Yay, we have peppers! I don't even know what kind they are - what kind of gardener am I? Um... banana peppers?? Maybe. Whatever, it doesn't matter, they're yummy :)
I am addicted to my new camera, I want to play with it all day. It makes me want to go out and take pictures of scenery, and people, and anything I can find so that I can fiddle around with it and try to learn more. I try to read as much as I can online and now I'm trying to figure out which lens I should buy next. When I bought this camera I was really debating going with an SLR or a nice bridge camera. I figured I'd go for this one and if it was just too much and I was overwhelmed I'd return it and get the bridge camera. I am a little overwhelmed, but it has challenged me to learn more and I am curious now to see how much I can learn and how much I can do. I think I'll be keeping it :) Even though I do get frustrated with myself sometimes when I'm trying to take some pictures and they just aren't turning out right, meaning I have it on the wrong setting, mode, focus, flash, aperture, shutter speed... it's sure hard to get EVERYTHING just right. I have a long way to go, but like I said, it is addicting and now I want to see how much I can learn :) Bradley is the only one who is tolerating the camera being attached to my face, I hear "no picture" from Gracie all the time now :) He really is all baseball all the time and he went outside with his bat and ball the other day and I followed him out and he had no problem showing me some baseball poses :) It gave me some time to mess around with the exposure and white balance a little bit!
A while ago I saw this really cute idea for toddler beds online where you pretty much make a frame that fits over the bed from PVC pipe, make fabric curtains to fit over the pipe and you end up with a cute little tent over the bed. I thought Bradley and Gracie would love that, so we decided to make them when we moved Gracie into Bradley's room. Then I started thinking about it and didn't want the bed to be just sitting directly on the floor, so we were going to make a little frame for it to sit on. THEN, I was thinking about how I'd love to have some storage space under the beds since space is going to be very limited once they are both in one room together. So, we adjusted the plan again :) After many changes and tweaks, we finally came up with a plan, got material and went to work.
We have had several zucchini ready in the garden for a while now, but like I said before, I was scared away by spiders every time I went out to pick them. I finally caved and brought Kevin out there and pointed out which ones I wanted and watched as he carefully, and quickly picked them - all the while pointing out to me how he was not getting attacked. Yes, he survived, he's bigger than I am and the spiders must have ran away. We happened to pick them when it was raining outside, but it was actually really nice because it's been so hot around here lately. We definitely have some massive zucchinis, I've never seen zucchinis this big (granted I don't see that many zucchinis :) ) And Bradley was SO excited about how big they were, he could barely even hold all of them while I took pictures :) Now I just have to figure out how to get my family to eat zucchini :) I am going to make lots of zucchini bread (recipe courtesy of Grandma Mary Ann) and I made fritters the other night that I thought were very tasty but no one else would eat them, darnit.
So you know how my camera died? I somehow convinced Kevin to let me buy an SLR camera, something that I've been wanting to do FOREVER but never was able to before. I figured it could be my birthday, and mothers day, and Christmas presents for the next couple years or so :) So YAY, I got a nice new camera!! I'm still trying to learn all about it so that I can take the best pictures I can. I'm reading a lot online, watching videos online and trying to play around with it to teach myself all about aperture, shutter speed, focus modes and all that fun stuff! I'm having a blast with it. I always have taken a lot of pictures of my kids, but now I think they're getting a little annoyed :) I think I took about 200 pictures the first day :) Here are some of my favorite shots so far, experimenting with different modes and effects :)
4th of July was a lot different this year. Because of the terrible wildfires that have been out of control around here, all personal fireworks were banned and several cities cancelled their shows - including Fort Collins. At first it was just postponed, which I was upset about, but had comfort in knowing we'd still have our show later - but then they went and cancelled it completely. I have NEVER spent a 4th of July without fireworks at City Park - it's a tradition, and I'm so sad we missed it this year, it just didn't feel the same! I know it's just a precaution and I do understand that. And actually, as much as I hated to admit it, I would totally understand the postponement. But not the cancellation. They could have postponed them one week and we were already in a better place after getting quite a bit of rain right after the 4th. The red flag warning was even lifted in this area 1 week after the 4th. Oh well - enough complaining :) I spent it with my family and that's all that matters :) Luckily we went to the Rockies game a couple nights before and saw their amazing show and the kids loved it!
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