I stayed with the MacDonald family for a few days during my time in Regina last week. Ruaridh and Duncan stood in the sunshine and shadows falling across the kitchen wall for my photo of the week on the Photographer Network blog. The bear…well…he had an unfortunate run-in against Duncan and a pair of knitting needles and sadly lost. Curiosity killed the bear but his eye was glued back on later that evening.

This is a long post…be forewarned. If I had it my way, I’d post every single photo I took over the three weeks I spent in Sweden with my niece Astrid, because I love her that much. I’m a super proud Auntie, and will be THAT Auntie with a wallet full of photos of her niece (exploding at the seams like George Costanza’s). Astrid loves early morning dancing to old school hip-hop, snowflakes on her cheeks, splashing water all over the bathroom, diddled pipe tunes, and when you squish her cheeks. My sister is a great mom, and Anders is a great pops…which isn’t a surprise to me at all. Counting the days until the next visit…xo.

A rare photo of me here on the blog, taken by my sister Shannon with my Fujifilm Instax Mini.

I’ve known Sheila since we were kids. We were both day-students at the Gaelic College and often met over bagged lunches in the cafeteria with the other 3 day students. We ended up in the same piping classes and played in the same pipe band. When a couple of guys from the Aberdeen Celtic Society came over to the College, Sheila met Calum and…the rest is history. They now live in Scotland with their two adorable freckly kids Christy and Duncan. During my trip over to Glasgow, they came into the city to pick me up and we drove out to the Whitelee Windfarm for their session. Lots of laughs followed until the moment we went for lunch and little Duncan spotted the life-sized skeleton statue in the cafe. He ate his sandwich in tears underneath the table and we bolted once the last bites were chewed.

Best of luck to Shyanne as she heads off to participate in the Miss Teen Canada World as Miss Brentwood Bay this weekend in Vancouver! We had a session in Beacon Hill Park on Sunday morning and just barely missed the hailstorm and snow which started about thirty minutes after this photo was taken.

Back to business after a month away from the office being Auntie to sweet little Astrid in Sweden (seen here taking care of my post-production work and trying out her bouncing legs). Lots of editing to catch up on along with some exciting projects lined up over the next few months.