Daily Grind

So my days have consisted of work, come home, clean up, play with kids, yardwork, sleep and do it all over again. Yiesh! I haven't photographed much at all, and am just plain tired most of the time. Memorial day weekend was nice though. Crappy weather, but we didn't do much of anything...kinda nice. Saturday I did work on building some more picture frames though. I sould finish them sometime, but I have just too much work to do otherwise. I have windows to put in for a guy on this Saturday, I'm not too excited for that, but it will bring in a little bit more money. So that's the update here. Life needs change.

Sunday

Jessica put TJ in a new outfit for chruch today...ok so most all of his cloths are new--he's only 3 weeks old! She wanted pictures of him in it, and we thought we'd have Toph & Creedance get in for a couple shots too. I've got cute kids!

Creedance 2yrs, Topher 3yrs & Tyler Jr. 3 wks

(he does have a right foot! it's just small and pulled up, I know it looks like he doesn't.)

We went to Pocatello yesterday for a friend's daughter's birthday, she turned 1. We had a lot of fun, but TJ was very sick of being in his car seat. Funny, the trip to Salt Lake didn't seem to bug him at all.

Holga trees

This summer, Jessica and I are responsible for planning our family reunion. So we are taking the families up to Island Park and Yellowstone. We are staying at a B&B and playing in Yellowstone and Island Park. Well, we wanted to have T-shirts for everyone, but to have them be more than just the average 'family reunion' T-shirts. We hope that they would be cool enough that everyone would want to wear them later, and not feel silly wearing them together while walking around Old Faithfull. OK, so if all 37 of us are wearing the same shirt, we will feel silly anyway! But I want the shirt to at least look kind of cool.

So here's my idea. I have wanted to get shirts printed up for myself...I dig T-shirts, and I think that some of my photographs put onto shirts would look cool, and work as advertising for myself...I could even wear them to work at Cherry Glass (conflict of interest?)! So I took this and thought I would make a photograph of a tree, and use that for the reunion shirts...you know like a family tree. So here's what I have so far. I still need to come up with a word or words to put on the front...as far away from "Hopkins Family Reunion" as I can. But for the photo, I wanted a simple image, Holga-ized (or from a Holga, but I don't have time to process the film let alone the scanner to digitize it). This first image is the feel I want, but not quite the photo. It was made with my Holga camera, and so the vinietting is natural.

Now, this next image is one I made a few days ago for the shirt, I kind of like the tree, but I don't think I was as successfull with Holga-izeing it. It seems too forced. I was thinking of having them printed in just white on black shirts so that image just bleeds into the shirt. Let me know what you all think, also if you have ANY ideas of what to put on the front tell me...I'm drawing a blank. There are a few other trees that I have found that may work out well. Thanks for any feedback.

Sweet Ride!

Many of you may know of my obsession with Volkswagens, especially air cooled VW's. In November I decided it was in the best interest of my family to sell our beloved Bus and buy a minivan...this is where you groan. Yes the minivan is not as cool as my Bus was, but it has heat in the winter (without toxic fumes) and air conditioning in the summer--rather than the other way around as it was with the Bus. Well, my sister-in-law is in town visiting her dad and brother, and brought me a gift from them (her, my brother and their kids). Anyway I am told that when Ben, Brittney, and Katelyn saw this remote control VW, they thought that they MUST get it for me. She brought it all the way from Michigan! I was so touched...I mean this thing is HUGE! Just to bring it was amazing. We have had a lot of fun with it. It even has "hydraulics," you can raise and lower the front and back indipendently (notice that it is 'raked' in the picture and it also leans left or right. It also has working lights--it uses turn signals when you turn. I dig it a lot...now I need to figure out how to put a larger battery and motor in it...or not, then it just wouldn't be an honest VW.

All about Tyler Jr.

Outside Shriner's Hospital

Well, we made it to and from Salt Lake safely Tuesday and Wednesday. After we got checked into the Howard Johnson (which I must say was a big 'ghetto') we wanted to find Shriner's so that in the morning we would not be late. It is up on the hill overlooking the Salt Lake valley. It was so beautiful up there! And there are so many cool homes. Not new and prestine like the hillside in Bountifull, but older & well maintained. I couldn't imagine the cost of some of these...I'll bet that the dumpy ones up there are between $200-250K.

Anyway, on Wednesday morning we got there and were a bit nervous. It didn't help that we ended up waiting for over an hour. but we eventually got in to see a doctor. We have been given Dr Roach. A very nice doctor with a very broken nose. A different doctor looked at TJ first, and could tell immediatly that his foot was not clubbed. He checked his spine, his hips, and asked if we had any history of limb abnormalities in our families. Well everything else seemed fine, no signs of anything other than a short leg and a different little foot. Got a few X-rays of his legs and foot, TJ didn't like the x-rays too much. It was kind of a reminder of when we took Toph in to have his head x-rayed to make sure his scull did not fuse too soon.

Anyway, after reviewing he x-rays, they talked with us about options. This was very difficult for both of us. Sorry, but at right now we are not telling everyone what the recomendations are. We are still trying to research, pray and decide what will be the best for our little Tyler. We want to do what will give him the best life possible.

I have always had this idea that when you are sick, or something is wrong, you go to the doctor, get it fixed, heal and go back to normal. Well, I think that I am going to have to modify this thinking. This is not something that will just go away after a doctor visit or two. This is something that we will learn to be normal for us. This will be one of our hardest decisions to make as parents, I feel.

We go back in about 4 months (I would assume for more x-rays) so they can see how TJ's leg & foot grow, and we will go from there. At this point, we go on. We are getting ready for the Hopkins family reunion in July, and we are very excited for that. Can't wait for you all to meet our newest little family member.

Fun little number things about TJ: Toph's birthday 11/2/02, Creedance's birthday 2/14/04, TJ's birthday 5/22/06, TJ is mom & dad's 22nd grandchild, and he shares his birthday with their 1st grandchild, Jessie. Kinda fun little bits 'eh?

Shriner's

Well, tomorrow we leave for Salt Lake City. Wednesday is TJ's appointment with the doctor(s) at Shriner's. I am excited to see what they would recommend and when we can start helping him. Mostly we are excited to find out what the plan will be, or can be. I hope that we can get started right away, but I also don't want to rush into anything that we may end up having to do over again. I have heard that sometimes they have to repeat a procedure because the leg reverts back. I don't know. There are so many 'what ifs' We are just happy to have our baby boy. He is so wonderful!

High Water

So a few days ago (Wednesday) I was working downtown by the river, and I couldn't believe how high the water level is! The falls are not very high. I can only remember one other time that they were higher. In 1997 we had some floding, and the falls were only a bump. Of course when the Teton dam broke and floded they were MUCH higher, but that was before I was born and so I wouldn't remember that. Well, I thought I would take the opportunity to go photograph the falls and the temple. I have been trying to make a good photograph of the LDS Temple in Idaho Falls for a while now, I am getting closer but not quite there. Anyway so I took Jess and the kids down to the walk around and see the falls. It was really fun. I got to photograph and the kids got out and see the ducks and run around. I taught Toph to chase the ducks...ha ha ha.

Topher & Creedance by the falls.

So after getting home and downloading some of the images, I realized that 2 months ago I made photographs from the same place (almost-where I was standing previously is now under 6 feet of water or so. It is really interesting to compare and see the difference 2 months makes!

2 March 2006 3 May 2006

I also just got my new printer...Ok so I bought a used one off eBay. I got an Epson 2200, I figure I could get a good printer for much cheaper if I get the outdated one. It still gives great results, and ICC profiles are much easier to find for it than the 2400...Plus the 2400 at school was giving me problems, I'm not quite sure if all the bugs have been worked out of that model. So I got the printer on Thursday, and got it hooked up. I turned it on and as it was running through the normal warm-up procedure it made a TERRIBLE banging noise, then all the lights started flashing and it would not work! OH NO! Well, to make a long story short, I took the printer half way apart and discovered the problem was actually quite simple, repaired it, and now it works beautifully! I was so worried that I bought a lemon and I would end up paying out in repairs what I could have paid for a new 2400. Yeay! I am happy now.

And now for the best news!

Jessica called me yesterday while I was at work and told me that we got into Shriner's. In fact we go this coming Wednesday to have Tyler Jr's leg examined and evaluated. I am so relieved! We thought that it would be months before they could even see us, and even longer before any treatments begin. Now we still don't know when treatments begin, they may end up not doing anything until he is 2 or older...we won't know until Wednesday...but it is good to know that we will know then. We will go down Tuesday after work and stay (hopefully) one night.

Please keep Tyler Jr. in your prayers...Thanks