It's been a while...

Good Saturday evening, everyone.  It seems like it's been forever since I've posted.  Things have been a little... hairy around here.   Here's our little sweet one, Holly.  She's also a little hairy.  With all the sickness and unexpected appliance breakdowns... I realized she hadn't been to the puppy spa (aka the groomer) since Thanksgiving!  No wonder she was stinky.  I felt like such a bad doggy mommy.

She's our little "cookie tester."  She loves her job, by the way.

 So we got her an appointment, and she spent the day at the spa... She came home with her hair cut, bows in her hair, nails filed and teeth brushed.  You can see here that she was exhausted from all that attention.  The groomer loved her!

The children spent some time relaxing as well.  It's been rainy here - at least it's not snow!  So we've been playing inside and enjoying some down time.

Austin is playing a Lego Racing game on his ipod.  He just learned to read alone last week... The boy honestly picked up a book and spontaneously started reading.  It was very exciting, to say the least.  I'm very proud.

Kayla was snuggled in her pink robe, reading her new book, Anne of Green Gables.  She read Jane Eyre last summer.  She's in 4th grade.  She loves to read.  She must get it from both parents.  My BA is in English Lit. and her dad loves to read anything non-fiction.  He's quite the history buff.

So we got a break from the rain, and I tromped through the marshy, swampy back yard to the "creek" to snap a few pics with my new lens.  We have the Canon Rebel T1I.  Last weekend I bought the Tamron 18-270 mm F/3.5-6.3.  I really wanted to check out some landscape shots with it.

This is looking up the right side of the creek.  The water is flowing away from us, so I tried to focus on the nearest point.

Same view, different camera setting.

Here's the view directly where I was standing... This "creek" is usually dry.  It only fills up about 3 or 4 times a year.

Here is the creek looking toward the left, up the hill. The water is running toward us.

It really was a beautiful, restful, relaxing day.

Glad to be back,

Billie