Camera Test Shots

Joel got me a new camera for my birthday - Yay! The same one Abby has, the Canon Powershot S95, which I admired when she visited recently. I don't have the kids at the moment so I can't take any test shots of them yet, but I walked down the street and tested the camera and some of its functions out on some flowers and such.... pretty cool. With the new addition coming soon, and my old camera becoming more and more finicky, it was a great gift! Thank you Joel!!!!

Poster effect:

Color accent:

Foliage:

Online Shoe Shopping

Today I was browsing on Zappos.com looking for back-to-school shoes for the kids. The kids were home from camp at the time, so I called Ben over and asked, which did he like better, this pair or that pair? He answered without hesitation and wandered away. Rebecca on the other hand, after hearing the magic word "shoe", planted herself in my lap and made me show her about sixty pairs of shoes, and then picked the most expensive and impractical ones she could find and insisted those were what she wanted. I vetoed her choice and went with these instead - she will probably be really pissed.

Frisbee Dog

Part of the frisbee dog performance we saw at Tweetsie Railroad last week....

More Pictures

Below are some more pictures from our trip to Boone last week.

Becca's Camp Photos

I did not order any of Ben this year because he was very un-smiling. (I asked him, "Didn't the photographer tell you to smile?" He replied, "No he told me to say Boys Rule, Girls Drool." Apparently he delivered this line with a very deadpan expression).

18 Week Ultrasound

Before we left for the mountains on Wednesday I had a level 2 ultrasound of Baby. This is more detailed than the standard 18-20 week ultrasound since apparently being 35 at the time of delivery qualifies me as "high risk". However, baby gave no signs of being anything other than happy and healthy during the ultrasound, though s/he was being a little difficult by moving around a lot and making measurement-taking difficult. We declined to learn the sex, though I am trying to convince Joel to buy one of these tests, which supposedly are up to 90% accurate if performed correctly (my reasoning is that it will give us an idea, but we won't be sure it's correct,so some of the mystery will still remain). Joel still needs some convincing on this though.

Mountains

As you may have gathered from the few pictures I posted from my phone over the last couple of days, we were in the Boone, NC region from Wednesday evening until yesterday afternoon. Even though the weather was hotter than usual in the mountains (around 85) it was still cooler than the 100 degree temps we had here in Charlotte while we were away!

We stayed in the same cabin we rented last summer, which we shared with some friends. We all had a great time - we visited Grandfather Mountain, Tweetsie Railroad, the Mast General Store, had dinner at the Dan'l Boone Inn, and the older kids (Ben and Jared) had a great whitewater rafting trip on the Watauga river in Tennessee while the younger ones (Evan and Becca) went out to lunch and a movie. We also started a bonfire in the outdoor fire pit and roasted marshmallows and made s'mores.

I will try to post some more pictures soon as well as a video of the frisbee dog performance we saw while we were at Tweetsie Railroad.

It was a great mini-vacation and we look forward to going back to the mountains again sometime!