Photo Challenge #16 animals

These pictures are for the photo challenge blog. Some are from the San Diego Zoo and some are from the Sacramento Zoo. The kitty is from my backyard. I hope someday to go to the zoo by myself with my new D300 that I will get soon and spend the day taking some better shots. I have an African Theme in my living room so I would like some good shots to frame. We did go on a Safari at the Kruger National Park and also to another one. I have pictures hanging up from those trips. I however used a film camera then so now I will have do make do with pictures from the zoo until I can get to Africa again. Hope you enjoy these pictures. I had so many more but had to pick just a few. Thanks for stopping by. Sacramento Zoo San Diego My cat has no front claws but she still has her hunting instincts. This was a present she brought for me. We were impressed. San Diego Zoo Sacramento Zoo below

Bad Girls ! Bad Girls !

Hope this post is not offensive. That is not the intention. Please leave me your feedback. Thanks for stopping by. Raya spent the day here. Priyasha loves this and enjoys her company. I tried to take the girls to the pool today but it was closed. They were highly disappointed but had to deal with it. Raya handle it better. Priyasha cried the whole two miles home. I let the girls play in the sprinklers since they already had their swim suits and sun block on. After a while they were cold and wanted to play inside. I left the girls alone for about five minutes. I finished up some laundry and picked up. They were quiet and they were happily playing. When I checked in on them this is what I saw. Hope this does not offend anyone. My first reaction was shock and I verbally expressed it and it was loud. That scared the girls and they naturally cried. You can see the shocked look on their faces when I yelled " what are you doing " I am not sure if they were showing each other how it was done but they were even cleaning their dolls. I just could not resist and had to snap their mischief behaviour. This is something I just had to laugh about and the girls felt better once I relaxed. I felt awful for my over reaction. They could have peed or pooped and then wiped but they were just playing and I the mean ogre had ruined their happy little world. I hugged them both and let them play mommy to the dolls instead of what they were doing. Kids do some funny things. WHAT !!!!! That was their response when I called out to them to figure out where they were playing. What did we do ???? Oh no ! your mommy is mad .... water works begin ....... All is well that ends well ......

Happy Birthday to Tara

Tara is a dear friend of mine that lives in Truckee. We really do not see other very much but she is my emergency contact and someone that I can really depend on. I would do anything for her. Her husband and my husband went to school together and have been friends for a long time. Tara has three beautiful children and my kids look forward to playing with them. It was a pleasure to have Tara come and visit me on her birthday.She is a pizza girl and eats it at least three times a week. She even served pizza at her wedding so it was fitting to order her some pizza. I also got her a cake and presents.It was a mini party. I was glad so glad that she chose to spend her special day with us even though it was only two hours. Tara hope you had a great birthday.

Reno Balloon Races ...Poodle amongst the bull dogs

This is from September 06, 2008 .This was an exhilarating experience and although I felt like a poodle amongst the bull dogs I worked with the camera I have and I am happy with some of my shots. There were so many Nikon DSLR cameras around me. These serious shooters set up their tripods and got some serious shots. I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off. I could hardly contain my excitement of being there, down on the field with so many balloons all around me. I was so close I could touch it. I really could. Here are some of the shots I got at the Reno Balloon Races. It is an awesome display of color. For me this year has been the best experience. I met a woman there who owns my dream camera. I talked with her and we exchanged numbers. We decided to meet the next day without the kids. My husband thought I was crazy not only to get up at 3am but to go and meet someone I knew for five minutes. Well I consider myself a good judge of character and everything was fine. Jasmine's husband shared the same thoughts as mine did. We had a wonderful time together. I still wait patiently to purchase the camera I desire. Jasmine thank you so much for a great experience and for teaching me some tips and tricks and showing me your prized possession. I will wait patiently while I research the type of lens I should invest in and I will get the camera my heart desires. Thankfully I have a supportive husband and he wants me to get the one I want but it time. Hard to wait but wait is what I will do.

Take care !

What's for dinner

While at the furniture store yesterday I lost my cell phone. I realized it on my drive home. It was too late to turn around as we closed the store. We were shopping for a television stand. Finally we will have a new TV and a stand with storage to hold the DVDs laying on the floor. While they drew up the paper work for us to sign we looked at couches. I sat on so many couches and I could have lost the phone anywhere. I tried calling it a hundred times in case I lost it elsewhere. I hoped someone would answer it. Today I drove back down there and managed to find the phone. I marched over to the sprint store and as I was on my 30 day window since I broke the before the one I lost I was able to replace this ugly grey one with my beautiful new red palm phone. Did I mention it was red. I love red. It is such a bold , sexy color.

Later this afternoon I spent a lot of time in the kitchen. So I was flipping through the channels last week and I stopped on the food network. I watched Tyler Florence whip up this awesome meal. I gave it a shot and it was fun to make. It took two hours instead of the 30 min the recipe suggested. I served it with angel hair pasta and it was okay. I think I will change several things about the recipe. The sauce was too chunky with all the peppers. Anyway for a Monday it was a long busy day.

Here is a link to the recipe if you want to try it.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/chicken-cacciatore-recipe3/index.html

Photo Challenge #15 - ABSTRACT - 4-10 September

Okay ladies I am very late this week but better late than never. Thanks for checking it out. I got some of these shots when the balloon was literally over my head. I lay on my back on a rocky sage covered hill. I took several where I had my necking stretched up toward the sky and it no not stretch that way anymore. I almost fell and then decided to lay in dirt. What I always tell my kids not to do. I was all alone so no judgement from the peanut gallery was passed. I had so much fun all by myself and a date with z7590. I need more dates with that camera. Thanks for looking. Please let me know what you think. I bright glowy one was taken at dawn patrol around 5am. I was up 3am and on my way and was there waiting since 4am. It was worth sacrificing my sleep. I will do again in a heartbeat. I am convinced I will meet death while taking a picture. Silly me !

Balloon races

"Wohooo ! " were the words out of Pravan's mouth. I got him up at 5am. He was so excited that it was finally the morning when he could go and see the balloons. I got Priyasha up that early as well. Suprisingly she was not caranky. She did ask for a cup of tea. One would think she really was older. Her maturity level stuns both Todd and I. Todd had a little trouble rising today. I made him a cup of coffee and he was a good sport. Well we missed dawn patrol as that starts at 5:30 am. We did see the balloons lit up in the dark sky as we headed toward where they were. I made hot chocolate for the kids and packed some pancakes. We had a difficult time finding a parking spot but we finally did. It was a long while before the balloons made it up into the sky. The kids were restless and the crankiness drove Todd nuts. It did not take long for the excitement to change into crankiness. It is hard to be patient even for me. I took the kids across the street when the balloon started ascending. I took some pictures and then the kids had no further interest. I met a lady that was parked behind us. She had the Nikon D300 which is the camera I really really want. I chatted with her for a while and we both agreed that it was hard to get good pictures with the kids. We exchanged phone numbers and decided to do this again tomorrow. it was the last day and it would be a great thing to do without the kids and hubbby. The rest of the day we all dragged. We skipped a birthday party as the kids were cranky . After naps we headed to the pool for an hour or two. Since it was late and I was tired we order in some dinner from a new Bistro that opened up in our neighborhood. I had fallen asleep on the couch when Todd went to get dinner. I was just sooooo drained. I had some dinner and then went to bed at 9pm. Can you believe it. I have never gone to bed that early in the last decade. Tomorrow will be an awesome experience. Drinking hot chocolate. Mayflower that he saw at school yesterday. Searching for Mayflower. Pravan finally spots the Mayflower. Below is the view from our development. This is about 5 miles away from where the race is. As we turned this is what we saw so we had to stop and take a picture again. This is really a great event and certainly colorful.