A Pomranka Christmas

As is our tradition with most major holidays, we go over to Curt and Maryann’s for celebration and wonderful food.  With Curt being a rehabilitated chef, you can always count on having more food than you need and great friends.

I got a few more photos from the evening that I have uploaded to my flickr page in the Christmas 2009 set.

Of course we always stay too late whenever we visit Curt & Maryann, but with it being Christmas the girls were up and ready to go at 5:43am.  (I was so hoping to make it until 6.)

This year the girls went straight for their stockings and seemed pretty pleased, but the big fun came from the gifts under the tree.

This year I took a chance and gave Jennifer something she has said she wanted, but never asked for as a gift.  Although many of the women I worked with advised me against it, I got Jennifer a very fancy, stainless steel, long lasting, nose hair trimmer.

Naturally I dressed it up in a fancy jewelry box and gave it to her at the very end.  Only fitting for such an important gift.  But I think it was a good choice, because she did excuse herself to go try it right away.

The frenzy ended within an hour and about 15 minutes after saying it was the best Christmas ever, both girls amazed me by saying they were bored.  Bored at 7am on Christmas morning?!?!  I just don’t get it.

Fortunately, they realized that was just silly and they started playing with some of their new toys.

(Sorry for the poor quality of the camera phone, it was what I had.)

Not too much later, Jennifer’s parents arrived and round two of gift giving commenced.

Needless to say, our house was covered with gifts and wrapping paper.

After all the gifts we opened, Jen and I made a nice dinner (although 90 minutes later than we planned) and we enjoyed the day.

I have more photos from the day posted on my Flickr page under the Christmas 2009 set.  I did not get any amazing photos, but thanks to David Hobby (a.k.a. Strobist) I duplicated the lighting set up I had last year and was able to move all around the living room without worrying if the light would look good.

Now to dive into some of my gifts and see how I can make even better photos in 2010.

Lensbaby photos at Bread Co

Saturday morning is a great time to go to Bread Company (a.k.a. Panera Bread) with friends.  today I brought my camera and Lensbaby selective focus lens.  It was pretty grey and gloomy outside and the light was not great, so I cranked up the ISO to 1600 and dropped in a f2.8 aperture ring.  There is a decent amount of digital noise in many of the photos, especially the first two where I still had in a f8.0 aperture ring. But playing around with it in Lightroom allowed me to salvage something.  I kinda like the look of Maria “RealFitMama” Sparks in the photo above.  There are more photos from the day, all taken with my Lensbaby at my photo site, all in the Saturday at Bread Co gallery.

Who will win?

We are at the Barnes Family annual Memorial Day party. Every year they have an appetizer contest and this is our first year entering. I will update with the winner later. Jeffrey

Posted via email from Jeffrey Pomranka's posterous

Updated 12/24/2009

Photo Of The Day 01/17/09 - Bundled up for ice cream

In October 2008 the Vaughn girls, Olivia and Mia's best friends and neighbors moved to Wenatchee, Washington.  We have been able to keep in touch with Jaeda & Britt through the magic of technology with Skype, email, and such.  However, there is nothing like actual playing together.  Especially for young children.  This weekend their mom had to come in town for work and she brought the girls for a surprise visit.  Well it was not a surprise for Jennifer and me, fortunately.

For the rest of the story and more photos, continue reading after the break.

When the girls showed up, Mia and I were the only ones home.  Mia is sooo cool.  When Jaeda and Britt came in she was very smooth.  She was happy to see them, but acted like she just saw them last week and would see them next week.  While we waited for Olivia to come home, Mia talked Jaeda & Britt into playing a little Mario Kart - Wii.

Olivia, was much more explosive.  She did the typical scream, jump, hug and yell.  Unfortunately I did not have my camera with me.

Since Debra came to St. Louis for work, we got the girls for the whole day!  We only hoped it would be enough time.  The day started with typical talking, playing and catching up.  There was a lot of Nintendo DS playing by the older girls, while the younger ones went out to swing.  I only had my BlackBerry and that camera sucks, so I went with my newest fascination, BlackBerry flipping.

After lunch we had to get out of the house.  We looked into bowling and ice skating, but the timing did not workout.  Instead we decided to go to walk to a park and then to the Loop to rent a movie.  It was a little chilly, so we had to bundle up, but nothing could stop the girls from showing their affection for each other.  I was able to grab a photo of Mia and Britt walking together, holding hands.  Olivia and Jaeda were also snuggled close together with their arms locked, singing, talking and laughing.  Unfortunately, they did not want to have their picture taken.  It is really too bad, because it was the sweetest thing I have seen in quite a long time.  Two friends, really enjoying their time together.  Fortunately at the park, they let me get a couple photos.

After about an hour at the park we walked the rest of the way to the Loop to rent a movie.  Somehow the girls talked me into getting ice cream.  Sure, why not?  Ice cream is great when it is 40 degrees.  It was a good thing though, because that is when I got my favorite photo of the day.  Little Britt enjoying her ice cream, all bundled up.  I think the colors are great with the red background, although I think the composition could be a little more interessting if Britt was moved to the right side of the photo.  Probably something I can use cropping to improve.

Camera:  Pentax K20 50mm prime lens  ISO 400 Aperture f/2.4 Exposure 1/45

Lighting:  A giant window behind the camera with the store's lighting

See the rest of my Photo Of The Day posts here or just look at the photos on Flickr.  Or see all of my Flickr photos.