Here, There & Everywhere

Cone flowers that is.

And then there’s the white one.

Tommy, Bubba and I were invited to Anne and Cleg’s for Father’s Day Brunch. Anne served us Breakfast Bowls (see Anne’s blog Always, Always Cooking for the recipe) and orange juice and Amaretto. Yummy! After eating we gathered up the dogs and took a boat ride. It was really nice as long as I was under the canopy and the boat was moving.

This barn is on the way to Anne and Cleg’s. I’ve been wanting to stop and take pictures of it but hadn’t taken the opportunity. With so many old buildings and barns being demolished I decided I’d better take a picture while I could. Tommy agreed and we stopped. Unfortunately, this barn is right on a very busy road. I walked across the road to take the picture but really couldn’t get the right angle on it.

Tommy and Bubba enjoying the boat ride.

Gracie has to wear a life vest because she has been known to go swimming after the geese. Word is that she would swim and swim and swim to try and catch them.It’s really hard to get a good picture of Gracie but I think this is a keeper.

Cleg drove us up to the Highway 53 bridge which is the home to an osprey nest. Those are pretty big birds. We were able to see one baby in the nest. I could have gotten a better shot if Cleg had been able to hold the boat still. :) Seriously, it was darned near impossible to get a focus on the bird/nest as the boat was moving constantly.

When we got back we sat out on the deck. It was so hot–yuck. But we did walk around so I could take some pictures of the flowers in Anne’s yard. The above daylily was my favorite.

A pleasant visit with some great family!

 

Evan passed his PE exam–WOO HOO! We are so excited and proud of him. I know that Amanda, Denise and Dennis must be bursting at the seams.

This picture has nothing to do with Evan’s great news, but thought I’d share it anyway.

In a moment of weakness (and I just happened to be bored at the time) I told my friend Tony that I would go to work for him as his Office Manager/Registrar for his soccer club. While I really do enjoy the work—what was I thinking? I just happened to start to work at the busiest time of year for youth soccer–tryouts and registration.

Amanda, Evan, Moose and Molly came to town for a very short time before they headed to Balsam Grove. While they were here we had family over for dinner and really surprised her grandmother who wasn’t told of Amanda and Evan’s arrival. We decided to try to get a group shot of us all, but you can’t imagine how difficult it is to get 5 dogs and 8 people (I was on the back side of the camera) still for longer than two seconds!

Moose drool! Look closely at the second picture of Moose, you can barely see that the drool hangs all the way down to just below the chair. Pretty impressive and he doesn’t have a clue. Another Moose picture:

And if you pay any attention at all to Moose, you have to pay more to Molly:

Not to be outdone by the bassets, Bubba had to show his goofiness:

Over the weekend I drove up to Balsam Grove to spend a little bit of time with the kids. Amanda and I drove to town on Saturday and did a bit of shopping and had a great lunch.

On Sunday morning before I headed back home we took Amanda, Evan and the dogs to show them Courthouse Falls. It was beautiful!

And what would a post be without some flowers?

 

 

I believe that this is the second year that we’ve had this dahlia bloom and I think it’s the most gorgeous of them all. It is so vibrant.

We’ve got other things blooming now, but since I’ve been working the soccer tryouts (oh man–have I forgotten all the joys of youth soccer tryouts), I haven’t gotten out to shoot much. Hopefully I’ll get out this weekend.

While walking around out back this week I found the following in our yard:

When I got home today Tommy insisted that I walk out to the garden with him. We have this one perfect dahlia blooming so I had to take some pictures. There are lots and lots of buds that are swelling so I’ll have lots to take pictures of soon.

We then walked out to the front yard where the purple cone flowers are about to explode.

There was not enough space in the garden for all of the sunflowers that I wanted so we Tommy planted some out in the front yard. Won’t be long now before they’re open. :)

I attended a photography workshop yesterday at the Southeastern Train Museum. It was put on by a man from whom I’ve taken several classes/workshops. Every time I work with him I learn something new. The workshop was geared towards shooting HDR (high dynamic range). In other words, to take a shot (or series of shots) where you meter for the highlights and for the shadows. This way you can combine the shots and have details in them both–think bright sky and dark shadows. While I’ve known to check my histogram on the camera, I think I learned more of what the histogram shows. All-in-all, a great several hours!

Here are some pictures from the workshop. I really had fun with the processing on them.

Once a year the Tourism Board in Laramie has a photo contest. There are six categories and the Board chooses their top ten in each category to go on to the next round. I submitted five photos and three made it to the next round. Yay!

In the Wildlife category:

And two for the Buildings/Museums category:

This is my favorite. I’ve written about this, Betrothed’s House, before and every time we go to Laramie I make sure Tommy takes me there so I can take more pictures.