Photo experiment....

It worked! Thanks to Eric for being my model. I love digital cameras, they make stuff like this so easy...

(Jen, This will be for my S-curve!)

Awww, isn't he cute... :)

Is anyone out there??

It's been so quiet in blogland... I guess we're all so busy with life...

Eric is home now, and it's nice to have him home. The girls are in much better moods too. However, Gillian is starting to scream for me a lot and will run right past Eric to get to me... I wonder how to deal with this as it's been an issue with Abby for about 2 years now!! I think she is learning A LOT from her sister.

Anyway, I have a photograph in mind so I'm going to give it a try. It it works I'll post it. So stay tuned!

Parliament Hill

Here are the highlight photos from our field trip to Parliament on Saturday.

Hallway to the Library, just off the main lobby

Pillar in the main lobby

Shot of the drawers in the Library

Library of Parliament's ceiling

Hallway to Library of Parliament
I used my 10-20mm lens for this one.

House of Commons Chamber

Senate ceiling and chandelier

Senate Chamber

I'll have to submit a couple to my class, I was thinking of the first one, and the senate chamber shot...??

Disconnected

My internet connection was off for the whole weekend. I'm not sure what happened, as I didn't have the time to call India to chat about the weather and find out what was going on. But, since I'm home with Abby today (sick) I was happy to find that it was working when I turned on my computer this morning. Hopefully it will stay that way, as I don't want to call India.

I'll try and post some photos of Parliament later, I have to choose the top ones to post.

Bokeh and a vote....

I was browsing through Flickr and came across the bokeh group. What does that mean - bokeh?? I asked myself, so I naturally used Google which lead me to Wikipedia and got this:

"Bokeh (derived from Japanese, a noun boke 暈け, meaning "blurred or fuzzy") is a photographic term referring to the appearance of out-of-focus areas in an image produced by a camera lens using a shallow depth of field.^[1] Different lens bokeh produces different aesthetic qualities in out-of-focus backgrounds, which are often used to reduce distractions and emphasize the primary subject."

Right. So it's basically the new "IT" word for photos using a shallow depth of field. I guess since I'm not too hip and happening, I didn't know what the word is, but I do have some bokeh to share with you, so there is some hipness in there:

Christmas decor in Dec.

Puzzel bokeh

Covered bridge bokeh

Which takes me to my "shoot" today to get some pics for my photo homework. Here are some highlights:

1. Bender was my assistant (not very useful, but cute)

2. The Meech Creek Valley

3. Meech Creek Valley covered bridge.
(the location of some of our wedding photos)

4. Gnarly tree

5. Meech Creek Valley with sun flare

6. Fence with green

I had fun, almost froze to death (it was about -10C with lots of wind!!), but got some good shots.

Can I ask a favour - I'm curious to find out which of these is your favourite. Click on comment below and tell me which number and why? Don't be shy!! - Thanks!

More photos to follow tomorrow after the field trip to Parliament Hill. Maybe I'll get some for Jen's Challenge this week: Composition with S-Curve as the subject (it's no fair though, she has the Olympic Luge track in her backyard.... ;) )

The week that was...

Eric took off for Fernie this week. A week away skiing in the Rockies, couldn't ask for anything more fun! I just hope he comes back in one piece. Actually he called today and said that he had made it through the day in one piece, which was nice to hear.

This, or course, means that I'm flying solo for the week. It's girls week at the house and we're doing great. Things are running smoothly, they wake up around 6, I shower, we eat then head out to daycare, me off to work. (I won't go into the dirty details of the struggles of putting the snowsuits on, but I may just have a photo of a pile of burnt snowsuits coming soon...). I come home, make dinner, we eat, we play, bath time, story time, then it's to bed by 7:30. Throw in a couple screams, some whining, and a time out here and there, and everything is cool. But it does leave me pretty tired for doing photo-of-the-day, so I have missed a few days here and there, and leaves me too tired for blogging.

But tomorrow I've taken the day off, as a little rest day so I feel somewhat energized today knowing I don't have to go into work tomorrow! Yeah! My plan is to head out to a few locations to take photos, for fun and for the homework assignment in my photography class. It should be sunny and not too cold. Stay tuned to see what I get!

Tonight I put together a quick Valentines Day card for the girls to take to daycare tomorrow. I just changed the name at the top and printed one for each of the kids:


Well that is about all I can say now. It's 9:00 and I'm hitting the wall... 'night!

I'm back - Las Vegas Pictoral Overview

I haven't blogged all week!! In part because the girls have been sick and more in part because I've been too tired every night. Ugh! I feel so out of touch, but really I don't have a desire to be on my computer...weird eh?? Must be the hormones!

Anyway a quick recap of Vegas. Conference wasn't so interesting, and smoky casinos were not for me. I'm glad I saw it, doubt I'll ever go back unless I'm paid to do so. The surrounding landscape is beautiful so that would be the only draw again. It's very expensive, so if you plan on going, plan on spending a lot! Here are some highlight photos:

Outside of the Hotel Casino "Paris"

I liked the look of this awning.

Inside "Paris". Huge Casino in the middle,
then shops and "cobble stone streets" surrounding it.

Exiting Bally's

Caesar's Palace though the Bally's arch.

Halted construction of new hotel casino's on the strip.
With the downturn, all of the construction is basically
stopped in Las Vegas. The cranes stand still.

The MGM Grand Lion - this was a HUGE casino!

New York New York Hotel Casino

No description necessary.

Free music and water show outside
the Bellagio

Caesar's Palace behind the Bellagio

Front facade of The Venitian
Another Huge labyrinth of a casino and shops.

Ceiling of the Venetian

The Venitian Canals

St. Marc's square. The roof is
painted like the sky, so it looks like "outside" 24 hours a day!

We took a 1/2 day trip to Hover Dam
This is the Colorado River downstream of the dam.
You can see at the top where they are building the new hwy.

Hover Dam

Rented a car and drove out to Red Rock Canyon - beautiful!

This week was busy, as it was back to work, the kids were sick, I had my photo class Wed night, then the best part on Wednesday we had our first ultrasound. All went well. I drank too much water, as always, the baby was jumping around like crazy, so that was fun to see. Heart Rate was 138, so Eric is convinced it's a boy. Can't imagine having a boy, so we'll just have to see!

Here is the photo. Not much to see really, head is to the right, legs were all scrunched up, thumb was in the mouth most of the time this is at 12 weeks:

Off to veg in front of the TV and eat ice cream bars!