The Pumpkin Patch & Post Surgery

I had arthroscopic surgery on my right knee this morning. All in all, the pain isn't as bad as I thought it would be (knock on wood), but I'm sure that this is due to the strong medications and the "Game Ready" cooling device the physical therapy office provided me. I'm still quite sleepy from the anesthesia, but I feel lucid, if not exactly clear-headed. Getting up at 5 am this morning and going without coffee before the surgery has been the most unpleasant part of the experience so far, though I'm sure that's going to change as the residual anesthesia wears off and the pain meds are used up.

I have most of the rest of the week off from work since I will be on strong narcotics during that time and I will need to keep my leg elevated and continue to use the cooling unit during most of the day. The surgeon wanted me to take a full two weeks off from work, but I cleared it with my manager to simply work from home next week, as I should be off the major meds by then and can keep my leg elevated and cooled from my home office.

The "Game Ready" cooling unit is actually quite an interesting device. It's a portable cooling unit that provides pressure and cooling to my leg to help reduce the swelling and pain. The main unit has a reservoir for ice and water and connects via a snap on hose unit the the large cooling jacket which wraps around my leg. The unit has adjustments for temperature and pressure and I have a protocol sheet which tells what to use and when. It's quite easy to use and seems to be helping quite a lot.

Unfortunately, my son injured his left knee while playing Ultimate Frisbee with the guys at his fire station a couple of weeks ago and it looks likely he'll have to have similar surgery in the near future. He'll probably call me this evening to see what he has to to look forward to when he has his own procedure.

In other news. we had a great time taking Ryker and Makayla to the Pumpkin Patch at Sauvie Island this past Saturday. Their parents came along, as well and their Auntie TT. We had very nice weather for what is becoming an annual family event and the kids were able to pick out some nice pumpkins to carve for Halloween. We sure wish Jocelyn and her parents could have been there too. It would have been a real treat to have all the grandkids together for the event.

Ryker, his sister, and his mom and his auntie stayed here that night, and the girls and I had fun playing Rock Band for the first time in a long time. The girls were out of practice, but we tackled some tough songs anyway, including the new song pack of Queen that I downloaded on Friday

The next day, Wanda and I took Makayla to Disney on Ice to see some of her favorite Disney characters, and we all had a great time. Makayla enjoyed the show immensely, as well as the cotton candy and the other treats, and Wanda and I really enjoyed watching her delight. We hope to more activities like this with all of our grandchildren over the next few years.

Wanda's birthday is this weekend, so we'll be seeing Ryker and Makayla again this week when they come over for their grandmama's birthday dinner and we'll be seeing Jocelyn pretty soon too, since her mommy is brining her up for Thanksgiving.

There aren't any photos with the entry right now, but I'll add some later when I'm off the drugs. :)

Late Nights & Medical Fun

I have a long night ahead. I've reached that age where torture, disguised as medical procedures, is becoming more frequent. Don't misunderstand, I have a good doctor and he provides me with great care and sound medical advice, but I would just as soon stay young forever and not need preventative tests and intrusive procedures because I've reached a certain age.

In any case, I'm not likely to get much sleep this evening as I'm "studying" for my test scheduled for 6:30 am. Such study involves a clear liquid diet and large quantities of Miralax dissolved in Gatorade. Yum, yum. I get to drink another 32 ounces at 1:30 am. Fortunately, there are not photos to go with this post.

I am, however, wrapping up one photo project and collecting materials to begin another. My Fae in All of Us series will come to a close with three more shoots - Earth Fae, Wind Fae, and Winter Fae. I'm also hoping to reshoot Autumn Fae since that was the very first shoot of the series and I think I can do it much, much better now. I just spoke to a vineyard owner today about using their property for the Wind Fairy shoot, Winter Fairy as a model ready to go and I just need some snow and an open field, but Earth Fairy may be a bit of a problem.

I had a girl scheduled to shoot the Earth Fae, but she canceled on me and now it's getting too cool outside to use the concept I wanted to use, so I may need to change it up a bit. That's a shame, because the initial idea involved the creative use of mud. I'm' sure I'll figure out something, though.

I am continuing my Women in Chains series and starting a new one with a similar theme but focusing more on Sword and Sorcery. These two projects will give me something to work on in the studio over the winter months instead of me spending all of my time simply working on post processing my images from previous months. I enjoy the post processing, but sitting at a computer for both work and pleasure gets a bit old and I need to spend time actually behind the camera shooting new images and creating new scenarios.

But, the holidays are coming up too, and there's always opportunities to shoot photos of my family and especially the grandkids. We'll be going to the pumpkin patch soon, and that's always fun to shoot. Thanksgiving and Christmas always offer good photographic opportunities as well.

Makayla and TeeTee Decorating the Tree

Test of image uploading

Test of image upload options via MarsEdit.The image to the left was uploaded from Flickr.


And the image below was uploaded directly from my computer.

This is an editing test done a few days later to determine the impact on the original post. If this continues to work well, I'll be utilizing MarsEdit as my primary blogging software. MacJournal is good for "journaling" and by that I mean writing a diary or journal on a home computer or laptop, but it certainly doesn't work well for blogging, especially when the content of the blog includes a large number of images. MacJournal has never worked properly for me to upload images to my server and doesn't seem to offer a decent editing interface for aligning the images either to the left or right of the entry.

MarsEdit overcomes those limits and allows me to upload the images directly from my computer to Picasa where the images are automatically inserted into the blog, or allows me to use my Flickr account to specify what images to include in the post. It also includes a media catalog to track the images used in the blog so far - something that MacJournal doesn't even begin to do.

I also like that the program offers you a preview window that shows you how the blog entry will look on your site with regard to image alignment and image placement. It does slow the program down a tad, but not to a degree that's intolerable.

Finally, the html source code for the images can be directly edited in the text entry window so images sizes and targets can be adjusted to taste and intent.

The software comes with a free 30 day trial, so I'll continue to evaluate it for a few more weeks, but it's looking more and more likely that I'll purchase it and use it on a regular basis.

Portland Pirate Festival 2009

This year we finally got the majority of the family to the Portland Pirate Festival. The first year of the festival, I attended the festival alone and covered the festival for the St. Johns Sentinel. The next couple of years, Wanda, Amber and Makayla attended with me, and Ryker attended last year even though he was only a couple of weeks old. This year, we went all out and even brought Greg and Nikki (and all of us were in costume, I might add). Unfortunately, Jeremy, Kristin and Jocelyn weren't able to be with us. Had they been, it would have been truly a terrific festival. Wanda and I hope we get to attend the Arizona Ren Faire with them in the spring of next year.

We did get quite elaborate this year. I had the idea to decorate one of the Radio Flyer wagons as a pirate ship and had thought to simply add some cardboard cutouts and a flag to the wagon and that would be it. Once I made the suggestion, though, Wanda, Amber and Greg took off running with it. Amber drew ship outlines onto plywood and Greg cut them out and designed a method to mount them onto the wagons, and added some neat modifications such as cup holders, restraints for the handles, mounts for the pirate flags, and cannons on the port and starboard sides. Amber designed images for the ships and Wanda painted them with bright colors. Amber and I added cannon balls and fake smoke to the cannons. Pretty quickly we had a two ship squadron of pirate vessels. They were certainly a hit at the Pirate Festival. We had to stop every few feet for folks to take photos. It certainly didn't hurt that we had a couple of cute pirates manning the rails.

Wanda made Ryker a cute little pirate's outfit and we bought one for Makayla some weeks before the festival. With all the costume materials at our place, we didn't have any difficulty coming up with appropriate outfits for all the adults. We remembered to bring blankets this year to watch the shows, and we even thought to bring a tarp for the wet ground.

When we arrived the the gypsies were on stage, and while they were quite fun to watch, the kids had little interest in them. So we spent the first hour of the festival checking out the shops, the food vendors, and the children's play area. There were definitely fewer vendors this year, and fewer activities for the children. Many of the same entertainers were there, though, including the Boom Pirates, Captain Bog and Salty, and the belly dancers.

There seemed to be lots more attendees in costume this year, though the Saturday crowd was smaller. I think the smaller crowd was due to the weather. The lack of vendors was probably due to the economic downturn. I suspect many of them went out of business over the last year. Still, there was plenty to see and do. The food was plentiful, there was a beer garden, and the weather turned out to be quite nice for the festival.

Of course, the reason Makayla came to the festival was for Captain Bog and Salty. For the entire week leading up to the festival, she had us playing the Captain Bog CD and specifically Nellie the Elephant and The Pegleg Tango so she and Ryker could dance to the tunes. Ryker especially loves the Nellie the Elephant song. It has a part where the song starts out on a long, low note and then rises to a very bouncy and bright chorus. During that crescendo he just starts giggling and laughing in anticipation and then when the chorus arrives, he bobs and dances his little heart out.

The band got off to a rough start. There was a power failure about 10 minutes into their show (their portable generator died), but they recovered nicely and put on an excellent show for the kids. Ryker and Makayla both had a grand time dancing to the songs, as did all the other kids there, including some "big kids" who looked to be well into their 20's and 30's. They seemed to be pirate groupies.

Rogue Brewery had a tent set up with several varieties of beer and wine and well as some quite delicious pizza. The Pirate Wenches serving there were easy on the eye, and the beer was easy on the throat. There were plenty of other food vendors with delicious treats as well. Chowder bowls made from bread and filled with New England style clam chowder seemed to be quite popular as did the African dishes. As can be expected with any festival there were also sweet treats such as elephant ears and a very interesting rosemary lemonade.

A big part of any festival for me, though, is watching, photographing and interacting with the people who attend and get into the spirit of the event. When you're in costume yourself, the interactions are friendly and fun, and I had a number of short conversations with various groups of people throughout the day. All of them were quite willing to pose for me and happy to have their photo taken.

Here are some of the images taken throughout the day:

Wanda had a lovely costume complete with boots, chains, a hat and a wonderful smile:



A small group of Pirate Wenches looking quite lovely in their festive attire:



Here's the lovely lass who ran the games for the smaller children. She's been a fixture at the festival for at least a couple of years.



The Beer Wench and a lucky customer from the Rogue Brewery Tent:



After we had been at the fair for a couple of hours, we met some of our daughters' high school friends, Holly and Jenny. They're sisters and Jenny spent quite a lot of time at our house when she was high school with our daughters.



Makayla and her grandmother had fun sword fighting. Makayla's favorite phrase was "Give me your treasure." She seem to be able to wrangle a few dollars out of me, so it must have worked.



Nikki enjoyed cuddling her nephew:



Of course, Papa had fun too - even though his earring got ripped off at least a half a dozen times!



THe Portland Pirate Festival is held every September in Cathedral Park underneath the St. Johns bridge. It's a wonderful setting for a fun event and I hope it will continue to be an annual festival for pirates of all ages for years to come.

Ryker Dude is One

Ryker had his first birthday on the 10th of September. His 1st day party wasn't until the following Sunday, but we just had to go over and see him on his birthday and take him a balloon and give him a few hugs and kisses. We were there for Jocelyn's actual 1st birthday and we didn't want to miss his either. His other grandparents came over too and we all had a good time watching him play with his balloon and open a couple of presents.

Of course, his sister had to help him play with his new toys, but he didn't mind at all. As long as as he was able to drool on the various parts and pieces, he was just fine. In fact, he much preferred the paper and the boxes to the actual toys. Such is the nature of a one-year-old.

Ryker is such a happy baby, and he was certainly thrilled with all the attention he received. He was surrounded by people who loved him - his parents, both sets of grandparents, his sister and his Auntie TT. He knew that no matter to whom he crawled, he was going to be hugged and kissed. And he's definitely a huggable little boy.

By the time Sunday arrived, everyone was ready for a party. We all gathered at his house for pizza, treats, and cake and ice-cream. His Grandma Wanda picked up his cake from Albertson's on the way over to his house, and we were very pleased with the way it was decorated. Ryker's mom is the artist in our family, and she designed a photo of a little turtle with some insect friends for his cake.

Wanda and I have assigned icons to our grandkids, based on their looks and personalities. They may not make a lot of sense to others, but we know the meaning behind them and they fit for us. Ryker is represented by a turtle. I suppose that's mainly because since the day he was born I've always referred to him as "Dude" or "Ryker Dude" and Makayla, who loves the movie Finding Nemo, and calls all the sea turtles in the movie "dude." Combined with his look and crawl, a turtle just seemed to fit. His sister, Makayla, is represented by a butterfly and his cousin, Jocelyn, is a little ladybug.

The party featured lots of yummy treats:



Lots and lots of pizza:



A great play structure that Greg built for the kids:



Which features a nice big slide:



After pizza and playtime, it was time for presents:



And cake:



And we even had a contingent of papparazzi (on in this case "grandmarazzi):



But no party would be complete without the Happy Birthday Serenade!:

August 2009 Roadtrip

Last weekend, Wanda and I decided to take a couple of days for ourselves and do some driving and shooting. We got up very early on Friday morning, 4 am if you can believe it, and drove down to Crater Lake for the day. My goal was to shoot some landscapes in infrared, and Wanda's was simply to get away from the house and spend some time in nature. She finds the lake a very restful and peaceful place, and wanted to get out of town for a a bit as well.

It's quite the drive from Portland to Crater Lake. It typically takes anywhere from 5 - 6 hours depending on the traffic and the road conditions. Because we left so early, there was very little traffic to impede our travel, and we made to the North Entrance of the park around 9 am. We checked the weather the night before, and unfortunately the forecast had changed from earlier in the week from mostly sunny to mostly cloudy with a chance of showers. Since we had made plans for the entire weekend which included some time in Bend shooting the Cascade Lakes and visiting with some friends, the trip was on regardless of the weather.

When we got to the Crater Rim, the water was so still and quiet that the clouds were reflected almost perfectly such that it looked as though you were looking down into the sky. We took the time to hike up to the Watchman's Tower which is where the above shot was taken. The hike took us about and hour, and it was quite windy at the top of crater rim where the tower was located, so we didn't linger too long admiring the view. It was kind of neat to look down into the small crater at the top of Wizard Island though.

After our short hike, we continued around the crater rim to the Rim Village where we had a cup of hot chocolate, purchased some souvenirs as gifts for the grandkids, and walked down to the Crater Lake Lodge. While there, I took the opportunity to take a few infrared landscape shots of the island. That image can be seen above.

From the Rim Village we drove down to the Pinnacles. These are geological formations created when fumeroles were fused, buried by subsequent eruptions and then years later exposed when the surrounding ash and soil were eroded away. They are strange and interesting formations, and Wanda had some fun shooting them with one of my cameras.

The Pinnacles:

As we wrapped up shooting the Pinnacles, it began to drizzle, and though we had planned a picnic lunch, we decided to finish the rim drive, exit the park where we entered, and then head on up to Bend for dinner and a good night's sleep. We had reservations for two nights at a hotel in the Old Mill District, and we knew there was a weekend concert and art show planned during the our stay.

We got into town around 5 pm, checked into our room and decided to check out the art show before dinner. There quite a number of booths set up and an eclectic collection of art on display - sculptures, photographs, quilts, paintings, crystal, glasswork, and much more. We didn't purchase anything, but we had fun walking around and looking at the various displays.

After the short walk through the art show, we stopped for dinner at Greg's Grill. The meal was quite delicious, but the most enjoyable part of the evening, was sitting around the large gas firepit outside the restaurant enjoying the music from the concert and chatting with the locals. While we were there savoring the company, the music and our drinks, the weather began to clear and soon we were able to enjoy a lovely sunset. Unfortunately, with our previous 4 am wakeup call, we had to call it an early night and head to bed.

The next day we met with some friends for coffee, then headed out to shoot the Cascade Lakes for another day of shooting. We managed to get in some photography at Sparks Lake and Devil's Lake, but not much at any of the other lakes because of the sheer number of people out enjoying the day.

On our way back into Bend from our day's outing, we stopped at a meadow by Spark's Lake and had our picnic of hummus, flatbread, fruit and cheese. It was a quiet and peaceful meal and most relaxing for both of us. Afterwards, we did a little more shooting, and Wanda managed to catch me in my classic "shooting a landscape pose." And here's the final shot from that day:

When we got back into town, we stashed our gear in the hotel room, then took a short walk downtown to the Deschutes Brew Pub for a locally brewed beer. Later that evening we met our friends for dinner, had another lovely meal with good conversation, and got a good night's sleep before our trip home the next day. Before we went to sleep, however, Wanda made sure we got the laptop out and planned our next few get-away weekends in advance.

Barefoot Glamour

I got to shoot with Cathy K. again this week. We tried a couple of different locations this time, but I still put her in the water at both locations. She's a good sport and didn't mind (too much).

Our first shoot location was in the Tillamook Forest at the spot where I shot my Water Fairy last year. The spot features a wide, shallow area of the Lower Nehalem River. Here, in the summer at least, the water is tolerably warm, and if shot at the right time of day, is quite blue. The day we shot, however, the river was a bit too shallow to get the deep blue color that I've managed to see there in the past. We did, however, get quite a few shots in before the sun got too high and we lost all of our open shade.

Once we lost the light there, we decided we would take the ride out to Ecola Point State Park and do some shots there. Cathy was quite eager to do this as she hadn't been to the park before and I had promised her a great view of the Oregon Coast. I also think we was eager to dry off and warm up.

We first went the the viewpoint which juts out from the surrounding cliffs and offers a wonderful view of Cannon Beach to the south, and Indian Beach to the North. It was not a very windy day there for a change, so it was quite comfortable shooting at the point. For this shoot, Cathy wore a black linen beach dress, and we had quite a lot of fun shooting around the various tourists and sightseers.

After about 45 minutes at the viewpoint, we drove down to Indian Beach for some shots on the beach and in the small stream that runs down to the Pacific. Little did Cathy know at this point that I would be putting her in the water again, but I think she might have guessed what was going to happen once she saw the waves and the small stream. Still, she was as game as ever, and even went pretty far out into the Pacific to kick up some sand and water. I dared her to kick water on me, but since I was shooting with a 70-200 f/2.8L IS zoom, there was little risk she could actually reach me. It was a fun shoot and both the photographer and the model had a great fun.

Completed Shoots

I've completed processing a number of shoots lately, but I"m still working on several more. I have three shoots scheduled for this weekend, and just finished one more yesterday evening. Photographically, I've been quite busy, but I've been having a blast and enjoying stretching my imagination and skills for each of the shoots.

I've been processing images for the models as they've picked them out for their TFP (Time For Print) sessions, but I'll still have plenty of images to processes over the winter, as well as a couple of other shoots that will occur during the cold season when we actually have snow on the ground.

I did a couple of photo sessions featuring three different models using a military theme. The first one, featuring Jennifer and April, was shot at Dragonfly Landing with the assistance of my good friend Mark, who shuddered with dismay each time I set my 5D MKII or my 1DsMKIII on the ground, and his girlfriend, Rainbow. That shoot went quite well, and the models were quite fun to work with, though a bit inexperienced and not used to taking directions or self-directing.

The other military glamour session was with Gabriell as part of her portfolio development, which is mostly complete at this point - at least as a starter portfolio. Shooting with Gabriell was both planned and not planned. Originally my idea was to shoot landscapes in the morning, starting and Ecola Point and Cannon Beach, then meet Gabriell later in the day in Newport and do more of a fashion shoot in Newport or Lincoln city. The day we were supposed to shoot, however, it was quite cloudy and cool; not exactly a day for shooting landscapes, so I just shot on down to Florence and spent the day shooting with Gabriell.

We did several themes that day. We started with the military shoot, then found an abandoned rail car and did a gypsy shoot. Nearby was a old gate where we did a country girl shoot, and then we used the abandoned rail line for a nude shoot. Finally, we finished up the day by shooting Gabriell as a pirate.

Gabby has come along quite well as a model. With a little effort she could do quite well as a glamour model and I think she would do especially well as a promotional event model since she has an outgoing personality and a girl next door look. Here are a few more of her looks from that day's shoot:

This is from our gypsy glamour shoot with the abandoned rail car.


And one from our Pirate shoot:


Tomorrow I have three shoots planned. I'll be shooting the Reaper Fairy with Gabriell's mother, Bridgett, ladies in chains with Wanda and Bridgett as the models, and in the evening the final Fire Fairy, with Melanie. Of course, I have more images to post from some of my other shoots as well, so there will be a number of future journal entries here show-casing those images. Right now, though, it's time to for bed so I can get an early start setting up the studio tomorrow.

Shoots, Post Processing, and Models, Models, Models

I've been quite busy since my return from vacation. Not only have I had to catch up on my real job (always a task when you take a few days off), but I've been working quite hard on post processing a number of images for the models I shot with during my time off. One very nice benefit of my Fae in All of Us project has been that I very seldom have to search very hard for models. In many cases, they now come to me and want to be part of the project. Additionally, though I'm not charging the models for images right now, I can see that there is certainly some opportunity to do so in the future. The drawback, or rather the reality of the situation, is that once the images are shot, I have to post process a number of them for the models so they can have them for their portfolio, and I do try to turn those around very quickly. That's been my primary task each evening for the last week. That, and I've had to prep the photos from Jocelyn's birthday and get that CD to her mom (who is a scrapbooking fanatic and who has very little tolerance for delay - yes, I mean you, Kristin). Fortunately, she should have her CD by now as it was mailed a few days ago.

We actually had a great party for Jocelyn, made even better for the fact that her daddy was able to get back to Tracy from his ground school in Tuscon, Arizona. He made it back home the evening of her birthday, and was able to be there for the entire birthday party weekend, though a good bit of that time was spent packing up their household for their move to Chandler, Arizona where took a new job. The party was on Saturday, we finished packing on Sunday, and they took off for Arizona on Monday. I headed home with Jocelyn's Auntie TT and cousins Ryker and Makayla on Sunday night, leaving Wanda behind to travel with them to Arizona to help with the baby. The theme of the party was the pool, and Kristin pulled it off quite well with some help from her mother and mother-in-law. The photo above is of Jocelyn and Ryker enjoying the pool with Kristin, Tanith and Jan, Kristin's mom. The pool water was quite warm, but still refreshing in the heat.

What would a pool party be without rubber duckies, and especially and ducky birthday cake? I think there were about 40 or 50 rubber duckies used for the party, but I didn't exactly count them. I know I sure bagged a lot of them up the next day when we were packing out the rest of the house. To go along with the cake, Jeremy grilled some beef, and there were lots of munchies and drinks for everyone to enjoy. If you left that party hungry, it was your own fault because there was plenty to eat.


Jocelyn, of course, got to have some cake. We think she liked it quite well, given how she grabbed a couple of handfuls and stuffed it into her mouth. Her daddy thought it was quite funny, as long as she didn't get any on his shirt (he's a bit anal when it comes to his clothes). She did get it smeared into her hair and all over her face, but that's what babies do. Everyone else enjoyed the cake as well, including Ryker and Makayla, but in general the rest of us were a bit neater than the little girl of the hour.

Later this week, I'll share some of the images I made during the last couple of weeks.

New Models

I've been interviewing and working with a number of new models lately. As I've built my portfolio with new and various images from my fae project and with other examples of my glamour work, it's been easier to explain my vision to prospective models and engage them in a conversation about potential projects on which we can work together. Last week, I was able to do a test shoot with a young model called Heidi who will be one of two girls posing for my Fire Fairy shoot. We shot under the St. Johns Bridge in North Portland and we were able to get some very nice images along the river and on the steps beneath the bridge.

I did a test shoot with the young lady that cuts my hair yesterday, delivered her some prints today, and I think she is seriously considering shooting with me for the fairy project. At least, she told me she enjoyed our little photo session and wanted to do some more.

This week I'm hoping to do test shoots with two more models who want to be part of my project, and next week with any luck I'll be shooting with 2 more models who want to be fairies as well. This is all good, because I think this project is coming to a temporary close. By this, I mean I hope to have the necessary images completed so that I can begin working on designing the book for which the images are intended. My goal is to pick the final images for processing, layout the book and design the pages, and write the prose to go with each set of images during the winter and early spring. This should allow me to get the book into publication by summer.

Once this is complete, I guess I'll start working on my next project, whatever that might be. I'll need a project, though, because that give purpose to my photography and lets me exercise my creativity in a more purposeful manner.

Post Project Blues

Wanda is feeling kind of antsy this week. I told her it's because her paver project is complete and she doesn't have as much to work on right. I just hope that doesn't send her looking for another big project to do before we go to California near the end of the month. Still, I'm sure she'll find some smaller projects to work on between now and then.

The paver project actually turned out quite well. It was quite a lot of work for both us and the contractor. In the future, though, I think we'll contract for the entire job and forgo the pain and pleasure of doing the grunt work ourselves. We dug up and moved better than 10 yards of river rock and dirt in order to prep for this project. It supposed saved us some money, but I'm not sure it was worth it. We started with this:


We moved all the river rock to a tarp in the driveway and then put an ad on Craig's List offering free to anyone who was willing to haul it away. The first load looked like this:

The pile got much higher before the first person came to get their share, and we moved about 3 more piles even larger than what you see above. Fortunately, we had enough folks willing to take the river rock that we didn't have to haul any away ourselves. Eventually, with the liberal use of shovels and pickaxes, we got the river rock out and the ground looking like this:

Fortunately, it didn't rain that entire week, otherwise it would have been a huge, muddy mess. Unfortunately, the temperature soared into the 90's that week and the heat made a difficult task even harder. On July 3rd and 4th the materials arrived for the project and we took a day off to enjoy the holiday with our family.

Then the contractors started to work. First the gravel went in:


Then Wanda decided on the pattern and the initial blocks were laid. Of course, I had to go get more gravel, then more pavers, and then more sand.....

And then, at long last, it was all done:


The contractors finished up the job while I was out shooting one of my fairy shoots. I was so glad to return home to find the pavers in place. I still had to move everything back out of the garage as well as dig and lay new sod at either end of the house, but it's done and it looks good.