day.  Finally, after we were all together, Sophia’s and Savannah’s mom could smile again.   Thanks girls!!!! 

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Face Painting, Bouncy House and a Cake

  Well, some of you have heard the song “Girls just want to have fun!” by Cyndi Lauper.  I could have sworn that I was hearing that song in my head during Jackie’s birthday party and well into the night this past Sunday.
  

Face Painting

Like most of our parties, the Setzer face painting brigade was in full force assisting happy party-goers!  Thanks Beverly and Alicia!!

 

I must say that this looks a little like Peter Criss makeup.  Naw! can’t be!  No KISS for Jackie!   Only Sophie, Savannah, and I want to rock n’ roll all nite and party everyday!!   The approval from her oldest child!

Bouncy House

Several weeks back when Jackie was thinking about having an actual party on her birthday, she booked a Bouncy house from our friends at Linda Craft Realty for the weekend.  I thought her main purpose in this decision was to have something for the kids to do while she and the other moms enjoyed their favorite adult(or child) beverage.  Well here is some proof that bouncy houses are not just for kids!

Not real sure exactly what is going on with her hand.  Anyway, have you ever tried to hold a camera still in a bouncy house? 

Cake

“With a little help from the Kids!” Jackie would not have it any other way. 
 

I will be adding a gallery shortly on trianglephotoprints.com so stay tuned for more.

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A Nanna, A Miller, A Marty, and A Mirror

Over this past weekend, we got invaded by a family of Cheese heads. One of the heads of the household is a Lego-maniac and heck-of-father named Marty Weishoff.  He is also known to drink a few beers at parties like this one for Jackie’s 29th(that is my story and I am sticking to it) birthday yesterday. 

Unlike my brother, he is both entertainment and maintenance for the children. The following series of images are from the party when uncle Marty was entertaining his niece Nanna armed only with a Miller high Life and mirror.  The mirror is off camera to the left.  

Call these teasers.  I just could not resist these. Synchronized facial expressions!!  I am going through the images from party over the next few days and will post more shortly! So stay tuned!  

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Swimming Lessons for Nanna

Savannah took her first swimming lessons at a local Raleigh pool. We still need to work with her but she is gradually becoming more confident in the water. Here are shots from her first of five lessons. 

She looks like the part here. That is a good start. A Face a father(and mom) can love.

Early on in the lesson she had that Savannah swagger that we all know and love.

 

A little boogey-board action Savannah style with a little help from the instructor.

The Savannah Plunge 

We had to have a grand finale to this blog post.  Here is the beginning of the “plunge.”

Mid-air and no turning back!  Wetness is about to engulf her!

Ya!  Engulfed by wetness!

Safe and sound! The instructor seems happy and encouraging!  Not sure about Savannah at this stage. A little overwhelmed perhaps.  You probably would be too if someone besides your mom was catching you and let you go under. :)  Oops! I forgot my goggles!

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It’s a Miller Cat Fight!

In this corner weighting in at less than 20 lbs from parts unknown, we have the K-Kitty! In this corner, finalist in a recent game face competition and still my daughter, Savannah “I have no fear” Jackle.

“Ok!  You are definitely cute and all, but this 12 pack of High Life is coming with me!” said K-Kitty.

 

 

 

 

 

“Listen here! You striped little critter.  I am taking this back for my daddy!  This is his favorite beer!”  said Savannah.

  

 

   

It looks to be  a Kitty-Kid standoff as each of the contestants are engaged in a stare-off !

Sometime later after the bout, we tried to interview one of the contestants and this is the look we got.  What do you think this look means?  Please comment below with your thoughts.

It’s Miller Time!  Have a great weekend and see you soon!

 

 

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Put On Your Game Face!

Tonight,  I was perusing the wedding photographic society forum.  A comment was made to another forum participant that he needed to add an avatar to his profile so people could associate a face with a forum post at our bi-monthly meetings.  This is something that I have not done yet either.

So I grabbed one of my favorite models and photography assistants named Sophie Jackle.  She was so thrilled that  I was going to actually allow her to touch my camera.  This is something that she is typically not allowed to do.  One would think that this because of my concern that she may accidentally damage my gear.  Actually, I may also be afraid that she would show me up with better and more creative photography.

Anyway, I sent up my 580EX flash unit with a 28 inch umbrella soft box as a key light.  I sent my 430 EX II with a grid spot for a rim light.  The intention here was to make a simple casual head shot for the forum.   I put my 50mm F1.8 lens on my camera and installed it on my tripod.  Nothing fancy.  Just trying to take a simple head shot for the forum.  The tripod would help make it easier for Sophie and me less nervous. 

H

ere is the headshot we ended up with for the forum.  I merely demonstrating what a game face was to my daughter Sophie using a souvenir I bought at one of my trips to Lambeau Field.   Here is the shot she took.  See I told you I should have some concern about her showing me up.  Great job Sophie!!!

Remember in previous posts,  I mentioned that we had to keep things even in our house between our two daughters. This works between fathers and daughters also.  Here are a few examples of  Sophie’s game face.

So next thing we knew, we heard footsteps. Apparently, our game face growls sparked this sweet and innocent little girl’s curiosity.

 

She is so cute and innocent.  I had to share another one also.

 

Remember that keep it even stuff.  Well, here are some shots of  Savannah’s game faces.

 

For good measure, one  rather loud one without the  helmet.  Apparently, she wanted to make sure you knew who was giving you the  game face !!


Now we had to pull out another one of my helmets for this “brown helmet” game face variation. 

 

Finally and last but not least,  a game face duet with a little Gene Simmons mixed in for good measure.

Did I tell you that both of my girls are requesting to dress up as Gene Simmons for Halloween this year?  Well, of course I had nothing to do with that request.  Do not believe my wife Jackie if she tells you otherwise.  Do you see my Mr. Simmons figurine perched on the shelf proudly watching Sophia doing her Gene Simmons imitation?

Till next time.  See ya soon!!

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Grayson Highlights

The last few posts to this blog have centered around my recent family trip to the Grayson Highlands State Park. My sister-in-law Lori Lipkin and brother-in-law Craig Setzer arranged the whole thing and I was glad that we were able to participate in the festivities.  We had a blast especially with the bike ride on the VA Creeper trail.   I like the discussions we are having about making this trip an annual event.  It is only about a 4 hour drive from Raleigh to the state park.  I must say this state park has the cleanest bath houses I have ever seen in any camp ground. 

I finally had a chance to put all the images from the trip on the trianglephotoprints.com web site.   

This slideshow below showcases my favorite images from the trip.  Please place your mouse over the slideshow to see it’s added features like the thumbnail option, gallery link to the images, and full screen display.  

This slideshow requires the Adobe flash player.

If you are having issues viewing the above  Steve Picks slide show,  please try this link directly from the trianglephotoprints.com web site.   Do not just take my word for it,  please feel free to browse all the galleries from this trip.   Let me know what you think.  Did I pick the highlights or did you find some images that need to be included in this slideshow?

Thanks for stopping by!!  See ya soon!

Carole’s beauty shop and breakfast grill

On the way back from the camping trip, we spent the night at my mother-in-law Carole’s home.   The plan was to drop off Sophia for a few days with her grandma while she was still out of school.  As tradition as Carole’s house, we woke to a very nice breakfast meal.  It was no different this time.   Carole prepared  a dish called “SOS” which according to Carole has some sort of military origin.   Since this is a family-rated blog, I will suffice to say we had hamburger milk gravy over biscuits.

Anyway, after breakfast and three days of camping, it was bath time for the girls.  It was quite obvious from looking at the bath tub that  Carole used it for other purposes than taking baths.  So to work off my full belly,  I decided to scour out the bath tub so my little darlings can get cleaned up.  Each turn in the tub was followed up by beauty session at Carole’s beauty shop. 

Here are few shots from the styling session.

     

Both kids were happy as a lark … Then the bill came…..

Creeper trail, Raspberry, and independence.

As mentioned in my previous post,  we went camping in Virginia this past weekend.  One of the things we did was a 17+ mile mountain bike trail called the Creeper trail.   To be honest I was a little scared about this adventure.  It has been several years since I rode a bike.  What if I could not finish ? What about the kids?  etc… 

Well, there were 14 of us in our group that either had a bike or rented one.  The plan was to rent a trailer to haul the two kids behind a bike for the ride.  I was able to talk my brother-in-law Mike who is a more experienced biker to pull the trailer on the ride.   Our group ranged in ages from 3 -60+ so if my  9 year-old nephew and my 60+ mother-in-law can do this trail,  I better suck it up and finish the ride.   The good news that the trail is for the most part a down hill ride.  Everyone was able to finish this very scenic and worthwhile ride. I highly recommend this adventure to anyone.  You rent(or bring) a bike from the shop at the top of the hill and purchase a shuttle ticket that brings you back to the shop when you are finished with the trail.  So there is no uphill biking or walking.

 

There is just something about Savannah’s confidence and playfulness  in this shot that I love.  Savannah was playing with these two old bike tires that were replaced on one of the bikes before we went on the trip.   She was strutting around them full of energy just like you would expect from a 3 year after they were pulled in a bike trailer for almost 18 miles.  

What ever happened to the “raspberry” ?  I remember when we were kids it was used all the time as a response to someone proliferating some sort of falsehood.  Well, next I hear someone performing such an act, I will definitely think of this picture and maybe even pull the “raspberry”  out again for good measure. 

3 year independent child with energy + state park with hiking trails = this shot.  This shot was taken in Massie Gap at end of  a hike.   

More from Grayson Highlands to come!   Till next time !

Wild Ponies couldn’t drag me away!

Over this past weekend, we went camping at the western Virginia  Grayson Highlands State Park.   It had been several years since Jackie and I had gone camping.  This was the first time we took the girls camping.   My sister-in-law Lori booked all of us the group camp site in the campground that resides in this beautiful piece of mountain heaven.  We are already discussing making camping at this park an annual event.

About a mile from campground in the park is Massie Gap.  Wild ponies are known hang out there.   Here are just a few shots of the ponies while I go through the rest of the images this week.   I am sure these will not be the only images from the Grayson Highlands trip that you will see on this blog.   So stay tuned!

This flexible pony took care of an itch.

This pony was  helping out his friend by cleaning his/her mane.  

I love this shot of my baby holding a baby and fearlessly petting one of the wild ponies.

Sophia is having her turn.

Mommy pony and three babies: one pony, one human, and one plastic. Good thing the baby did not think the plastic one was food.  It sure does look like he is eyeing it though.

Again, things need to be kept even.  Sophia is taking her turn.