Week 22 in Pictures

Another week done.  I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that it is June ... and the kids are almost done with school (Alex tomorrow, Keira and Nick on Wednesday).

I attended the 7th grade Awards Ceremony for Keira this morning at her school.  She was presented with an Academic High Honor Award, which means her GPA for the year is 4.2 or higher.  I'm so proud of her!

Last week I photographed some kids at our school's 6th grade dance.  It went really well.  I really enjoyed helping set up for the dance and spending time taking the kids' pictures.  I delivered them to the school today so the kids can take them home tomorrow.  I hope they are pleased with them!  And I'm hoping to be able to do that again.

My husband was away for most of last week.  Something we're not used to.  We're used to him working long hours but he always comes home at night.  Tuesday he left, returned Saturday night to get some clean clothes and some parts at his home plant, left again Sunday morning, and returned Monday.  He was only about 2 hours away, but he was still away.  Oh and he informed me today that he is officially off of shift work.  Yay!  Five years of rotating shifts has paid off.  He is now steady daylight with most weekends off!  I'm not sure we're going to know how to act with him home every evening, but I'm sure we'll get used to it pretty quickly.

Anyway, last week was pretty uninspiring for me as far as photography goes.  Most days I had to force myself to pick up my camera to photograph something.  But I did, and here's what I found ...

{Sunday}

An interesting looking flower I came across.  Or is it a weed?  :)

{Monday}

On Memorial Day we always go to our local parade.  We met up with a group of friends this year which made it more fun.  Nick decided to wear Alex's hat to show his patriotism.  And, of course, his Angry Birds shirt.  :)

{Tuesday}

Finally some much needed rain!

{Wednesday}

This was one of those days my camera didn't get touched until late in the day.  But the sun setting was a pretty sight that we got to witness while waiting for Keira to get finished up at Youth Group.

{Thursday}

Alex and I took a much-needed walk/bike ride on the bike trail this morning and look what we found!  We actually found five Monarch caterpillars, who are all now happily munching milkweed leaves on my kitchen counter.

{Friday}

More rain.

{Saturday}

All our babies in their different stages.  The three smallest we hatched from eggs, and the other five are the ones we found along the bike trail on Thursday.  We have them in different bug habitats according to their sizes.  The biggest one has now stopped eating and looks like he will be in J form soon.  I can't wait to have butterflies again!

On a very sad note, the baby gorilla that was born at the Pittsburgh Zoo back in February died over the weekend.

They had recently given him the name Kito.  Their facebook update stated that they don't know the cause yet, but I'm sure they will be looking into it.

My heart goes out to his mama, Moka.  She was such a good, caring mother to him.

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Week 9 in Pictures

Another week under my belt.  Some days I wonder what I was thinking deciding to do a THIRD year of Project 365.  I'm hoping that once spring arrives and the flowers start blooming, my inspiration will return.

A quick kitchen update ... the appliances were delivered on Friday morning.  They are currently sitting in boxes in my kitchen as we are still waiting for the cabinets to come in.  They should be in soon.  I hope!  :)

Now on to last week's photos ...

{Sunday}

My first attempt at photographing a starry sky.  I really didn't know what I was doing.  I just focused to infinity and hoped for the best since I couldn't really see anything through the viewfinder.  I managed to get the moon in this shot ... and the streak through the middle is a jet passing through.  And I think that is the Little Dipper in the top left corner.

{Monday}

My friend, Laura, and I went to the zoo (sans any kids) to stalk the gorillas in the hopes that we'd catch a glimpse of the new baby.  You can see we were successful.  Isn't he adorable?!  And his mama, Moka, is such a good mother.  So loving and gentle.  A sweet soul. We're so glad we went!

{Tuesday}

This was one of those days I was lacking inspiration.  Maybe because I had taken over 500 pictures at the zoo the day before.  :)  Anyway, this is Honey eating some Kale.  She's a very strange dog sometimes.

{Wednesday}

Nick's class hosted a Dr. Seuss Reading Cafe at school.  The kids each had their jobs.  Nick's job was a waiter.  He took my order (ie. asked me which book I'd like read) and then proceeded to fetch the book and read it to me.  He also helped himself to my drink and snacks, which was okay because I wasn't going to have them anyway.  :)

{Thursday}

Several local stores are selling these primrose flowers for a dollar.  I couldn't resist buying these pretty purple and yellow ones for some much-needed inspiration.  And I thought this would make a good photo for the color palette so I can finally participate in Rosie's Color Me Weekly link up.

     

{Friday}

The appliances got delivered early enough that Alex and I had time to head up to our church so I could run and he could ride his bike before school.  After I was done exercising and before we left for home he asked me to take his picture up in this tree.  Since he's typically running away from the camera these days, I gladly obliged.

{Saturday}

I have to admit, I'm cheating on this one.  It was taken on Friday as well.  But the only pictures I took on Saturday were of Alex at soccer and the lighting in the gym where he plays is horrendous.  Anyway, Keira and I were able to have a little girl time before her dentist appointment, so of course, we went to a local park to take pictures.  What else would we do?  :)

So that was my week.  I also started reading another good novel called A Constant Heart.  In case you didn't know, I'm giving away a copy of The Guardian Duke.  It is a really great book that I recently read in two days because I just couldn't put it down.  If you'd like to find out more about it and have a chance to win a copy for yourself, just click here.

Be sure to stop back on Wednesday to link up with Wild & Wonderful Wednesday.
Have a fabulous week!  

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Wild & Wonderful Wednesday #18

Once again Wild & Wonderful Wednesday snuck up on me.  Did you ever have a day when you had several things you wanted to accomplish only to have life get in the way?  All I really ended up accomplishing today was Bible study this morning, grocery shopping this afternoon, and cleaning up my son's vomit this evening.  Obviously that last item was not originally on my to-do list today.  :)

So here I am posting late again.  Oh well.  Such is life sometimes.

And in case you are wondering, he's sleeping soundly on the couch right now with a big bowl beside him just in case.  Although I think we are past the yucky stomach already.

Anyway, this week I have more zoo photos to show you.  Remember in a prior post I was saying I was going to visit the zoo without my kids?  Well, my good friend, Laura, and I did just that on Monday.  We were both able to leave the kids at home with our husbands who both had the day off.  We had a wonderful time at the zoo.  We were able to linger as long as we wanted at the different exhibits.   And we both took a gazillion photos.

In fact, if you saw yesterday's post, you would know that we spent about an hour just at the gorilla exhibit so we could get a good look at the new baby.   There were no kids to whine or complain or fight.  At least none that were ours.  :)  And even though the weather was gorgeous for February in Pennsylvania, there weren't many people there.  It was just a delightful day.


So here are a few photos from Monday's zoo visit.

The Amur Leopard is such a gorgeous animal.

And, of course, so is the lioness.  Another animal was calling (which we later found out was the snow leopard) and caught her attention.

This is Moka and her new baby boy who was born on February 9.  We found out so much information about the gorillas while we were there.  The gorillas' caregiver had just fed the animals and was outside the exhibit answering questions and telling us lots of interesting things about them.

This crazy, fun creature is a Dama Gazelle.  They were also eating ... and running and jumping around.  They were so fun to watch.  While this photo isn't the sharpest, it shows how high they can jump.

Now it is your turn!  Link up your Wild & Wonderful photos below.  

Just a few things first ...

1.  Grab my button for your post and link up below (or at least use a text link) so others can find out about Wild & Wonderful Wednesday.  Thank you!

2.  Link up your post URL (or Flickr photo URL), not your blog URL.

3.  Photos must be yours please.

4.  Try to visit and comment on a few other linker uppers. 

5.  You have until Saturday at midnight to link up!

<center><a href="http://kimberlysperspective.blogspot.com/"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfwwyaMEvjZkk1W2QvexI3Mq6nMxsLltPDHIZ9MGgTqe6vRUdZBrqjZkUU5MSlwqcNCqKkln6_IfbLazBDkdcnTctpPuYXZ1vFqN06YX7wkpoTJiIkvHB0dH7VlNb3nMGT-3GxFBHjrk0Q/s1600/Wild-and-wonderful-wednesda.jpg"/></a></center>

Also linking up with these lovely ladies ...

             

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I Clicked it Up a Notch - February's Best Photo

Time for Courtney's monthly photo challenge where we show off how we clicked it up a notch.  This photo was taken just today, and I am so excited to show it off!

My friend, Laura, and I left the kids at home today and visited the Pittsburgh Zoo by ourselves.  And our cameras, of course.  It was a gorgeous day!  Our main mission was to see the new baby gorilla that was born on February 9, 2012.  And, as you can see, we were successful in our endeavors.  We stalked the gorilla exhibit for about an hour.  And then came back later to see them again.  It was difficult to get decent pictures because it is so dark and you need to photograph them through the glass windows.  (They will go outside once the weather warms up a bit.)  I'm so excited about this photo.  The way he looked up and appeared to be smiling.  I had to use a super high ISO and still had a slow shutter speed so it is a bit grainy, but this little guy is so adorable that those things don't even matter.  :)

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