Photos Included – The Life of a Little Hippie

Cousin Tim

December 7, 2011 by littlehippie 1 Comment

I’m just going to borrow the posting that I did in 2009 for this anniversary:

December 7, 2008, Tim Abernethy was on duty as a Houston Police Officer. During a ‘routine’ (I hate that word) traffic stop, things turned really ugly and Tim was murdered by the person whose car he pulled over. He lived his life selflessly: serving his country in the Navy, serving his neighbors as a police officer, and serving his family as a father, husband, son, brother, and role model.

Tim: we miss you and promise to never forget your sacrifice. Your life serves as a daily reminder of what we should be doing to better ourselves and how to be better members of our community. We will never, ever forget.

Filed Under: Life in General, Photos Included

42 Months!

December 5, 2011 by littlehippie 2 Comments

Filed Under: Ezra!, Photos Included

Week 3: Kubler-Ross Is Full Of Crap

November 17, 2011 by littlehippie 8 Comments

Ok, that’s not entirely true. Kubler-Ross did a lot of great things for the understanding of grief, for example, making it part of the conversation in a way that was understandable to most people. For those of you who don’t know who Kubler-Ross is, a quick introduction: she was a psychiatrist, who in 1969, published a book based on the interviews of hundreds of people titled “On Death And Dying.” See, grief has only been a talked-about part of human psyche for a few decades, and this is largely – if not solely – due to the work of Kubler-Ross. In the book, she introduces the idea of the Stages of Grief (see chart below), and uses them as a way to understand what emotional cycle people experience when they suffer a loss. There is a lot of really good information in what she brings forth, but where she went terribly wrong, was making the stages of grief a linear concept. Even the idea that someone might slip back into the previous stage momentarily prior to moving forward, is a misconception. But it’s what we know. It’s what we understand. It’s easy to understand….unfortunately, grief and emotion are none of those things – there is nothing linear about us.

The week three meeting of the Parent’s Group centered on learning about the grief process. It was the first meeting where we actually started to move in a direction of understanding, instead of the necessary but difficult introductions. Now, let it be known that the meetings are not a lecture or educational platform. Each one has an agenda and direction, but the conversation often moves in different directions depending on the needs of the group on any particular night. And just because the first two weeks are behind us, it doesn’t mean that so are the emotionally challenging moments – for those happen all throughout each and every meeting.

Also, the third week offered Ahna and I something very special: a chance to reunite for the first time since leaving the hospital with someone that was absolutely instrumental to us while we were there. Vanessa is a Chaplain in the hospital, and while we were very fortunate to receive the help and services of that entire department, Vanessa is one person that we connected with the most….one of many extraordinary people that walked with us. Vanessa was our ‘guest facilitator’ for the third week’s meeting, and it was an absolute pleasure to reconnect with her.

During the meeting, we were introduced to something that is an alternate understanding of the stages of grief called the Grief Wheel (see below). The simple design – the idea that it’s never ending, that it’s an alternate trajectory, that there are built-in understandings of slippage between all of the places, and that there is a before and after that are different – really connected with me in a way that the traditional models never have. I would make one modification to the drawing, and instead of it being two-dimensional, I would make it look more like a spiral where the ‘before loss’ and ‘after loss’ parts of life never intersect.

When we look at this, we recognize that there really isn’t a stage to this process. While we would probably associate pretty strongly with one particular part of this wheel, I would also offer that at any given moment on any given day, you could find us in any part of this circle. And even though we may generally be in one area, there are feelings/emotions/descriptions from each other part that we also deal with on a daily basis. I think that we are finding that as time is moving forward, with or without our permission, there are actually aspects of grieving that become harder and more influential. The holidays are upon us (group week seven discussion), and Liam’s birthday is only a few weeks away. I wouldn’t be surprised if this wheel starts spinning a lot faster in the near future.

Filed Under: Liam!, Life in General, Photos Included

Ye Olde Steam Engine

November 12, 2011 by littlehippie 3 Comments

So, I’m sitting at a computer somewhere one day checking my e-mail (hard to believe isn’t it?) when I get a note from a photographer friend of mine that says that a railroad steam engine is coming through town the following day. While it was going to be coming through, it would make a 15 minute whistle stop on the tracks behind a strip-mall (there aren’t too many places for trains to stop on the tracks these days). Hmm, that sounds moderately interesting from a photography perspective, and I’m sure that Ezra would love it…..so we made plans for the next morning.

As we strolled over to the area that the train was supposed to be stopping, fully expecting to be nearly the only ones there (I mean, if it isn’t on the news or Facebook or Twitter, how does anyone know about these events?), and we were shocked to see about 100 other folks already lined up waiting – and that’s not including the 100+ photographers that were lining the tracks along the frontage road. So, as the crowd and scene developed, so did the anticipation level. We would hear periodic updates about the train’s location, and the kids would get all excited. But I don’t think that any of us (at least those of us that just happened on this) really knew what to expect.

The train rounded the corner and approached the crowd, it was suddenly apparent that this was really freaking cool. The train is a special one that the Union Pacific railroad keeps in Cheyenne, WY. Every once in a while, they bring it out on tour or to special events. This time, the train was headed on a two month long tour of the southwest. As the train got close, the classic noises that trains are supposed to produce – but are absent in all modern diesel rigs – became loud, and I mean really loud. The train came to a stop, the Engineers climbed out, and the crowd narrowed in. It was an extremely cool opportunity to see a working engine like this one up close. There was little restriction about climbing up to and around the train, and the Engineer for the train even got out and spoke to a group of kids that featured Ezra and the kids from our street.

There really is something beautiful about it’s steel/industrial presence. And it takes good pictures too.

Filed Under: Life in General, Photos Included

A Mission To Mars

November 11, 2011 by littlehippie 3 Comments

An astronaut. A candy bucket. A fun night.

This year’s version of Halloween featured a bummer (I had to work) and a special guest (my Aunt from Israel), but still was centered on Ezra’s planetary exploration of the neighborhood candy-producing solar systems.

As Ezra does have a small allergy to peanuts, we try to avoid them as much as possible. I think that we were all amazed at how much candy contains peanuts, or cannot promise to be peanut free. After weeding through Ezra’s stash, his got a lot smaller, and ours got a lot bigger. But, it would be nice if there were more peanut free candy givers out there (I hesitate to say that we didn’t even consider it this time)….take note for next year.

Filed Under: Ezra!, Photos Included

41 Months!

November 10, 2011 by littlehippie Leave a Comment

A little fisheye lens fun for this month’s photo…

Filed Under: Ezra!, Photos Included

A Trip To The Pumpkin Patch

October 19, 2011 by littlehippie 2 Comments

Cold and windy seems to be the recent theme when it comes to spending time outdoors. I suppose that could be attributed to either dumb luck or to the changing seasons….let’s go with a little of both. We took a recent trip up to Anderson Farms to hang at their Fall Festival for a few morning hours, and we were treated to all sorts of cold in between the lightly scattered rain showers and the 20mph wind gusts. Ezra had a lot of fun feeding the goats, playing in a wooden train, and running like crazy through three differently sized mazes – including the large corn maze. We ended the morning with a long trip out to their pumpkin patch (long because you have to ride a wagon and you are on their time table – which is apparently indifferent to the current weather situation). While out at the pumpkin patch, we were able to pick a few pumpkins to bring home – trust me on this one…the camera was inside my jacket being protected from one of those brief and ill-timed rain showers. A few wind-whipped red cheeks later, we wrapped it all up with a cozy car ride home.

Filed Under: Ezra!, Photos Included

Rocky Mountain National Park – A Photo Excursion

October 18, 2011 by littlehippie 6 Comments

Many, many moons ago – like all of the way back to the 2010 holiday season, I received a pretty cool gift: a 6-hour photo safari with a guide in Rocky Mountain National Park. Fast forward ten+ months and an entire lifetime, and we arrive to last week when I finally made it up there. A good friend of mine (Adam) and I went up there for the six hours with a fella by the name of Jared and spent an amazing morning touring around the east side of the park playing with photography.

Since sunrise and the hour immediately afterwards are perfect lighting opportunities for photography, we met early: 6am in Estes Park…which means that there is a leave-the-house departure time of 430am. During October, the front range of Colorado’s weather fluctuates all over the place: snow one day, 80 degrees just a few days later. But up in the foothills and mountains, things aren’t nearly as up and down…they are just simply trending colder….and this morning was no exception from that trend. The air temperature wasn’t too bad – just below freezing at sunrise – it was the wind that was difficult: 25-30mph gusts. All that means is that you quickly learn to manipulate the camera with gloves on.

We enjoyed a beautiful sunrise at Moraine Park before heading over towards some aspen trees. The aspens were my initial goal from the experience, but two things played against us in that hunt: a foot of snow a few days prior to our trip, and the high winds. We did find a few remaining stands of aspen trees, but nothing earth shattering. Rather, both Adam and my favorite part of the trip was doing the macro photography. In order to really accomplish this well, you need a very specific camera lens, and a special tripod capable of making those angles. What makes the experience so fun is that you do all of the photography, you use your camera body, and you can use the guides lenses and equipment were wanted. The macro shots, and a few long shots were where we used his stuff (the long shots were simply an excuse to use a $6,000 lens and didn’t really amount to anything). Oh, and those cold temperatures for the morning? Turns out that when you slip into a stream and get your shoes/pants wet up to mid-calf, the wind doesn’t seem to help dry it quicker….instead it makes it really, really cold for a while – like ‘get back in the car, turn the heater on, change socks, and hope for feeling in your toes’ cold.

Anyhow, I’m pretty stoked about how these pictures turned out and I have already planned for one of them to make it’s way to large canvas print – come by the house sometime and take a look. It was a blast to be up there with Adam, Jared is a really nice guy, and if you are in need of his information for yourselves, I’ll gladly pass it along. What’s that? You want to buy one? Send me an e-mail, let’s talk.

my favorite from the day

moraine park at sunrise

: my favorite from the day

: moraine park at sunrise

Filed Under: Life in General, Photos Included

A Couple Random Shots Of Ezra

October 17, 2011 by littlehippie Leave a Comment

We are amazed and astounded at his continuing growth in writing ability. He absolutely loves to write all of our names, and his enjoyment of doing it is really starting to show in his ability to write better and better.

Fashion statements by Ezra.

Sit in a box? Sure, no problem. Sounds fun to me.

Filed Under: Ezra!, Photos Included

One Person’s Snowfall Is Another Person’s Birthday Gift

October 16, 2011 by littlehippie 1 Comment

Can it get much better than a birthday gift of snowfall on Oct 8? Well, obviously it can, but a winter teaser this early in October is pretty tough to beat as birthday weather goes. I had the fortunate opportunity (you can read sarcasm or not) to work over my birthday, which has some pretty clear negatives, but also some unexpected positives. Because I wasn’t with my family on the actual day, the birthday celebrations got spread out a little; and because I was with my firehouse family on the actual day, I got teased a lot….oh, and we got to have some pretty good ice cream via Ahna and Ezra stopping by. There was also a mini-celebration with some close friends that featured (for the first time ever for me) birthday donuts, and a trip to the museum with Ahna and Ezra. Oh, and as far as a gift goes? To find out what I was lucky enough to get, you’ll have to join me out here on the slopes of Arapahoe Basin sometime this winter (ps – season has already started).