Accomplishing Something!

So!  The reason I started this blog was initially to get my butt in gear and start taking awesome photos!  A love, but not a talent of mine. :)

So, I started a photography class a couple of weeks ago and it's been AWESOME!  Super exciting.  The teach has started at the very beginning which is great!  Sometimes you get in those classes and they start in the middle.  

The two most exciting things I learned were:
1.) there is a thing called a diopter (sp) on the side of the view finder on the camera.  Moving that will change the focus of what you're seeing thru the view finder.  It was like putting on a pair of glasses after going w/out them for years!  SO exciting.
2.) The camera lens can focus in manual mode while the actual camera is in automatic mode.  The cool part here is that I now have the ability to decide what the subject is, verses hoping the camera knows what I think the subject is.  YEA!!!!!

So, the assignment was to take pictures from several angles of a subject that was bigger than a bread box and smaller than the Old Capitol with the lens on manual and the camera on auto.  Ended up using the tree in the front yard.  And... I must say... I didn't do as great as I thought I did!  MUCH room for improvement!  But it still was exciting!  I almost screamed and jumped up and down out there.  :)

The subject: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Liked the sun coming thru here... 

Sun reflecting off the lens and I like it. 

So, long story short... I learned new things -- and I have a TON more to learn!

Back to auto setting...

We had a 3D edition of our company magazine come out and I thought it would be funny to capture him reading the magazine w/ his glasses on. :)

I think he's a little drunk here.  ;)

There might be a cuter dog somewhere in this world... but I highly doubt it.  SO CUTE (and naughty). 

Jack's been an avid reader since he was young. 

And now as an old man -- he's still reading!  ;) 

I'm happy this work week is coming to a close -- it's been a long tired one!  However; the week before that I was able to connect with several friends, some of which I haven't seen in way too long!  :)

Becki (far left) is my work mom!  :)  She hired me from an office ed student to a full-time employee when I was 18!  She's taught me a lot of good things along this journey.  Sweet Shirl (middle) retired from Rockwell almost 10 years ago (can it be that long!!?)!  She kept some tough boys in-line with more grace and poise then most can pull off.  A lovely lady. And me!  In my Amsterdam tights!  Everyone thought I had a disease, a rash, was beaten... on and on.  They are SO beautiful -- apparently that was lost in translation. :)

My sweet friend Jackie!  We worked together back in the day.  She threw me a payback birthday party one year on April fools day.  Food, presents, e-mailed my friends around the world.  I took phones calls, received e-mails, went into bathroom stalls where my picture was everywhere wishing me a happy birthday.  I spent the entire day saying, "thank you, but it's not my birthday."  :)  It was a blast and she out did herself.  lol.  Good times. 

 I TOOK THIS IN MY 2nd PHOTO CLASS AND I LOVE IT!!!!  SUPER EXCITING!! 



A Weekend to Remember and of Remembrance

Who doesn’t remember where they were that day? I always remember people older than me talking about where they were when Kennedy was shot, the space shuttle launched, the Berlin wall fell, etc. This was definately one of those days.  I was at work, on the phone with one of the guys I worked with. He worked from home and began to tell me about what he was seeing on the TV. I remember the perplexedness in his voice over the situation... with so much more yet to come.  We hung up the phone from each other and I remember the word spreading down the aisle I sat in. The guy next to me had a small portable TV for some reason (not surprising if you knew himJ), but he pulled it out and we all gathered around it and watched. A surreal day for sure.

It was interesting we had the opportunity to go to D.C. and New York last year. I was shocked at the size of Ground Zero, but it was mostly a construction site.  However, the memorial outside of it and the notes and things that were left in the area choked me up. I remember walking into a building that overlooked the site and a group of students were there that impromptu began singing “God Bless America.” It was impossible not to shed tears.

Ground Zero at the time we were there...

Memorials outside Ground Zero

Lady Liberty 

In D.C. we went to the Newsuem (a great museum if you ever get that way). They had a section devoted to 9/11. It took me a good hour to get settled down after that it was just so heart wrenching. One of the pieces of the exhibit was the front cover of a paper from the day after 9/11 from each of the states.


On a lighter note, it's been a busy weekend!  Summer is like that isn't it?  It gets filled up with us trying to do everything we can while it's still warm enough.  :)

My sweet friend Nancy is moving soon!  It's a good deal for her, but I will be one of many people that will miss her dearly.  Fortunately we booth still work at the same company so she'll be back and forth a decent amount I'm sure.  She decided that it was time to go thru her closets and said that she could handle my advice. :)  The subsequent days she told me the things she wouldn't get rid of, so I had visions of me tearing things from her hand as she wept, but she actually did pretty good!  :)  I was proud of her. 

Most of the stack!  we ended up adding another bunch a little later!  :)

My favorite find!  How amazing are the sleeves on this thing! 

Me wearing her Derby hat!  The box for it was HUGENORMOUS!  I didn't realize from her Derby pics how big this hat was.  I've owned a lot of large hats in my lifetime, but nothing like this! :)

From there we headed out to Croissant du Jour to grab some lunch.  If you've never been you need to go!  YUM!  I usually get the quiche and salad.  YUM!  And a couple Chocolate Croissants.  YUM!!!!!!  I had them for breakfast every day in France.  The lady who owns the restaurant is from France, so needless to say, they're just like the French ones. :) 

Yum!  Can barely see the chocolate in the middle here.  lol.  It's replacing Jack's head.  So funny.

Enjoying a chocolate mocha cake! 

So... from here the story gets silly!  A friend had sent me this link Friday that she couldn't quit laughing at and it was so funny when I saw it!  http://www.horsemanning.com/  So, I told Nancy we had to do this after we got thru going thru stuff.  :)  She's always up for anything!  So, here are our attempts at Horsemanning. :)

This one cracks me up every time I see it. 

As does this one! lol!  We worked on this over and over again.

Poor Nancy, all the ones where she got to have a head didn't work out. 

Today we celebrated my mother-in-laws 50th birthday!  :)  It's really tomorrow, but we celebrated today at the Ox Yoke Inn.  The boys all get so excited about it.  It cracks me up.  They love them some ham and roast beef!  The mash potatoes were delicious today.  I could have ate them until they came out of my ears.

Presents Evie made for her 

 

Jack being weird.

You Got to Have a Want To... or You Ain't Going To!

Word to the wise, if you're doing a cross word puzzle "Yoko Ono" is going to come up!  Apparently a cross word can't be completed without talking about the woman that "ruined" The Beatles.  Also any clue that will get you to the answer "era(s)" is also popular.  Ok - you've been warned. 

WHAT A DAY!  I didn't think I was going to live through it a couple times.  Nick lied to me about how strenuous this hike was.  I think he thought he was telling me the truth based on his research, but I felt lied to over it.  ;)  It was HARD.  I'm out of shape.  The most activity I have by 10:00am on most days is turning around in my swivel chair at work... needless to say, today stretched that to the max. 

He kept telling me it would be worth it, I kept telling him I wasn't happy with him... or possibly stronger language.  :)  I wasn't really mad at him, but it's hard to say nice things about someone when you can't breathe. lol.

We started on the trail around 10:00am and finally made it to the top around 12:30pm.  And... I have to admit again, it was worth it.  If I would have known how hard it was going to be I wouldn't have gone, but sadly, I didn't and was glad to have see what I saw.  As Nick says, there is something special about seeing things you can only see by earning them.  You can't drive there, you have to do the work for the reward.  And I was happy because he was so happy and he was so happy I was with him, which of course is nice. 

Harney is the highest peak East of the Rockies... whatever that means.  Nick shared a lot of information on the trip, for example, don't take ibuprofen before a hike because it will give your body a false sense of lack of pain, drink water, you need to drink water, walking backwards relieves pressure on your knees... and several other things I no longer remember. 

The views were stunning all along the way, but there was nothing like when we got to the top. 

Everything sparkles in South Dakota!  The dust, the gravel, the trees, everything.  Some of it is just the sun glinting off of buffed rock and some of it actually look like glitter, it's just amazing.  I think the trees might be glittery because of the sand/gravel and the wind blowing it on them... that's my guess anyway. 

The goal... LONG WAY to go yet. 

The trail was filled with mostly normal people, which was comforting. :)  Lots of kids and dogs!  I was surprised at how brave people were.  When we got to the very top of the tower there was a lady w/ a baby strapped to her back!  When we left at 10:00am there was a bathroom and never again until we returned... what are you suppose to tell kids when they have to go!?  Beats me.  You could tell it's just what they did -- they were life long hikers and knew what they were doing.

We passed a couple that were 76 on our way up... we didn't think we'd see them up there, but we did.  Pretty awesome.  There's no way I'm going to be doing that at 76. :)  Nick's hoping to be tho. 

Kids don't even know it's torture for the most part.  They're just goofing around and playing.  It's pretty great. 

The trail got really tough in spots and towards the very end it was tough stuff and then we saw horses there!! Unbelievable! 

And then we were there!  Hard to describe this site.  Again... pictures will never be able to express the grandeur.  It's just stunning all the things we've been given in this world. 

We saw this guy as we were climbing the last stretch, when we got to here we heard him say, "Come on mom -- you can do it!" lol.  

Crazy -- a guy said you could see the back of the mt. that Mt. Rushmore is carved into... I don't think I actually ever saw it, but I kept saying WOW! lol.  

Fire tower -- very top.  Made me queasy, I had to get down pretty quick.  That little spec in the pic is a helicopter.  Crazy, to be higher than the helicopters. 

If you double click on this pic you MAY be able to see the people sitting eating lunch out on these rocks.  They're all the way out to the very tip of these rocks.  CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY!!! 

YAY! US!   

Nick's the little person on the right.  The fire tower is in the spire above him to the right. 

Ummm... Yay! USA?  What was this guy thinking???  Nick said it was good I didn't see it from the front.  LOL!

It's ME!  I'm waving to you and saying, "greetings from atop of Mt. Harney."

Awwww....  someone asked us if we were newly weds on this trip... Nope, even better, working on 14 years.  Now I know him AND I love him.  Before I loved him, but there was still a lot to know.  Without a doubt, he makes this world a better place.

End of the hike!  Back at the bottom (which was also torture, but more fun to talk to people!  :) Lake Sylvan.   

Nick loves to "vlog" his trips, meaning video blog.  This one cracked me up.