Our first hosted Thanksgiving (2008)

In addition to having a new house, the Dormaiers thought it would be fun to come to Seattle for Thanksgiving...which meant Dave and I hosted (and cooked) our very first Thanksgiving Dinner. "Ahhhhh!!! Ok, ok, we can do this," I thought. We just need to finish unpacking (yes, nearly 6 month later!), clean and figure out how to cook a turkey!! Noooo problem! :)

A friend of mine at work bought me a fancy schmancy meat thermometer and gave me a great turkey tutorial that included a butter massage and a aluminum breast plate (henceforth called the Breastplate of Righteousness"). Dave was pretty much in charge of the sweet potatoes and green bean casserole (yum!) and I discovered that I can cook a turkey and that fresh cranberry sauce is to die for! (and really easy to make). Overall, the night was a success!

We also figured out that we can house 14 (sleeping) bodies if we need to...people were spread out everywhere! Most of the kids were on a huge island of blow up mattresses in the family room while most of the adults were in the main part of the house. Everyone stayed nice and toasty between our wood burning stove and electric heat...talk about hybrid!

Asres and Dan watching a movie...


We didn't have a rack to put in the bottom of the pan for the turkey, so Kelley got to make the foil snake. Yes, lots of jokes were made...

Dave gets into one of the (many) books lying around...

Don't mess with my mother-in-law...she's got a knife!!

The happy turkey after it's butter massage.


Kody and Sam horsing around...

Who knew that chess would be such a big hit this year? Dawson, Jesse, Sam, Dave and Paul were nearly fanatics. Glad our board finally got some use!


Thanks to David who utilized his budding photography skills for these pictures! :)

Pictures are worth a thousand words...

Obviously, ya'll like my pictures more than my writing. :) Well, I'll do my best to feed the beast. Here are some pics I took at Dad's track meet last weekend at the Lake Washington Invite in Kirkland. They're not great, but then again not too bad for only having my wide angle lens (16mm-35mm) I'm definitely not inclined toward the sports photography. :) Below, you'll see a good jump for Mo (Melissa Mauro). I think it was at 5'2" or so...

Finally, the rest of the pictures!

My First Real Photoshoot...

Well, it finally happened. I had my first unsolicited photoshoot! Perfect strangers emailed me up to see about photographing their 19 month old daughter. I was delighted and we had a great time on Saturday. I haven't given them thier pics yet, so I don't know their response, but here are a few of my favorites (which probably won't be posted on my website unless I get permission).


UPDATE 1/22/09:
I did get permission to use these photos for my website (which will be going live in the next couple weeks!) I also figured out how they found me. A band that I photographed at Think Swing 2007 posted some of my pics on their myspace (without my permission originally...I have since given them my full blessing!). She's a friend and fan and liked my pics. We had a great time and you'll see on the site when I'm done that I've reworked a couple of these pictures for the better. Hopefully I'll evenutally get more business as a result.
www.brookwhitney.com

Stock photos

Since I've figured out a fast way to post a lot of pictures, I can now show a few that are of little interest to anyone. :) These are stock pics that I hope to circulate at some point in the future. If you feel like it, let me know which ones you like best (to see the name of the file, just put the cursor over the picture.) Enjoy--or ignore.

P.S. if it looks like it's asking you to sign in (or up), just click the little x in the upper right hand corner of the album and it will get back to the pictures.

Brook's Birthday

Well, since I am still so far behind with my editing, I will continue to recap the wonderful summer Dave and I had. Today, pics from my birthday suprise. Mary and Quinn came over for the weekend and we went to a Mariner's Game. Who did we see? Ken Griffy Jr.! And good times were had by all. :)