birthday ie. it's great to be 38 aka. look at my salt n pepper hair

last year my birthday was rainy and cold and this year it was overcast and chilly.  the world is turning upside down, man.  on my birthday katie and i did some shopping.  first we stopped at costco.  she was going to get me comfy speedo flip flops like hers but there were none my size. frowny face. then we went to winners and i tried on some clothes.  there was this cool butterfly one that i liked but we ran out of time so i put it on hold for the day.  but i never went back.  when you are 38 you sometimes let holds go.  it's just part of getting older, so.  

katie needed kleenex and elizabeth needed a nap so we went  back to katie's castle.  we somehow started a game with natalie and michealah.  it went "if you were in the little mermaid, you'd be ursula the sea witch".  this game went on and on.  we picked who they would be in movie after movie and book after book.  sometimes we cast ourselves too.  it was funny although sometimes natalie had a hard time with her lot in life.  katie was professor mcgonagall.  nobody said this, but i'm going to.  i'm dumbledore.  there it's out.

we were supposed to go driving around looking for photo shoot locations with kimme on my birthday but it didn't happen.  what did happen was a looooooooooooong and laborious search at the video store.  it was one of those times when nothing quite catches your fancy and a lot of things look like they may be ok.  we finally settled on this one set in ireland during world war ii.  then we went on a hike up mount copely.  katie had been telling me that mount copely had changed a lot but i didn't really get what she meant until we got there.  there were all these roads!  we picked one and started walking.  i regretted wearing my barefoot shoes because there were a lot of big loose rocks, but i persevered.  eventually we ended up in an abandoned development.  katie said it was supposed to be this cool 'green' community but they couldn't get the water to their development or something so it flopped.  it would have been a beautiful place to live because mount copely is covered in arbutus forests and has a beautiful view too.  we went to the top most lot and took lots of pics.

katie has the most beautiful eyes. uh...they're teal.  they're the exact colour of her shirt! where does she get off??  katie always says that the twins are my favourite subjects.  i do love photographing bethany and amy, it's true, but i love photographing all my family, if truth be told.  i used to follow katie around photographing her.  i've always thought she was so beautiful and unique.

you don't know how hard we searched for the perfect arbutus.

this timed shot caught us mid laugh as i slid straight down the mossy rock into place just in time.  i love the moment it captured.  it's pure katie-n-laura.

hello i'm katie and i'm a beaut.

in these next two pics i'm doing the cobra pose.  it was necessary so that my eyes were not hollows of darkness. note how grey i look.  this is sarah's fault.

i'm elderly and 38.

so we were up on this high bluff cliff and i saw a picture i wanted so i sent katie down...

and then got her to climb back up. i like this pic of her.

before we go, let's do some jumping pics i suggested.  katie pulled off some awesome jumps, but what's best are the expressions on her face.  i think you'll agree with me.

i'm not as good at getting the air but i had a few good ones...

after we jumped our heads off we walked back down to the car.  we made a stop at quality foods for my birthday dinner and ice cream cake ingredients.  we saw sister russell.

my birthday dinner was simple but sooooooooooo delicious.  it really hit the spot.  we had stuffed pastas in a pesto sauce.  our pastas of choice were prosciutto and parmesean tortellini and (my fave) italian sausage sachettes (so flavourful!).  we had a caesar salad--katie just happens to know about the best caesar dressing  known to man and we drenched it in lemon juice--hello.  and we had garlic bread too.  while we ate we watched tangled. i had never seen tangled, which fact boggled the girls' minds.  thunderstruck them.  my ice cream cake was chocolate chip mint and chocolate with crushed oreos and fudge sauce.  it was divine.

michealah went to babysit for chrisandkimme and katie and i settled down to watch our movie.  it was a dud.  so much a dud that we turned it off and went to bed.  it had slater from saved from the bell in it.

before we went to sleep, katie used google maps to look for some grassy field's for the next day's photo shoot.  i was feeling a little anxious about it because we hadn't scouted out any sites.

katie came with me the next day--the big day.  the photo shoot day.  we met at chrisnkimme's house because i wanted to do some shots there first.  kimme looked stunning.  hello kimme star of the family. every body looked great.  i'm not going to go into too much detail about the shoot except to say that we decided on piper's for our location.  on the down side it was cold there and that made cassius unhappy.  on the plus side, there were lots of wild beautiful different locations and we didn't have to go far to find them.  i had so much fun and got totally into it.  i can't wait to show you all the results.

at the end of the shoot i took a bunch of just kimme and then katie who had gone off with the boys to a beach fire to warm up, came back and she and kimme did some hilarious jumping shots. at one point i told them to chest bump each other and they listened to me!  it was so funny.  instead of bumping chests they bumped knees though...

i was on a photo shoot high for a while after that.  the creative mojo was buzzing.

that night we had a bbq at chrisnkimme's.  chris made these huge burgers with feta inside and we had lots of yummy toppings and greek salad.  i couldn't fit my mouth around my burger. at that point i knew i was wrong to say i would have two.  so we decided to eat the rest the next day for sunday dinner.

that night we had more ice cream cake and talked about where chrisnkimme might move to, and katie and i helped kimme get ready for her sharing time lesson.  i wrote out scenarios for her as she did the dishes. stuff she could get the kids to act out.  i added a few personalized ones for just her to make her laugh, something about fighting with your husband about a photoshoot.

sunday night we spent a lot of time looking up houses near katie and brent's home for chrisnkimme to buy.  oh and also katie and kimme kept taking off and leaving me alone.  like they were the cool girls trying to ditch me.  oh sure they always had some excuse but i knew what they were doing.

monday morn i boarded the bus for tofino armed with catching fire. i read it the whole 4.5 hour bus trip long.  taking moments here and there to look out the window at the stunning world that is vancouver island.

more on that later.  just to let you know my foot's a lot better.  i can walk.  halelujah.