the sweet life » Photos
The Big Picture
One of my favorite new websites is The Big Picture blog from the Boston Globe. Three times a week the editor selects a current news topic and tells the story using large format (and beautiful) photos instead of words. Detailed captions provide context. Almost every entry is worth viewing, but today's is a great example. The selection of photos feature a wide variety of anti-terrorism drills practiced by Chinese authorities in advance of next month's Summer Olympics. So strange. My favorite is the photo of the paramilitary guys on Segway scooters.
Nephew Photos
Here are some recent photos of our Bruininks nephews - Henry, Wilson and Ike.
At the Little Gym
We were very excited when The Little Gym opened a local outlet in Champaign this winter. We signed Cooper up right away and it was great to have someplace for him to burn off some energy during the dark days we had this winter/spring.
Last Saturday was his last class and they had a cute little graduation ceremony for all of the kids - Cooper slept with his medal for a couple days. Here are a few photos from the day, as well as a short video of Cooper doing exercises on the mat. Notice how he anticipates the command to "freeze"?
Cleaning the Needle
KOMO 4 News has a great set of photos featuring workers cleaning the exterior of the Space Needle. Scroll down past the article for the photos.
(via kottke)
Photo Management Tools
One of my favorite website, Lifehacker, recently polled its audience to find out their favorite digital photo management application. Accompanying the poll is a very good comparison of the major features of each of the five "finalists". I've been very happy with manually organizing my photos on my hard drive, then using my Flickr Pro account for online management/backup, however, Google's Picasa software has emerged as a clear leader in the poll. Food for thought if you're trying to figure out how to manage and share your photo collection.
Photos: Space Shuttle Prep
Here's an amazing set of photos illustrating the process involved in getting the space shuttle ready to launch. The scale of this project is staggering.
(via kottke)
Photos: Seattle Trip
Here are the photos we took during our recent trip to Seattle. If the slide show isn't working you can view the photo set at Flickr.
We had a great time on our trip, but we're wiped out now. A sampling of our activities:
- Dinner with my grandfather and all five of his great-grandkids
- Bus trip downtown (Cooper's choice) to visit Pike Place Market
- Belated birthday celebration with my family for Cooper and Anna
- Julie got to see her friends Colleen and Jenny
- Big Easter brunch at my sister's house with family friends
- Eating Zeke's pizza, Pho, and sipping Zoka coffee.
Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
Age of Discovery
I just uploaded a bunch of photos that have been sitting on my cell phone forever. I used to laugh at the concept of a camera phone (what a useless feature!), but now love it. You can capture all those funny little moments you wish you had a camera for.
Anna has been expanding her horizons quite a bit lately, which we've documented in a few of the photos below. Like Cooper she was a late crawler (only a couple weeks ago), but I think she'll follow his lead and be an early walker. She's already pulling herself up on things and taking steps with her walker. She took a header into the coffee table and got a nice big egg on her forehead, so we put that away for a while. What's nice to see is that she gets right back up and tries again with a smile on her face.
She loved the swing!
Pulling up on her activity table - much safer than the coffee table. ;)
Playing is hard work! Sometimes you just have to sleep where you lie. She's also fallen asleep in her saucer. Blame her mom for this character trait.
Halloween
Here's a slide show of Halloween photos from last night. If the presentation isn't working you can view all of our Halloween photos at Flickr.
Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
Flickr Slide Show Test
Let's see if this utility works. If it does you should see an embedded slide show of our August 2007 photos.
Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
Recent Photos
We finally uploaded some new photos to share.
Anna's hair is starting to come in thick and blond with a touch of red.
This is Cooper in his race car driver get up at Ethan's birthday party.
Recent Photos
We've obviously been struggling to make regular updates, but I did finally manage to upload some of our Halloween photos, as well as pictures from our recent Seattle visit.
Cooper's Debut
Consider the following our YouTube experiment. YouTube is a site that offers you the ability to upload video and share it in any number of ways. In this case I've embedded the short video clip I took using our digital camera immediately following Cooper's birth. Despite the still image displayed below the clip is work-safe - he's all cleaned up and laying on the scale.
Update: Don't know about you, but this took a looong time to load when I tried to play it. It might be faster to simply visit the YouTube site directly to view it. Also, perhaps you can explain to me why I asked my 30 second old son to say hello as I'm filming him? I mean, he's pretty smart, but talk about setting unrealistic expectations...
Happy 4th Ethan
Our nephew Ethan turned 4 years old on June 22nd, and we were lucky enough to be invited to his "Cars" themed birthday party over the weekend in Springfield, IL. Here are a few photos I took.
I remember that Ethan was born on the same day that Julie and I (and Laura Sanderson) ran the Mayor's Midnight Sun marathon in Anchorage, AK. A very memorable day, overall.
New Gallery Etc.
We've upgraded our photo gallery and rearranged our albums in the process. Take a look at some recent twilight storm clouds, our backyard wildlife, and Cooper's new toy...the Bugzooka. I thought Seattle had some big spiders, but we discovered one in our garage the other day that was a monster. Not even the Bugzooka was capable of capturing it.
Santa Pics
We took all the boys to get their pictures taken with Santa on Monday. Cooper didn't like him at all, but everyone else seemed to do fine. Take a look at all three photos.
New Photos
We finally got caught up with all of our recent photos. We have more Cooper pics from October and November, Julie's trip to Champaign with Cooper in October, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and our trip to Disneyland last week.
Gallery Additions
We've been pretty bad at taking photos this month, but we did add a few new ones to the September album, including some from our second trip to the zoo. Once again Cooper's favorite stop was the Siamangs, a/k/a the singing monkeys.
Catching Up
We've made a few new gallery additions lately.
- New photos from August & September for Cooper.
- Julie celebrated her 30th by hosting a walk/run for her friends, and eating Mexican food with her family.
- Julie, Todd, Cooper, Alli, Henry & Wilson made a trip to the Evergreen State Fair last Friday. Henry enjoyed the tractors, the animals, and a ride on "Peanuts" the pony.
August Photos
Cooper has a few new photos in his August album. As you can see he has been spending quite a bit of time in his new exer-saucer, which he loves.
Ron and Ceanne, we hope you're viewing these photos on a brand new computer with DSL? If so, be sure to go back and view a few of the video clips in older albums. Congrats!
Cooper Update
We've added quite a few new photos to Cooper's June album, and also started on his July pictures. We finally pulled out the "Johnny Jumper" for Cooper to try - he liked it, but is still a bit small to fit in there comfortably.
In other Cooper news, he's almost ready to roll over. He makes it up on his side, but can't quite swing the leg over to complete the roll. He's been "talking" up a storm as well - giggling, cooing and coughing. I think he's most excited about the impending arrival of his cousin, Wilson, whose due date was today. We're still waiting...
Say Cheese
We also added a few more photos to Cooper's June album.
June is Here
We've started a new album for June Cooper photos. We have a few that we'll enjoy showing his prom date someday.
Adding to May
We just added about 25 pictures to Cooper's May album.
May Album
I think we'll start month to month albums for Cooper from here on out - here's the start of his May album. Don't you just love this photo?
Time Flies...
I can't believe we're already on week 6 of Cooper photos.
Julie weighed him with clothes on the other day and he was up to 10 lbs.
More Photos
Week 5 photos of Cooper are up in the gallery.
Julie's Shower Pics
Julie added a new album of photos she took at her baby shower on February 6th.
New Albums
We've added a couple new albums to our gallery - ultrasounds and belly shots.
Baby Shower Photos
Sherry has an online album of photos from Julie's baby shower yesterday.
