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:

4th of July Weekend!

Hard to believe it, but there are things that happened this weekend that we did not do. What we did this weekend was:

• Behind the Scenes tour of The World Aquarium. (It is no National Aquarium, but it was nice)
• Family Movie Night watching Megamind for the first time
• Church and catching up with folks we have not seen in weeks
• Fair Saint Louis to see a local band we like (Cut short because of fun storms)
• 4th of July Parade 
• A Carnival for lunch and fun, including Abby's first Ferris Wheel ride!
• Dinner/party at a friends house
• Fireworks with a perfect view and fun company

Glad I had an extra day to the weekend, this would have been too crazy for two days!

Here are some pictures from the weekend:

One of the petting places at the aquarium! We also go to feed Otters and an Armadillo. Very cool experience for all of us.

Just a pic I like from the Fair.

A picture of (part of) the Arch as the storm approached. We were soaked by the time we got to the car, but since it rained for about 12 hours after it started, we are very glad we left when we did!

Abby waiting for the Webster Groves parade - she was mostly patient. It was wet so the parade was delayed, but fun once it got going.

Abby and I on the Ferris Wheel - her first and my first in as long as I can remember!

Fireworks in Kirkwood. We walked, which was nice because we did not have to deal with traffic. We met up with a friend from church and her little girl - glad we had company since the fireworks did not get started until 9:30! The girls frolicked and ran around while we waited.

Next weekend we are going to summer camp together! I don't think I'm going to take the camera, though. I have never actually been to summer camp as a camper - I'm looking forward to taking it all in!

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 - 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.)

Friday Photoblogging

Alternate Title: Wow what a week!

Saturday:
Went, on a whim, to Wetlands Day for Kids at the August A Busch Memorial Conservation Area. We got a hike in, but first Abby got to "fish" on a blue tarp, and we got to see some cool owls:

 Sunday:
A different picture from the hike at Powder Valley Nature Park, which brought about the previous post about Throwing Away Abby's Fears.

Tuesday:
Abby was going to The Butterfly House with her friends, so she got her butterfly shirt and butterfly shoes on, and of course she had to wear a silly face!

Wednesday:
Teddy Bear Pajama Party at The Magic House. By the time story time rolled around Abby was actually ready for bed, but it made for a wonderful picture:

Kind of made Thursday seem boring, so I didn't take any pics. :)

Wordless Wednesday: Playing with Colors

Have not done a Wordless Wednesday submission for a while... Go check out more at http://www.wordlesswednesday.com/newhome/!

Be Jealous

For many years of our togetherness, Anny and I have done appetizers and desert for big "couple days" like Valentine's and our Anniversary. This year I got a crazy deal on Mamapedia.com for a great deal on Sheri's Berries. You know me, the $15 for $30 was not good enough for me.

I used our $30 to buy berries that came with a $25 gift certificate to Restaurants.com. By my math, I got the a dozen strawberries for a net of $10.

Anyway, this year Anny got Chocolate Covered Strawberries for Valentine's Day! They arrived Friday night with a notice to consume them within a few days to be sure of their freshness. They are gone now. Anny was nice enough to share them with Abby and I!

First time I have taken pictures of food for the purpose of "art" that I can remember. Unfortunately it was already dark outside, so I had to use makeshift light inside the apartment. Basically I took a white paper towel and wrapped it around my Craftsman workshop light. Worked perfectly!

What are you and yours doing for the fake holiday that happens this week?

Taking Advantage of the Weather

Finally a day with temperatures above 30 - and on a Saturday too?! We took off to the Missouri Botanical Garden, which is free to St Louis County Residents on Saturday mornings. Even more bonus!

Normally what happens when we go places like this is that Anny and Abby run through and I drag my feet, trying to find pictures that I can be happy with. Sometimes those pictures don't have Abby simply because she is too quickly moving on to the next cool thing to see.

Today, though, I ditched my girls and went by myself out to the back part of the property to the Japanese Garden. I didn't really ditch them, I guess, but we agreed that Anny and Abby would go through the Climatron (sounds awesome, right?) and play in the children's area while I went photo hunting.

So glad we did that. Abby was already whining about the cold (understandable, a little) and Anny already did a run this morning.

Anyway, here are some pictures from my quiet walk alone this morning:

 There is a picture in our Sunday School classroom - four of them actually - from the MO Botanical Garden. The next shot is from the same place, but clearly from a different season. The one at church is full of brightness and life. Today, it was bright, but clearly in need of life:

 

 Don't quite know how, but this one almost looks summery with the bits of green and red. The snow in the middle of this shot is clinging to the rock beside it. It will likely be gone by the end of the weekend, so I'm glad I to see it while it was still there!

Finally - I saw a beautiful duck on the water/ice. He was alone, just wandering. I knew the feeling. He let me take pictures of him for five minutes, just swimming and walking back and forth. I tried to reward with some of the fish food they have set up for summer, but the machines are off for the winter. Bummer. I got several good shots, but this is my favorite by far.

I think we will plan to go again soon - maybe even next week. Weather is supposed to perk way up temperature wise this week and I would imagine in a week every bit of white will be green and spring will be coming out soon.

(More pictures, including a panoramic, are up HERE)

2010 Picture Review

A couple of times I have taken the first line of the first blog post of each month, but 2010 was fairly light on the blog because of the craziness of two moves in five months, living with another family for four of those months, yada yada yada.

What I have done, for the most part, is keep up with picture taking.  While I have abandoned Flickr because I don't have time to keep up the way I would like to, I shifted back to Picasa.  I have worked on taking more creative shots, but most of my focus is on Abby of course.  She loves to pose, sometimes to the point of annoyance, and is almost always patient while I take five more shots.

This year I have picked a picture from each month that I have dubbed my favorite.  A friend of ours took better pictures of Abby, but I have included only pictures that I have taken.

First is a slideshow of pictures of just Abby (with one guest appearance) from 2010:


Next is a slideshow that I have dubbed "artsy" but are really just pictures I like from each month that do not include Abby.


I am trying to stretch myself on this stuff, because I am feeling like a lot of the shots I try are stuff I have done before.  Goal for 2011 I guess...

Well - Happy New Year!  Hope your 2011 is awesome!

Complete Randomness

I know that it's been too long since writing on my blog when my friend Bryan has noticed!  He gave me grief about it Tuesday night, and thus I will write something.  I think I filled him in on everything, but not the rest of you!

Abby:
She'll be three on Saturday.  THREE!  I'm already to the "what was there before Abby" point in her life, and I love it!  We have festivities planned to fill every minute of the weekend, or so it seems.  I am still amazed when she learns something new - or remembers something from months ago that we thought was since passed.

Abby is a little clueless on the whole move-thing.  We've talked with her a few times, but how much is a three year old really going to retain on that front?  She knows we are going to live with her cousins for a while, but has not made the leap that we won't be living here.  I'm a little worried about her, but not a whole lot.  She's smart, she will figure it out.

Post tomorrow about her take on the BP Oil Destruction.  (Sorry, it's not a spill, no matter how they say it.)

Anny:
Had her braces off on Monday!  She has not eaten an apple or chewed gum like she wanted to, but she got a congratulatory bottle of sparkling cider and three balloons from the office to celebrate!  She looks completely different, and I will share a story about Abby's take on it...

Monday afternoon I pointed out that mommy had her braces off, and it took a minute for Abby to really look and investigate.  She is very much a thinker.  She looked back to my teeth, to be sure I wasn't pulling a trick on her I guess.  She looked back at Anny and declared "Now Mommy's teeth match mine!"  You're right, sweetie!  She is very into matching things - colors, animals and apparently teeth!

Rob:
Doing alright, thanksforasking.  I had to work a long weekend retreat, but it was good to see some folks and have meals together.  I went out early on Friday afternoon and got in a good hike with my camera, and did the same on Saturday morning.  Here is one of my favorite shots:

On my way home Saturday, Anny called to see if we were going to try to make it out to Bowiefest (no) and what our dinner plan was.  Abby begged for the phone and said "Daddy, you need to come home to me, okay?"  Melted my damned heart.  I don't know if my meds are messing with me, but it hit me that it was the first morning that I had been away from Abby in at least a year, if not longer, and that is the part that really stunk about the retreat.  Good for the community, bad for my paternal-instincts.  I got home and she gave me the biggest hug ever - and she's a good hugger to start with!  Best ever.

I had a nephrologist appointment on Tuesday.  My protein is up, as well as my createnine.  Neither has shot up to levels of concern, but certainly levels of interest.  That being said - we are raising my medication levels and are going to test again in two weeks.  He has suggested that based on this info, I would be better off finding a new nephrologist to visit in late July, rather than waiting for the fall.  Bummer, but okay.

And that is a quick roundup.  I will do a post about the oil spill, and hope to put the finishing touches on a Third Birthday Video for Abby.  Kind of want to do a "dear Abby" letter to her for her big day, too.  Maybe.  Maybe. 

Brookside Gardens

We had a whirlwind of a weekend that started with two trips to two malls and ended with a nice, quiet dinner at home.  I could write ten posts and not capture the sheer awesomeness of three days with little to no requirements of schedule. 

Instead I will tell you, in pictures, about our trip to Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, Maryland.  (Their website is www.brooksidegardens.org in case you want to visit!)  I will do my best to cut down the pictures to five, and include a link at the bottom for more fun!

A friend at church was not sure what she was doing on Monday morning before heading to her afternoon-starting-job.  We mentioned Brookside Gardens which peaked her interest in both hanging out and playing with her new camera.  She's always been a better shot than I am, but with her new camera that she is still learning to use, she killed me in awesomeness of shots.  That being said, here are pictures and stories from my lens.

The wildlife was really out and active on our morning jaunt - we saw several box turtles and a massive snapper.  There was one turtle in the water that was covered in moss, so much so that the fish surrounded it and were eating from what was on his shell!  Pretty amazing that they all work together.  We saw one mama turtle and the tail end of burying her eggs!  I gave her the grace of not catching that with the camera, but she ran away pretty quickly, and I got a shot then.

More than turtles, there were lots of geese out and about, all of them seemed to be dragging along their own goslings!  (I only made one Kate Plus Eight reference - go me!)  We got to see one parental goose hiss and go after another goose that got too close.  Those things can be very angry, and we kept our distance where we could.  Lots of cute little ones kept Abby on the watch - here is the first set we stumbled on:

Of course, most of our visit to the Gardens was about Abby, but I also went to capture flowers that were not out the last time we went.  Never failing to disappoint, I grabbed this one which is all around the children's play area that includes a tree house!

The real goal was to get some Abby time, and Abby pictures!  We bought her a cute stripey dress on Saturday down at Tyson's, but alas it is too big for her yet.  Might be good for mid-summer.  Hopefully!  I love that she will climb over branches and under other things, even when she is in full princess mode:

And finally, my favorite shot (of mine) for yesterday.  This is the back side of the tree pictured above.  The sun was hitting just right and Abby was doing some adventure searching back and forth.  I grabbed this one, which I love:

That was our day.  Well, that was only part of one day of a three day weekend that was filled with finding new things and visiting with friends. 

Less Wisdom Today than Yesterday

I went to the dentist this morning.  I cracked a tooth that has lost a previous filling and went in with the sole intention of having it re-filled.

After getting to the office early, I sat and waited to be called back.  20 minutes late, I got called back and explained what I was there for.  The dental assistant took an X-Ray, which was very cool because the image immediately popped up on a computer monitor in front of me.  What was not as cool was the image it put up...

That is the upper left side of my jaw.  For the dental nerds out there, those are (from L to R) teeth numbers 13, 14, 15 and 16.  The one that caught my attention was clearly number 16, on the far right.  It is my wisdom tooth. 

It's pretty clear that I was not the only cause of my tooth issue, which the dentist confirmed - the wisdom tooth pinched the bottom of my molar and it cracked the top!  Insanity.  It became clear immediately that one necessity would be to remove that wisdom tooth, no matter what happened with #15.  I mean, look at it - it was pointing at the tip of my nose while the others are pointed at my throat!

He presented me with several options ranging from filling the tooth, if possible, to root canal and crown.  Filling cost me about $200 while the other option would run me about $1,300.  The concern was that the cavity might be too big to just fill, and the others might be necessary. 

I was greatly relieved when he dug in there and figured out that the tooth was indeed fill-able, because I could afford that.  I had pretty much decided that it was going to be easier to just have him remove it if it could not be filled, and I was not looking forward to that.

Then cam the removal of the wisdom tooth.  The Novocaine had begun to wear off, so I winced almost as soon as he got his hand back in my mouth!   He shot me back up and then worked his butt off to rip out that (turned out to impacted) wisdom tooth.  OUCH! 

It's now 7 pm and I have just finally been able to open my mouth wide enough to eat food, and that was just French Onion Soup.  I do not know if I will be up to going to work tomorrow, but pretty much anything is better than sitting around in my house for another whole day.  My mouth still hurts, a lot, but the bleeding has stopped it seems.  That is a good sign that the healing has begun.  Healing brings less risk of infection, particularly for someone with kidney disease that is being treated with immunosuppresants! 

(This process took about three hours from arrival to departure, but in the grand scheme part my my fault, part was the dentists.  I am grateful to have access to professionals like this, so I take the time and deal with it!  I did get to read a bunch more of the book that I started reading last week!)

A Trip Downtown!

We went to see what is leftover of the National Cherry Blossoms yesterday.  I was disappointed that there were no blossoms to speak of remaining because of hard rain and high winds about a week ago.  The great news is that it is Washington, DC, so there is always something to do or something to see! 

We walked through the World War II Memorial, which was not open the last time I went to see monuments.  It's huge and ornate - pretty cool if you're into that stuff.  We then walked around the Reflecting Pool, and I had to grab the mandatory picture:

The sun was blazing, so we headed over to the Korean War Memorial.  There were lots of crowds, so my pictures of the memorial were pretty useless.  I think it's a hard one to capture, too.  I did get a really great shot of Abby resting on one of the benches.  Don't tell Anny, but I might actually print this one!  (GASP!)

From there we decided to grab lunch.  We went to the Cafeteria in the basement of the American History Museum.  It was very expensive, but really good food.  Other bonus: air conditioning.  On the way there I noticed that the winds were blowing just right to put the flags at the perfect position at the Washington Monument:

It was a perfectly blue sky, too. As an aside, Abby believed the monument to be her personal "castle, with two windows at the top for her to look out."  Her words, not mine.

We went with Anny's Aunt Jackie and Uncle Bill.  Always nice to catch up with them, always nice to get some exercise too.  All around it was a perfect DC morning. 

Eighth Anniversary Post

03 30 20 02

Two palindromes. Those two palindromes, though, are etched into my memory, my life and, just as a reminder, my wedding ring. We did not select March 30th because of its pelindromicity, but because it was the Saturday of Easter weekend and we knew that it would be easier for folks that had to travel to be with us.

Yes, we are the jerks that scheduled a wedding for a holiday weekend. Sorry.

We got married at Camp Glenkirk, which no longer exists. When long-time campers or counselors talk about a part of them that was sold that day I can only think about the number of days and nights that Anny and I spent there together.

Anyway, not going to bore with the long story of our wedding day that began with my choosing to have a liquid breakfast, followed by Pepto Bismol for the next six hours and ending with watching ER that we had to tape because we had company over. Instead, I’ll just share three photos that I scanned in this morning:

This one is right after the “I now pronounce you” part of the ceremony, walking away arm in arm:

This one is sitting by a meditation pond/garden that we helped to build. It’s classic wedding-cheese:

And here is one that is pretty typical of our lives back then, and hopefully some day in the future. Here we are walking in the woods from the ceremony to the reception:

There are dozens of people that helped to make our day special, and I have thanked them over and over, and will continue to do so for years to come. I always tell friend who are engaged that it’s just ONE day of your life together, that even if things turn out to be quirky or don’t go exactly according to plan that it does not matter. It’s just a day.

But it’s a day that folks take a gagizillion pictures, so we celebrate it by sharing those pictures year after year. :o)

Wordless Wednesday: Snow Day!

From SNOWpocalypse!

Look at other people's takes on WW at www.wordlesswednesday.com

Christmas Gifts - Can be Last Minute!

We have both had the same idea in regards to Christmas gifts for our families.  By "both" I mean that I had an idea in September, and began to put that plan into motion.  Last week Anny "had an idea" that sounded pretty much word-for-word what was described to her in September...  Yes, we "both" had an idea - and I'm sharing that idea with you!

When my office moved over the summer we found lots of supplies that were untouched from the move 5.5 years prior.  We redistributed some of those items to organizations that could use them - and in the case of legal sized manila file folders, I am such an organization!  We got them for the sole purpose of letting Abby pain them until her heart is content.  Some days that is three brush strokes and the fun game "clean the brushes and make the water splash" and other days it's quite a long ordeal.  I hate to throw things away, and hate even more to spend money on paper for her to paint.  Win/Win!

Enter - the plain manila file folders:



With a bit of planning, we had about two dozen of these folders with some sort of paint on them - some were heavily painted and some were not so plentiful:



We cut them into pieces that accommodated the cut-out that we wanted - a Christmas Ornament to show through our perfect Abby picture! (I will not show you the picture yet - you have to wait until everyone getting their picture opens it!) After finding just the right pieces to make our list complete, I drew on the ornament shape (which is the size of our drinking glass, plus a small square on top) and Anny cut them out. We are all about shared labor in our house!


(This was the template one, thus no paint)

The final product looks a lot like this, but with the real picture in it!



With every Ornament-Shaped-Picture-Frame, we are giving each recipient a regular picture frame to put it in.

Total time invested:
Abby - a few minutes about once a week painting whatever she wanted!
Anny - Three months to "come up" with the idea - 20 minutes of cutting and ten of putting pics in and taping it to the back.
Rob - About an hour of picture taking, but it was an outing unto itself, and a negligible amount of time drawing the template on the backs of the painted folders!

On Our Birthday

I realized over the weekend that this is the tenth birthday that Anny and I have celebrated together.  My family threw a big to-do for my 21st birthday that mixed family, church friends, camp friends and school friends.  It was bizarre in many ways, but a really great way to celebrate.

(I put this picture up for a different post a year ago and Sarahlynn said "Hey, who are those people?"  I assure you, that's us!)



We were not dating - heck, it too Anny another 18 months to even consider the prospect.  My family is just cool like that - someone has a birthday, let's make them a cake.  Two birthdays?  Two cakes!

So - once again to my beloved - A Great Big Happy Birthday!