This week’s post is brought to you by Christmas. And yes, next week’s blog will be much the same. For this week, though, it was Christmas at home with our girl. She got some cool stuff – but I got my macro lens and put it to immediate use. Yessssssssss. Enjoy a few, or view the set here.
Two pretty awesome things happened this past week.
On Friday, I had the opportunity to go take photographs of the Benjamin and Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center in downtown Dayton. It’s their 10-year anniversary of opening, and they’re having a photo contest to celebrate. In order to take photographs inside, you were asked to schedule an appointment. So I did. While access was still very limited, it was an awesome opportunity and I took full advantage.
On Saturday, Keith and I took Emma up to the Franklin Park Conservatory to enjoy an afternoon together. The grounds were beautiful, and the indoor gardens were pretty amazing.
Per the usual, here’s a small selection of my favorites – and the rest can be found here.
Franklin Park Conservatory:
Schuster Center:
It was a pretty quiet week around the Klein house. Emma was sick for most of it, and not really up for doing much. By Saturday afternoon, we were all going stir-crazy and decided to take a quick trip to Cox Arboretum for some fresh air. We knew Em wouldn’t last long, but we made the best of the time we had and hit the butterfly house as well as the new Tree Tower (which, sadly, wasn’t open yet). Here are a few shots from the day, but as always, the rest are here.
We went on a date this week. We needed it. Mom was kind enough to babysit, and although we were both very tired and very sick, we took full advantage and got out of the house. We visited Little Saigon, this hole-in-the-wall kind of restaurant. You know these places. Very nondescript, you might drive right by it, but the food is AMAZING. The staff is WONDERFUL. And it’s one of our favorite restaurants. Their meal-sized soups (Pho) are just incredible, and perfect when you’re feeling ill. After dinner, we visited a local graffiti wall so I could finally get some shots of it. I’ve been wanting to do this for the last year or so. Finally, we went to see “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”. It was actually pretty decent. Anyway, here are a few from our night out!
Little Saigon:
Graffiti Wall:
And my favorite of the night:
This was a pretty slow week until Saturday. However, we had lots of adventures to make up for the slow week starting Saturday morning! We had the annual neighborhood Trash ‘n Treasure event – which is basically a neighborhood-wide garage/yard sale. We get phenomenal attendance every year, and this year was no exception. We got to wander and see lots of cool sales, and also the gorgeous architecture, flowers and wildlife my neighborhood has to offer. My awesome mom came to hang out with us, and we also took Emma on her first trip to 2nd Street Public Market downtown. It was a great day, and she looked pretty badass – with her first pair of Converse on. 🙂 Here are a few, but here are the rest.
TnT:
Market:
This week, the Klein family hung out at the park for awhile. Also, Emma celebrated her 6-month birthday – she partied hard. Finally, I was granted the honor of taking part in photographing a 5k for Girls on the Run Dayton. It’s an organization which provides support and encouragement for girls from 3rd grade to 8th grade to encourage healthy living. Their big event is the 5k, which happened Saturday morning at Welcome Stadium in Dayton. Here are a few of my favorite shots from the week, but the rest can be found here.
Park:
Girls on the Run:
And the winner was a dude. Seriously.
And finally, Emma’s 6-month shot:
Third place:
Runner-Up:
And the clear winner:
So, let’s be honest here for a moment. Not every week is going to have interesting stories. This is one of them. We had rain, rain, rain, and heat, heat, heat all week, so it was pretty ugly here. But we did get to celebrate Keith’s birthday, go to the drive-in movies for about half a hour before Emma freaked and I gave up, and see the “Super Moon”. There you have it. Hopefully it’ll be better this week!
We celebrated Easter in Chicago this past weekend (yup, 2 different blog posts) with Keith’s family, including a visit to Elk Park – and yes, there are elk running around. Well, ok, it was more like sitting and napping, but still. It was an exhausting weekend, and our first weekend traveling with Emma. There is definitely a learning curve! But it was a lovely visit, and when we got back home we also got to celebrate with my mom. Emma also attended her first baseball game – and we had killer seats! She’ll have to get used to our regular season seats after this, sadly. And finally, the most important event – Emma turned 5 months old! She’s getting so big, so quickly. We are SO LUCKY. I’ll only post a handful of shots, as usual, but the rest are here.
Chicago Easter:
Dragons game:
Easter at home: 
Emma’s 5-month shoot:
Third Choice:
Runner-Up:
Winner, winner, chicken dinner!
So besides getting to go to Garden Station in downtown Dayton, and walking around the Oregon District for a few minutes, we also traveled to Chicago to visit with Keith’s family. Here’s a selection of my favorites, but here are the rest.
It’s hard to believe it’s already week 13 (2.0). But, there you have it. This week, we went to the Wright Dunbar section of Dayton where there are some very cool buildings with such lovely paint colors that I couldn’t resist doing some shooting. The flowers are also in full bloom around our neighborhood. And finally, Emma started in on rice cereal. I wasn’t super excited about it, but we also discontinued swaddling, so this seems to help her sleep a bit longer during the night. Here’s a random selection of shots, and as always, the rest are here.
Frautography 