I am back from a great family get away. I can't say it was a vacation. In my mind a vacation is when you get to take a load off from your normal responsibilities. Vacationing with a 2yr old changes this possibility into a family get away:)

The lake we stayed by was beautiful. We were right on our own little piece of beach which felt extra special because the water is so shallow. You walk out at least 100 yards where the water gets no deeper than your thigh. My son doesn't really like the water all that much so we spent most of ou time on teh beach, playing in the sand.
My husband and I got to go out in our kayaks-the ones that have been hanging in our garage unused for 2yrs since the boy was born. These pictures are a few we took with our old canon power shot. Oh how I miss my rebel! Canon said I should get it back next week. Boo hoo:(
My ttv pics were really tough to take without my rebel. I did get a few nice ones though.

I mentioned in a previous post that a lack of new pictures has inspired me to start playing more in PS. Well there are two photographers I admire that have inspired me to start playing with textures. These are two pics from our vacation that I have played with. It is very fun to build the layers and watch the effects deepen and become more complex.

I love this one I took from my kayak.

I love to sit and paddle so close to the water. It almost feels like a dream. I attribute my deep sense of calm from water and water signs (my husband and son just to name two people)to the fact that I have no water in my chart:)

For me, being out on a quiet lake with my guy,who always makes me giggle and laugh, is one of my favorite things to do on a sunny day. We also got a chance to play some tennis. I guess we did get little bits of vacation in there:)

One of the most fascinating things about the trip for me, was that there were a ton of Monarch butterflies flying around the beach all week. They must have used the beach as a resting place while migrating to Mexico. I felt so heavenly being surrounded by them. Have you ever held a monarch? They are so strong-and beauiful. They look right at you-turn their head-almost cock it to the side as they check you out. They have a really cute fuzzy back. Oh how I adore them.

Speaking of Monarch.....I think I am going to have to release it as a business name. There is monarch design in NY so I can't get an LLC. Instead I got an LLC for Photography. I don't know how I will transition my etsy packaging logo etc. I am trying to wait for it to become clear.

It may be a blessing. I had signed up for monarchdesigns.net with lycos-but when I tried to get some help there I stumbled upon their confusing system-lack of phone support-live online help seems like it is never up. Their help center is a message board they direct you to with the explanation that your question has to have been asked before. I stumbled upon a lot of complaints that indicated a change may be the best. I still haven't gotten an answer from an email I sent 4 days ago, so I dropped lycos as a webhost by cancelling my payments through paypal. I still have not been able to cancel on lycos/tripod website because their cancelation screen brings me back to my account page every time.

I decided to sign up for Yahoo ecommerce webhosting. I will be spending alot of time trying to get my website up and running. It is pretty exciting. I will let you know when it is done.

I am off to bed - my body aches from the past two days back to doing power yoga and a spur of the moment painting job I did today in my sons playroom.

It was a good day:)

XO