Author: Nick

Jonah truly is Daddy’s little boy. He can be crying his head off and as soon as Dad gets home he will give him a huge smile. He loves to hear his Daddy talk. Nick reads to Jonah every night before bed and Jonah just loves it.

So Jen, Jonah and I went to the Ladew Topiary Gardens on Saturday. Jen will blog all about the experience but I wanted to show a couple of my photos from the day. The first one is Jen in the gardens, and the other two are Jonah looking funny in the car.

We went to Ford Theater, where Lincoln was shot (in the booth behind me, above) and then headed across the street to the house where he died. The bed below is where he died. Very sad. But I did learn more about the story than I knew before, like the fact that John Wilkes Boothe was a famous actor, which is why they let him in to greet the president. So it would be like Brad Pitt shooting Obama…but that would never happen today.

Then we went to the Holocaust museum. I don’t have any pictures of that, but as you can imagine, it was sobering.

On Saturday, May 2nd, 2009, at 2:06pm, Jonah Nicholas Lloyd made his first appearance! Jen gave birth to our healthy, 8lb 11.7oz baby boy at the Bethesda National Naval Medical Center in Maryland. Here are some of the photos from that day. There will be more to come so stay tuned!

This weekend was the D.C. Shootoff, a photo competition for military and DOD photographers held near Washington D.C. Friday we had lectures all day from famous photographers and developers such as Martin Gisborne from Apple’s Aperture team, Bill Putnam, Greg Hren (a famous commercial photographer), Bill Frakes (a staff photographer for Sports Illustrated with some amazing work), and Micheal Williamson from the Washington Post and three time Pulitzer Prize winner. I really enjoyed what they all had to say, especially Micheal Williamson. After the lectures a topic for the competition was pulled out of the hat. The rules are that within 24 hours you turn in 3-5 images that tell a story. This year’s theme was “Commitment.”

After thinking about a lot of different ideas for this topic and talking to friends and family, my Mom suggested I photograph some nuns, but none of the convents would allow me to come, so Jen suggested the missionaries and I thought it was brilliant. My photos ended up getting Second place in my division, which is a pretty big deal for me. Here are the photos:

“Illustrative of Mormon missionaries Jason Anderson and Joseph Broadhead studying their scriptures before beginning their day in their apartment in Severn Maryland on March 14th, 2009. Mormon missionaries devote two years of their lives to to teaching people about their religion.”

“Illustrative of Mormon missionaries Joseph Broadhead and Jason Anderson riding their bikes in Severn Maryland on March 14th, 2009.”

“Illustrative of Mormon missionaries Joseph Broadhead and Jason Anderson conversing with Jennifer Lloyd at a home in Severn Maryland on March 14th, 2009.”

“Illustrative of Mormon missionaries Joseph Broadhead and Jason Anderson walking from house to house in Severn Maryland on March 14th, 2009.”

Anyway, I won some cool stuff including a bag from Nikon, a $50 gift certificate from B&H which is a website that has all kinds of photo equipment, a photo holder, and some fine art photo paper. Also, the D.C. Shootoff T-shirt was pretty cool this year. Here’s a photo of me with my swag:

It was a fun and informative weekend.

Speaking of missionaries….Jen and I are also excited that her brother Tyson gets back from his mission to the Phillipines on the 30th of this month. Her other brother Cody leaves for his mission to the Ukraine on July 15th! Yay for missionaries!

So I went to the Inauguration concert on Sunday night and also to the actual Inauguration on Tuesday and got some amazing photos…check it out!

Yes, I was actually this close. It was amazing! There were sooo many people there, those of you that watched it on TV have an idea, but it was hard to move. It took me an hour and half to walk three blocks because there were so many people. For more pictures of the inauguration check out our flickr link on the right.

Jen, I, and our good friend Mia decided to test out Jens new wedding

This weekend Jen and I went to Colonial Williamsburg! We got there on Saturday and got tickets and checked into a hotel, then we started our vacation by going on a Tavern Ghost Walk. We heard stories about all the various hauntings that have happened over the years in the city. It wasn’t particularly scary, but it was fun and interesting. We got a good nights sleep after that, and in the morning we woke up bright and early ready to go see everything Williamsburg had to offer.

As you can see above, we got put in the stocks (very degrading). We took tours of the Governers Palace, the original Virginia Capitol, and a lot of other cool places. We saw carriage wheels being made by hand, nails being made in the blacksmiths shop, soldiers marching around town, map makers extraordinaire, wigmaking, the local jail, and of course I took pictures of everything. Here are a few of my favorites (I’ll show the ones of me and Jen shortly).

And here are the photos of me and Jen!

Anyway, we ended our beautiful day by eating at the local tavern where had wings and snippets (kind of like long croutons you dip in cheese). It was communal seating so we got put at a table with another couple (much older than us who had kids our age) and we had a really good conversation with them so we were kind of happy about the seating arrangement.

On the way home we got stuck on the freeway for more than an hour and a half because of an accident that closed two of three lanes. We found out the next day that the accident was a semi crashing through the side railing and plummeting a few hundred feet. They finally got the trucker out alive luckily.

All in all, it was a spectacular trip! Food, fun, and a healthy dose of history.

Jen is very perturbed. Want to know why?