Well, Ida came ashore on Dauphin Island, AL. yesterday, but it was downgraded to a tropical storm by that time. Dauphin Island is where we usually go to the beach when we go just for a quick trip during the day. It takes us about 30 minutes to get there because you have to go over some very long bridges, which my sister would love since she’s terrified of bridges. Sorry, when I think of big bridges I always think of her and just had to mention it. Anyway, we had a lot of rain here. I think it rained for about 22 hours straight. The wind wasn’t all that bad. We only lost a couple of branches from trees, which weren’t really branches but rather large sticks that were dead in them. We had a couple of power surges and lost our internet once, but that was the extent of our “damage”.

Thanks to everyone who called to check on us. We stayed in the house all day yesterday because of the wind and cool temps. The staying in the house all day was more tiring than the storm. Every multiple- piece toy we own was spread out and cleaned up-twice. I was counting down the moments ’till bedtime by the end of the day.

Today is Veteran’s Day- thanks to you, veterans. Ash is off work so we will try to get out and do a little something. I’m not sure what yet, but we’re not staying in this house all day again! :0

I guess we’re as ready  for Ida as we’re gonna’ be here in Lower Alabama. This is the first hurricane we’ve had this year and it’s November, so I think we’re doing pretty well. It’s not expected to be all that bad, meaning sustained winds of 30-50 mph. We have thunderstorms worse than that during the summer months.

I went out this morning and got all the junk out of are yard that could potentially fly around if the wind gusts got bad. I took in our lawn furniture and got the swings put away. Ash went to the store last night and picked up a few things, not that we’re going to be locked up in our house, but who really wants to have to go to the store for bread in really rainy weather? I don’t even like  hauling the kids in and out of the car to go into the grocery when it’s a nice, sunny day(!) so I thought it was best to not be in need of anything.

Tomorrow we plan to just hang out and see what happens. We can have a picnic in the living room and watch t.v. as long as we don’t lose power. I really don’t think it will be like that, though. I’ll let you know.

We had a big time this weekend with Halloween and my parents visit. The kids really enjoyed going to our church’s event. There were bounce houses, games, funnel cakes and corn dogs, and of course, candy! I liked going there because  I felt they could run around and get candy from people I knew.

Here’s one of Ava on a fire truck they had there. She loves fire fighters, and always tells them to “be careful”! Oh, and Ava is a fairy.

  Here is another of her on the fire truck. It’s not that great of a shot, but I like Ash in the background.

Binh was Mickey Mouse. He wiped his little, black nose off about 5 minutes after we got there. Here he is playing a football game.

I forgot to mention they also had karaoke at the festivities. They had a little stage set up for the kids and then they could do karaoke to songs like “Old MacDonald” or “Itsy Bitsy Spider”. Ava absolutely loved it. She and Ash watched other kids for a while then we all came in and Ava sang “Jesus Loves Me”.

My parents came in on Sunday afternoon just for quick visit before heading to their place in Florida for the winter. At Ava’s request, we did get some train stuff for my dad’s birthday on Monday.

Here is one of my parents on dad’s birthday.

Lastly, here is Binh. He’s just cute in his party hat, so I had to post it. And, yes, that’s food on his face. As always..

Quite by accident, I posted every week day this week, so I can’t just abandon Friday. In that spirit, I’ll do a few bullet points of interest, or maybe disinterest, depending on who you are..

- Nothing says “I love you” like….Photoshop. Yes, that’s what I got for my anniversary yesterday. It was between that and a strand of pearls, and frankly, though pearls are nice and I do wear my ring to the grocery like I mentioned earlier this week, I think a strand of pearls with my t-shirt and shorts would be a little over-the-top. I just don’t do enough things that require dressing up to justify the pearls. I wasn’t sure what I was getting, so it was a nice surprise. I told Ash it was fitting for our anniversary. Now I can make us look younger and thinner as the years go by! Now all I need is a Photoshop class at the local university to figure how in the world to work it for Christmas! I seriously know nothing. no. thing! Well, I knew enough to run to Pioneer Woman and get her free action sets

- I’m working on Ava’s fairy costume today. Hey, I work best under pressure. Somehow this week has ended up being the busiest in I don’t know how long. It’s not that I waited until the day before Halloween on purpose, but he World Series was on for crying out loud. I can’t be expected to work in the evening.

- My parents are visiting this weekend and my dad will celebrate his birthday while they’re here. Ava decided he needed to have a train birthday. I didn’t tell her that usually 79-year-old men don’t have themed birthday parties, so I guess I’ve got train decorations to add to my list of things to get out and buy this weekend, in addition to all the other festivities going on.

All right. I’ve taken a long enough break from cutting out pink petal shapes. That’s my Friday post. I did it- five  consecutive days of posting. Weird that though it’s been crazy busy this week, I’ve found time to blog all five days. One could almost surmise this blog thing is a huge diversion from real work and a complete time suck…nah.

Today is our 15th  wedding anniversary. I thought I’d let you all know I took your advice and got Ash a watch. I was thinking it would be a good gift and then you all suggested it. Then, I talked to Ash and he said he’d like one, so that is what he got.

We actually went over the weekend to pick it out. I wanted him to be involved since he’s the one who has to wear it. I wanted to get something nice, but also know he is in uniform at work most of the time that he’ll be wearing it, so I wanted him to have something he would be comfortable in with that “outfit”.

I ended up getting him a silver (in color, you know what I mean, not gold) Tag Heuer. It’s kinda’ sporty, but also quite nice. It could easily go with something dressy as well. He really likes it, so I’m happy too. Last night we went to a little “harvest festival” at a church near out house. You know, bounce houses, games, etc. When we were getting ready to go Ash said, “should I wear my watch there?”

I’m a firm believer that life is too short, so use the fine china everyday, not that we actually have fine china..but you know what I mean. So I told him, “I’m not the one to ask. I wear a ___ thousand dollar ring to the grocery and dance class. I say if you like it you may as well enjoy it while you can.” So, he wore his watch to the little festival. I’m glad he likes and hope he gets lots of use out of it.

Thanks to everyone for your input. I think we made a fine choice!

I’m getting in under the wire for the I ♥ faces photo challenge this week so I’ll make it brief. Here’s my submission:

There are lots more costumes at I heart faces.

Ava is (still) in her why phase. This morning I was getting Binh out of bed and changing him and all that morning stuff. Ava was messing around at the train table and our conversation went a little something like this:

Ava: Why do I have a little brother?

Me: Well, Mom and Dad wanted another child, and that’s what God gave us- Binh. (Meaning God gave us a boy as opposed to a girl)

Ava: But I thought we got Binh from the airport..

Tee-hee. Ava clearly remembers the plane ride to Vietnam, but I think she’s a little fuzzy on the rest of the details.

I did go on to tell her (and Binh) about choosing to adopt from Vietnam and how yes, we did go there on an airplane but no, we did not get Binh at the airport. Then we talked about how she was born in Boston and he was born in Vung Tau, etc. etc.

 I’m sure it all makes perfect sense to her now…

I was asked a couple of weeks ago if I would be open to taking pictures of baptisms at my church. Of course I said yes, not only because I say yes to most things people at church ask me to do ( I mean really, how hard are most things to do at church- donate a toy at Christmas, help pass stuff out, go to  Egypt or Japan. I was kidding about that last one ) but also because I wanted to get the chance to photograph people who don’t know me.

Today was my first day photographing the baptisms. Well, actually, there was only one person, a little girl in second grade. See, they want you to stand on the steps in the baptistery and shoot about 3 shots- the talking, the dunking, and the “I’m now all wet”. It’s a kind of cramped space and you have to go through the ladies changing room in order to be in the right place. So, they wanted me to do it because our church photographer is a guy and he wasn’t really comfortable being in the ladies changing room, not that there are always people in there dressing but whatever. I wasn’t going to argue because I wanted to do this.

I went up a little early to see where I would be and to see what kind of light I would have there. So what kind of light did I have? The crappy kind. No windows (Hello, ladies changing room. Why would there be windows? We’re not that kind of church! tee-hee) and the baptistery had a couple spot lights but I still had to use my flash. Which brings me to my next point. I’ve been wanting an external flash and now this is my chance to say that I actually need one. They really do make your light look so much more natural.

Instead of the “big three” photos (they didn’t call them that or anything. I just made that up), I ended up taking 10 photos, two of which I threw out. One was just trying to judge the light to see if I’d really have to use the flash, and the other was just too much like one of the previous I shot. Anyway, the little girl was dressed really cute before time, so I asked if I could take her picture. You would have thought I has just told her she was under arrest because she was up against the wall stiff as a board! I engaged her before I asked and shook her hand. (They say touching your subject, like with a hand shake or pat on the shoulder is important before you start photographing people you don’t know). So, I’m going to have to work on getting people to loosen up, at least kids. I’m sure she was also nervous about getting dunked under a pool of water in front of about 1,000 people, so hopefully it wasn’t all me. I did get the “big three” and a couple of others that I thought were kinda’ cute, like her with a towel over her shoulders afterward.

So, I don’t know if this counts as my first photography gig or not, but I’m glad I gave it a go and will continue to do it. No, I didn’t get paid or anything, so I’m definitely still not a pro. Well, one can dream…

And, this is NOT the little girl I photographed, though I do believe it is sound advice. Incase you can’t read it, the small print reads, “is not advised”.

Still trying to get the hang of manual mode. I took these of the kids as we went out to play yesterday afternoon. It has been absolutely gorgeous weather here so we weren’t roasting when we were out like is usual for these parts. Ava insisted I take her picture of the tractor we have in our garage. It’s one of those power wheels things. We got it from a neighbor who was throwing it away. It needs a battery, though, so the thing doesn’t even run yet the kids love playing on it. I can only imagine if they knew it could roll! Fixing it is on Ash’s list of things to do. Hmm..I don’t think I’ll hold my breath on that one

Here’s Ava, inside our garage of all places. Her expression isn’t great, but tell me what you think of the exposure. I’m still working on getting all the balls rolling at once- aperture, shutter speed, ISO, etc. etc.

This isn’t the greatest exposure, but I had to show you what Binh does now when I say “smile”. If you notice, he usually looks like the most unhappy kid on earth in photos. I’ve been trying to change that, but I think he may have gone a bit overboard with my advice..

Oh, and that’s cracker on his face because if you know Binh, you know he’s almost always eating something. Plus, he insisted on getting his picture taken in the garage, too, because, well, his sister did and he’s not letting her do anything without him. This could come in handy when she starts dating. Binh will be right there with her!

This last one is just random because I can’t take pictures of my kids all the time. They are 1) too fast and 2) get sick of mommarazzi up in their faces.

This weekend we all took a little family trip to a local corn maze. We, actually I, was on a mission to find a pumpkin patch, like a u-pick kind. What I found was that we would have to travel to um.. almost Tennessee to find one. I really didn’t think that would fit in with the kids’ nap schedules, so I gave up the search and settled for the corn maze. Apparently, the only pumpkin patch in this area was destroyed in hurricane Katrina and the people who owned it cut their losses and didn’t replant.

The kids loved the corn maze place. There was a lot more to do there than just go through a giant, and by giant I mean HUGE corn maze. We did the kiddy level and that was enough for us. Besides the maze, there were two playgrounds, hay rides, this little train that had barrels painted like cows that kids could ride on, and the corn cannon. We did all the stuff except the corn cannon. Binh hated, hated! the corn cannons. He kept saying “Noise. Noise scary!” whenever we got around it. So we missed that and the pig races (I guess the pigs were tired by the 3:00 start time, ’cause they had done two other races that day and well, they’re pigs so I don’t think they run a lot of races normally). The weather was unseasonably (but seasonably for the rest of the nation) cold with a high of about 60. It was also really windy all day. Now I’m pretty wimpy when it comes to cold weather, but some people there had on gloves and hats. It’s a fall festival, folks, not a Christmas one..

So I’ve been trying my hand at learning to shoot (my camera) fully manual. Man, is that hard for me. I do much better in aperture priority mode only because at this point it’s hard for me to remember all the stuff I have to think about before I shoot an exposure. Most of the time I’m trying to catch something really quick and so I haven’t gotten the skill yet to set everything before the fleeting moment is over. I was really looking forward to trying to shoot some yesterday, but it ended up being rather disappointing. With the wind and cool temps, the kids noses and eyes were running the whole time, and Ava’s little face was really red (and snotty!:) It was just sort of a let down b/c I think I was really hoping to get some good pictures in.

Anyway, here some pictures I took while at the corn maze. I’m not saying these are terrible photos, I just didn’t have the kind of photo day I was hoping for. I’m also having a hard time with sizing in this blog format, so forgive the various sizes.