Scavenger Hunt Sunday 09.01.13

Hello!  Happy September!  Can you believe it?!  After taking a couple weeks off, I managed to get all the scavenger hunt prompts this week.  

Last week my kids started back to school.  You can see our traditional night-before-school-starts-photo-shoot photos here.  And our first-day-of-school photos here.  Also, I have a giveaway going for a good tween/teen book here.  Go check it out!  I also went to the laundromat to wash many loads of clothes since we are still having water problems.  No pictures of that though.  :)  Doug was out of town for work and got home on Friday.  I had meetings, finished a good book, and had a family photo shoot.  And I edited lots of pictures.  I need to get caught up because I have several more sessions coming up this month and don't want to get too far behind!

Now on to the hunt ...

{down}

Nick found this huge toad just yesterday.  He wanted to keep him, but I made him let it go.  He set it down in the grass and I snapped a couple pics so Nick could remember him forever.

{shadow}

Okay, more silhouette than shadow, but I love this pic of Keira holding Alex.

{flow}

Alex had a blast this week at a new-to-us pool ... playing in the water flowing from the mushroom-looking fountain.

{tip}

I know I shared this pic before, but it fit for this prompt.  Nick found several more praying mantises this week.  They have these sharp tips on the ends of their front legs.  Although if you are gentle with them, they won't use them on you. :)

{beyond}

The fish at Pymatuning were beyond anything I could have imagined.  They were cool and gross at the same time.  :)

That's it for me!  I hope you have a great Labor Day weekend!

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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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