It's not an emergency, it's a 'major inconvenience'

We're off to Vegas today. We will be leaving for the airport very soon. It's a little early to be leaving but Florida seems to be having a ba-giant power failure at the moment making driving a little dicey. It sounds like brunt of it is down in Miami-Dade, but we are going to leave a little extra time to deal with the traffic. Anyway, we are going to be meeting Jason in Vegas this evening. He is already there having gone early to take some class or something. I'm not sure exactly what it was, but it sounds like there was a test at the end so a certification of some sort? We have plans to go to a couple restaurants and see a Cirque show. Other than that I think we are going to mostly wing it. I'm excited to go but I'm hoping that getting there won't be too stressful!

Homemade

Handmade
Originally uploaded by Sirelroka

Today's photogamer was right up my alley. Take a picture of something homemade. It was hard to pick one thing, but then I decided that I would use my latest idea to sell on etsy. I've only made one of these so far and haven't gotten good pictures of it yet. So it's not up for sale yet, but I was pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Motion

Motion
Originally uploaded by Sirelroka

Photogamer's mission for the day: Take a picture of something in motion.

Fake

Photogamer for the day: Take a picture of something fake. My first impulse was to take a picture of some fake potatoes. Unfortunately we didn't have any in the house. Roland suggested I take make some mashed cauliflower, but that was little more effort than I was willing to put in. So I went for my fake fur blanket. But any time there is a blanket involved Bleys has to come take a look. So here is some fake fur with some real fur on top.

Teeny-Tiny

Teeny-Tiny
Originally uploaded by Sirelroka

I'm trying out that Photogamer thing Anne is participating in. Today's challenge was to take a picture of something teeny-tiny. When Anne and I were kids we called this Lego a Teeny-Tiny so it seemed perfect. And yes, that means that, on a whim, I can successfully locate any particular Lego piece (or build parts of Hogwarts, and a sizable portion of the Star Wars fleet). I am at one with my inner nerd!

Proof

On Monday I left Colorado Springs. It was hard to leave Janice, but I know we will keep chatting and maybe I'll get out there again sooner rather than later. And Bob has family here in Florida, so when they visit again I can take a short drive over to Tampa to see the gang. I drove up to Fort Collins to stay with my Uncle for a short while. He made arrangements for us to go snow shoeing in the mountains on Tuesday. We rented a pair of shoes for me after dinner on Monday so we could just go in the morning. We got a pretty early start and were at the trail head by 10:15 or so. We hiked about 2 miles out and 2 miles back, stopping for lunch along the way. We hiked along a string of three lakes. Nymph, Dream, and Emerald. We actually just walked across Dream instead of any trail. My Mom says that I'd actually been on that trail before when I was a kid. But the fact that it was so long ago and in summer meant that I didn't really recognize anything.

I had a really good time and didn't do too badly given the change in elevation. Now that I live at sea level, being at 10,000 feet and climbing is a bit more of a challenge! More pictures over at flickr.

Swingin'

After a nice dinner with Kate, I arrived at Janice's late on Tuesday and the boys were already in bed. On Wednesday my alarm clock was the unmistakable sound of giggling. Zachary and Ashton are some adorable little guys and I had a lot of fun with them. They really are some awesome little people. On Saturday we started the day by going to Zachary's basketball game. Both he and Ashton are involved in basketball at a youth center at the base.

Ashton's group doesn't play actual games yet, but Zachary does. After the game, lunch, and a nap we headed over to a park to play and ride bikes. I took some pictures there so that Janice could send them to Bob. Here are Zachary and Ashton having a swinging good time. There are more pics of the game and fun in the park over at flickr.

Home

I have returned. Last night I got back at around 10:00 in the evening. It was a long day of flying, and I was glad to be back on the ground. I was really lucky with the whole trip and everything fell into place fairly easily. I was able to meet Kate in Denver for dinner on the day I flew in. It was really nice to see her and have a chance to catch up a bit. I still send her peppernuts every Christmas and apparently her brothers and mother keep trying to steal them away from her. I guess I'm going to have to make more for her next year! Then I drove down to Colorado Springs to visit Janice. It was really nice to see her and meet her little ones. Zachary is 5 and Ashton is 3 and a half. Boy are they adorable! It was cool to hang out with them for a while and hopefully I gave Janice a little help along the way. Then on Monday I drove back up past Denver to Fort Collins to spend a day or so with my Uncle. He arranged for us to take a day trip up into the mountains and we did go snow shoeing. It was pretty sweet. I will have pictures soon I hope, but I did bring back a souvenir cold so I'm being a little lazy about it.

Love story

One of the ladies on the flyball team wasn't able to come up for the whole weekend so she needed someone to drive her dog up so she could meet us there later. I volunteered, and Kimmie, one super cute border collie, spent probably an hour and a half at our place before we took off. She and Bleys had a jolly good time playing while we packed up. There is a whole series of pics over at Flickr. Check them out!

Drip

We got back from the flyball tournament late last night (more on that another time). I was lucky enough to be able to sleep in a bit, but Roland had to be at the downtown courthouse bright and early this morning for jury duty. It turns out that the court he was in the pool for didn't end up needing a jury so he was excused, and chances are even if they had needed a jury, the lawyers involved wouldn't particularly want him on the jury anyhow, given his occupation. I think he had mixed feelings about it since he didn't really need the extra hassle of doing jury duty, but he also would find the proceedings interesting on a couple of levels.

Anyway, today I'm trying to do some cleaning and get ready to fly out tomorrow for Colorado. Unfortunately we don't have any water at the apartment at the moment. This makes cleaning and doing laundry more difficult. The apartment complex said it should be back on by this evening, but that puts a crimp in my pack early plans. Ah well. At least I don't leave super early tomorrow. I fly out in the early afternoon so that gives me a little time in the morning. I land around 4:30 I think and then Kate Leggett is going to meet me for dinner in Denver (how nice is it that she is coming over to meet me?). After that I will drive down to Colorado Springs to visit with Janice for most of a week. On Monday I will drive up to Fort Collins to spend a day with my Uncle before flying out again on Wednesday. He said that, weather permitting, we might get to go snow shoeing in the mountains. I've never been snow shoeing, so I'm pretty geeked about that.

I was talking with my Mom the other day and got to thinking about how long it has been since I've seen the people I'm going to visit. I haven't seen Janice since my wedding and I haven't seen my Uncle since Anne's wedding. I was trying to figure out the last time I saw Kate and I think it was around Christmas of 2006. I think she came to the get together at Buffalo Wild Wings for Roland's birthday. I think its going to be a busy week, but I'm very grateful that everything fell into place and I will be able to visit with everyone!

Anne's Toast

Anne's Toast
Originally uploaded by Sirelroka

Anne has been participating in a neat little thing called Photogamer. They suggest things to take a picture of and people take pictures with that theme/topic and upload them to the Flickr Photogamer Pool. Her last picture (of toast) was on the front of the Photogamer site when I popped over there. Neat!

This and That

Well it looks like it is going to be a busy February. A really good friend of mine from college (and one of my bridesmaids) lives out in Colorado Springs. Her husband Bob was just sent out to Iraq, so I'm going to jet on over there to spend a little time with her and her two boys. Who knows, maybe while I'm out there I will be able to pop over to see Kate and/or my Uncle, who both live in Colorado. Then not long after I get back, Roland and I are flying to Vegas to meet Jason for Roland's long awaited spring break vacation. I'm looking forward to each trip individually, but I think by the end of it I'm going to need a vacation from my vacations.

I'm also feeling a little concerned about Bleys. Today while we were playing he totally stumbled for no reason. It was like he was all drunk. He righted himself and then took a couple of not terribly steady steps. I brought him back inside and he hasn't shown any more issues, but I'm still concerned. I guess I'm just going to keep my eye on him for now, but we are supposed to go to a flyball tournament this weekend so if it happens again I'm going to see if the vet can squeeze us in before we go.

Dash

Well, I'm back from a very quick trip to Michigan. Roland's sister Marcie was married on Saturday. It was a lovely wedding and a hoppin' reception, but I was certainly exhausted when we got back. Roland canceled class on Friday so we could fly up to Detroit where we rented a car and drove over to Muskegon. Then we attended the festivities on Saturday, got a little sleep, and were up early to drive back over to Detroit. We got back here early evening on Sunday. I did take some pictures at the wedding, but didn't get many at the reception because my battery didn't want to hold a charge very well. I guess that is the (very small) down side to getting my Dad's hand-me-down electronics. By the time I get them I probably need to replace the battery.

Although I really like the camera that I'm using, it's really quite small and fits nicely into my pocket for easy carrying, I think I would really like some sort of larger camera that has more features/is more adjustable. I was looking in my local adult education brochure and they have a couple classes that I could take so maybe I could really take some nice photos. One of the other women on the flyball team has a really nice, but older, Nikon that makes me drool.