Tyler's birthday and stuff

Tyler turned 8 on Friday.  He got some sweet gifts, including this wubble ball, some legos, that hat, a bike speedometer, and a slinky.  

For his party we went to Pump it Up in Oakley.  It was open family hour and we all rode the slides and jumped in the jumpy houses.  This picture was taken in the morning when I was photographing the single Bob stroller for a craigslist ad.  It sold this morning, by the way.

On Saturday we went to Pop's house, where he got more legos.

Cute picture of Kira and Parker

Blake saying "cheese."

Parker wasn't in good spirits for this shot but he's been generally pleasant lately.

Erika, Walt's sister, came up from Malibu

Zoran (Erika's husband), Joyce (Erik's wife), Walt, Erika, and Erik Lietz (Walt's cousin).

Pete is a long-time friend of Walt's and came up for din-din.

 Tyler blowing out his candles.

Catching up on genealogy and immigration stories.  Heidi will have to write about them but apparently, Erik had quite the tale of how he emigrated from Germany.

Scott inherited Grandma's camera and took the next few photos.  He is running for historian and wants to take pictures of his classmates, so I'm glad he's motivated to get into photography.  We had to try several batteries in order to get the camera to work.  I gave him some basic instruction, beginning with, "A bad photo is better than no photo."  Then #2 was the rule of thirds:  Put the subject's eyes at 1/3 down, not halfway.  This portrait isn't bad but could be cropped a little better to satisfy the rule of thirds.

He seemed to take my instruction well and hopefully he'll be able to evaluate his own work.  It took me years before I felt like I was good.

Blake finally got a speed suit which he's pretty excited about.

 Tyler got a golf toss from Heather and they played it in Pop's back yard.

What's on for today?  I don't know.  I want to fix the van's steering rack and put on some new tie- rods, but we'll see.  I got the kids to do their chores and now they're vegging in front of the TVs.  I should write a little more on my composition.  I feel like I've been productive, though.  I did payroll, sent off the IRA contributions, did some expenses, and sold the stroller.  Yar.