Lonely

We have this formal dining room that {almost} never gets used.
We eat in our kitchen, we eat on our pine utility table.
The dining room looks so empty and alone this morning in the early light I thought it would make a moving photo. Maybe its just the camera geek in me...but I like it! So this is my "ode" to the lonely furniture, waiting to be used!

Playing around with my new rug from Ikea. Not much grass here so I got to get "green" anyway I can! E was the only one around so he was my {mostly} willing subject.

Hopefully soon I will have all my photo gear back and can really start "playing" photographer again! I figure why not while we are here!

And here's another one with my new watermark (I don't want my "real" name for online purposes, but I do want it recognizable). What do you think? And yes this edit is warmer. I'm trying to find my "sweet spot" color wise! Its a work in progress.

Sight Seeing

Well we are getting settled in K and trying to get out some. Mostly right now it is for shopping or getting ready for the boys' school. So this weekend we went out to the Camp AJ and went grocery (bacon!) shopping and had lunch. I took my camera along just so I could share with you all the sights I have been seeing. Because really a picture is worth a thousand of my words (course I'll still say 300 or more LOL!). And I'll include a short description in case its not obvious what you are looking at. This is going to take several posts, so be warned...image heavy!

A roundabout...60% or more of intersections are these. Kinda hard to get used to especially with "crazy", rude, or just plain "lots of" drivers!

Apartments and "villas" or houses around the city

An amusement park I think? It is not open now, I cannot imagine how hot it would be in the summer though!

More to come later!

Nifty Fifty

Well I've finally decided it is time to sell my nifty fifty. It was my first "real" lens (fixed aperture) and I've never loved it. At first because I thought it was soft, but really that was just user error. It is sharp as they come at 2.5 and still has great bokeh (if you don't know what that means its ok). But finally after some serious playing around with it, I've discovered that I don't like it because I don't like just headshots, I like full body/action shots and this lens is too tight for that inside.

So now I'm selling it and its UV filter and its white balance lens cap (love this thing but its the wrong size for the lens I want) and free shipping/insurance inside the continental US for $95. A new one is $125 and the lens cap is another $25 and the filter is another $25, so I hope that $95 seems like a good deal to someone.

Here are some photos I took with it the other day, nothing "special" but shows the sharpness of the lens well.100% crop of eyes
So if you know anyone looking for a good starter "portrait" lens for a Nikon camera, pass on my info (friends and family only)!

Kung Fou Saturday

This summer seems like it is going to be ripe with boys movies in the theaters and one that I specifically wanted to see was the second Kung Fou Panda. We liked the first and it was three years ago that E and I saw it in the theater here while we were house hunting (Daddy and K were back at the hotel taking a nap), and so it seemed fitting we saw it in the theater again. Was not busy and we got there early for nothing, but the boys are old enough that they could handle it. We all enjoyed it (there is such boy humor in there) and neither of the boys were scared of the bad guys like some people had me worried about.

Then we came home and I finished the cupcakes that went with the movie. Boys were very anxious to eat them, but we first went out to OTB and then came home for dessert. The boys used their best kung fou food moves and the pandas were defeated. Delicious!

Time flies when your uh....something!

LOL Ok so I have no excuses just the very fact that time has gone by and I have not posted a photo for months. Yes I'm sure family has forgotten about this blog (I would have) and honestly that is OK, I'll start posting again and you all can catch up!

This was supposed to be K's last week of preschool (only in my mind!) and so I tried to do as much "no kids" stuff as possible. On Friday we went to the gym though as usual and after lunch I asked him if I could take a picture of him with his butterfly (from preschool). I am a sentimental fool, but I know with the military moves we cannot save every scrap, every art project or every favorite toy. So my way of dealing with it is to take a photo for the memory and then let the physical object go. To my suprise he said I could and so I took the opportunity to work on some photography stuff. They didn't come out perfect, but they are a perfect example of his personality at this age. Just wish he would have turned the butterfly around for me!

Park Photos from the weekend

As promised more photos! Lots more photos. Frankly I don't really want to have to analyze them any more to figure out the best ones. So you get them all.