My announcement- worthy of a 2 month wait ;)

Alas…life has been happening at warp speed in these parts.  And before you say it, I’ve already heard my mother say it a thousand times- you think life is flying by now- just wait till the baby comes.

Since the last time we spoke (you know cause we can speak via a blog, or I speak, er write…whatever) I have begun my semi-pro business with A LONG ways to go before I consider it a real job.  More it’s just a new marvelous thing I’ve discovered and have been offered money to do it.

What is it you ask?

Photography- mostly natural light children’s photography, but there have been a few miscilani (that’s my version of Misc. which I can’t spell!) subjects as well.

As I am quickly learning, being behind the camera 24-7 excludes me from photos.  So I’m in the process of being less neurotic about how perfect every picture angle needs to be so that husband, or mother, etc. are allowed to use the latest love of my life and actually capture some photos with me.

Here is a sneak preview from the last 2 months…

As you can see…not all children, but most of the kids you have seen here you will see again.  I have a few shoots coming up with more family and friends.  In case you are looking for someone to take your family Christmas photo…please contact me.  My current rates are $25 per hour, most shoots take about an hour.  I’m in the process of setting up my website with a more complete portfolio so stay tuned

 

Update on the bump!

I’m currently 18 weeks Pregnant…baby is apparently getting fat this week.  I’ll be able to SEE my baby for the first time in next week. Warning: If I inadvertently refer to baby as he, it’s because I think IT sounds tacky.  I’ll go into detail on this later!

Highlights this week:  Baby is still alive and ON THE MOVE.  This past weekend, baby and I spent a weekend morning lying on the couch with the big brother Diesel.  I initially thought it was just a big gas bubble gurgling it’s way through my inner parts, but things move up toward my chest.  At any rate, Diesel took a liking to the baby and decided to play.  Baby and Diesel had a fun little game of Fetch and hide and Seek going for a while.  Diesel would bring over a toy to my belly and set it right where baby was moving around, and wait patiently for mom to throw it.  Each time he brought it back to my belly, set it down and waited patiently!

Symptoms: While most of the puking has resided (although not entirely), it’s been replaced by another pesky symptom which has decided to creating a raging fire in my throat.  Quite honestly this has been going for weeks and the only relief I am finding is to eat ice and drink cold water. We have decided that since heartburn is a symptom of baby having lots of hair- we should plan on getting “Shaggy” a hair cut during his first week of life.

Difficulty: I am definitely showing! My little bump was certainly noticed by my inability to bend down to put my shoes on without baby getting in the way.  This week the bumb evn surpassed the boobs, which are HUGE…I am officially a D cup in case you were curious.  Maternity clothes have not been a forte.  While the majority of me remains a medium, my boobs are definitely needing a large top.  The maternity pants saga continues.

Cravings:  I feel I’m living the diet of a 3-year-old picky eater.  I am currently surviving on String Cheese, Total Cereal, Cream of Wheat, Wild Rice and Mac N Cheese, and Mashed Potatoes…No carbs there!.  Strangely many healthy foods taste very sour or bitter!  I’m still gulping milk straight from the gallon although water is truly my beverage of choice these days.

Repulsed by: My sniffer is still overly strong. Smells knock me into a state of nausea. I am still not able to clean up after the dog without a puking episode.

Questions of the Week Month: “Are you going to find out the gender?”  “Do you have names picked out?”
Gender: To each my answer is “no” for the record, which surprisingly everyone is so pleased yet surprised.  Apparently that is very unlike new parents of my generation.  While it’s partially due to the fact that we want to keep it a surprise, it’s also due to my unwillingness to change the nursery based on the gender of our child.  We already have the walls painted as I like them, I want the furniture to have dark wood with everything else to remain neutral.  We also intend to have more kids int he future so I don’t want to get EVERYTHING based on the gender of this child when the next child may not be a fan of pink or blue.  With that said, it’s easier for me to call baby a “he” over an “it.”
Names:  I think this is a personal question.  We have lots of names picked out- none that we agree on completely.  In order to satisfy people’s need to know I have decided Fred & Wilma would be great names.  If you would like to share your ideas that’s great…we are compiling a list of names that we like for both genders.  I should note having both my husband and I being teachers it’s hard to choose names that don’t remind us of many of our students- which can skew things.  When baby is born we will decide which name we both mutually agree upon that fits the looks of our child.  You may not like the names I pick it out, but it’s harder to be repulse when you have an amazingly beautiful baby in your arms…and you may or may not tell me your opinion after seeing the child.

 

Semi-Pro Photo Shoot.

You may remember this post regarding the purchase and experimentation of my new camera.  Well it has been put to good use numerous times already.  This past weekend I had my first true opportunity to put it into a formal Photo Shoot taking pictures of my nieces.

I set up a make shift “studio” in my dining room where the natural light is awesome.  I had 2 ivory comforter covers that I was no longer using so I hung one and placed the other on the floor.  Here’s the pre-shoot set up and a practice shot of the husband and child.

The morning of the shoot, I had my 2 older nieces stop over and thought I’d practice with a few different angles and all.  Seeing how they’d had their picture taken a million and seven times, it was pretty easy to tell them different poses. In all honesty, they were sharing their ideas of poses with me and we made it work.

It wasn’t long until Dakota, the nearly 2-year-old, showed up for her shoot.  We tried to start inside, however it was difficult to keep her focused.

I did manage to sneak a couple shots in, but I’m not overly excited about the lighting/shadows in the background.  We quickly realized she was in no mood to be entertained….she wanted to head outside and explore.  Which was a much more difficult task to get a good angle on this active little girl!  We were able to catch some of her “exploring” to get her warmed up to the camera.  I always tend to love these pictures over the posed ones as it catches subjects in their natural state and make the shoot much more comfortable.

(everything is safer when you have a few animals to protect you).

We were able to head back in for one more attempt at a few shots and we were somewhat successful. Dakota has a very tomboy type personality…and I feel like that this expression and image really captures who she really is.

And sometimes we just need to trick them a little.  During this next little segment we were able to get her up to our level- which she loved.  She was laughing and giggling only to throw out requests for “Down” and interject some outstretched arms patiently waiting to be done here.  This this little game of trickery seemed to work quite well, seeing how this active little girl was always on the go- which can make taking pictures a bit more difficult.

We took a break, had an outfit change and headed out to my parents for a change in scenery.  The outside lighting had softened tremendously which made the angle much more forgiving than the direct light earlier in the day. You could tell she was much more comfortable there as she was really hamming it up.  The next are several series of pictures that really put the icing on the cake for this photo shoot!

Sometimes the things you don’t plan for really make the memories worthwhile! All and all it was a great day.  Thanks Dakota, Cindy and Gma for making the shoot so much fun. Perhaps I’ve highlighted a few of the better 298 pictures that I took, which may make your selection easier.  I’ll leave you with one final picture of Dakota who is all done with pictures for today!

If any of you want to see the remaining 200 plus picture they are posted in my Picassa album

Can’t wait to do more of this in the future…let me know if you are interested and we can talk!

 

Newest Addition to our family :)

Made you look…no I don’t have ultrasound pictures to post yet (3 more weeks- and we are not finding out the gender of our unborn child until birth).

Due to the increasing size of our family (and dog) and the monthly trips across state to see the husband’s family my good old friend “Strat,” whose been with me thick and thin over the last nine years and all 175,000 miles, has moved on to a “new” and younger owner.  We said our final good-bye’s this past Sunday.  I sure hope he’s happy, he’s been so good to me.

With that said, I’d like to introduce Pilot (pronounced Pe-lo…like she’s a good French wine)….either way she is a 2006 Honda Pilot (it’s really pronounced just like it’s spelled…like the person who drives an airplane).  She made her entry into our family 3 weeks ago and has just been upgraded to a comfy spot in our garage. We are very appreciative of her roominess, hidden storage compartments and ability to turn on a dime.  I’m looking forward to many wonderful years and countless family memories with her!

 

Red Neck Pool Party

The weather finally hit a state to declare summer in Wisconsin over the past 2 weeks.  Opening the door results in a sudden case of moist air suffocating you. Our house resides in a city lot with a large pine tree encompassing the sun which would otherwise fill our home with heat (ie- the first floor is relatively cool).  But seeing how the husband and I were sleeping in separate beds so he could survive the insane temperatures, we caved and invested in some “hot summer resources.”

The temps were predicted to hit 90 degrees and nearly 100% humidity (keep in mind this was now 2 weeks ago-it’s 65 degree today).  The husband was suggesting a few local hang outs that we could spend our day at. Being the frumpy pregnant woman I am lately I really had no desire to be around a bunch of yahoo’s, especially since both local swimming holes are also highly designated party spots- I really wasn’t in the mood to deal with that chaos.  Instead we invested in an window air conditioner for our upstairs bedroom.  The air conditioner surprisingly did the job we were hoping…due to the fact that our bedroom is at the end of the hall (window is directly across the room from the door) we set up a fan to blast the cool air down the hallway, and alas the entire upstairs is cool.  My savings account really appreciated the fact that it only cost $80 instead of $1500 for central air. However I really didn’t really want to lay around in our bedroom all day either…This is where the red-necking begins.

We picked up a 5 foot diameter pool, about 2 feet deep.  Yep a little kitty pool for me to lounge my feet in. It may be one of my new favorite things.  It has provided much entertainment- between the dog’s version of swimming to the nieces and brother joining the party…We had 3 adults, 2 young children and a dog thoroughly entertained for one sweltering afternoon.  I can only imagine what passers-by may have thought.  We may have lived up to the title.

Considering this child of ours HATES baths and is not a fan of swimming this was pretty monumental.

He was quite intrigued by the funky design on the bottom of the pool and tried pawing at them several times with out success to get them to move.

We put in one of his toys so he wouldn’t get too pissed off by not getting the design on the bottom of the pool to move.  We were shocked when he did this…

Now add a brother, a few children, some buckets to play with, and a few adult beverages for the non-pregnant one (and the kids of course) and we have ourselves a very entertaining little pool party.

Amazing how fun cleaning off the patio can be when you have 2 kids, a kitty pool and buckets. This may have been an interpretive dance by McKenna- there’s really no telling!

But leave it to Payton to be daring enough to do this.

Did I mention water from the hose is only about 65 degrees…it’s a shock to the system at first! Hence, none of us are sitting IN the pool.  Such cheap entertainment.  Who says you can’t have fun during a recession.  We had plenty And everyone thought we bought the pool for our child…silly fools.

 

Pop goes the little weasel..er peach!

“Where are the bump pictures?”

Several of you have asked,  which I have neglected to share with you for several reasons.  The first picture I took at 10 weeks made it look like I had  a humongous tire hanging around my waist and was seriously unflattering no matter how beautiful the life inside me may be. I vowed from then on not to have a picture taken until an actual bump appeared. I have also been warned by medical professionals that because I am so tall, I likely will not show as much as the average pregnant woman even in the final weeks I may look unusually small…thus this bump takes time for me.  Secondly it wasn’t my intention to turn this blog into a mommy fest of insane pregnancy stories.  But you asked so I’ll respond to your wishes.

Beyond being pregnant life has taken me by storm the last few weeks.  Work has been about as charming as an orthopedic shoe.  I’m still trying to update from my travel adventure and I haven’t even had a chance to share about my red-neck pool party experience. But alas, baby is still with us. 

On Monday I had an appointment, and was told by Doc in my previous appointment that we may be able to hear the heartbeat.  All the pregnancy rules and recommendations have pretty much gone by the wayside.  While the craving for an alcoholic beverage has been tempting I have completely refrained, OJ and Cranberry is my new “drink.” While I don’t tend to have any strong cravings I still rely heavily on milk and have given myself permission to drink it straight out of the gallon jug- against my mothers wishes that is.  I still am repulsed by several things and in the event that you may have just eaten I’ll refrain from sharing details.  The only system that is new is some fabulous heart burn…I honestly thought I was having a heart attack the first time the pesky little guy showed up with his little horns and devil tail and parked himself in my chest for about, oh I don’t know, 3 days!

On Sunday I spent the day seriously cleaning the house, something I haven’t done in about a year, and ran across a few of the publications I received from various people.  I easily got distracted (as if it’s so hard to do when you are cleaning) and updated myself on really what’s happening in this pregnancy.  The moral of the story is baby is about the size of peach.  Oddly, the husband had recently picked up a few peaches for his lunch which provided the perfect opportuntity for this:

Here I am 14 weeks-2days.  Weight gained at this point is 6 lbs. Normal clothes are uncomforatble and maternity clothes are short and saggy on me at this point- fashion is not my forte lately. With that I’ll close with an excerpt from my mental journal and fun little doctor experience.

Dear baby,
On Monday, August 17th at 1:30 I enterred my appointment…suprisingly on time.  I was called back and the nurse asked if I wanted to use the restroom…I thought she was implying she needed another “specimen” so I asked just to make sure.  No, apparently my eyes just looked a little yellow or something.  Into the exam room, weight check (see above) and little check in from the nurse before doctor walked in. Again a little check in time and then we listened for a heart beat.  He squirted some funky gel on my belly and turned the speaker on to his baby-momma stethascope.  He right away was able to hear my heart in the background, moved things around a little bit and then said “there it is, can you hear it?” I paused to listen, and a moment of silence deafened the room.  As I tuned in to listen intently a huge gurgle from my belly came screaching across the speakers. All I could do was break out in a loud gut-wrenching laugh. Doc was successful at finding your little heartbeat again but I had completely lost my focus.  I think this may be a sign of things to come.  I’ll be able to see you  soon (5 more weeks until the ultrasound).  I think we’ll let you suprise us in Feburary rather than plan.  You’ll learn mom doesn’t plan very much for anything- so don’t take it personally.

 

a happy ending to a crappy day!

A while a go a friend of mine had commented on my book reviews post, and added a suggestion of which the name escaped me.  Her words of “being a dog owner whose like your child you’ll appreciate it” left a little imprint in my diminishing memory to keep an eye out for something like that!

Strangely enough this is a travel week and I was in need of a book.  I stepped into Barnes & Noble to see if there were any good reads that I needed to snatch up for this trip.  And one jumped out at me: The Art of Racing in the Rain. That was it, I was sure of it. 

Despite my rather miserable travel day I was able to divert my frustraions by nuzzling into the pages of a book.  And this one kept me devoted to finishing just  few more pages at each possible occasion. 

Despite the change in itinerary without letting me (the passenger) know about it and then the 2 hour wait at a curbside bench in 99 degree heat and sucking car exhaust, there wasn’t much that could divert my evil thrashings and loud obscenities.  But at the end of the day I was drawn to the book….and then I had to finish it!!!

To keep in my book review form, it is about a dog and the relationship with his master as told from the dog’s perspective.  It had me laughing out loud with a few strange glances from fellow passengers, to hiding tears, to an all out anger and resentment.  Thankfully I was in the privacy of my room when I had an all out bawling festival. I totally give it 5 stars, but I am a fan of big dogs.

The crazy thing about all this is despite it being an amazing read, I always do these things that should draw me closer to my child when I am 500 miles away from home.  Which leaves me miserable.  I went and saw Marley and Me  while out in Vermont this New Year’s and now The Art of Racing in the Rain while in Dallas. So this is my long distane dedication to my husband and dog who I hope are nuzzling soundly. Diesel is hopefully filling my space in bed, while snoring and occasionally nudging his dad occaisionally.  I write this post as a reminder to continue to notice all of these silly things he does and imagine what is going through his mind and what he might be dreaming about.  I just hope it’s not about crows!

 

Road Trip: Day 3

Brent and I awoke Wednesday morning (Now 3 weeks ago) after one ridiculously amazing night of thunderstorms.  While we remained mostly dry inside the tent, the same wouldn’t be true outside.  Occasionally we would get a 2 min break in the rain.  The Internet in the lodge and weather channel all predicted showers throughout the day.  We threw a little pity party for ourselves and then we were notified that we are in the mountains.  I know you are probably like “wow, idiots you weren’t aware of that” Yes silly…we knew we were in the mountains, what we didn’t realize is the weather forecast doesn’t change much because the mountains tend to interfere with the weather patterns so in order to maintain a somewhat accurate forecast there is a chance of showers about 75 % of the time. 

We pulled ourselves out of the puddle of tears we’ crying because it was raining on our vacation (really we weren’t crying).  Rather we rustled about frantically to get as much ready as possible in the 2 minutes of slight drizzle.  Thankfully, we invested in some fancy rain gear for bikers, thus now was as good a time as ever to try it out.  By 9 am I had eaten 3 times and was still hungry, I was dressed in a few layers and constructing a way to take pictures on the back of the bike with a 30 foot lens, and prevent the camera from being damaged in any downpours along the way.  We were off and riding before most set to ride do a loop of a about 200 miles before the day end.  We would head south through the Cherahola Skyway- which is a 2 lane highway through the mountains, with a fair share of bends and twists in the path.

Just as we turned onto the route (which is approximately 40 miles from camp) we saw a glimmer of hope!

…heaven!

Since we were actually seeing mountains and not fog or rain we took a little advantage of the photo op and posed in our ridiculously dorky-matching rain suits each taking a turn with the mistress.
Tweedle-mum

 & Tweedle-dad

That wouldn’t last long- soon the clouds surrounded us and seeing 10 feet in front of us was becoming more and more of a challenge. Added to that we were being pelted with raindrops the size of lemons. I may still have a few welts to prove it.  I don’t have pictures of the roadway, but there really isn’t any place to stop for cover.  So being the die hard bikers that we were,we continued on!

We had heard from some folk back at camp that there was a really cool waterfall (Bald River Falls) just as we were getting off the Cherahola Skyway.  They took a trail down into the little stream bed and climbed on the rocks.  We were pretty excited to check this place out since I have an obsession for waterfalls.  However things were quite different then described. 
Apparently this waterfall is usually about a third of this size.  The stream that was described was now a raging river with rapids and all, the waterfall completely covered all of the rocks…as you can see there were to many places to get down in there and climb around.  Not to mention we were still be stalked by a nagging rainstorm.  Rocks+wetness= bad idea for a pregnant woman to go hiking around. Really I’m not losing my sense of adventure, but Brent advised me to find my better judgement and I obliged.

Not 2 minutes after we were back on the bike to continue the next 120 miles of our loop the rain stopped an it was so humid it became hard to breathe.  Strangely I began to FREEZE! I think all the wetness combined with the altitude of the mountains was messing me up a bit, or it was my body going into shock after not being fed for almost 3 hours!  Coming down a bit out of the mountains we caught a fabulous little diner along the raging river with patio, and amazing food.  A diner that serves Grilled Cheese and hot chocolate is a diner after my own heart. 
So we sat and chatted with a couple who had retired and moved to the area.  Appears no matter where we go, someone else is always from Wisconsin.  The couple had retired and moved down here and both were first responders.  They went on to share a few stories of all the major accidents in recent years.  Made me a bit reluctant to get back on a ride another 3 hours.  But we did. 

Next up was “The Dragon.”  This little devil was what drew Brent to this area.  As we headed on our way things the skies cleared and things heated up a bit.  I ended up falling a sleep on the back of the bike for a bit- full belly and sunshine somehow always leads to a nap in my world.  I woke up sweating.  The raingear  we were still adorning was doing a great job of keeping water out, but it also happened to be really good at keeping heat in.  With the added pleasure of the sun on our all black costumes- I was scorching hot.  Not by appearance I assure you, just body temperature. 

Then it was here…the next 11 miles we would experience 316 turns, nearly all of them were near 120 degree turns.

…you get the picture.  Major bends with no clear sight of what’s in front or in back.  No guard rails and major “cliffs” usually 50 feet or greater on the edges of these roads.  The speed limit was now 25 but apparently that is something new, as just last year they reduced it from 55 mph.  Even at that rate were passed by a few crotch rockets.  That might have something to do with this:

all the unfortunate (or stupid ones) who laid their bikes down and in doing so donated a piece of it to the tree of shame.  You might notice there is quite a bit more plastic than chrome on this tree…one more reason I think crotch rockets are stupid (an that’s the nicest word I could find).  Throughout our stay heard of MANY who had died in recent weeks.  In fact while we were there a fellow camper laid his bike down and broke an arm, collarbone, and several ribs.  He ended up being hospitalized for most of the time we were there.

The publicity behind “The Dragon” started in the early 90’s when this place

put it on the map by establishing several “races” of which the record stands from 1996 of a crotch rocket doing the full 11 miles to the other side and back in 11 minutes.  I should note this was all done “unofficially” meaning the road was still open for traffic and the little racer dude never knew what he might face around the next bend.  That was enough insanity for me for one day.

Just down from Deal’s Gap resort is “The Fugitive” dam.  If you ever watched the movie, this would be the dam that Harrison Ford jumped off to escape those who were chasing him.

And to round out the loop we have a few shots on the way back to our campground…

once back at camp (around 5 pm) we made dinner for the slightly famished woman on the trip.  Being the luxurious campers we are we pulled out the camp stove and cast iron post and made one of mom’s quick dinners of Cheesy Chicken broccoli and rice- which hit the spot!  We did manage a quick trip in to a town in the opposite direction due to my husbands inability to relax for more than 5 minutes.  Noting real exciting there to report other than on our way back towards camp we were stopped by a State sheriff who just wanted to check that Brent had a license.  Seemed odd, but that was an easy enough test to pass. 

We were welcomed yet again by a soggy campground that was now seeping into everything.  Life as we knew it was becoming very MOIST.  With that I’ll leave you for now. 

It might be a few days before you get to hear about day 4 and 5…there is so much yet to share! I’m travelling and don’t have the pictures uploaded to help tell the story. Don’t you fret, there will be other non-related vacation posts coming in the meantime. :)

 

Road Trip: Days 1 & 2

As I may have eluded to in several posts and multiple facebook updates, the husband and I took our “bike trip” nearly 2 weeks ago down to the Smoky Mountains on the Tennessee/North Carolina border.  Unlike past bike trips, this one included a truck with trailer and bike in tow, as opposed to packing down the mistress with a materials needed for a luxurious dry camping/biking trip, and for that I am eternally grateful.

After 6 hours of driving we were still in BFI (Bum Fuck Illinois)…I believe this was the first moment of my insanity, when I just couldn’t handle seeing one more cornfield.  Instead out came my new learning module.  Here’s the evidence…

This might be the most exciting thing I’d seen, it just happened to belong to me!

Eventually we made it to my Aunt & Uncle’s house just across the TN border for the night.  We were greeted with a wonderful meal waiting for us on the table, and some quality coffee talk time before hitting the sack for the night.  We woke up early to see my aunt off for her golf tournament.  Apparently we weren’t the only ones to get up.  We sat outside for a bit and swarms of hummingbirds (literally dozens) flocked to the feeders for their AM ritual.  Now, I should warn you, I’m slightly terrified of big bugs (june bugs, moths, etc) and these are about the size of a big bug except they have really long beaks.  I swore I was going to get pelted with their beak, thus for most of the time I was frozen in a state of anxiety with these funky buzzing creatures with long beaks swarming frantically about just inches from my head.  Thankfully I had a big camera to protect my face, thus the anxiety eventually subsided.  (If you want to enlarge the pictures just double click on the image)

After hanging with the H-birds for a while we headed to the grocery store to stock the cooler.  Upon exiting the store we were greeted with the first of 3 days of rainstorms.  Driving through Nashville things came to a screeching hault.  Sirens quickly sounded and various rescue vehicle jimmy’d their way through the traffic.  We could see all the rescue squads about 50 yards in front of us, but we were on a pretty tight bend in the road and up to layer 5 of about 7 interchanges weaving their way through space.  After about an hour of staring at this

some “people” had traffic behind us diverting to a nearby exit.  We were slowly guided to back up about 200 yards to make our way to the exit.  We drove in circle for about an hour on the expressways surrounding Nashville before finding our detoured route.  We heard later via radio that a  semi had over-turned taking out all 4 lanes of traffic and crews would likely not have it cleaned up until about 2 PM (it was 11 AM), we were very happy for the diversion, but could have done without the time crimp in our schedule.

Needless to say we experienced this off and on (More on than off)

We continued on for the Smoky Mountains, just over the Tennessee border we would be setting up camp for the next few days.  What we didn’t realize was that “The Dragon” (which you will hear about more in our next post) stood between us and our campground.  This wouldn’t be discovered until we were on it with a fully packed truck and motorcycle in tow.  Here’s a glimpse of “The Dragon” via truck, not too many places to turn around with the load we were carrying.

This craziness continued for a while before the heavens opened and the angels sang: North Carolinas arrival was a very happy moment.

Only 72 miles to the next beer stop! No worries, Brent came lock, stocked and barreled with his own cooler full.

Before long we were swindling our way through the loco-locals as we like to call them and finding “home” at Ironhorse campground.

That lodge did not only house us from ongoing rain, but it would also offer us one heck of a prime rib dinner and salad bar upon our arrival.  Beats camping food So we were glutons and then tried to create a place to call home.  I believe this was me updating my facebook about chilling with Adam and Steve (our sleeping bags for you Cabella’s fans) in the Smokey Mountains!

Arriving via truck allowed us to be pretty luxurious in comparison to the folk who came in via bike with very limited resources.  We concluded our night by lying ever so comfortably on our plush air mattress, sleeping bags cozy enough to maintain my body temperature in 15 degree weather and the pitter-patter of rain drops.  The Swiss Army tent would experience her first of several moist nights…she was quite the trooper.

Stay tuned as this crazy adventure continues

 

Rationalizing our new toy, er necessity!

I had been doing my research for a long time.  Looking up reviews, reading consumer reports, trying to find the exact qualities I was looking for at a price which wouldn’t require a second mortgage.  On Sunday (July 26th) the husband and I were putting together our packing list for our bike trip we were leaving on the next day to North Carolina (which we have been back a week now), and decided we needed a high quality camera NOW (as in DSLR).  With baby on the way and me becoming a self-proclaimed photographer, it was time we invest in something GOOD! Amazing, within in hour we were at the store, Canon Rebel EOS XSi in tow with our newly beloved EFS 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS telephoto lens in hand, and nearly $1,000 poorer.

We headed to my Aunt & Uncle’s new outdoor in-ground pool that could qualify as a resort, for a get together with the family. What’s a girl with a new camera to do…but take some fabulous pictures.  Simply put, we are satisfied!  Here is the evidence…

Good times!

There’ll be many more posts with pictures to follow Here we come North Carolina!