last visit to sea world…

…for the foreseeable future, at any rate.  Our passes expire on Friday, and we ended up going three times this year.  For FL residents, the year pass costs the same as a one day ticket, so we definitely got a bargain.  Maria didn’t feel well, so Timon stayed home with her and Henry and I enjoyed my favorite theme park day of all time.  The weather was gorgeous, the crowds were very manageable, and we had a great day.  

Henry got to meet Shamu…

…and be surrounded by an aquarium full of fish!

We got to see the baby killer whale again, now a few months old.   They named him Brian.  Doesn’t that seem weird?  Brian.  Brian the KILLER WHALE.  Huh.

We saw this gorgeous ocean weed leafy sea dragon…



…and these beautiful (and very terrifying) jellyfish.

 
Henry got to ride the Polar Express…             
          
…and tell Santa all his Christmas dreams.


  
We saw some hungry and persistent seals…

…and Henry got to meet the stars of the dophin-whale-acrobat-high dive-birds-extravaganza.  I LOVE seeing this show.  It’s like Cirque du Soleil or something.  

We saw some really lovely Christmas trees, as well as an outdoor light and music show with the trees on the lake.

Before we left, Henry got to enjoy some snoap (snow made from soap bubbles)!


  Oh, and I was there, too.  The whole time.  Don’t believe me?  Fine, I’ll show you.

Here are some things I observed during our time there:

• They make maternity wetsuits.  Either that, or those things are really stretchy.  Poor trainer at the dolphin-whale extravaganza was squeezed into one so that she could toss fish at the obedient dolphins.  It was adorable.
• Even if the salesman holds it so the writing is backwards, more than one idiot person will still drop $25 on a “Sea World Christmas Celebration – Where The Season Meets The Sea” fleece blanket. 
• season passes are really awesome – you don’t feel rushed to see it all in one go, because you can get back to the park another time.  Henry and I saw things we hadn’t seen the other times we were there, but we still had time to see our favorite shows, go on a ride, meet Santa, and much more in the 7 hours we had that day. 
• We did Sea World instead of the zoo this year (the zoo is much closer).  I am glad we took a year off from the zoo, but I’m REALLY looking forward to going back.  We hope to go on Sunday afternoon – I’ve missed my siamang gibbons!

xxii

Photo shoots for this year seem to have come to an end… I drove out to a beautiful park across the state yesterday right after church to meet up with Barb and family.  They were perfectly adorable and there are some WONDERFUL photos as a result.  I won’t be sharing them here but if you are friends with me on FB, there should be some up there in the next couple of days. 

I will hate verra, verra much to pack this lens up and return it to its rightful owners.  The speed, focus, and light you can get with this thing is unreal.  I am going to miss you, AF-S Nikkor 35mm 1.8.  I truly hope I will meet one of you again, sooner than later.

Mimi & Papa are about to arrive literally any minute.  I suppose I should get off the computer then, hmm?

ix

I don’t typically do a lot of photo editing.  Nine times out of ten, I do very simple lighting adjustments, color conversion to black&white, or cropping in Microsoft Office Picture Manager.  I do have PhotoShop Elements and use it when I have more extensive edits to make.  Henry asked me the other day why I changed his picture and took the color out of it.  I LOVE black&white portraits, especially of the kids, and I just thought this photo looked better that way.  Sometimes the colors of the background or clothing can be distracting.  And while I adore Henry’s brown eye color (one of the very few things he got from me), his eyes really pop in the conversion.  You be the judge.

Here it is, straight out of the camera:

And this was after brightening the midtones, increasing the contrast slightly, and removing the color:


Which do you prefer?

1st day of 1st grade

Henry and Maria enjoyed a breakfast of cereal this morning, after Henry rejected my offer of pancakes.  WHO IS THIS CHILD?

Then Henry posed for the obligatory front-of-the-door-first-day-of-school photo (this is the goofy version, at his request):

And then I had to placate Maria by taking her photo through the window.  Before I know it they’ll both be out in front of the door.  Ay yi yi.

 

1st day reports, though scarce (seriously, he’s clamming up about school ALREADY?  I thought I had a few more years before that started.) seem positive and upbeat.  He came home with a green spot in his agenda (the date book they give all students to help keep track of things), which means he didn’t mouth off straight away.  Who could ask for more?

Summer 2010 Trip #3

Yes, we’ve been on three trips this summer.  My sister-in-law got married in June in Alabama, my cousin got married in July in Connecticut, and last week we went to south Georgia for a meet-up with Timon’s parents. 

We went to a state park that’s just barely over the state line that was on a lake.  The cottages there are great – AC, full kitchen, two bedrooms and two bathrooms.  Also: satellite tv, which we barely used but was handy in checking baseball scores each evening and on one rainy afternoon Henry got to watch All Dogs Go To Heaven. 

 
The kids were fantastic in the car on the way up.  We’ve been blessed with good car travelers.  And now that I’ve typed those words, we will PAY DEARLY on our next road-trip.  We cooked a lot of good food while we were there, which, when you have absolutely nothing else to do other than read a book or go swimming with your kids, isn’t the chore it seems to be at home.  And THE BEST PART OF IT ALL was that there was a (cue angels singing) DISHWASHER!!!  Perhaps you’ve always had a dishwasher and this means very little to you.  But I’ve lived without a dishwasher in my home since I moved out of my first apartment in 2001.  And seeing as how the cottage was on a lake, with a screened-in porch, and was bigger than my own home, the dishwasher pretty much put it over the top to where I very nearly refused to leave. 

Maria enjoyed cutting wooden fruit and helping Mimi in the kitchen, first supervising the shrimp deveining, and then snapping beans in half.

 
 

Henry loved fishing with his daddy, taking solemn self portraits, and snuggling with Maggie the dog.  [He really, really wants us to get a dog.] 

 

   
I’m ready to go back.  Who wants to join me?

6 years/72 months/2190 days

(waking up this morning)

Well.  Six is easier than five for the mother somehow.  But Henry, this year has been full of big things!  Probably most importantly, this year you learned to read, really read, all on your own.  I’m very proud of you for that, and pleased that you love to do it.  You love it so much that you spent the morning reading from the new children’s dictionary you got as a gift.

(opening some now, saving some for later)

You did karate this year, once a week.  It’s hard but you are learning to keep focused and listen to Sensei.  Your writing is getting much easier to read and understand – so much so, that now when you have misbehaved or disobeyed, I have you write an apology letter all on your own, doing the best you can with spelling.  (Yes, I’m saving them.)

(donut breakfast in bed)

Sometimes I look at you and I’m shocked at how tall you are.  This morning we measured you and you’ve grown 2 1/2 inches this year.  You are very sweet to your sister, most of the time.  And she has obviously learned a lot from you, seeing as how she slept with a baseball a couple of nights ago.

(yum)

We laugh a lot with you, Henry.  You have a lot of joy.  This year you also started participating in a ministry at church – your job on Sunday mornings is to run the powerpoint slides, and you do a great job.  It combines three of your favorite things – music, reading, and computers.  You say that you want to do it forever.

(measuring is serious business)

You still are interested in space and the shuttle – so we’re pulling you out of school early on Friday to head to the opposite side of the state for the launch.  Kindergarten can spare you for the day. 

(forty-six inches!  also, silly bands.)

You love going to the children’s program at church on Wednesdays.  You’re one of the youngest kids but you have made good friends there and the older ones are very patient with you.  My heart exploded (in a good way) on Sunday when you gave me one of your cards for Mother’s Day that had “I love God” written all over it.

So, yeah.  This birthday doesn’t pack the wallop that your last one did, but I’m happy you’re so excited today.  And I can’t wait to see what you do during the next 365 days.  As the song on your 5th birthday video says, the love I have for you is so alive.

{Five}
{Four}
{Three}
{Two}

last day

Maria's last day with her wonderful amazing loving kind flexible affordable convenient daycare was today.  I'm so sad.  Her providers have always been great - they clearly love Maria and she was so comfortable there - AND they've been happy to use the cloth diapers. Sadly, his mother is aging and ill... and lives in Barbados.  So they are packing up their lives (along with a 2 year old and a 12 year old), closing their business, renting out their house and moving to the flipping West Indies. 

 Fortunately, we have another great friend who is a hospice nurse who only works weekends.  She also loves Maria (let's face it, who doesn't?) and has graciously stepped in to care for her 3 days a week, and our children's surrogate grandparents will watch Maria on Tuesday.  She'll stay with me on Fridays, as normal.  We are so blessed to have people who love our family.  Being away from all of our relatives makes it hard sometimes, but God has provided people to fill the gap - and for that we're so thankful.

lunch date

We had a lovely lunch date with Miss Elizabeth.  She brought her mother, too, which was nice.  Here is evidence of our good time:

maria lately

  

i heart faces

iheartfaces is having a birthday… the category this week is “your best face.”  I haven’t had many faces better than this one lately!

still here

I know I’ve spent most of my blogging attention on the photoblog (which you should totally check out, if only to click on the links to other people’s 365 projects.  They are so awesome!) but I will still post here also.  Today I finally took down our Christmas tree and am truly sad about it.  We have actually gotten some winter-like weather here in the past 2 weeks and I was just starting to get in the Christmas spirit!  I really should get some kind of indoor plant to decorate for each holiday, but let’s not kid ourselves… it would surely die under my care.

Here’s Maria, just being her normal sweet self. 

answers

I got this comment on my last post - don't stay anonymous, Mr./Mrs./Ms. Anonymous! (I also changed the settings to allow comments from those that don't blog on the photoblog. You're welcome. Whoever you are.):

LOVE the fish pic! Can't post a comment over THERE as I don't have a blog, so I am HERE!!! Are you using a digital camera? What brand and model? I can't seem to get the effects I got with my SLR and f-stops with the digital I have now. Was getting ready to go back to the SLR and real film until I saw your pics. HELP! SAVE ME!!!!

Well, thanks! Oh, noooooo, don't go back to film. The money you spend on film and developing would pay for a good starter digital SLR in a couple of years. I am using a digital SLR camera, a Nikon D60. If I could go back in time to when I was purchasing this item, I would have bought the D90 - the reason for that is the D60 does NOT have an internal focusing motor, and the D90 does. More auto-focus lenses are available to use when you have an internal motor. For example, the lens that most often is on my camera is the 50mm f/1.8, which only works in manual focus on the D60, but would auto-focus on the D90 (or higher level camera). Now, I have to say that despite the challenges of manually focusing, particularly while taking photos of my constantly moving children, I really, really like the photos that the 50mm f/1.8 produces. The light is so much more accurate and I can take more pictures in low-light situations with that lens. I am totally ANTI-FLASH. I won't use it. I have grown to really dislike photos taken with flash, even if the subject is really cute. Sorry.

Having sung the praises of my 50mm f/1.8, I have to admit that the fish photo on my year in pictures blog was taken with the kit lens, the 18-55mm AF-S lens (OH, if you've got the D60, make sure any additional lenses you buy are AF-S, not just AF, or you'll be manually focusing like me.). I'm not quick enough with the manual focus to take photos of a lively betta.

I hope this was helpful and not too boring for people who don't give two hoots about cameras or photos. Anonymous, you should totally start a blog so we can see your progress! Plus, when you blog, you get to meet awesome people like Barb who is having a BABY RIGHT NOW!!!!! Yippee!

where I would like to spend some more time

Christmas Day

I woke up around 5:30 Christmas Day for some unknown reason.  It did give me a little time to put the breakfast casserole in the oven so that we could eat before opening presents.  The kids got up at their usual time of 7:15.  Henry was super excited to come see what Santa left under the tree (and in the case of his new fish, beside the tree).

He hath named him Skit.

We opened up our stockings on our bed - Maria was in fine spirits, thankfully.

Henry was thrilled to receive the number one item on his list for Santa – walkie talkies!  He has barely put them down since opening them.  He also got a cool Super-Why computer notepad (from us), and a real wooden baseball bat (from a lovely couple in our church).  V. exciting.

 
 
Maria was thrilled with her present from Henry, a Princess Presto doll:

And she also loved her new outfit and hairbows from Nana & Papa.  It was a good dress for dancing, too:

  
After we all ate homemade pizza for lunch, napped, and had a delicious ham dinner, we drove out to see some really neat Christmas lights across town.  I didn’t spend too much time being sad over not being in CT with my immediate and extended family, but they were on my mind and heart all day long.  It was still a lovely, lovely Christmas.