Las Dunas de Bilbao

Yesterday we drove out to Las Dunas de Bilbao. It's about a 40 minute drive or an hour and a half if you take a wrong turn. My bad.

Anyway, we have visited the sand dunes before and had a horrible time. I guess this is why we hadn't returned in the last 3 years. Dana, Eva and I went in July 2006. It's kind of weird looking at photos from that event and seeing Eva as a 1.5 year old and Micah in the womb. Weird. When we went in July it was 40 plus degrees and was absolutely no fun. Eva cried the whole time. But the kids are older now and it's winter here in Torreon which means it's only 27, so we thought we'd give it another go. IT WAS AWESOME!

We had originally thought it would be nice to get a family photo out there. But after Micah and Eva face planted on the first dune we thought better of it.

First things first, we have to get to the top of the dune.


Micah chose to slide down.


Eva chose to jump down. We tried to give her direction on leaning back but I guess it just didn't register with her. Good thing the sand was super soft.



Normally Eva cries in these embarrassing situations but not this time. She came up laughing hard.



Micah was trying to see how dirty he could get.


Now Eva is getting it. Cool.


Back to getting dirty.



Eva was having so much fun going down.


...not so much fun walking back up.


And Micah dirty again.


Eva climbing the dune.




Josh was beaching it.


Kicking it back with Mom.


Okay, so the pants Micah wore were a touch too big. So he decided to strip down to his undies. I love this shot. Micah walking out in the desert in just his undies. Awesome.


So then I asked Micah if he had to go pee and he said no. However, judging from the sand stuck to the front of his underwear I'd say he'd already taken care of business.
This was supposed to be just a shot of me but it's far better with Micah in it. Too funny.


The dunes looked amazing at the end of the day.


Time to hustle back to the van before the sun sets.


What a great outing!

The Full Christmas Card Shoot.

This first shot was a test to see how we wanted to set up Josh. I thought the Bumbo seat would be a great idea. I thought wrong.



Dana suggested that we put all the kids on their tummies. Perfect...for a while at least.

Shot 1.


Hair and make-up please.


Shot 2.


Shot 3.


And Josh is done.


And the final result...


We are "planning" to do another shoot today so that I can improve my lighting and hopefully nail a shot of Josh actually smiling. So the photo above may or may not be our Willms family Christmas card.
For some of you out there I'm sure it's still way too early to talk about Christmas. My apologies. Come back and look at this post on December 1.

2009 Christmas Card Shoot (Preview)

It was painful and we still know we can get better shots, but we finally got some photos with all 3 kids in them. Even better we brought down the Christmas stuff from the storage room and got our Christmas card production underway.

Here's a sneak peak:

Measuring Joshua

Today the kids were playing with Joshua on the carpet. Eva was helping Mom measure up Joshua.

But first....Josh's Mexican Passport. So weird. My son is Mexican. Now all he needs is his Canadian Visa so that he can hang out this Christmas in Abbotsford.



I'm not exactly sure what Micah is doing in this photo.


Eva showing Mom how big Josh is.


Eva and Micah really adore their little brother.


Eva decided to lay down beside Josh and measure herself against him.


Eva and Josh.

Sunday Morning Walk

Not sure what has happened the last 2 weeks but it seems that we've just been a wee bit busy. :)
I've been wanting to shoot more but time really hasn't allowed for it. However, we are determined to get some shots of Eva and Micah with Josh. So keep posted for another blog post later today.

This morning Eva, Micah and I went for our family walk. It's a pretty standard walk unless we want to go visit the grumpy old dog which adds on another 5 minutes or so to the walk. We chose not to visit that dog but rather the "baby" Great Dane (it's not so small).
I took the old camera and flash along to document the highs and lows of our weekend ritual.

Micah doing his best monster impression. We've watched Monsters vs Aliens probably 8 times this weekend. It is very funny.


Micah was picking his wedding bouquet. Don't ask.


Eva had her bouquet and was very pleased with it.


I introduced them to the water fountains at the park. They LOVED it.


Micah was on fire.


One of my favorite images. I love the contrast.


Micah was looking up at an airplane overhead.


The Great Dane. It's only 6 months old. He's very friendly.

Parkage...

We went down to the park after our run to Starbucks. Oddly enough none of us ordered coffee. The kids rode the rides and I fumbled around with my camera.

The kids were very proud of themselves for standing up on these pillars.
I shot this with my Canon 10-22 lens. I really dig this lens a lot and would recommend it to anyone who owns a aps-c size sensor camera. It's a lot of fun.


A shot of Josh and Dana. (Bobbi was holding my flash off camera left) Dana looks amazing people. Day 12 and wearing preprego clothing.


Interesting that they have this little booth that supposedly sells tickets. However, everyone just pays with change and a guy comes over and basically hot wires the ride to get it going.


I love the translation. 1th Battalion...


The kids enjoyed this little airplane ride. There were 10 different planes but Micah wanted to ride behind Eva and not fly his own plane. He's awesome, he just loves his big sister.


Not very sharp but liked the perspective and Micah's reaction.


Eva and Micah are best friends. I love their faces in this image. You have to look for Eva's through the yellow window.


Very excite. I like this image. Didn't think this would be a good one when I took it but it worked out nicely.


Micah has bitter beer face in this pic.


I managed to stray away from the family for a 5 minutes to ask 2 guys to take their portraits. I'm getting more bold with the asking and don't care if they say no. It's worth it to get a good shot.

These two images were shot with my 85mm lens.
This was the ticket guy. I shot this in colour and processed it in Nik silver efex pro which I highly recommend. Not a cheap program but does AWESOME B&W conversion.
I like this guy's gold tooth showing.


I saw this man light up his cigarette from about 20 yards away and thought I'd missed a great shot. So instead of walking away I asked the man if I could take his photo with his dagger in his mouth. He had no problem accommodating me. When I shot this photo I was a bit nervous but after my first shot I saw a pole behind his head that looked funny. (Thanks Louise for the tip on your blog about foreign objects coming out of heads) So I quickly moved to my left a bit and shot him from a different angle. Making this adjustment is a big win for me and tells me I'm starting to see better.