The Kimberlin Family

I am still playing catch up with my blog, but I will get there, I promise! Back on November 1st I had the opportunity to spend a couple hours photographing the Kimberlin family at Chautauqua Park in Boulder. Melody and Brian have twins, Audrey and Brenna, who are just about a year old now. Melody is one of the kindest, warmest people I know, and it was wonderful to spend time with her and her family on a strangely warm November day - I think it hit 70 degrees that day! Although very odd for November it gave us perfect weather to have the twins outside in the beautiful fall colors. I think they got the perfect fall color weekend this year! First, here are a few of the whole family and the girls together:








Audrey and Brenna are both such beautiful little girls. Brenna is very active, always wanting to move around so photographing her can be a challenge, but I loved chasing the girls around. I just love her big blue eyes!







Audrey has cheeks that I just always want to reach out and pinch!





I love the following two pictures together - both girls were adorable in their dresses and I love the contrast with the grass.




And last, I love both of these series of pictures. The girls were getting a bit tired so we took a break and Brian started tossing Audrey up in the air. She just loved it so I grabbed a few shots of the two of them, and thought it would be great to have matching photos of Melody and Audrey.




Thank you again Melody and Brian for spending time with me! You are a beautiful family, and it was a pleasure to photograph all of you.

The New Kittens

We used to insist that when Bear, our previous cat, passed away that we would never get another one. Bear was far more destructive to the house over her life than the dogs have ever been, and I was happy to not have to deal with a litter box. However, once she was gone we realized we really missed having a cat around. No one will ever replace Bear in our hearts - she was just that awesome of a cat - but the house seemed empty with no cat to sit on our laps and cuddle with us when we slept. After mulling it over, we finally decided to head to the Boulder Humane Society at least to check out the kitten they had. We sat with about 6 or 7 cats that we thought we were interested in, but none of them were "the one." We had no particular breed we were looking for, and no gender. Our pretty much sole prerequisite was that they had to love people, as we wanted a cat that wanted to be around us. We had pretty much given up and had one more room to stop in - the room with a couple cats that were getting over upper respiratory infections. A brown tabby ran right up to Joe and starting purring. Joe picked him up and you could see that was it, that was the one he wanted. But, there was also a small black one was buzzing around the room, running from place to place and playing with toys and the other cats. I picked him up as he went past and he immediately snuggled up to me and didn't want me to put him down. Now we each wanted a different cat.....we decided to think about it overnight.

We really didn't need two cats, heck, we didn't really need one cat.

Yet the next evening I found myself picking up both cats to take home. We are such suckers for animals!!

We brought them home on November 6th, and these are pictures of them from soon after. Barrett is the brown one - he is already about 9 or 10 months old. We almost named him Sniper because he loves to sneak around and find the high ground to watch us from.







Anderson is the small black one, named after one of my favorite UFC fighters, Anderson Silva. He is only about 3-4 months old and I think he will grow up to be a long and lanky, like Silva. He is still getting over his respitory infection in this pictures, but he is much healthier now!







I finally got one picture of the two of them together.




When we first brought them home they both really wanted their own space so putting them next to each other just caused trouble, but now they will snuggle with each other, and with the dogs. They also like to chase Edison's tail around, which Edison doesn't seem to mind. The house is finally a bit more complete again!

24 Hours of Moab

I am a bit behind on my blog posting, to say the least, but I will now attempt to get caught up. It is just amazing how time is flying by this year! It still feels like just last weekend that I was hired by my friend David Bach of Bach Builders to go down and photograph the team that Bach Builders sponsors in the 24 Hours of Moab mountain bike race. Here are Dave and then his twin brother Fran, who own Bach Builders. Dave also raced in this event!



Before knowing Dave I didn't realize that these types of races existed - literally a 24 hour race. There are various divisions ranging from solo riders up to five person teams, and from "just for fun" to pro. Dave rides in the solo mens division and Bach Builders sponsors several other solo riders and teams. These athletes are insane to watch! The solo riders literally ride their mountain bikes on a difficult, technical loop trail for 24 hours, taking just minutes of a break between each lap. Even with five people on a team that is a lot of mountain biking! I don't think I could do this.

I drove down to Moab to meet up with Dave and his team - I had never been to Moab so I took a few photographs of my surroundings as well:









The race began at noon on October 11th and the racers would continue to start laps until noon on October 12th. The winner of each division was the person or team with the most laps, and if competitors had the same number of laps, the person with the fastest time to the finish line wins. As if racing for 24 hours isn't difficult enough, the weather was not in our favor. We had sustained winds of 30 miles per hour for most of the race, and gusts up to 70. The night was also freezing cold - we even saw a few snowflakes! It was fairly miserable weather for everyone, the racers and their support teams, but it was a great experience! You can find more details on the race itself at the Granny Gear Productions Moab page.

Here is one photo of part of the campground where the support teams were stationed along the course.



The race began with a LeMans start. Each racer runs from the starting line out to a certain point in the field and back again. They then pick up their bike and start their first lap.







You can see the dust already in the air - only some of which is from the racers. The wind was so strong it was blowing dust and sand around the entire race. Boy were my camera and lenses dirty the the end - and so was I!

Here are a few photographs of the racers sponsored by Bach Builders:








And a few of racers from other teams:








My husband always says that the wipeout photos of any sport are even better than the ones where an athlete makes it - the crashes just make for more spectacular photos! So of course I have to include a couple of the best crashes I had the opportunity to photograph. No one was seriously injured in the falls - the riders all got up and kept racing.




As the sun set, the temperature dropped - boy was it cold. Eventually the winds did die down, but not until very late!








In the morning, while the adult racers continued their trek, they had a 24 Minutes of Moab race for the kiddos. They were all so adorable I had to grab a few shots of them as well.








Finally, the race drew to a close. And one of the riders that Bach Builders sponsors won the Men's Solo divison. Congratulations to Josh Tostado for an impressive victory!! Here are a few shots of Josh's last couple laps and his victory.










He beat several world renowned mountain bike racers, including Tinker Juarez, a US mountain bike Olympic medalist, and Chris Eatough.

Another team, named Shake and Bake, that Bach Builders sponsors, won the Duo Pro division. Congratulations to Dax Massey and Dean Miller! Here is a photo of one of them... unfortunately I'm not sure which one he is.



It was amazing to see these racers throughout this entire event. They all showed a huge amount of fortitude, heart and competitive spirit and it was wonderful to watch. Thank you Dave for having me photograph this incredible event! I hope to shoot more of these in the future so stay tuned!!