Snowy Mountains

This past Sunday, after a whole week of rain and winter storms, we decided to go for a family walk. The sun was out, the temperature was great and the whole family (including the dogs) needed some fresh air and exercise. Most of our favorite hiking trails were still muddy so we decided to go to William S. Hart Park, in Newhall. There is a paved road that goes all the way to the top where the Mansion is. I took my camera along, hoping to capture the snowy mountain tops. I'm not much of a landscape photographer, but these few photos give you an idea of the view from the top.

The forecast is for more rain for today and tomorrow, but not as much as last week. Let's hope the weather is nice this week end so we can go hiking before the soccer tournament season begins!

iheartfaces contest entry - "texture"

This week at iheartfaces the theme is "texture". I tend to keep my post processing simple and adding texture is just not what I do. Instead, I like to find texture within nature. This is a photo of Christina, a friend of a friend who gladly posed for us last Spring. Before the photoshoot, I scouted out the location and found this beautiful, large tree. I loved the texture of the bark and knew I wanted to use it as a background.

To see more beautiful "texture" (and faces too), come on over to iheartfaces.

"We Are Family" - iheartfaces contest

This week at iheartfaces it's "We Are Family" week. I have a lot of family portraits of other family's but I have to admit that my own family portraits usually consists of my three kids! Sometimes, the dogs are included and once in a while, my husband makes an appearance in the picture! This one was taken on his birthday... he didn't have much choice but to be included! One of my New Year's resolution is to include myself into more photos. But in the mean time, here is my family: Christina, Anthony, Allan and Nicholas.

To see more wonderful family pictures, come on over to iheartfaces.com.

Hiking in Santa Clarita

I love this time of the year! The weather is usually pretty nice, the very busy soccer season is over and we get most of our week ends back! Which means hiking for our family. We started the New Year with a visit to Vasquez Rocks on Saturday 01/02/10. The whole family went (even the dogs). The kids had a lot of fun climbing the rock formations and Allan and myself walked around with the dogs trying to figure out where the kids would reappear!

Then on Monday, the kids wanted to go back again! So we returned to Vasquez Rocks, this time without the dogs. This way, I could follow the kids around and do a little climbing myself!

Finally, yesterday, Thursday 01/07/10, we went to visit Placerita Canyon. Their are lots of hiking trails there and we decided to try out the Los Pinetos Saddle Trail. This was a completely different kind of hiking trail; lots of trees and plants, and a lot of walking up hill! We didn't make it to the end of the trail... we were getting too tired and had to take a few minutes to rest at one point. But it was a lot of fun anyways.

We are very lucky to live in Santa Clarita where the hiking trails are abundant and so different! And so far this year, we have been blessed with beautiful weather! Hopefully 2010, will continue to be mild and sunny so we can continue to discover new hiking trails!