Easter Sunday

We had a very nice Easter.  Mom came over Saturday afternoon and spent the weekend with us.  Tara, Jeremy and Brandon (Jeremy’s brother) came over after Church on Sunday. 

Everyone got a big jar of bubbles in their Easter basket.  We had a good time blowing bubbles outside.  Cassie enjoyed chasing the bubbles, although I can’t imagine they tasted good when she caught them!

Then it was time for the Easter Egg Hunt!!  Dad told the kids that whoever found the most eggs would get one of his older custom made knives, so the race was on!!    Dad had put an egg in the middle of the hillside, right in the open for everyone to see, and they all were trying to get to that egg first.  Tara came out victorious with that egg, although Brandon won the contest (thanks to Jeremy giving his little brother all of the eggs he found).    It was quite funny watching 20 some year old kids racing for eggs.  The dogs were right in the middle of the hunt and Dee even found an egg – she had a blue tongue for awhile after that. 

After we were done hunting for eggs, we went into the field to try and fly the new kites.    Jeremy’s kite was the best!  He had a jet fighter kite and his would go in the air while he was just walking – it was pretty neat. 

Tara had a dragonfly kite that was really pretty to look at, but it didn’t fly worth beans.  We finally ended up cutting the tail in half lengthwise, giving it a longer tail and that did help a little bit.    Brandon’s kite was a cool looking frog with a hind leg hanging down as the tail – it was just too cute! 

The dogs had a great time the entire day.  They participated in the bubble blowing, Easter egg hunt and even while flying kites!   

All in all, it was a wonderful day!  Hope everyone else had a Wonderful Easter!

…Carry Big Stick

We are MORE than ready for Spring at our house!  The snow is slowly melting in the front yard and the robins are back – giving us hope that it will happen soon!  The weather this weekend was definitely Spring like – sunny one minute, snowing the next with a little “gropple” (I love that word) thrown in on occasion. 

Dee just loves to carry things around in her mouth.  She found this stick on the hillside and proceeded to carry it into the yard.  The stick wasn’t real heavy, but it was long, and she had it by one end dragging  it behind her.  It was quite funny watching her try to finagle that stick around the yard.  Then dad went down and started playing with her…

 

 Tara and Jeremy came over for a visit Sunday afternoon after Church – I was glad to see them as I hadn’t seen a lot of Tara lately.  They are going to be moving into a new apartment the middle of April.  Tara is soooo excited – she will have a dishwasher!  I am excited about the swimming pool and hot tub they will have!

My mom and Jeremy’s brother, Brandon, are coming over for Easter this year.  I love the Holidays – any holiday!  I am excited for Easter to come.  Tara and Jeremy are going to come over Friday night and help me dye Easter Eggs.  I am hoping the snow will be out of the yard by this weekend so we can have Easter Egg hunts! 8)

Lipstick in School

I saw this on another post and loved it!  Thought I would share it with my blog readers.. 

Lipstick in School — Priceless!!
Ya gotta love this principal.

According to a news report, a certain private school in Washington was recently faced with a unique problem.

A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom.  That was fine, but after they put on their lipstick, they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints.

Every night the maintenance man would remove them and the next day the girls would put them back.  Finally the principal decided that something had to be done.  She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man.

She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night.  To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, she asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required.

He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet, and cleaned the mirror with it.

Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror.

There are teachers…. and then there are educators!

My Eagle Picture

I have been wanting to get a picture of a Bald Eagle for weeks now.  It seemed every time I saw one, I didn’t have my camera with me.  The hubby would call me during the day and inform me of all the Eagles he saw while he was out and about.  So Saturday, we decided to go for a drive and see if we could locate an Eagle so I could get a picture.  We were only out for about 20 minutes when low and behold!  What did we see in a tree, next to the highway – but a Bald Eagle!  Stop – stop!  I gotta get a picture of this one!  So here it is….   I will be the first to admit, it isn’t the best – I had to use my Zoom lens and I was so excited I was shaking.  I didn’t have my tripod – and probably wouldn’t have had time to set it up even if I did.  When I tried to move in a little closer to get a better shot he flew away.  But I got a picture!  Yeah! 

Baby Pictures

This weekend I decided to start working on my photography skills a little bit.  I went to my neighbors house and took some pictures of her 20 month old little girl.  Holiday (the little girl) is really a cutie and it was a lot of fun!  I have attached a couple of pictures for everyone to see…feel free to comment on what you think!!

 I worked with these pictures on my home computer which is adjusted for printing.  Now that I am working on a different computer, I notice that the color is a little different, please keep this in mind while you are viewing them. 

Lunar Eclipse Pics

I tried to get some pictures of the lunar eclipse last night.  The first picture I took was just as the eclipse started, I shot this picture from our back porch with the trees framing the moon.  The problem was that there were some clouds around the moon and you couldn’t really see the eclipse, but the picture is pretty…

Then I took this picture about half way through the eclipse, as you can see there are still some clouds around the moon, but I thought it added a nice “aura” to the picture..

And finally, the Total Eclipse   I did have my camera set on the tripod – but I don’t have a remote cord and I didn’t set the timer, so there was a little bit of shaking.  I didn’t think it turned out too shaky considering I used a 70-300 mm lens and had it almost maxed out on the zoom.

This morning I got a nice shot of the setting moon as I went to work.  The sky is turning pink and purple from the rising sun.  The moon was sure nice and full – wonder if there were any werewolves out last night? 

Duck, Duck, Goose!

What do you do on a beautiful, sunny winters day?  Why, go feed the ducks, of course!

  My photo doesn’t quite show the beautiful colors in this duck.  To look at him, he appeared to be black.  But when the sun hit him he turned to gorgeous colors of green, blue, teal and even purple!

  Tara was feeding the ducks when the geese and swan came running to her and chased all of the ducks away!  Those big birds were on a mission, and since Tara had been chased by the swans at this same park when she was a child, her fear almost got the best of her as she walked backwards away from them.  Even Jeremy came with us to feed the birds.  In his picture you can see one of them taking some bread right from his fingers.  A couple of them were so friendly that they would let you pet them as you fed them.  I never dreamed that they would be so soft!

This picture shows just a few of the ducks that were gathering around looking for food – they must be hungry!   I was playing with my camera settings a little bit and got this shot of a duck behind a few twigs of grass…I thought it was pretty neat myself. 

And finally, this duck wasn’t much interested in taking food from us at all!  In fact, I think the picture pretty much indicates what he was thinking…

All in all, we had a wonderful day!  I hadn’t been down to the park to feed the ducks since Tara was just a little girl…I will definitely have to go more often.  8)

Another Beautiful Day

Oh by the way…this is the sunrise this morning at 7:15 – it is going to be another beautiful day!

Playing Griffs

Dee says…”You want me to get out of bed and do what?” 

Sunday was a beautiful sunny day!  The dogs got outside and got a little exercise playing with each other…       The dogs are so dark it is hard to get a good picture of them together without over exposing the picture.  Dee is the lighter colored dog with the orange collar.  It is hard to believe that just a month ago she had an apparatus on her broken leg – she plays just as hard as Cassie, it still makes me nervous!

Phantom Alarm

For some unknown reason, my alarm went off last night at exactly midnight.  I reached over and hit the snooze button out of habit.  When I looked at the time, I thought that the power must have gone out because my alarm will automatically go off when the power comes back on.  As I laid there, half-awake and half-asleep, I figured I should get up and see what time it really was so I could re-set the alarm clock.  I awoke again at 12:09 a.m. to the alarm – my snooze is set in 9 minute increments.  Finally, I forced myself to get out of bed to go see what time it was.  It was actually 12:09 a.m. – the power hadn’t gone out.  I went back and checked to see what time the alarm was set to go off, thinking someone might have messed with my clock.  It was set to go off at 5:30 a.m. – just as usual.  I turned off the alarm and turned it back on again, hoping that it would go off when it is supposed to in the morning.  I had dreams the rest of the night about why it went off by itself at midnight … I think I even dreamed about a reasonable solution, but I can’t remember why this morning.  The alarm went off like clockwork this morning at 5:30.  It will be interesting to see if my phantom alarm returns tonight.

OH, by the way, here is a photo of the dogs.  This picture pretty much indicates what my couch looks like every night after dinner…