Fall colors & the carved pumpkin

We have a great view out  the front door of our house. Except for the guard rail, of course. I saw this view out of the door the other day and really wanted to capture the awesome colors of the season. I used all kinds of settings on my camera to get just the right look. I think it turned out pretty well.  This was before I carved up the pumpkin. That came next. When I was in Ohio visiting my sister I got this huge one cheap!

After cutting off the top & taking out the seeds I got to carving. I got this face off a website. Had to make it a little bigger, because like I said, it was huge. Thought he turned out pretty nice! Yet again I played with the camera trying to get just the right look. I think I'm getting better at the settings, but I doubt it.

Eeyore's vacation 2012

I posted a few years ago about how I'm probably too old to have Eeyore vacation with me, but o well, it still happens :) And the family enables me in my ....hmm, maybe it's an obsession. who knows.

 Anyway. E spent some time learning how to sail.

 Then he went kayaking. Canoeing too.

 He learned how to drive the motorboat

 And even tried to ride the tube

 He liked the pancakes at the Pancake House

 And Sean got a picture of him enjoying the sunshine

 Grandma Rife let him join her in the shade.

 Putting his toes in the water at Blue Lake

 And the best is... The donkey riding the donkey :)

Um, I think I need a life! :) Oh, and he seriously needed a bath after this vacation. he looked like a whole new donkey when he got out of the washing machine!

Holiday and birthday pics

Having teenagers and wanting to take nice family pics can be interesting. Annoying but highly entertaining :) Sean had just gotten home from a long day of work and I knew the weather wasn't gong to hold too much longer. And the girls are only here every other weekend, so had to get this done while I could. Sean was soo excited to be out taking pictures.

 He gets kinda goofy after a while.

 The girls were getting bored, or just looking for an excuse to play the latest: "ninja." Everytime I would stop to try & find a better spot this is what they were doing. so funny.

 After being in the sun and not liking the shadow and the sun in the face, we moved up to the patio of the mansion.  There were professionals up there taking pictures at the other end, I got annoyed, felt VERY amateur-ish, and we left to find a less "commercial" spot.

Sabrina doesn't like to smile with her mouth open. We tried our hardest to get her to smile bigger, but this is what we got. sigh.

The next weekend the girls were over we had a little time during the day when the weather was good and I had the girls come out to take some more pics. It was Abby's birthday and Sabrinas was in 2 weeks, so I thought it would be a good time to get some pics. Needless to say, I got a lot of this :) And then they were done.