Day 262

I drove up to northern Illinois today with some coworkers so that we can attend a meeting tomorrow.  It was a long drive but we were rewarded with an afternoon field trip to a beautiful nature preserve….Fel Pro RRR Fen.  This beautiful site has several natural communities including gravel hill prairie, savanna, sedge meadow, fen, and several spring-fed lakes.  Of course I had my camera in tow, though I was seriously wishing I had my 7D back for this trip.

Turtle eggs….

 

After the field trip, we all had dinner together at a local restaurant before heading back to our hotel.  I always enjoy nights by myself in a hotel room because it’s a little respite from my hubby and kids.  Peace and quiet and no responsibilities.  Ah…If only there had been enough room in the van for my 3 huge pillows then this would have been just about perfect! 

Day 184

I missed a post a couple of weeks back.  It happened on a day when I did a double maternity shoot for two of my friends.  Since I had taken so many pictures, it took me longer than normal to edit.  If you’d like to see the photos (which are really the first photos taken with my new 7D), click HERE.

Since today was the 4th of July, there have been quite a few articles about how to shoot fireworks.  I didn’t think I’d have the chance to try any of the techniques because I didn’t plan to go to any firework displays with the rest of the family out of town.  But around 9:30 last night, I heard some booms and walked outside the front door.  We can see several smaller firework displays from our yard at times and one was just about ending.  I tried a few of the techniques, but wasn’t getting very good results especially since I didn’t have time to grab a tripod.  So, I went with another technique…the Bulb setting on my camera.  Under this setting, you dictate how long your shutter stays open by simply by depressing and holding the shutter and then letting off when you want the shutter to close.  With this technique, it’s possible to achieve longer shutter speeds.  I was able to get a couple of half-way decent shots (though the fireworks were fairly far away).  Unfortunately the display was over before I could get really comfortable with this setting.  Note that the lines are squiggly because the camera was hand-held.  Not too bad for a first attempt with only a couple of minutes of shooting time to experiment.

Hope you all had a wonderful Independence Day!

Day 182

I had to run out to Kohl’s this morning to do a little shopping.  Though I’m not crazy about shopping on a Saturday (I’d rather go when it’s less crowded during the week), my 30% off coupon expired today and it was also the last day to earn Kohl’s cash.  And there were actually a few things that I really needed.  After shopping it was lunchtime, so I stopped in at Jimmy John’s.  It’s been several years since I’ve eaten here, which is sad because I really like it.  The inside of the restaurant was really cool and would have made for some great photos, but I only had my iphone camera and I thought they’d think I was crazy taking photos of their décor.  Maybe I’ll be braver next time and take some photos anyway.  Until then, you’ll have to settle for a shot of my meal (Turkey Tom sandwich, BBQ chips, & a soda) on my dining room table.  

After lunch, I finished reading a book and did a little relaxing before heading over to visit with the neighbors.  It was so hot outside that the only relief was their pool.  Though I didn’t go under water; the end of my hair got wet and when it dried later, my hair did what it does best…curl.  Here’s a look at my Shirley Temple ringlets.  All natural too.  It still amazes me sometimes that I have hair this curly.  I just wish that GothGirl had kept her curls too (her hair started straightening when she was about 4 years old).

It is eerily quiet around my house as Brian and the kids went to Kentucky Lake for a long weekend.  I was supposed to go with them but wanted to stay home to get some more rest and hopefully kick this lung stuff for good.  Though I was really sad to miss out on a trip to my BFF’s cabin with the family, I knew that 5 exhausting days of sun and boating would not have been a big help to my recovery.  Since I can watch whatever I’d like, tonight I rented a chick flick and plan to catch up on my DVR’d shows.  

Now I’ll leave you with a photo of our little snow leopard.

Day 170

It was my first day back at work today since my pneumonia diagnosis.  I made it until about 2:00pm and then had to head home for a nap.  Seems that I hit a wall mid-afternoon and I can barely function from exhaustion.  I have been listening to my body and trying to give it the rest it needs. 

After my nap, Crockett and the kids got home and the boys went to LilCrockett’s baseball game while I dropped off Mia and a friend at guitar lessons and then did some shopping at Babies R Us.  Our office is throwing a surprise baby shower for my friend Ann on Wednesday and I was responsible for collecting money and buying the gifts.  When I got home, I had to wrap the presents.  By this time, I was tired so I spent the rest of the night relaxing with my computer and a book.  I’m reading The Hunger Games trilogy and I can’t seem to put them down…they are a fantastic read!  

Since I didn’t take any photos today, I thought I’d share a photo of the gifts I made for my friend’s daughters and the baby.  My friend Emily found the cutest big sister shirts online HERE for her girls.  Though I loved them, I didn’t want to spend quite that much money, especially since I had three shirts to buy and I still wanted to chip in on the group gifts.  So, I decided to try to make my own big sister shirts.  I used Stampin’ Up!’s My Digital Studio software and created a design that was similar to the one online.  Here’s the digital image I came up with:

Next, I printed the design on t-shirt transfer paper (follow the directions that they give you), cut directly around the circular image, and ironed it on a new t-shirt.  I made similar designs for the middle sister & the baby.  The middle sister’s shirt reads “big sister” and the onesie reads “baby”.  I used the name Junior on the onesie because that’s what they’ve been calling the baby so far since they do not know the gender and don’t have names picked out.  Here are the finished products:

And the baby’s onesie by itself….

The shirts turned out way better than I had imagined.  I spent $16 on the shirts and $3 on transfer paper.  Quite a savings from the $50 plus shipping that I would have paid for the online version.  Thanks for the great inspiration, Emily!

Day 126

Mother’s Day is coming up on Sunday and the kids brought home the creations that they made for me at school.  GothGirl brought home the cutest hand-painted rock and I simply adore it!  See how awesome it looks in my flowerbed.  I’ll share LilCrockett’s creation with you tomorrow.

   

Tonight was a friend’s birthday and I offered to have his kids spend the night so he and his wife could go out to a movie.  It was beautiful weather so we spent most of the night outside.  One of the neighbor girls came over as well and got in on the action.  Here’s the gang…

And a cute photo of GothGirl by herself:

Day 124

Back when GothGirl was playing volleyball, we weren’t able to get professional photos taken so the parents took photos instead.  I failed to get a good shot of her due to her lack of cooperation and the poor lighting in the gym.  So, I forced her outside tonight for a photo session.  Here’s one of the better shots.  Unfortunately the colors are not showing up correctly here on the blog despite uploading via Flickr.  This photo is much more vivid in real life.     

Day 122

There wasn’t much going on tonight, but I saw these bottles of wine that I received as gifts for my birthday and knew they might make for an interesting photo.  Yum….I’m not a big drinker, but I love me some Moscato!

Later that night, Crockett called me over to our picture window to see the gorgeous sunset.  I quickly grabbed my camera and dashed outside.  Even so, the colors were already starting to fade.  Amazing how quickly it happens.  I’m glad I was able to capture these images though.

Then just as the sun was nearly down, a plane flew right overhead, so I turned my lens on it. 

Day 111

We held our monthly Junior Girl Scout meeting at my house tonight and we worked on finishing up some activities for the Looking Your Best badge.  Out of all the things we did, I think the girls enjoyed these 2 activities the most:

Color Swatch

We determined which colors complimented each girl the best.  One by one, we had the girls stand up and we draped various colored fabrics across their upper torso for comparison.  Here are a few snapshots of GothGirl on the hot seat.  Her best colors are dark ones: black, burgandy, red, etc. I guess the blog nickname I gave her really suits her! 

Hairstyle

We paired the girls up by drawing names and had them spread out in the basement.  Each girl got to “fix” their partner’s hair using her partner’s hair accessories.  We had an odd number of girls, so my co-leader helped out.  It was quickly determined that she is quite talented with hairstyles, especially braids; so most of the girls had her do their hair after the partner styling was over.  Luckily Beth loves to do hair!  Here is one of her fishbone braids. 

GothGirl starting to style her partner’s hair.  She is like me….not very talented in this skill.

GothGirl and her partner sporting their “hippie” hairstyles.  These two happen to share the same first name and only live a few houses from each other.  They also take guitar lessons & do Girls on the Run together and played on the same volleyball team this past winter. 

GothGirl after Beth had french-braided her hair.  Wish I’d gotten a shot of the back.

 

Note: all of these photos were taken in my dark basement (we keep it dimmer than most basements) and all are straight-out-of-camera (SOCC) with no editing.  Flash was a necessity due to the lighting conditions.

Day 105

For starting out kind of pourly, today turned out to be a really good day.  I headed in to work as normal. I had a doctor’s appointment scheduled for 10:15, I wasn’t feeling that great, and it was my short day (normally off at 3pm), so I just decided to take the afternoon off.  The local Salvation Army, which is located near my doctor’s office, was having their annual book sale.  In about an hour, I walked out the door with 2 big bags filled with books.  I ended up with 31 books for under $14.  For this book lover, this was a great deal especially since the majority of the books were hardbacks.  Can’t wait to get started on these:

 

On my way home from the book sale, I took the back way into my neighborhood to check out the annual neighborhood garage sales.  The sale hadn’t officially started yet but there were quite a few houses open already.  A few hours later, I went home with quite a haul including some clothes for the kids.  LilCrockett was especially thrilled with his new duds and had to put them on immediately.  Everything he’s wearing was a garage sale find from today, including 3 shirt layers.  Soon after, he ran outside to play on our swing and I followed behind to get some shots, which turned out to be some of my favorites even though the colors in my photos look more vibrant than in this post.  The last one is my favorite! 

Next, I went inside to snap some photos of the flowers that my neighbors got me for my birthday.  I wanted to capture them at their peak.  The yellow of the flowers against my red wall was stunning.

Day 100

Since we had made the drive to Indy, I figured we might as well take in an attraction.  We opted for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum.  Besides the fact that Indy is a major racing town, the cost of admission was reasonable (so that if we didn’t feel like staying long, we wouldn’t be out a bunch of money).  We were pleasantly surprised from the get-go.  The museum itself was wonderful with all the past Indy 500 winners on display, plenty of memorabilia, a movie about the history of the track, etc. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After exploring the museum, we were able to catch a free shuttle van that took us down to the center of the track where some NASCAR drivers were practicing.  It was quite exciting (and also quite loud) to be right next to the tracks. 

 

 

 

 

If you’re looking for a fun and cheap family outing, I highly recommend this museum.  We really enjoyed our time there.  Truly a great place!