I absolutely adore taking photos of my dogs. It’s definitely one of my favorite forms of photography. Lately it’s been too cold for me to be motivated enough to go outside to take pics. We also haven’t had much sunlight these days to give me good natural indoor light. I’ve taken some pics using lights from the apartment, but I haven’t mastered the white-balance settings on my camera so the pictures have a yellowy look to them (honetsly, I haven’t tried messing with the white-balance much). Since I wasn’t happy with any of those pics, I didn’t share any of them.

Well, this weekend we had some good sunlight! I didn’t take any outdoor shots, but I did indoors. I had a lot of fun. All of these were taken with my Sigma 50mm f/1.4 lens. LOVE this lens. I think I was generally shooting at 3.2 and my ISO was up at about 1000 (I’m too lazy to find out exactly). One thing I love about the Nikon D90 is how ISO 1000 is actually a low ISO and there is no sign of graininess!

Ok, here’s my favorites

First up we have Epsilon with his ball. I tried to explain to him that it’d be more manly to choose his green ball vs. his pink one for the photos, but he wouldn’t have it. This was the ball of choice.

This is Ally with her all time favorite toy – “The Squirrelly”.

This next one was very difficult to take because Epsilon was NOT happy about having to be so far from his ball. Don’t let his cute face in the background fool you… he was pissed. I’m actually quite proud of him for being obedient and staying.

You have no idea how obsessed this guy is with his balls… not those kind of balls! (He doesn’t even have that kind anyway).

This toy Ally is with is named Todd. It’s a fox and we named him Todd after the fox in The Fox and the Hound. Todd is one of her favorite toys.

See that duck toy? She used to LOVE that toy because it made a quacking sound. But it doesn’t work anymore so she NEVER plays with it. But if I dare put it away, she pulls it back out. I don’t really understand her. She doesn’t even like to play with it, yet it has to be out… weirdo.

Please ignore my messy apartment in the background.

I love tongue shots!

That’s all for today! Hope you liked them! (I added all these photos to the Pets album of my Photography Page).

I am using Rapidweaver to publish the site (thanks Seth!). If you have a Mac and looking for something more than iWeb to make a website, I highly recommend this program. They have a lot of nice built in themes, but I’m using a purchased theme called Float by Elixir. Do you like it? I’m also using a plugin for my photography page to show off my photos in style It’s called Collage 2 by YourHead.  One of the greatest parts of Rapidweaver for me is that I still have this blog powered by WordPress yet it matches the rest of the site. I need WP-blog to do it, but it works great, don’t you think? My pregnancy journal is another blog, but I’m not using WordPress to publish it. Rapidweaver has it’s own built in blogging, so I’m going to use that for the pregnancy journal and see how it works out.

Well, I hope you like the new look! I’m pretty happy with it. Well, my welcome page is pretty lame… hopefully I’ll come up with something better sometime this week.

Enjoy!

I spent my Wednesday night in the ER due to complications in my pregnancy. This was the first time in my memory I’ve even been to the ER as a patient and I was there for worst possible reason – fear of my baby’s life. I want to share my story with you and I will be giving some details, so if girl things gross you out (guys!) you may not want to read (it’s not too bad). This will also be very long and I understand if you don’t want to read it. I will say now, Baby is doing fine – Thank God!

On Wednesday afternoon, I had some cramping on my lower left side. It didn’t alarm me as some cramping is normal in pregnancy because of a stretching uterus and things moving around. But this time was a little more severe than normal and I did take note of it. I got up and walked around a little and drank some water and the cramping went away, as well as any trace of worry.

So I finished my homework and went to my 4p-6p class. About 20 minutes into class I had to pee (not surprising as I’m pregnant and I feel like I’m peeing every 10 minutes!) Anyway, I bring up this pee trip just for a sense of time… there was nothing unusual about it. Class let out at about 5:45p and when I got to my office I could feel that my underwear were wet. I wasn’t too concerned as pregnancy has made things a little more moist than normal anyway, but I still had to check. Well, it’s a good thing I did… my underwear were bright red, and the blood had reached my jeans.

I started freaking out. Some women experience a little bleeding or spotting during pregnancy, but I have had zero so far and this wasn’t just a little blood, it was a lot in a fairly short amount of time. I immediately started calling my midwifery and rushed to get Dave. As I was on hold, I interrupted his conversation with a friend and said “where are we parked? We have to go”. He confusingly asked why and I just repeated “we have to go”. I didn’t want to announce the problem in front of our friends… they thought my reaction meant Dave was in trouble… Ha!

Midwife told us to go to the ER and let me tell you, I couldn’t believe how many times I was asked “this is a confirmed pregnancy, right?”. YES!! I’ve seen fingers! I’ve told you a billion times that we’ve had two ultrasounds showing a baby! I was getting impatient and just wanted to hurry and get an ultrasound to see if my baby was alive. But of course you have to answer several questions to multiple people (usually the same questions) and fill out paperwork before anything actually gets done. They took a blood sample and finally admitted me to a room.

Once I had a room, I asked for a pad so I wouldn’t bleed all over everything and when I went to the bathroom my underwear was already brown. This was a big relief as it meant the bleeding had already slowed way down and it was the first positive thing of the night. My pee didn’t really seem to be bloody either… good sign!

We waited in the room for what seemed like ages and spoke with two different people about the situation. One girl (I think a nurse?) explained that the worst case scenario was that I had an ectopic pregnancy. This means that the egg got implanted in a fallopian tube instead of my uterus. If this was the case, it was life threatening and I’d need surgery immediately. Um, yeah, thanks for more the reason to freak out! I noticed that all the possible scenarios she gave were bad ones with horrible endings. I was not feeling good at all. She explained that they’d get an ultrasound and do a pelvic exam. I asked that if it wasn’t completely necessary if I could have my midwife perform the pelvic exam instead and she agreed.

After more waiting, we were finally taken to the ultrasound tech. This woman wasn’t mean, but she wasn’t exactly nice, understanding, and nurturing. I was obviously extremely worried about my baby and in and out of tears, but she didn’t say a word during the ultrasound and wouldn’t let me see. I had to ask Dave if he could see the baby moving and a heartbeat. After like a minute of me thinking the worst, Dave tells me he sees that the heartbeat is at 151 bpm. THANK GOD! Why the ultrasound lady wouldn’t tell me, I have no idea. At one point she giggles because she has a cute shot of the feet, and she shows me. Wow, so she is indeed at least part human. And yes, the feet were adorable

But the main question was if my cervix was open or closed. An open cervix indicates that a miscarriage is happening. The topical ultrasound wasn’t showing a good view of my cervix and so we tried a vaginal ultrasound, but that too was inconclusive. By now, the bleeding had stopped, so this was a good sign that my cervix was actually closed. The lady did say the my uterus and Baby seemed to be in a good spot and wasn’t too low. This too is a good sign.

In the end, the ER doc diagnosed me with “threatened abortion”, said I did not have an ectopic pregnancy, and that my hCG levels were at about 34500. He required that I see my midwife within 2 days to see if my hCG levels go up, gave me some paperwork for my midwife, and sent me out the door. The whole experience took over 3 hours.

Now I want to talk about what was happening elsewhere while I was in the ER. I have amazing family and friends! When I got to the ER I text my mom and two good friends to tell them what was going on. I also posted a quick tweet. I had meant to crosspost to Facebook with #fb, but didn’t. But it didn’t matter, when Mom got my text she pulled over and posted to Facebook and made phone calls asking people to pray for Baby. It spread and other people started posting it to Facebook and making phone calls. One of my friends posted a thread in The Mommy Playbook forums explaining the situation. There were so many people praying for Baby (and non-religious people thinking positively for Baby) and I had no idea at the time. I am so grateful for all these people! There were people who I had no idea even followed me on Twitter letting me know that their family was praying for us. Amazing! If you were one of these people and reading this, thank you so so SO much.

I went to bed that night scared, but feeling much better than I did when I first saw the blood. I spoke with my midwife and she said seeing a healthy baby with a good heartbeat was the best indicator that everything was fine and that made me feel better.

The next morning I woke up to no bleeding which made me real happy. But when I got to school, I had a little bit of spotting. It wasn’t a lot and it was brown, so I didn’t freak out but I did go home. I put myself on bedrest for the day. The spotting only happened twice during the day and was never red.

Now today I had my appointment with a midwife. It went very well! She said a pelvic exam wasn’t necessary and she just felt where my uterus was from the outside and listened to the heartbeat. Everything was exactly as it should be Baby was even being a brat and moving around a lot so that the midwife had to chase the heartbeat… she called Baby a wiggle worm! But a wiggle worm means a healthy, active baby! She said at this point everything is pointing towards no problems. Some women experience some bleeding and have perfectly healthy pregnancies. Especially since I’m already 15 weeks along and not experiencing major cramping or contractions, there is a good chance there is nothing severe going on. She took a urine sample that will be sent to the lab to be cultured to see if I have an infection. A UTI or yeast infection could also explain the bleeding. There are other little minor things that can cause bleeding too, all of which propose no harm to Baby. She said that now we just need to focus on emotional healing and moving on. The experience was terrifying, but it’s over. She also recommend we treat ourselves to a nice dinner – yes! We will have an ultrasound in 4 weeks, and by then my cervix should be very easy to see (with a full bladder).

I am just so relieved that everything is ok and it was so lovely to hear Baby’s heartbeat again today. Dave said that he saw Baby’s toes and was able to tell that Baby has definitely grown since our ultrasound a couple weeks ago. I’m trusting the Lord that Baby will be perfectly healthy and that we will not be seeing Baby before we should. We only have 25 weeks to go!

Most of you probably don’t understand why this is worthy of such excitement. Well, you see, Dave is deathly allergic to fish.

Dave grew up eating a lot of fish as a child. His dad would fish in the Monterey Bay regularly and smoked salmon was a common meal at the Lofte house. This was, in fact, Dave’s favorite food. One day, when he was about 10 years old, Dave’s throat swelled up when eating fish and was rushed to the hospital. The doctor concluded that he was allergic to fish… a very sad day for Dave.

Over the past 18 years, Dave has had reactions to fresh water fish, shell fish, and saltwater fish. Once, he was in a room with garbages filled with rotting fish and this was enough for his throat to start to swell. Another time, someone lied to him and told him that fish sticks were chicken strips (what an ass).

A couple years ago we were at a restaurant that served a lot of fish and I stressed to the waiter that Dave was allergic to fish. The waiter informed me as if I were an idiot that Dave’s chicken plate would not have any fish. I made it clear that even a little fish juice would be enough to trigger a reaction and the waiter rolled his and told me he’d tell the chef. Sure enough, Dave had a reaction to the chicken. The waiter nervously ran off when I told him and came back shamefully admitting that his chicken was indeed cooked in a sauce with fish juice. I wanted to punch him.

This spring, the dentist that my mom works for tried to convince her that she had too many heavy metals in her system and needed to do some special detox. My mom believed it was a hoax, but played along anyway. She had to make some weird little cilantro mixture every day for like a month to see if there was improvement. You see, my mom and I can’t wear earrings without our ears itching. It doesn’t matter how expensive of a metal the earrings are made of, our ears itch. Even necklaces bother my mom. Well, her dentist assured her that this little detox would change that. So when the month was up, mom put on some earrings… and her ears didn’t instantly itch – improvement indeed!

Next time she was at work, she told her boss she was now a believer and wanted to know more. He told her about this bottle of liquid you could take and it was supposed to be an excellent heavy metal detox. It’s called BioRay NDF Plus. One bottle of this stuff was good for two people… and it cost $250! Well, my mom, being the good mom that she is, bought two bottles – one for her and my dad and another for me and Dave. No, Dave and I did not have a choice in the matter.

Let me tell you… this process sucked. We called it the “drops”. This is how it worked – the first day you took one drop in the morning and another drop at night. (By the way, these are eye dropper drops… tiny.) The second day you took two drops in the morning and two more at night. The third day… you get the idea. This pattern continued until day 26 when you were doing 26 drops twice a day… TWENTY-SIX!! It’s is not fun counting out 26 drops from an eye dropper! Then you had to continue doing these 26 drops until the bottle was gone. The whole process probably took about 2 months.

So what does this have to do with Dave’s fish allergy? About halfway through this obnoxious detox, Dave did some research on it. He found out that one of these heavy metals was mercury… which is in fish. Further research showed that doctors will have people who are allergic to fish go through detoxes like this and it often gets rid of the allergy. Suddenly this whole detox thing this didn’t seem so bad.

A couple weeks ago, Dave bought a package of smoked salmon to test if the detox worked. It took him all day to eat the package because he was nervous, but he ate it all without a reaction!

Now today we went out for fish tacos. He did not eat slow and cautiously this time, instead he devoured them and I had my phone ready to call 911. Thankfully, I didn’t need to use my phone and Dave got to finally enjoy some fish… something he hasn’t been able to do for 18 years!

Oh, and I can wear earrings without my ears itching…

I took 416 shots total and a good 100 of them were of Mikey flipping his head back to “fix his hair”. Sometimes his hair would look the best I’ve seen it in my life and then, bam, a hair flip. So funny.

I want to share with you my favorites. Feel free to provide feedback, both negative and positive are welcome.

This first one was taken at Monterey City Hall. I saw this archway and thought it was a great location. My only disappointment with it is that I wish I would’ve noticed his cell phone and asked him to take it out of his pocket.

This next one isn’t your typical portrait since it’s taken in landscape, but I still like it. This was also taken at the Monterey City Hall.

This one was taken at the Carmel Mission. He’s standing on some stairs so he had to look down at me. I wish I had something to elevate myself so that I could’ve been a bit more level with him.

The next one went under some obvious photoshopping. I loved this hallway, but when it was all said and done, the original photo just wasn’t that great. The contrast between him and the dark hallway wasn’t dramatic enough. It just looked like bad lighting. So I went ahead and adjusted the midtown contrasts and increased the color saturation. That version looks pretty cool in my opinion as well, but there’s something about turning off the color that makes this shot best. Taken at Carmel Mission.

This was a last minute spot we chose in front of City Hall. I wasn’t too enthusiastic about the typical leaning against a tree pose, but went with it. Well, I like it.

Of all 416 photos, this last one is my absolute favorite. I love the pose, the look on his face, his hair, everything about it.

If you’re interested, you can see more shots here. What do you think?

The first two were taken on a very clear night.

These last two were taken on a night that started out clear and rapidly turned cloudy. As you can see, we were dangerously close to getting caught in a thunderstorm. This would’ve sucked since there were 5 people sleeping on top of the houseboat, including me and my husband.

This first one had an exposure time of 30 seconds. So as you can see, the clouds were moving pretty quick.

Once I started seeing lightning, I got really excited as I have always wanted to capture a lightning photo. It never failed though, every time lightning struck, I had my camera pointed in completely the wrong direction. After about 10 failed attempts (probably at least 45 minutes) I finally got it!… well, kinda. I’m sad the the bolt runs off the edge of the frame. This ended up being that last strike of lightning in our view and my very first lightning photo ever! =D Now I can’t wait for another thunderstorm.

This past weekend Dave and I hung out with our good friends Adam and Shawna. Shawna’s family has a cabin in Pinecrest, CA and we stayed there for a night. This cabin was the cutest little house ever! The whole thing was made of knotted pine and it was recently remodeled with beautiful tile floors, granite counter tops, and modern bathroom. It had one bedroom and a loft. I could easily live there if it wasn’t so far away from normal civilization. We had a great time and so did our dogs. Adam and Shawna also have a dog, Lucy, and she is quite the little princess. It irritated her to see our dogs play with each other.

Part of the cabin’s appeal was that it was out in the woods away from it all… but with that comes the lack of things like cell reception and internet! I knew there was a chance of being disconnected, but didn’t really believe it would be the case. When we were about 20 minutes from the cabin, I pulled out my iPhone to tweet my location and to my dismay read the words “No Service” across the top! My heart skipped a few beats and I quietly panicked. I wasn’t about to voice my anxiety as Adam, Shawna, and Dave would tease me relentlessly, so I just looked out the window and mentally prepared myself for the next 30 hours with no connection to the outside world.

Shish Kabobs!

I felt much better after getting to the cabin. It smelled so good outside and the cabin was absolutely adorable. We went for a nice walk outside with the dogs, barbecued some shish kabobs, played hearts, and had a grand ol’ time. The next morning, Dave congratulated me on not having a breakdown. Is it sad that I could tell that he was actually proud of me? I can’t help that I love technology so much! But I was pleased to learn that I CAN survive a short amount of time without it. And you know what, it was kind of refreshing! Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I’d gladly pack my iPhone and MacBook away for any length of time for no reason, but I’m willing to give it up from time to time for things like a weekend at cabin in the middle of pine trees with two of my most awesome friends, or a vacation on the lake with my family (that’s for you, Mom), or a few days in Yosemite for one of my best friend’s wedding

That last one is what’s coming tomorrow. My friends Kevin and Corrie are getting married in Yosemite on Friday and we leave tomorrow. I’m a bridesmaid This time, I’m expecting not to have any cell reception that way if I do, it will be a wonderfully pleasent surprise! We shall see!

You may notice that Epsilon got a haircut and I left his mustache. I’m not too sure how I feel about it. I think it’s funny, not necessarily cute

Me with the puppies

Epsilon and Ally

Me

Close-up of Epsilon

Ally's tongue

Epsilon

Ally

And here’s a quick video of Epsilon being a weirdo and rolling around.

A little sidenote: that video was taken with my iPhone 3GS and loaded directly to YouTube It’s the first video I’ve posted to YouTube that way! Very cool!

Thank you @zyber17 for your help