This & That

The SGB Here....

We have had the SGB here while his mama, daddy and other Grandma have been adjusting to having the new baby at home. They were discharged from the hospital yesterday,  and everything is going well as far as we know.

DH took the SGB out to the ponds to visit the horses this afternoon. He really enjoyed it and fell asleep on the way home in his car seat. DH sat with him there in the garage until he woke up. He is a doting grandpa. (Very high ISO to get this photo of the baby in the dark garage.)

Preemie Boy had his first scholarship audition today. They told him that he could get a bigger slice of the money if only he would be a music major. Unfortunately, it's not in his plan to take the 12 credits per semester it would take to be a music major so hopefully he'll get enough to pay for the music class credits he does want to take. In the meantime, everyone has been very cooperative in helping the grandbaby pass the time. Can you guess what he's watching?

New and Blue!

It was a tremendously interesting day yesterday. We had a family friend pass away earlier in the week. His funeral was held at the local livestock commission....where they auction off  farm animals for sale. :)

Preemie Boy and I sang and you have to get the visual picture in your head (because I thought cameras would be inappropriate) of us walking through the chute they send the livestock through and into the small arena where they had very nicely spread fresh sawdust and there we sang, "How Great Thou Art." It makes for an interesting visual, doesn't it? But is was perfect for Joe's funeral.

Right before we pulled in for the funeral, Eldest Son called me from Boise saying they were headed to the hospital. So as soon as I was done at the funeral and had Preemie Boy back to school, I headed over to pick up the SGB and bring him back here. I had only gotten about halfway there before Eldest called me to say I should probably stop by the hospital to hold my new 8 pound, 13 oz. grandson!  I have an SGB #2! Things went very quickly with them checking into the hospital at about 10:30 and the baby arriving at about 1:40. I did indeed get to hold him before I headed home. He is adorable.....has that sort of squishy-faced, grumpy old man look that newborns have. But can you believe I didn't think to grab my camera before I left home? Eldest took some pictures (he'd forgotten his camera as well....I had to stop by their apartment to get it for him.) and so I will have to rely on him emailing them to me. I may get back over there before he has time to do that and you can bet I'll be hauling my camera.

Baby Alert!

I'm on my way to Boise to pick up the SGB....his mama is on her way to the hospital!

Camera Info

Andrea asked what kind of camera I have. I have had a Canon EOS Rebel XT for just over 4 years. I have two lenses I've bought for it besides the generic one that came with it. I have a 70-300mm zoom lens (very big and heavy, but great for taking photos inconspicuously) and a 50mm 1.4, which is what I took the photos below with. 1.4 is a very large aperture or opening and lets in lots of light so theoretically I should be able to get better indoor photos/poor lighting situation photos. As you can see, sometimes that happens and sometimes it doesn't....probably due to operator trouble. :)

And Yet, Some Success

I have documented my photo woes plenty. Here is something that I was successful at. I got The Girl and her friend to help me with a photo assignment when we were up at the cabin. The assignment was to "grab 2 cooperative subjects"....yeah. However, The Girl is more cooperative with a friend in attendance. I was supposed to watch the effects of changing aperture on depth of field in a series of pictures. In other words, if I opened my lens up and let more light in, how would it contrast with closing my lens opening down to its smallest setting. The girl was slightly ahead and to one side of her friend. I was supposed to keep her in focus and watch what happened to how her friend appeared in the pictures as I gradually opened my lens opening up to its widest setting. And here's how it looked with the help of my 2 beautiful assistants, starting with f22 and ending with f1.4 and a few settings in between. Please excuse the chocolate in The Girl's teeth. She'd just eaten a brownie.

 

 

 

 

Kind of a cool effect.

A Get-Together

Last Sunday, members of my extended family gathered for my nephew's missionary farewell service and a lunch afterwards. I always come away from these gatherings thinking I don't get to see my siblings and their families nearly often enough. We always have a great time when we get together.

College Boy was able to come up from the Y for the event, so it was wonderful to see him as well. The Girl was especially pleased to see him although it didn't take long before they were at each other. I had my 50 mm lens on for these photos and the clear photos ran about 50/50. I am frustrated by the focus issues I have. Admittedly, my subjects can be a little less than cooperative, but I wish I could be a little more sure of my results. Like this photo of my beautiful niece....almost there, but just a little fuzzy:

And these kidlet....yes, moving targets, but one more in focus than the other even though they are on the same "plane".  

 

Argh! See what I mean? And I know they would be such amazing slice of life photos if only they were crisp....lol. Like the exposure, like the depth of field. Just hold still, for heaven's sake!

But here are a couple of photos that aren't blurry. My sister and my brother's oldest boy.

And this little cutie. My brother and SIL's DD that they adopted from China. Isn't she the cutest thing?

And it must have been a tiring afternoon for The Girl, as this is what I saw on the way home:

 

And yes, she will subject me to the full teenage girl's wrath if she finds out I posted this.

While We Were Gone

This past weekend we headed up to the cabin to stay overnight on Friday. If DH doesn't get a regular outdoor fix, he goes into withdrawal and believe me, it isn't pretty.

We left as soon as the kids were out of school on Friday. The Girl brought a friend along and they rode in the pod, which DH pulled. We are getting pretty good at packing very light for a snow-bound one night cabin stay. We have a very small ice chest that will fit on the back of the pod and one bag of clothes for all of us and we're on our way. 

The trail in was quite bumpy. When a lot of people have been on the trail it gets a washboard quality that's a little uncomfortable to ride on and you have to go fairly slow so you don't get whiplash. We were on the trail at dusk, which makes it really difficult to see changes in the trail quality. We were at the cabin by about 7:30 and actually it was easier to see changes in the trail after the sun set and we were using the snowmobile headlights. 

We woke up to find that it had snowed about 4" during the night. I wish I could describe how beautiful it is there in the winter time. Things look so fresh and pristine. There were enough clouds to block the full extent of my favorite view, but it was pretty enough close in to satisfy me.

DH took The Girl and her friend for a ride up in the meadow for a while.

Preemie Boy and his good buddy Chick Bowdrie ventured on an outlaw trail through Louis L'Amour's eyes. Did I tell you that I found some full-length Louis L'Amour novels when I was cleaning out the toy room? They are in a box of books that will head up to the cabin when the snow melts and we can drive the truck in. Good thing he won't run out of reading material right away.

To give you an idea of how much snow is up there right now, this is the hitching post that you've seen before. It stands between 3 and 4 feet off the ground. Pretty stuff, but a little hard to walk in.

My Favorite Son

You may have looked twice at the title of that post. Like perhaps out of my five sons I was going to post an actual name of a favorite. Nah. My sister noticed that one of my sons left a comment here on the blog and signed it, "Your Favorite Son." She wanted to know which one was my favorite son.  Over the course of the years, each of my boys have come to me and asked who was my favorite and my answer has always been the same, "I love all my boys."

This wasn't necessarily the answer they wanted to hear, but it was the answer they got. And since I wouldn't answer the question directly, they have started claiming the title for themselves. I get emails signed, "Your Favorite Son" and have picked up the phone to the salutation, "This is your Favorite Son...." In reality, they are all my favorites for various reasons. I mean really, who could resist these faces?

Busy Weekend

You have been reading a few magic techno posts. :)

In reality, we have been up to the cabin for an overnighter and then down to Utah for a nephew's mission farewell. He's headed to New Zealand for a couple of years. Anyway, hopefully I've gotten some good photos and maybe even completed an assignment or two for my photo class. I've been a little behind with those.

I'll leave you with a picture I took for my shutter speed assignment. We were supposed to experiment with shutter speed as it relates to freezing or blurring motion. My not-so-willing subject agreed to hold the hose so I could photograph the water coming out, but in a surprise move, she voluntarily and very spontaneously put her face in the frame. It's slightly under-exposed, but a fun shot nonetheless.

 

Multiple Multiples and a Bathtub Full of Legos

I documented in this post how The Girl and I, with Grandma supervising, cleaned out what is known at our house as The Toy Room. This room hasn't undergone an in-depth cleaning in quite sometime. The younger boys in the family have always occupied the bedroom connected with The Toy Room and as older boys have left the nest, the next boy would move down the hall into The Big Boy Room.  Preemie Boy recently moved down the hall and we have been digging out his room, gradually preparing his old room to be a Married Guest room. We will leave some of the all-purpose toys (wooden blocks, large and small Legos, puzzles, etc.) in the room, but we still gathered quite a bit for the local thrift store. 

I came across some surprises during the process. First were those dinosaurs with the red teeth. Those made me laugh, especially when Astro-Physics Boy told me that he had to talk his younger brothers into letting him do the deed with the red Sharpie. Apparently telling them it would look really cool was enough. I was also flabbergasted by the sheer volume of Legos we own. Seriously, I think we could fill a bathtub. Each of my boys went through a Lego phase and I had to go to Target to pick up additional storage bins for them. I know it will be a while before the grandkids are interested, but to me they come under the category of all-purpose, enduring toys.

The other collection I found on a shelf was the high school English literature. I had the boys shelf the required reading books when they were done, thinking they would be passed down through the family. I'm finding that my tax dollars are paying for new copies every year. We found 4 copies of Beowulf, 5 Heart of Darkness, 2 Tale of Two Cities, 4 Lord of the Flies, 3 Hamlet (not counting the new copy Preemie Boy is currently working from) and on and on. I'm thinking I need to split them up and send a box to each boy, but The Girl says before I do, she needs to look through them and pick out the one of each set that has the most notes in it. Always thinking, that one.