July 28th, 2015 - Kalispell, Montana

It's rather frustrating at times when I realize how long it has been since my last blog entry...  Stacey and I have such an amazing life and there are soon many things I can write about and share...  We have spent the last few days photographing wildlife from the Triple D Ranch here in Kalispell...  This picture of a Mountain Lion below is just one example...

We also went to "The Event @ Rebecca Farm" just outside of Kalispell...  The following image is a frame out of a video I took of a jump that did not end up as planned...  Both rider and horse were fortunately ok...

We met some new Friends and old Friends...  Cheryl Thiele (below) being one of our new friends...

Jeff Wendorff of Wildlife Workshops (below) was our Photo Workshop Guide for our last two visits to Triple D Ranch and is becoming a good friend...

Our travels and photography are not only about the photography and videography but also about the adventures, people we meet and friends we make during our travels...  This trip being no exception...  We were able to get some great photos and videos of Foxes, Mountain lions, Bruno the Grizzly Bear, a beautiful leopard (Amur), Wolves and their pups, Porcupine, Badgers, spotted skunks, Canadian Lynx and Bobcat Kittens...  Their trainer and surrogate Mom Heather Keepers, (below), is an absolutely amazing trainer...  All of the wildlife at Triple D absolutely Love Heather...

We plan to check out Glacier National Park and Flathead Lake while we are here and hope to get some scenic photos...  We brought two of our drones with us, our Phantom 2 and our Inspire 1, (below), hoping to be able to get some areal photography while we are in the Sky Country...

Hopefully you will check back from time to time and see what we have been up to...  Hopefully I will remember to update our blog more often...  ;-)

Australia, South Pacific, New Zealand

Stacey and I arrived in Sydney, Australia December 31st, 2011, (New Year's Eve).  We spent New Year's Eve evening on a Tall Ship in Sydney Harbour leading the Parade of Lights for the Fireworks show and what a Show it was, absolutely a great experience...

We stayed with friends in Glebe, (a suburb of Sydney), until the 4th of January 2012 and then we boarded the ms Volendam Cruise Ship of Holland and headed toward FiJi and the South Pacific Islands.  We were at sea for two days and two nights and then the next morning we had arrived at our first destination.  We were not able to dock the ship in this particular harbour so we had to use Tender Boats to go ashore. Most of the stops in the South Pacific were tendered but we did actually dock at a couple of ports...  It was extremely Hot and humid during all of the 13 days of the South Pacific Islands cruise. 

While we were on-board the cruise ship we were enrolled in two ship seminars, the first one with Dr. Wayne Dyer which was the main reason that we signed up for the cruise and the second one was with HayHouse which dealt with writing and publishing books...  Wayne's seminar was entitled "Learning to Manifest" and the HayHouse seminar was entitled "Movers and Shakers"...  I only went to the first Movers and Shakers seminar but attended all of Wayne Dyer's Seminar...  Stacey went to all of both...  Wayne and one of his Daughters stayed in a Stateroom just a few doors down from ours and we shared access to what they called the Neptune Lounge...  I learned a great deal from and about Dr. Dyer during this cruise... 

While on the first cruise we met several very nice friends...  10 from Australia and 2 from Canada...  We stayed with one of them, "Nano", after we completed our second cruise.  After we returned to Sydney from our South Pacific Islands cruise we decided to stay on the Ship for a second cruise which was for 14 days to New Zealand. It was a much different cruise.  We didn't meet any special friends like on the first cruise, we didn't have any seminars to attend and we booked excursions through the ship for every port that we stopped in.  On the way back from New Zealand the seas were extremely rough for the two day journey back to Sydney.  I was sick most of the time and for a couple of Days after the cruise had ended.

When we returned to Sydney the second time I was ready to go home.  We were scheduled for two more weeks in Australia before returning home but I just couldn't take it any more...  We were able to change our plane tickets to leave four days later on Sunday and Stacey reluctantly agreed.  We had planned to spend those days seeing the zoo and aquarium and opera house, etc. in Sydney but it rained the entire time until the day before we left so we basically just spent hours and hours talking to Nano about many spiritual thoughts.

After returning to the Ranch we spent Valentine's at the Shore Lodge in McCall and had a very nice romantic time at the Lake.  Stacey had a nice massage and facial at the spa and I enjoyed just relaxing, (on land), and we had a very nice romantic dinner that evening...

We are back at the Ranch now and I hope to stay here for quite awhile before going anywhere else...

I Love our life at Lake Creek - we received the new "I Am" - Wishes Fulfilled Meditation CD from Wayne Dyer...  He shared a sample of the meditation with us while we were on the Cruise and we instantly fell in Love with it...  I have been meditation since the 80s when I learned about deep mediation via bio-feedback relaxation techniques and self-hypnosis, etc. and I have also worked with Bill Harris at Centerpointe using their very powerful meditation techniques however this CD takes you to an incredible level of meditation almost immediately, very powerful and effective...

So that's it for now...  Hope all is well with anyone that is reading this...
Peace...  De  (Feb. 16th, 2012)

Time to Catch up...

Mercy, it has been almost a year and a half since I last updated this Blog...  So many incredible things have gone on in our lives the past year and a half...  We are starting to get excited about our trip to Australia...  We will arrive there on New Year's Eve morning 2011...  We will spend that evening celebrating New Year's Eve on one of the "Tall Ships" in Sydney Harbor watching the incredible Fireworks...  Then a few days later we board Holland America's ms Volendam Cruise-liner bound for Fiji, New Caledonia, Lautoka, lle des Pins and Noumea. The cruise departs from Sydney Harbor and lasts for 13 days...  Then when we return to Sydney we plan to spend the next 4 weeks driving up the golden and sunshine coasts to the barrier reef...  It should provide us with many awesome photo opportunities.  Stacey and I have been so busy with Ranch Projects that we have drifted away from our photography and are very much looking forward to getting back into it...  We will be trying out Canon's fairly new EOS 7D DSLR camera that also includes a video option which will be new for us but should come in handy when filming the fireworks and other ocean activities during our cruise and trip up the Australian coast...  Back at the Ranch we have added Peafowl, Guinea Hens, many Chickens and a Borzoi and Bernise Mountain Dog in addition to our Corgi, Shitzu and Pom...  We still have the two cats, Sissy and Clyde but they have taken residence at the barn where they have lots of mice to play with...  We are in the process of building a Boat Shop where our new Ranch Foreman Jeff Lund plans to build wooden drift boats for the Salmon River...  We added a wine cellar that is gorgeous thanks to the carpentry skills of Dallas...  My youngest son Matt worked at the Ranch this summer for almost 5 months and was very eager to get back to North Carolina...  That's all for the moment...  I'll try to do a little better job of updating the blog from time to time, especially with pics from our Australian trip...
Till then...  De

Stacey's Home from Surgery and doing fine...

We brought Stacey home last night after a very successful surgery...  She has to be a couch potato for the first week and then she has to be restricted from picking up anything over 8 lbs and not bending over for the following 5 weeks...  She also has to wear a soft collar neck brace... Her arm pain is much better but her neck and throat are still painful enough that she needs pain medication but it is much - much improved over what she has been dealing with for the past few months...  

Matt surprised us when we returned - he had cleaned up and organized our computer office area and built this huge rustic shelf that is absolutely gorgeous from spare wood lying around the barn...  We were really impressed by his visionary and craftsmanship skills...  He really did a beautiful job...

We were also surprised when we stopped at Donnolley on our way home to find out that our Guinea hens had arrived and we brought 24 Guinea hen chicks home with us...  As a result we had to move our older Americana chicks out of the basement to the chicken proofed Kennel that Matt modified so that we could place the  week old Guinea hen chicks in the basement under the heated lamp...

Our main Diesel Generator had failed to start for Matt the night before and I couldn't get it to start when I got home however I was able to get the old Propane Generator to start and the Service technician was scheduled to come by today and was able to resolve the issue which was air in the fuel lines from the external tank...


And so goes the ongoing saga for the Embree's at our off the Grid Lake Creek Ranch home.


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Stacey's Surgery went well...

Stacey's surgery went very well this morning...  All indications are that she will go home tomorrow...  She has already walked around the halls twice and will be eating a normal dinner tonight...  She is still taking morphine but minimal amounts... She is recovering nicely...

Stacey in Surgery

Stacey and I are in Boise, she is having cervical neck surgery to help rid her of the pain in her neck and arm that she has been dealing with for the past 18 months or so...  They took her in around 8am this morning and Surgery began at 08:30 and should take approximately 2 hours and then she will be in recovery for approximately 1 hour after that and then will be in the hospital for a couple of days before we are able to return home...  Matt is taking care of the Ranch and animals while we are in Boise...  i am a nervous wreck waiting for this to be over - feel like I am going to throw up, Chloe already did this morning...

Arrived Safely back at the Ranch

Yesterday was a long day...  Sarah took Matt and I to the airport at 5am (EST) and after one flight to Chicago and another to Boise we arrived at the Boise Airport around noon (MST). My bag unfortunately was still in Chicago and will be delivered to Riggins Chevron sometime Sunday. United was surprisingly proactive and called our names over the loudspeaker to let us know that our bags had not yet left...  Matt and I took a cab to the Motel to pickup the Jeep and then went to Hooters for wings...  Afterwards we met briefly with Tony who led us to Lowes so that we could purchase some sanders for our future deck project...  Then after fueling up we headed towards Riggins stopping at Ponderosa Sports near Horseshoe Bend for a couple of hours to talk with Cliff regarding Matt's first revolver...  After much pondering and discussion, Matt decided on the one he wanted for his birthday...  He contributed $160 towards the cost and Stacey and I covered the remainder...  We then continued on to Riggins arriving around 8pm...  Once we arrived at the Ranch I had to deal with the extremely sad news of informing Matt of the loss of our Dog Max as we stopped by his grave...  Matt was understandably very upset of the lost of his friend of almost 10 years...  I barbecued  steaks on the grill while Stacey fixed baked potatoes, asparagus, mushrooms and corn on the cob...  She had a birthday pie prepared for Matt but the news of the loss of Max was too much to bear and after looking at some photos of Max online, Matthew went to bed to be alone and deal with the loss of his friend...  It is great to be home and back together with my Stacey...  However, it's been a very long day mixed with many emotions...  Time will help mend the wounds of the loss of our loved ones but will never fill the void...  No doubt in my mind that Max is with Sheri...
Have a wonderful day...  De

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