These images mark a piece of Andrea’s history. Not only because they were the fleeting first days of a newborn baby, but because they were the fleeting last days of  living on the lake. Last week, she moved to Carson City, Nevada. I’m so excited to have her back on my side of the country for the first time in a decade! (before Kentucky, they lived in Philadelphia… hard to get much farther away than CA to PA) Since the move, she and I have delighted ourselves by calling each other IN THE SAME TIMEZONE! No more telling myself that while 4pm is great for me to talk, she’s probably eating dinner or getting the kids to bed, or thinking of something I need to tell her at 7 and knowing she’s already in bed. This same-timezone thing is really great.

Anyway… on to the pics!

Can you see why I found him so irresistible?

My brother-in-law is into making furniture by hand. This beautiful bench holds one of his greatest masterpieces.

Their “diving rock” reminds me of the rock on the lion king that they hold the baby out on… we had to do a small re-creation:

(by the way… the rock slopes downward, my sister was laying next to him and holding him… you just can’t see her hands in the shot. I would never plop a baby on a rock over water without proper precautions!)

This pic shows it all for me. The lake, the rock, Leah completely loving on Bryce (the girl was a kissing machine!), the special relationship between Keith and Bennett… I love it all.

A few more faves:

Bennett refusing his dinner.

Leah giving kisses.

My Earth-Mama sister:

Keith enjoying one of the best things about their life in Kentucky:

Just for the record… that lake is incredible. That picture makes me want to jump in again. The water isarmer than my California swimming pool. I don’t know how but it really is. Something in that water cleans away stress and makes you instantly happy, even if swimming in lakes seems a little scary at first. I wish they could’ve brought it with them, or that I could buy it as a vacation home. (which reminds me… if you’re on that side of the country, it’s still available for the time being! Snatch up this little piece of heaven!)

Well, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, right? So I’ll just let these pictures do the talking.

I was really intrigued by the trees growing in and on cliffs…

More of their crazy cool backyard…

The image on the left is looking up the hill to their house. I loved the lightbulbs in the trees and the campfire… It all just made me happy.

(this last one isn’t their backyard, just that cool spot on the train trip. also, fyi, the waterfalls are Cumberland Falls and Eagle Falls, I think…)

These images remind me why autumn is my favorite season! Too bad we don’t get such brilliant autumns around here… i guess I’ll have to plan a trip every October.

All of these art images are available for purchase… please contact me for details.

If you’d like to see all the proofed images from the trip, you can do so here.

I know I said I wouldn’t be doing mini sessions this year, and I meant it. Between the normal Christmas rush and getting the studio ready, I just didn’t think I could handle it. I didn’t want to promise something I couldn’t deliver. But after repeated requests and wanting to accommodate as many people as possible, plus checking some big things off my to-do list, I’m feeling ready to take this on… THIS SATURDAY, November 22. (sorry for the short notice, but I wanted to be sure I could handle it before I put it out there!) If I fill up this Saturday, I may do a couple sessions the next Saturday as well, so let me know if that one works better for you in a back-up situation.

So here’s how it will work… We’ll do slots of 15 minutes each. You’ll get 10-12 images to choose from in an online gallery. Because of the tight holiday deadline, orders will need to be made within 3 days of my posting the gallery (which may take up to 2 weeks).

The cost is $100 and includes one 11×14 print (worth $95). In order to sign up for a session, please email me at shannon [at] shannonmontez [dot] com (I did that so the spam bots won’t get my email address…) with “mini-session” in the subject line. Please indicate what time of day you prefer (morning or afternoon). All sessions will take place in downtown Campbell… we’ll meet for all sessions at my studio (393 E. Campbell Ave, upstairs). You’ll have a choice between colorful walls and a grassy park-like area as locations.

Again… sorry for the short notice. I hope this doesn’t create problems. On the bright side, that’s less time to worry and stress about what to wear!

Other items in the above image will be discussed later…

Matthew. My no-nonsense kid. He means well, but sometimes his honesty is too much.

So, a couple weeks ago, he’s grabbing my upper arm. I thought he was just being nice, kind of a snuggly thing we do… but then he says,

“Mom? Is this your muscle? Isn’t it supposed to be hard? Yours is really soft.”

Dave overheard, and of course, busted up… It’s become another one of our inside jokes, a great way to dig each other about being wimpy. Thanks, bud. I feel pretty awesome now. Time to get back to the gym, I guess!

This one is a very special one for me.

One day while eating lunch with Sophia and Franklin, I was overcome with happiness and gratitude for a really wonderful thing in my life, and I had to pause and snap a picture of it with my phone.

The best burrito in the world. A carne asada super burrito. A really lovely thing. I felt especially happy that day because the Burrito Factory had some new competition open up, right in the same shopping center.

The much-celebrated and widely popular Chipotle.

I’d tried Chipotle. It was good. But their chips come in a bag, not a basket, for one. And for two, it just doesn’t feel as authentic. And for three, the guy that runs the Burrito Factory seems really nice and smiles a lot and feels like the uncle you’d love to have in your family because you could have really great fiestas.

And on the day that I took this photo, despite the fact that there was a Chipotle just a hundred yards or so away… the line at the Burrito Factory went out the door. I love to cheer for the little guy, the small business, the underdog… and I love to eat the burritos. Que Bueno. Muy, muy bueno.

(btw… if you haven’t noticed, something funky is going on with my blog. I’m not sure why the word “description” is popping up above all my titles. It bugs. Sorry. I’m trying to figure that out, but I’m not the most tech-savvy person in the world! And also, I got my first root canal yesterday. That was not the best day of my life. Not the worst, either, but not my favorite. Not sure why I felt the need to add that part… but feel free to donate burritos to the “poor widdle Shannon” fund.)

Today, I took a nap for over 2 hours.

Way to go Caldwell Pain Train!! Maybe tomorrow I’ll think about doing some exercise or something.

So, while the kids were out of school for spring break we decided to go camping. Dave has a little book about great areas to camp in northern California and found Castle Crags State Park. His little book mentioned that this campground was named in Sunset Magazine’s list of top 50 campsites in the west or something like that. Sounds good. So, why not? Beautiful, huh? That’s a reason we decided to go there. Really great mountain scenery, peace and quiet. Our alternate plan was Disneyland, but we decided that really we wanted peace and quiet and solitude over crowds and crowding. Well, the crowds weren’t a problem, we had the campground to ourselves. I don’t know if that is because it was freaking April and most people know that the nights are still too cold for camping, or if other people knew what we soon found out…

…that peace and quiet at this campground was a JOKE!! We were camped literally 50 yards from a major interstate freeway. In a mountain pass. Which means all these semis  taking their loads across the state? They’re on this freeway. And they have to slow down. And they use those awesome jake brakes all day and night to slow down. At first it was funny. We set up camp, and decided to just deal. And then we heard the train. We didn’t know that on the other side of the freeway, I’m not kidding, were train tracks! Trains, going on a curve, which means they are noisy and squeaky as they pass. Seriously? Oh well… we drove all this way, we set up camp, the trains and semis aren’t going constantly, we’ll have fun anyway. Besides, we had stuff do besides sit around the campground. But at night… We honestly couldn’t hear Shelby and Matt, who were a few feet away, because of the noise. It was pathetic…. but a really funny memory! And that beautiful mountain? The view is only available after a drive and a hike.

The first night, we just set up camp and ate dinner. In the morning, we tried to be tough and cook eggs and sit around the fire. It was freezing! I think it was 42 degrees on the temperature gauge when we decided to give up and get in the car to warm up (it might have been 37, but I’ll go with 42, just to be safe). **edited to add: Dave just informed me that it was actually *32*, not 42 degrees… BRRR!!**  The kids were crying because their fingers were numb, and Franklin was shivering. So fun! So we decided to drive up and see the crags. The drive and hike were short, and the view was beautiful, but far away. This picture is a good example of why shooting people in the shade is more flattering… I was teaching Dave a few camera tricks… See all the shadows around the eyes? Not flattering. But a good illustration of our view after the short hike…

Franklin found a stick that was perfect for him…

Luckily, it warmed up fast and ended up being a gorgeous couple of days. The second night was not nearly as bad as the first, temperature-wise. After our hike, we took a drive up the canyon to get another look at the crags, as well as a better view of Mt. Shasta. We found a really cool place that has views of the crags… the cutest motel/campgound ever! It was called the Railroad Park Resort. Not only did the campground have views of the crags and no freeway/train noise, the motel was a bunch of cabooses converted to motel rooms. I wanted to stay there that night, but considering that the restaurant wasn’t open on weekdays yet (too early in the season), and the campground was still closed (ok… because Dave didn’t want to move, and let’s face it, he’s the one doing all the work in the set-up/take down) we decided to just tough it out one more night where we were and possibly go back later in the year. But maybe next time! It was so cute.

Once we got back from our little journey, we decided to take a hike from our campground down to the river, which happened to be under the freeway, under the railroad tracks, across a country road, and over a fun footbridge. To be fair to Sunset magazine, the campground on the other side of the river was night and day… they must’ve been talking about that side when they rated it highly… but it was closed because they had a handful of sick trees, so it wasn’t an option for us at that time.

(Dave and Piper, getting ready to go).

Hanging out under the railroad tracks.

Franklin demonstrating his favorite part about camping…

He seems to be sitting awfully close to where he just… um… Let’s change the subject.

Hi cutie pie.

The next day we packed up camp and headed over to Burney Falls. About an hour away, this park was also highly rated on Sunset’s list. Of course, this time, I was skeptical. We decided if it was worth it, we’d ditch our Friday plans and stay a couple more days. If not, we’d head home and get back into the swing of things. As we entered the park, we talked to the delightful ranger, who told us that it had gotten down to 19 degrees the night before. That made our decision! We were not going to camp. We took a look around, and loved what we saw. This park is going to be our next camping destination.

A family picture in front of the gorgeous falls, snapped by a passerby:

Man… I look like I’ve been camping… Good thing you can’t smell us!

I took a picture to demonstrate to Dave how slow shutter speeds can be super cool.

(I had the camera set up on a ledge, you can’t do this hand-held!) When I was a kid, my mom had a calendar with a cool misty-looking river. I thought there were rivers that actually looked like that all the time, and I made a goal to go see one. Does this count as achieving that goal?

Anyway, looking forward to going back there. Now, don’t you all go reserving the place up so we can’t get in!

After that, we headed over to Lake Shasta Caverns. We’d picked up a brochure at a gas station and thought it looked fun. Three adventures in one… a boat ride, a bus ride, and a hike through the caverns. Fancy. Cool thing was, we were the last tour of the day, and the only people in the tour… so we had our own private tour. It was awesome!

Our guide got this horrible pic of us… (dark, no flash, but here it is anyway…)

The caverns were pretty cool. But I think my favorite part of the whole thing was walking out of the cavern and back down the hill to the bus, where we were greeted with this vista:

The lake was gorgeous. Bright red shorelines, super blue water, green trees, blue sky, white clouds… a total feast for the senses. I’d love to go back and hang out on a houseboat there for a few days. Add that to my list!

They seemed like they were having the best time, a bunch of creative people hanging out, traveling around, and enjoying their craft together. No matter what your type of creativity, I think it’s so awesome to embrace that and create. So things like this are super fun for me- you can just feel the energy. I really loved William Fitzsimmons and Cary Brothers and Meiko, and of course, Ingrid. Pricilla Ahn wasn’t there, but we looked her up and she’s awesome too.  There was some other girl there that was a guest for that show who gave me goosebumps, but I don’t remember her name. I’m bummed about that, because I wanted to make a big deal about her. Oh well. If someone in internet land knows who that was and can enlighten me, I’d sure ‘preciate it.

Oh! And the best part… this time we got dinner and a place to sit. I was so happy. I’m too old and tired to be standing for an entire concert anymore. Sad, but true. Once you hit thirty, your life is practically over… So to be sitting and enjoying the music during/after a delicious meal, it was heavenly.I found this cool website that lets me embed the music right here! I didn’t see all of these people, but it’s all good.  So…  because I love you, I’m going to treat you to some fun tunes. Enjoy!

I also want to give a shout out to Ellie who I met while standing in line for the concert. She said she was there because she found out about Ingrid on my blog after the last time we went! Cool, huh?

Have you guys ever played this game?

I’ve seen it before, but never learned it. Until now. Shelby talked us into getting it at Target a while ago and I have to say, I love it!

I’ve found a game that I can play with my kids without wanting to pull my hair out. While Candyland was fun when I was a kid, and Chutes and Ladders ROCKED, in the 10 years since I became a mom I’ve gotten pretty burned out on the standard kid games. I’ve played Candyland enough times to make me start sweating whenever I even see the box. Chutes and Ladders is so frustrating I can’t stand it… how I ever thought it was fun is beyond me! Sorry is a game I still like. Again, it’s frustrating, but I still like it.

But Mancala… I love. The pretty rocks, the easy rules… Sophie kicked my can the first time we played. I’m so happy to have a new game to play with the kids!