Fall Colors!

Alternate Title: Finally a Picture Post!

I keep wanting to get out with the camera without the focus of my shots being on people. I snagged a fun shot last weekend while pumpkin-picking, but that is one shot out of the last 30 days. Oy.

Today the weather was perfect and I had hours to burn off at work. Anny was also home from school, so we picked Abby up and headed straight for Lone Elk Park to visit the Elk, Bison, Geese, Ducks and whoever else wanted to play. I'm SO glad that we decided to go - it was a perfect trip, AND I got to have some fun with the camera. Win win.

One of the nice things about my new camera is that the panorama setting is pretty idiot-proof. It literally has a line and a plus sign on each side. Line up the plus from left to right and it takes the next shot for you. If you go too far off-kilter, it kills your attempt. Very cool feature, and helped me pull this off:

Shortly after that we ran into the big Elk Herd - one buck and a dozen or more cows (lady-elk) were hanging out down by the large pond/small lake. The buck was busy scaring the geese away from the cows, which was funny to see. I could not get a good picture of him in motion, but he's a big guy and here's proof:

Another cool thing is that on part of the park property is a Bison area. They are separated from the Elk, with good reason. I would imagine that there would be some major clashes! This was the first trip that Anny got to see the Bison, and they were really close to the car. I took this picture without much zoom, and if you look closely to the right of the Bison-Behinds you will notice another animal, very camouflaged this time of year, a whitetail deer:

Not my last picture of the day, but I think I like the finality of it:

Turns out we missed the best of the leaves around here, but I'm still really glad that we made the trip. Certainly a better way to spend the afternoon than sitting behind my desk!

Photo Tales Tuesday: I Wanna Be Like You

Two years ago for Father's Day, Abby's teachers in daycare got a little white dress shirt and a cute tie to take pictures of each of the children as "dad" for a gift. It was absolutely adorable, despite the newspaper in the picture. (Mostly for comedic effect, or so I'm convinced!)

On Friday as I was getting dressed Abby kept asking to wear one of my work shirts. Since I was clearly already running late, I told her no, but promised she could put one on over the weekend. I don't have any true-white shirts, which is what she wanted. I pulled out my cream-white shirt, and that was good enough for her anyway. I don't know if she was remembering the old picture or if she really just wanted to be like me. I am going to choose the latter of the two, just as an ego boost.

After picking a shirt, Abby chose a tie that she likes. Abby knows my ties, so she asked for this one pretty specifically. Once she was ready and in her getup, she wanted a pad of paper to write on. She got tired of that pretty quickly and moved on to Anny's laptop. I love this picture the most (of the 30 I took) because she looks SO angry with whatever she had just typed!

Be sure to check out the other participants in Photo Tales Tuesday over at Laugh until you Cry:

Photo Tales - A Girl and Her Baloons

Alternate Title: A New Favorite Picture!

Last weekend we took an Epic Roadtrip to Casper, Wyoming, to celebrate the retirement of Anny's parents. It was not only a long road trip, but also a quick one - we left Thursday and returned home on Monday afternoon. The drive took us across the state of Missouri, across the longest state I have ever driven through (Nebraska), and into one of the most beautiful drives I have ever done into Wyoming.

This picture is a new favorite of mine. Anny's mom has had a garden for many years - her rose bushes out front are beautiful from what I hear, and her other gardens have veggies and such. This year the only thing that is growing is Rubarb because they are spending a good deal of the summer just relaxing and doing some traveling. The sign is Rhubarb there reading simply "Carol's Garden" and it's perfectly centered and all. (I would expect nothing less in their yard, to be completely honest!)

Abby loves balloons (reminder to Rob: order some for Sunday's party!) and there were about 40 balloons for the party! They were in sets of red and white for my MIL's school and sets of orange and black for my FIL's school. Abby has recently developed a love of the color black. Her favorite is still green, as it has been for about a year, but she's a fan of black crayons and markers sort of all of the sudden. She requested to play with one of the black balloon bunches - and ONLY the black ones.

(I only put so much focus on that because I really wanted to color them, but don't have the time or patience for it this week. A friend suggested the same, which I thought was pretty funny!)

Photo Tales - Week 5 - Trapped Princess

For days they were calling for rain, the severe kind, for the whole weekend last week. We had already tossed plans out the window and were trying to think of indoor fun for the family. Saturday morning they changed the forecast from severe to almost-perfect sun and blue sky! Our rain plans converted back to making outside plans really quickly.

We spent the morning at the local Renaisance Faire in Wentzville, MO. It was my brother-in-laws birthday, and for his big day he wanted to go and do that, and I was not going to turn that down! (Turns out he paid, too. And cooked us dinner. Not sure he knows what birthdays are about!) 

We spent the morning frolicking and taking in a Birds of Prey show. We followed that up with a good Ren Faire lunch: hot dogs for most, but a turkey leg for me and corn-on-the-cob for Abby! We all enjoyed walking the grounds and see people in their period clothes. We adults felt badly for the guy in full chain-mail, especially after the sun really started to blaze. He looked miserable, but was making up for it with a nice big, ice cold beer.


My favorite part was when we got to smell fresh herbs - Abby got REALLY into it. The nice woman spotted us sort of wandering, except that Abby's eyes had gotten big and friendly, so she invited us over. She told Abby to press the leaves of different things and then smell her fingers. Funny was when the host said "smell this one, it smells like gum!" Abby looked at me like "does she know I'm not four yet? I don't chew gum!" She keeps telling me that when she's seven (or is is eight?) she will be allowed to chew gum. She has a lot of life planned out already, come to think of it.


With all of the fun things that went on, it made me chuckle that all three girls were most easily attracted to the plastic playhouse that they could play with anywhere! They played on this stuff for a good half an hour or so! Abby, in particular, loves to play princess/queen games, so she had a blast. They took turns "locking" each other in the tower, and then took turns setting the captive free. This particular picture was of Abby right after she got to be the rescuer she agreed to pose for a picture, and I never pass that up!

Want to play along? Just want to see other pictures and stories? Click on the button below - it's fun to be a part of this group of folks!

Photo Tales - Week 4

On Monday my darling little one had a fever, and with daycare involved there are firm rules about that. Sniffles are okay, whining is okay, but fevers end the conversation about whether or not to send a child to daycare. I totally get that - better to keep any illness in the house of one instead of passing around the whole group!

After a morning of taking Abby to my office to get some Monday-essential work done, we went home and just vegged. By the time dinner rolled around I jumped at the chance to make it, because it was more exciting than reading another Caillou book. After dinner I insisted on doing something, anything, outside of the apartment, so we settled on blowing bubbles!

I don't know anyone who does not enjoy blowing bubbles - it's simple and amusing, both of which are right up my alley. In the past we have even bought bubble machines so that we could all enjoy without the "work" of blowing? I have never felt as lazy as when I bought a second bubble blowing machine in two years.

Someone on Facebook commented that the reflection is cool - the sun was beginning to set on a beautiful day and the two apartment buildings behind us lit up beautifully. Well, as beautifully as three-story brick buildings can look. Turned out really great for the reflection, though!

Follow the link below if you want to participate in this fun Meme! No word requirement, just a picture and a story to go along with it!

Photo Tales Tuesday (Week 3)

Took this picture on Mother's Day. What is funny is that I had no expectations about the hike, just wanted to get Abby out of the apartment and give her a way to be in charge, which we did. Last fall Abby and her friends at daycare went to this place - Quarry Park in Kirkwood - and there was a whole story about one of them pushing the Park Ranger Emergency Call button and then having to apologize and learning a VERY valuable lesson about buttons and emergencies and such. Good lesson, and it stuck.

We wanted to go on this hike several times, but were never sure where it was. I broke down and asked Abby's teacher for a list of all of the fun places they go to - she put together a list of 25 places by the end of the day! Talk about being jealous of all the fun places that Abby gets to go while I sit at work, that list just reinforced it.

For Mother's Day I wanted to go somewhere new, and made a choice to go somewhere that Abby would be an expert and could lead us. Recently she really likes to be "in charge" of things. Unfortunately she usually only plays that card when I am running late in the morning, or while we are trying to get dinner on the table - not good times. We like to set her  for success, and this was an easy way to do it, and an easy way to celebrate what her ladership had gotten us! Win win!

So, the picture is one that I cropped specifically for the desktop of our laptop, so that explains the funny cut. The boulders were blasted and set into place to be easily taken out of the quarry and loaded onto the trains at the tracks on the top side. Since they had to abandon ship, quickly, they are exactly in teh same place, but now surrounded by an awesome, dense forest.

I hope to go back soon, and to take the more adventurous route down by the creek, maybe even scout enough to find the cave mentioned on the parks' website!

Photo Tales - Week 2

(or Friday Photoblogging, or whatever - here's a picture and a story!)

Our Little Reader

Abby has always wanted to read. We have made a point of reading to her at bed time, or any time she asks, since she was about six months old. I am not a reader, but I seem to be the only one in my family line that feels that way. I blame laziness - on my part - for my lack of reading!

Abby and Anny go to the library every other week while I am still at work, so I always brace myself when I get home for what crazy books they have decided to bring home. This week they brought home "How to Raise a Dinosaur" by Natasha Wing (Pablo Bernasconi on illustrations). It's cute, and Abby became immediately obsessed with it - we have been reading it at bed time, before going to school and before dinner. She loves this book. Good stuff - it has a cute story that has a lesson (spoiler alert - if you don't feed your dinosaur it will eat you!).

The cutest part was that when I was eating breakfast yesterday I heard her "reading" the story. I looked down the hallway and saw the picture above - she had assembled her favorite toys - lots of royalty, a fairy and a bear - so that she could read the story to them!

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it! (new signoff for the blog? probably not - seems lame in the long run.)