Summertime and the livin' is easy

Summertime is practically over and school is starting up again.  I'm not really sure where the summer went.  And I feel like I've been neglecting the photographing that I should have been.  Since we have arrived back from Ireland, this is about all I got.  We went up to Leurenkill for E's father's 77th birthday.  I didn't even get any photographs of the family...

And before I continue, the above photo -- yeah, she HATED the pool.  I was shocked.  But it had rained the entire day before and the water was quite chilly.  I had to run down to the cabin to change into my (my sister in law's) suit in hopes of me getting her used to the water (because once you were in the water for about a minute or two, it was perfectly fine).  After suiting up and trying to dip down in the water with her, she was screaming, thinking that I was trying to torture her.  We gave up and hit the swings where she fell asleep -- someone happened to be tired.

The next photos are from yesterday (not Leurenkill).  She loves the swings and parkgrounds, in general.  I'm hopeful that once my first trimester symptoms go away (I am 16 weeks now, so hopefully they are on their way out), I'll be able to pick the camera again.  Another push in the right direction?  E gave me a new camera for my birthday.  It should be arriving on Monday and it may take a little to get used to.  I'm moving from a crop sensor SLR to a full-frame.  I'm very excited.

Not only is it an upgrade to a full-frame -- but it's also double the mega pixels!  I am currently using a Canon 40d with 10.1 megapixels, which has been my trusty steed for the past 5 years.  I'm moving up to a Canon 6d with 20.2 megapixels!  Plus it also has a video camera built into (that has decent reviews).  My goal with the new camera is to jump into Manual mode -- something that I've been wanting to do for a while, but have just been lazy.

Hopefully, you won't see a decrease in the photos with the manual jump -- and only see an increase in my creativity with a whole new world opening up.  She turned 18 months this past week.  And I'm going to do an update -- like old times.  I'm also going to do another Mama & Finn photo for comparison sake.  The last time I did one of those was 14 months.  My plan for the first year was every 4 weeks and my goal for the second was every two months.  I skipped 16 months because I completely forgot with this pregnancy thing happening...

I'm also contemplating changing up the blog -- I mean, it's going to happen; I'm just trying to figure how it will happen.  With the arrival of Fish & Chip (a.k.a. baby #2), I won't be just featuring Finorah.  So I have to figure out how to change things to fit the new arrival.  But I still have six months left.

I'm trying to enjoy the closing of summer -- but can't say that I'm going to miss it.  I felt like crap for the majority of the summer and I'm very excited for fall, cool temperatures and the autumn smells to come.  I also know that even though the kids are returning to school and fall is technically around the corner, I still have about two months of warmer weather still to go.  Of course, Finn loves the warm weather and I feel guilty wishing away precious time.  But I didn't need maternity clothes with Finorah until well into fall.  So I have absolutely nothing to wear currently.  I'm trying to wear dresses and yoga pants -- but that means that I have to shave my legs most of the time.  Ugh.

I don't want to write too much about Finorah lately, as I'm saving that for her update. So I'll leave you with a couple more photos of our latest trip to the playground.  Girlfriend is in love with swings & slides.