Fall is officially here!

Yep - its official. Fall colors have finally arrived! I am loving taking pictures of all the pretty color around me! The two pictures above are two of my favorites. The one below was one where I was practicing getting pretty sunflare and I accidentally got a little girl pulling her wagon. LOL I didn't even know she was in the picture until I looked at it when I got home. Her mom was taking pictures of her too. She probably wondered why I was taking pictures of her little girl!!!

The weather here has been so nice! Its been in the 70's. I am loving that for mid October! I was off today so I ran a ton of errands. I returned a pair of jeans to Kohls, went grocery shopping, mailed one of my favorite lenses back to Tamron to be repaired :( picked up a prescription for my son and got it filled, and did a bunch of laundry. After all that I am pooped! My DH is in Las Vegas today. He had to go for work. I usually wish I was going where he does when he goes out of town but to be honest - Las Vegas is one place I really have no desire to go. I don't usually drink, and I hate to gamble so I always think whats the point of going there. LOL Like thats all you do in Vegas. ha I am sure its a very pretty place to take pictures though so I probably would enjoy that aspect of it! Well - I know this is short and sweet but I need to go get the clothes out of the dryer and get some other stuff done before bed. Hope everyone is having a great week! Talk to you soon!
Steph

Mom's weekend . . .

Its Mom's weekend at my daughter's college. I came last night and spent the night in a dorm. haha No, not my daughter's dorm, its a dorm that they only use for occasions such as this. Here is a picture of my room.

This morning I took a shower in the community shower. A brave girl I am today. :) I got up really early because they always have a balloon festival the same weekend as Mom's weekend, and I wanted to get some pictures of some of the balloons. It was pretty cool - I watched them set up and actually take off. Tonight they will return and have a "balloon glow" when it gets dark. I am hoping to get more pictures then. As for what we are doing today - I'm really not sure though since its with my daughter, I am pretty sure it will involve me spending money on her. LOL She is, after all, a starving college student. Now I wait until she actually drags herself out of bed so we can get the day started! Heres some pictures for you for now . . . I am sure more will be coming later!

The moon this morning . . . I told you I got up early!

Then came the sunrise:

Watching them get ready to go:

Once they were in the air:


And when I got back to the dorm, I took these, just because! :



Thats it for now! Have a great Saturday!
Steph

Happy Labor day!

OK - I am not so happy about this day because I am working today. :( But so far there has been little work for me to do so I am keeping my fingers crossed that I will get to take some time off today and enjoy it like all the normal people who get holidays off! I went outside to get my paper this morning, and noticed rain drops on the tree in front of my house. I know you are thinking "and your point is?" since it has rained the past 2 days here. haha BUT I have been wanting to get some pictures of rain drops with my macro filters that I bought. Some people over on the 2 peas site posted some raindrop pics a while ago and they were so cool. So, I ran inside and grabbed my camera and took some pictures before the drops were all gone! When I first started taking them I noticed that my neighbors house was in them, but upside down! I thought that was so cool. Then I had a lightbulb moment (I do think a little bit slow sometimes!) and realized if I turned around and took them from the OTHER side I would get my own house in them. Pretty clever huh? (notice sarcasm there?). So - here is my raindrop pic with my house in every single drop:


I just love seeing what my camera wil come up with next. haha

So I hope everyone has a great day! As of right now the sun is actually shining, so I hope I can enjoy at least part of it!!!

Talk to you soon!
Steph

Happy Tuesday!

This has been a darn good day!!! Nothing special happened, but I was off work, the sun was shining - and I thoroughly enjoyed it! I went to run errands this afternoon and wanted to share a few pictures with you. I went to my favorite park again - I am becoming a regular there with my camera in hand. : ) I wish we had more scenic places to go but unfortunately the park is IT in this town. LOL Heres some pics - the flowers there were beautiful today - I just love the peacefulness of the outdoors. Maybe I need to move into the country and build a huge deck to sit outside and enjoy it more! Anyway - hope you all had a great day! My husband and I are off to Steak & Shake in a bit for date night. I'm trying really hard to eat better and exercise more - but there are some things I just can't give up - and a steakburger is one of them!!!
Talk to you soon!
Steph

Hey all!

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Mine was pretty good. Friday night a good friend of mine and I went to the fair. I always go just to eat the food. LOL I had a ribeye sandwich and mini doughnuts! I took pictures of this year's butter cow - every year someone sculpts a cow out of butter. This year its suppose to be Abe Lincoln as a young boy reading, and then of course, the cow. Its one of those things at the fair that we always have to look at even though usually its the same as last year. LOL

Saturday I didn't do much of anything. I had planned on scrapbooking but for some reason that didn't happen. :( It was nice though to be able to do absolutely nothing if I wanted to!

Today, we took some things to my daughter for her dorm. She starts school tomorrow. We ran to Wal Mart to get her an extension cord for her microwave and fridge and guess what? They were completely sold out of extension cords. Apparently every other student at the college needed one too. haha So I guess I will be mailing her one this week! Once we got home I was so tired and didn't feel much like making dinner so I just made pancakes. Its kind of nice having breakfast for dinner sometimes! Right after dinner, I took my dog out for her evening duties. She is notorious for not getting along with other dogs. She is wonderful with people but for some reason there are very few dogs she actually likes. I was talking to a couple of my neighbors, not really paying attention to Lexi brecause all 3 of the dogs (my two neighbors' dogs and Lexi) were actually getting along for a change - then all of a sudden I hear a loud commotoin and Lexi and the dog across the street are fighting! I tried to snatch her up and next thing I know her leash is around my neighbor Kim about 3 times, and the dogs are still fighting. She took her dog, Tippy's leash off of her to set her free, and then we both unwound Kim from the leash and checked out dogs. What a mess it was! Once we came inside, Lexi was breathing so hard - I think it actually scared her. This has happened twice with her and this dog. Usually I am so busy yapping with the neighbors that I don't see what happens until they are in the fight! I know one thing - I really should have taken her to preschool so she would have learned how to play with others because apparently thats one thing she did not learn as a puppy!!!

Well, its almost my bedtime, so I'll leave you with some pictures, because as you all know, I love taking them! Have a great week and I'll talk to you soon!
Steph

Vacation and back to school!

Well we survived the vacation as a family! We normally are not good travelers together. The first couple of days were kind of touch and go, and on the 2nd day, my daughter and I both had a tearful moment (about two separate things), but then after that things got much better and it was actually enjoyable! My son complained the WHOLE week - he is building his own computer this summer, and had just purchased his last piece of the computer - the hard drive - and couldn't wait to get home and put it in and see how it all ran. I can't blame him - he has my patience after all! But he is the type of kid that says "how much longer" repeatedly. He has always been this way and since he is 16 I doubt he is going to outgrow it anytime soon. LOL He did survive the trip but I think he would have much rather stayed home! My daughter and her boyfriend seemed to enjoy things once he got there (he came on the 3rd day of our vacation, because he visited one of his friends in Fort Knox right before that). We went to the Opry Mills outlet mall, Music Hall of Fame, the aquarium in Chattanooga, Ruby Falls, and the Smoky Mountains. There so much more that I wanted to do but there was simply not enough time. I really wanted to go to Rock City, but it was way too hot on the day that we were going to do it, so we opted for Ruby Falls instead. I hiked for the very first time in my life and realized just how out of shape I really am. I went on a 1.4 mile (each way) hike to Laurel Falls, and going there was totally uphill. It was described as the easiest hike in the mountains and I was sucking air just to get up to it. I honestly didn't think I would make it. Going down was a breeze though! My daughter and her boyfriend decided to climb to the top of the falls, and just as her boyfriend was about to tell her to be careful because of the slippery ledge, she slipped, and almost fell down the falls. Somehow he snatched her up by the shoulder, scraping her knee and ripping her shirt, and sat her down on the rocks. I have no idea how he did this without them both falling. I didn't really have any time to panic - it all happened so fast! (I found out later that it is a 60 ft drop!). After that fiasco, they (my family) decided to go on another hike, of which I told them I would wait for them at the car. haha I figured one hike was enough for me - I didn't want to risk a heart attack. It was sad though - I really need to get in better shape!!! There are a few pics at the bottom of this post! All in all I did enjoy myself but I hated to come home and go back to work today!!! Tomorrow, summer is officially over for my son. He has his first day of his junior year of high school. Then on Thursday night, my daughter is leaving and moving into her dorm on Friday. It will seem strange with her gone. All summer we have had a trail of her friends coming and going at the house - I will miss that! There something about a group of girls laughing and talking - its so fun to listen to. I sure hate to see summer end. I do like fall, but I absolutely HATE winter. Some day I hope to move someplace warm in the winter! Well, I don't have much more to share, so I will leave you with my vacation pics. Hope you are all having a great day!
Talk to you soon!
Steph

A favorite aquarium picture (the fish just looked right at me as if he were posing!):


Laurel Falls at the Smoky Mountains (where my daughter decided to "fall" too!):


A stream at Abrams Falls (this is one of my favorite pictures!):


My little travel dog with the wind in her fur:


My daughter and I at the I-Max theater at the aquarium (my son took it and had the focus point on my daughter. She always makes this face in pictures for me. LOL):


Ruby Falls (the falls inside the cave):

Hi

Hope everyone is doing great on this fine Tuesday morning! I have a busy day ahead of me today - I have an eye appointment at 10:30, and picking out new glasses after that. I HATE wearing glasses - but then if I don't wear them, I can't see, and contacts are out of the question for me, so there really is no choice for me. :( I have had my current ones for a little over 2 years, and they have broken twice so far - had to have them soldered back together at a jewelry store. LOL Hopefully whatever I get next will be more sturdier! After that, I am going to Hobby Lobby to pick up my new Slice cart. that I bought last week when it was on sale. They were out of them so I had to get a raincheck. Its the Spring cart. I love the font on that cartridge - it kind of reminds me of Fling font - so pretty. Then, I have some other travel arrangements to make. Our vacation is coming up fast - and I could not be happier about that!!! This weekend my friend Connie is coming to see me too, so I need to do a bit of cleaning around the house. Before you know it - it will be bedtime. Days off fly by sooooo quickly! :( Today is also my daughter's last day of summer classes. She has her statistics final today - keep your fingers crossed that it goes well! She finished her med. terminology class last week. Then in 2 weeks or so it will be time to move her back into her dorm at WIU. Wow - this summer went way too fast for me.

Well - sorry for the boring update on my life - but it is what it is! LOL Maybe I will have more fun things to discuss next time! Have a great day!

Steph