Lemme paint a lil' picture...

I am still at the beach and will do a FULL blog post with pictures when I get home, but I had to share this little story...

On Tuesday, I was playing outside with Cal and I got an email from Tamara Lackey, the photographer who shot our wedding and Cal's one month pictures. She is in the process of shooting her second DVD. The first one was geared towards professional photographers teaching them everything from how to improve your client experiences to setting up a studio, etc. Her second DVD is geared towards everyday people who love to take pictures....uhhhh, me! Oh, and the crew on this DVD was the crew from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Pretty neat to have them in my house!

So anyway....she emailed to see if Cal and I would be available to shoot the portion of it where she talks to a mom about her camera and gives her pointers on how to capture a busy baby doing busy things. That's my life!

So, while I am at the beach, and driving 3 1/2 hours with a baby and a dog are not at the top of my list, I felt like I should do it... I knew it would be fun and I love doing anything with Tamara. I also kind of felt like I owed Tamara for all of the wonderful images she has given me....I know it sounds crazy, but that's how I was feeling.

On Tuesday, Cal took a pretty good morning nap, played a while, then ate some lunch. I was going to let him sleep a bit while I packed up the car and then we were going to hit the road. He went down for his afternoon nap and I was running like crazy and stepped on a squeaky board and woke him up after 30 mins of sleeping. He was NOT happy about it! He was crying...okay, screaming, and really upset! (guess he was in the middle of a good dream...?)

So, I changed plans and got everything loaded up and put him in the car, thinking he would fall asleep before we got off of the island and probably sleep the whole way home. Ohhhh, sooooo wrong.

Here is the painting a picture part:

We got going and he screamed. We drove for an hour, and I stopped to get him out and stretch and he screamed. After 2 hours of solid screaming (I could not talk on the phone he was screaming so loudly), I decided to try to feed him. Well, with the dog in the backseat, there wasn't a lot of room for me back there too. I squeezed between Cal in the car seat and Hank, the 88 pound dog to try to feed Cal some green beans. I would have gone into a restaurant, but it was 102 out and I couldn't leave Hank in the car. Cal ate about 3 bites and then stuck his tongue out and started "spraying" his food everywhere. The entire back of the seat, my face, Hank, the carseat, the blanket, EVERYTHING was covered in green beans. But on the plus side, he was not screaming. Until I put the car into drive again and we continued the rest of the way....

Now, just to add to the fun of it all, I am 5'10'' and crawling back and forth from the front of the car to the back of the car is a challenge. I would have used the door in the back, but couldn't get by the carseat or the dog, so I had to try to crawl back up front. MUCH harder than it sounds. I had one leg in the front, one in the back, and my head in the ceiling, Hank trying to lay on my leg in the back, and Cal grabbing a handful of hair. It was QUITE the sight!!! By the time I got home, my nerves were shot.

The shoot went well-- Hank totally stole the show. They decided they wanted to show how to handle the most chaotic of a shoot that there could be--- yup. That's my life! Cal was sleepy and a little in shock of all of the people in my house and Hank was in heaven. He was retrieving sticks 5 feet long and bringing them over and showing off. It was fun and the ride back to the beach was much easier on me and Cal!