Our 23rd Week ~ 2014

We are just one short (or long if you ask the kids) half day of school away from summer break!  The kids last day is Tuesday.  They only have a half day, but if you would ask them, it is the longest day of the year.  Those snow days were pretty cool back in January and February, but now that they are still in school on June 9th and 10th, those snow days have lost their appeal.  :)  I hate to tell them "I told you so" but ...  :)

Normally on the last day we go visit our local zoo or something but thunderstorms are in the forecast, so I'm not sure what we will do.  Something free probably since we're trying not to spend much money before vacation.  :)  Maybe a bike ride if it's not raining.  If it is raining, a movie marathon sounds good to me.  I can get some editing done while the kids chill and eat popcorn.

I decided to continue with the photo a day challenge that Fat Mum Slim hosts.  I wasn't sure I was going to continue in June, but I am going to do my best to keep up.  Here are last week's prompts and my interpretations ...

{June 1: Joy}

You are probably thinking - what does a picture of a little spider have to do with JOY? Well, it involves macro photography, which brings me great joy. I love capturing the tiny details that we so often overlook in our busy lives. So when this tiny spider stayed still long enough for me to capture this image - when I was only inches away - I was so excited!  I was also happy that he didn't jump on me or anything because I probably would have freaked out.  :)

{June 2: Doing}

A bumble bee doing what bees do best.

{June 3: Family}

I don't know about you but my family teaches me something every day. Like patience, grace, mercy, and forgiveness. {sigh} 

{June 4: Ordinary}

Nothing great happens when you settle for ordinary.

{June 5: 11 o'clock}

Was running a little behind, so at 11:00 I was getting ready to run some errands.

{June 6: Adventure}

As Ellie from the movie Up says ... "Adventure is out there!" 

{June 7: Pattern}

The pattern on our neighbor's new foal's face looks like the letter F.  They named him Slick, but I think they should have named him F-stop.  :)

Here are a few random shots from the week ...


Keira spotted this young Robin while we were visiting her grandparents.


On Monday I visited my friend Nikki for a few hours.  We wanted to get some photos of her incredibly handsome cat, Lincoln, but it was so dark and rainy that we decided to wait until another time.  Though I did get on the floor and snap a few.  Not bad considering the lack of light and the super slow shutter speed.  :)  Isn't he gorgeous?


Azalea or rhododendron?  Either way, I loved this unusual color.  They are growing in a local park that I like to walk in occasionally.


As you saw Friday's prompt was "adventure".  Well, I had a picture in my brain similar to the movie Up that required helium balloons.  Fortunately there is a little shop that can whip out some helium balloons in a few minutes as long as they aren't too busy.  After we were done with the balloons for the photos, Alex wanted to let a few go.  So we attached notes to them and set them free.  Hopefully someone found them and it brightened their day.  (Focusing on a rising balloon isn't the easiest thing to do!)  :)

Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the world!  Hope you have a fabulous week!

Linking with Tamar.

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Scavenger Hunt Sunday 06.08.14

Hello!  Welcome to another Scavenger Hunt Sunday!  We are gearing up for summer break that begins at noon on Tuesday (thanks to many snow days this past winter) and we are even taking a family vacation this year!  The first week-long vacation we have taken.  Ever.  The kids are so excited!  And, frankly, so am I.  The last time we went away for an entire week was my honeymoon, 17 years ago.  Anyway, I may not participate next week since we'll be hanging out on the beach.  We'll see.  :)

But enough about that.  Here are this week's prompts.  Some may be very loosely interpreted.  :)

{denim}

So they are a little hard to see, but Alex is wearing denim shorts in this photo.  :)

{light}

The light was dreamy when Keira and I took some pictures of her with her new guitar in our neighbor's field.

{watch}

Twice this week I stopped to watch the horses in the hopes that I would get some more pictures of Slick.  The first time he was sleeping and would not get up.  The second time he was laying down when we got there, but we kept calling out to him and I think his curiosity got the best of him because he got up.  Eventually he was brave enough to come closer to the fence, but not quite close enough for us to pet him.  Is he not the cutest thing ever?  I am totally smitten.

{perspective}

Same flower/weed; different perspective.  Something Honey and I came across on our walk on the bike trail on Friday.

{fuel}

This dragonfly landed on a stick to refuel.  I was glad it did because it gave me an opportunity to photograph it.  (This one is probably a stretch, huh?)  :)  Oh well, works for me!

Be sure to visit Ashley for more great Scavenger Hunt finds!

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Family Getaway ~ Project 52 Week 34

Last week my P52 post only had one photo that I had taken with my little pocket camera because I just hadn't taken any pictures that week.  Well, this past week I more than made up for that.  I took LOADS of pictures.  With good reason too.  Doug and I took the boys on a couple day trips on Sunday and Monday.  (Keira was on a Missions trip with her Youth Group.)  And on Tuesday I shot a wedding!  And remember how I said I hope I get to shoot another wedding?  Well, I got contacted by a girl who saw the photos I had posted on Facebook about prices for her wedding.  I sent her a quote and we'll see.  Her wedding isn't until next August, so she has plenty of time to get back to me.

Anyway, back to week 34's photos ...

On Sunday we took a drive up to Pymatuning to see the fish.

Gross, huh?  But the boys loved it!  We fed them lots of bread and they just went nuts!  

We visited the fish nursery and ate lunch at a little roadside diner with really great food.  Afterwards we found a good spot and did some fishing.  I got tired of fishing after a while and decided I'd rather take pictures.  This dragonfly kept hovering in front of me so I tried to capture him with my camera.

Not perfect, but not bad.  I've never tried photographing a dragonfly in mid-air before.

I took more pics of our Sunday fun but still have to go through them.

On Monday we went to Living Treasures in Donegal.  They keep posting on their facebook page about all the babies that have been born there this year, so we wanted to go check them out.  However so far the only photo I have processed from our visit there is this one ...

Nick took this (and several more - he has a heavy finger) :) of Doug and me while we sat in the gazebo they have on the water.

Once we left the animal park, we drove a few more miles to Seven Springs and did summer tubing for an hour.

Nick refused to get out of the car when we got there.  He was determined he wasn't going to do this.  But I convinced him to give it a try and guess what?  He loved it!  Except he had to "train" with either Doug or me every time.  Until about 45 minutes in when he decided to try going alone.  Then for the last 10 minutes or so, he and Alex kept racing down the hill.

Both of these pictures were taken with my little pocket camera.  I left my D7000 in the car since I couldn't carry it while I was tubing.  One of the girls that works there took this one.  The track was a little muddy at the bottom, but it was still fun.  The track is made of this plastic material.  And the bottom of the tubes are a hard plastic.  In case you were wondering.  :)

The first time Alex rode down the hill he didn't make it the whole way.  So they broke out the baby oil and oiled up the bottom of our tubes each time.  Then we flew!  It was so much fun!  I really wish Keira could have been with us but she was having her own fun.  We'll go again next summer though.

Oh and in the above photo, Alex is celebrating because he raced us down the hill and he won. :)

Later in the week Nick found a praying mantis.  He was pretty cool.  (At least we think it was a "he").  

He kept climbing onto my camera when I was trying to take macro photos of him.  He even climbed all the way up my arm and into my hair before Nick grabbed him.

Last, Alex had his final violin lesson with Seth.

We really enjoyed getting to know Seth over the summer.  But Alex says he wants to learn to play the accordion now.  :)

Nick couldn't get over the fact that Seth looks like he could be Jack Black's brother.

So that was a small sampling of our week.  I'm hoping once the kids get back to school on Wednesday, I'll have more time to process photos.  I didn't get nearly as much editing done this summer as I had hoped.  But we had lots and lots of fun, which is what I'd rather the kids remember about the summer than mom sitting at the laptop the whole time.

How was your week?

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Week 28 in Pictures

Well, the good news is we got to come home from the hospital on Friday.  The bad news is we are back again.  :(  I didn't get to finish my blog posts about our great hospital adventure, but let me just quickly summarize the past few days.

Alex was doing great on Thursday and Friday so we got to go home.  All tubes, IVs, and PICC lines were removed and we were so excited to be leaving Hotel de Children's Hospital.  Everything was swell until Saturday evening when he started vomiting.  He vomited 4 times between 7 pm Saturday and 11 am Sunday, so I called the hospital and they wanted to see him.  So we drove back down, had X-rays, an IV, another NG tube, an a CT scan.  He was admitted Sunday night around 8:00 and here we are.

The word is that he has an abscess in his belly.  Tomorrow we are supposed to go to IR (surgery) to get another PICC line and possibly have the abscess drained.  He will be started back on TPN (nutrition) and he's also getting more IV antibiotics.

Boo.

Not sure how long we will be here this time, but we are definitely hoping it won't be as long as last time.  We do not want to spend the whole month of July in the hospital.  Minus those 45 hours we got to spend at home over the weekend.

Anyway, having said all that, most of last week's photos were taken at the hospital again.  And it looks like this week's photos will be also.  :(

{Sunday}

Daddy and Alex had fun looking at an Eye Spy book.  Alex is really good at Eye Spy.  (The tube in Alex's nose is the NG tube - used to drain fluids from his stomach).

{Monday}

Alex loves to watch the marble machine that is in the hospital clinic's waiting room.  We were there several times during our stay just to see the train and the marble machine.  And I'm sure we'll visit it again now that we're back.  (When we would go walking, I would tie his NG tube inside his gown's tie in the back.  That way no one had to hold it and it wasn't pulling on him.  The nurses thought that was the neatest idea.)

{Tuesday}

Doug brought our last chrysalis to the hospital so I wouldn't miss when this handsome fellow decided to join us.  This was the magical day.  We set him free in the hospital's healing garden.

{Wednesday}

Some Pittsburgh Penguins players came to the hospital to play games with the kids.  Grammy and Alex wanted their picture taken with Iceburgh, the Penguins' mascot.  Fun times!  Except for the whole being-stuck-in-the-hospital part.  :)

{Thursday}

Alex and I did some spin art in the playroom.  It looked prettier while it was spinning.  :)

{Friday}

The day we came home!  Honey was so excited to see us, she nearly knocked me over.  Once I got her calmed down, I decided she needed to be my POTD.

{Saturday}

Nick and I went for a walk down to our neighbor's pond.  There were plenty of dragonflies buzzing around.  This one was nice enough to sit still for me.  :)

     
If you are doing a Project 365 this year, be sure to stop over at Inspire Me Photography and link up.  Tracey will be featuring a photo each week from someone who has linked up.  She has themes for each week, but you are not required to stick to them.  Otherwise I would have been booted out a long time ago!  :)  Oh, and you will LOVE her photography!  She's awesome!

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Scavenger Hunt Sunday 07.15.12

It is Scavenger Hunt Sunday time!  This week's items are Water, Fresh, Petal, Eight, and Calm.

{water}

While Nick and I were on a walk down to our neighbor's pond, we saw many dragonflies buzzing around the water.  This one was nice enough to sit still for me.

{fresh}

It doesn't get any fresher than carrots straight out of the garden.


{petal}

My pink lilies are blooming!  I love how shiny the petals look.


{eight}

Eight thousand, that is.  Nick came across this huge ant colony, so I broke out the macro filter to get a closer look.


{calm}

Honey was anything but calm when we got home from the hospital on Friday after being there for two weeks.  She almost knocked me over, she was so happy to see me.  I did manage to calm her down eventually so I could take her picture.  I was happy to photograph something other than hospital-related stuff.


Be sure to head over to Ashley's for more great Scavenger Hunt photos!  And if you wish to play along for next week, here are the items to look for:

1. Wrapped
2. Time Together
3. Tell Me a Story
4. Love or Couple
5. Duplicated

 Have a great week!

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Week 35 Summary

We had another fun, busy week.  The kids all returned to school on Wednesday and we are all adjusting to getting up early once again.  Ugh.  You will notice that I filled all 8 spots in my collage this week.  That is because I posted photos of all 3 kids on the 31st and didn't have the heart to leave someone out.  :)


For those of you that are interested in an update on my broken camera ... the current status is that Nikon is waiting for parts to repair it.  It has been on "parts hold" for a few days now, so hopefully they will get them soon and get busy!  I want my camera back!

Anyway, here is our week in pictures ...

28 - Cool mushroom in our neighbor's yard.

29 - Pretty purple flowers (weeds?).  Tracey chose this as one of her Top 5 this week.  Thanks, Tracey!

30 - Dragonfly love.  :)

31 - Back to school.  Keira started 7th grade; Nick - 3rd grade; and Alex - Kindergarten.  They all catch the bus at different times, which is why I didn't get a photo of them all together.

1 - Black-eyed Susans after the rain.

2 - Popcorn and movie night is a weekly tradition in our house on Fridays.

3 - Alex with his new-to-him toy we picked up at a consignment sale today.

     Hope you have a wonderful week!

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

Time once again for the month's best photo pick for Click it Up a Notch.  I had a hard time picking this month.  I have several that I really liked, but this one that I just took on August 30 has to be my favorite this month ...

I almost feel like I'm intruding.  :)  The bokeh is an added texture from Shadowhouse Creations.

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Photo of the Day: August 30

ISO 200, f/5.6, 1/800s, 55-200mm lens on Nikon D40, textures by Kim Klassen and Shadowhouse Creations

Another fun-filled day spent with the kiddos on their last day of summer vacation.  (My vacation starts tomorrow!)  :)  

We went fishing at a local park.  Keira was the only one that caught any fish ... one fish ... and a frog (with her hands), but we still had a good time.  The dragonflies kept catching my eye, but none would land near me.  Then these two happened along.  I love how they formed a heart while they were mating.


   

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