Professional Photo Shoot

We like to think that we're fairly good photographers, but there's still no substitute for a professional. So around Anders's first birthday we scheduled another photo session with Michael Peterson.

We tried to be creative with the props that we brought to his studio for the shoot. Overall Anders wasn't quite as cooperative as during his previous session at 6 months, but we still got some good results.

TOYS
We picked bright, primary colored toys: Viking Toys "Chubby" cars, wooden stacking rings, megablocks toolset, etc.

KITCHEN
We spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and Anders seems to have picked up on that. He has his own set of kitchen utensils, bowls, tupperware, etc., though for the photoshoot we brought some of "ours" as well.

SQUASH
It was fall, and we happened to have some around. Why not?

FLOUR
This one was suggested by Michael and we had high hopes for it. We envisioned him throwing the flour into the air and just generally having a good time. But he was much more cautious and tentative about it, and rarely looked up at the camera; he was focused entirely on the flour. By the end he started to loosen up a bit and actually have fun.

DIAPER SHOTS
Okay, so we know that these are "fake" in the sense that the diapers will have a white cover over them so that you won't actually see the color underneath. But what fun is that?

BLANKET
The blanket shots from the first photo shoot came out so well that we just had to try them again. The blanket and hat were made by my mom, and who knows how much longer the hat will actually fit him.

READING
Anders still loves his books. This shot was an excuse to use Michael's super-fancy low F-stop lens to get a really shallow depth of field.

FAMILY SHOTS
In addition to all of the studio "prop" shots that we had planned for Anders, we got some good family shots as well.

If you reached the end of this endless slew of photos, congratulations! You must be one of Anders's grandparents. :)

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

Date: October 13, 2009

Company Picnic

Insitu recently held its annual employee picnic. One nice perk this year is that they hired photographer Michael Peterson to wander around and take pictures of the event. (They claim that it was not to "take attendance".)

The "newbie" shirt was a gift from our nerd friends Evan and Erin, and we thought it would be appropriate attire for the day. The shirt received quite a few chuckles from many engineers at the picnic.

- Corinne, Mike, and Anders Rocket

Date: September 18, 2009

Anders Photo Shoot

One of the items that has been on our to-do list for a few months now is to have some professional photos taken of Anders. Being the small community that it is, every so often I run into the local photographer we hired for the Massman family reunion a few years back, Michael Peterson. One such encounter finally motivated us to schedule an appointment with him in his studio.

Anders has always been interested in cameras; when you point one at him he will invariably look directly at it. I figure he must be into electronic gadgets. ;) Combine that with his generally happy disposition and we were hoping for a good session.

We wanted to get a few family photos but spend the majority of the time capturing Rocket. After all, he's changing so quickly that who knows what he'll look like in a few months?

We're really happy with the results. We got lots of great shots of Anders; below is a sampling. The first shot is even going to be featured in a showing of Michael's work at a local restaurant.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders "Fabio" Rocket

Hosting the Massman Family Reunion!

As you can probably tell from this blog, we always have things going on, particularly in the summer. However, there was one event this year that stood out from the rest: The Massman Family Reunion. Hosted at our house. The reaction we get from people when we would tell them that we're hosting 30+ members of Corinne's mother's family at our house for 5 days was fairly consistent: wide eyes of disbelief. You're doing what?

Preparations
We spent quite a lot of time organizing and preparing for the event. In February we checked out the Trout Lake lodging options so that we could make recommendations first-hand. (We were NOT going to have 30+ people stay in our house for 5 days; we're not that crazy.) We put together a list of possible activities and made plans for a few group events, such as a White Salmon rafting trip. We hired a professional photographer to capture the event. We tried to get as many details nailed down ahead of time as possible so that when the event arrived, we could enjoy the weekend.

Lodging

Trout Lake has more lodging options that I would have expected, considering its size; the heavy summer tourism season must have something to do with that. But the summer books early. Thankfully there were still enough rooms at the Trout Lake Motel, Serenity's, and several other B&Bs to house everyone. We also had 1-2 campers parked in the yard over the course of the weekend, and a Port-A-John tucked away between the trees (to save our septic system!)

Activities

There is a lot to do in our area, and we knew better than to try to make a schedule of events to cover every day. Instead we organized a few key events throughout the weekend, and provided information on other local activities that people could do as they pleased. The scheduled events included a White Salmon rafting trip, a photo-shoot with a professional photographer, and an "all-hands" home-cooked dinner each night. People took good advantage of the outdoor opportunities, including horseback-riding, biking, and wine tasting, as well as croquet, horseshoes, bocci, and late night card games at home.


Food

While there are a plethora of places to stay while in Trout Lake, there is really only one restaurant. So Corinne decided that we should take a bold approach: cook all of the dinners in our kitchen. The two of us weren't about to do all of the meals ourselves, though, so each dinner was assigned 4 meal preparers and 2 cleaners. I thought it would be a bit of a challenge for everyone to come up with a meal that could feed 35 people but still be prepared and cooked in our normal-sized kitchen, but everything worked out perfectly. Over the 5 days we had fabulous meals: curried chicken and rice; spicy breaded fish sandwiches; baked meatballs; and pasta with peppers and onions. And on the days when you weren't cooking, all you did was show up and eat!

Photos

We hired professional photographer Michael Peterson for a few hours to take photos of the reunion. He took both posed portraits and lots of fun photos. Between Michael's professional shots and the photos from the cameras of the attendees, we ended up with about 3.5G of photos! Needless to say, we couldn't post them all here. A sampling of some of Michael's candids is below. We particularly liked the ones of us running through the neighbors field (thanks, Carl!) and the "kids" jumping off of our rail fence (which now needs a post replaced - oops).

But alas, soon the weekend was over and everyone was traveling home. After a trip to the dump and some cleaning, we returned to our normal lives. How boring.



- Mike (& Corinne)