Tyler's Vacation Pics

Here are some of my favorite pictures that Tyler took while on his trip. I am really impressed with how nicely some of these are composed. I cropped the 4th & 7th pictures. The rest are exactly how he framed them. I did touch up the color on one or two of these, but that's because he used a low quality camera, not because he did something wrong. I see a future photog here!

For the Birds

For the past several days I have spotted these beautiful cedar waxwings swooping around the trees in my yard and plucking earwigs from the sky. I got a few pictures of them in our [dead] tree in the front yard, but they are a little dark because the sun was directly overhead. They are such beautiful birds. I hope they stick around for awhile, especially if they're eating those disgusting earwigs!!

Just for Fun

We saw this at McDonalds the other day. It was carved from wood, looked very detailed, and made us all look twice (& then laugh).

Softball & Swimming

Danielle's last regular season game was last night. They won, ending the season 9-3. Tournaments are this weekend and All-Star practice starts next week. Unfortunately we will miss the first All-Star tourney because we'll be on vacation. Danielle wasn't very happy about that, but vacation fun will ultimately make everything better.

Today I took Danielle to the water park. It wasn't as fun without Tyler, but we made do. That means that Danielle pestered and picked at me since Tyler wasn't there. She had fun; it was not as fun for me. ;)

For the Birds!

When Danielle and I went to the park on Friday, we saw this doe...and she obviously saw us, too. While we were watching each other, a red winged blackbird started pestering her. My guess is that the doe was close to the bird's nest and the bird really wanted her to move on. After a brief stare down, the doe turned and ran across the water into the brush on the other side, and the red winged black bird went about the business of protecting his little family from the next threat.

 

Pictures from the Park

Gray treefrog tadpole - they have red tails!

Summer Fun

Danielle really enjoyed camp this year. She was very sad when it was over and begged me to send her for another week. I tried to explain that it was too expensive to do that without advance planning, but I understand her disappointment. I loved camp (specifically church camp) when I was growing up. I looked forward to it all year and was sad when it was over. I'm glad she enjoyed it so much. I hope she has good memories of summer camp when she's an adult. Who knows, maybe she'll follow in her parents' footsteps and meet her future spouse at summer camp some year.

On Thursday they performed skits for the parents and then we had the opportunity to look around. Yesterday they only had 1/2 day. After I picked Danielle up, we went to lunch together and then she requested we go look for frogs at the park. (She was a little disappointed she missed out on the 3 tree frogs I found the other day!) Sadly, we didn't see any tree frogs at all, and there weren't any frogs within a catchable reach. We still had a nice afternoon together.

Yesterday evening Danielle had a softball game. They played an undefeated team and nearly won. The other team's coach purposefully stalled so that we ran out of time and couldn't start the last inning. We lost by one run and I'm certain the outcome would have been different had we played that final inning. Obviously their coach was certain of that, too. It's too bad when that kind of thing happens. But, Danielle played an awesome game. She had good hits, including one over 2nd and into the outfield, and she made 3 outs, including an awesome double play. They had another game today, which they won. After a hit and overthrow by another player, Danielle got the ball (at 2nd) and threw it in to the catcher, who tagged the runner and spoiled the homerun. That was a pretty awesome play, too. Danielle has been a lot of fun to watch this year. She is enjoying it, plays hard, and continues to improve. I'm really glad she made the All-Star team so we can drag this out another month!

Tyler's Dives

Mom R posted these pictures on FB, but I thought I'd share them here for you non-FB users.

Summer Fun

Danielle has been attending wildlife camp this week. She attended the same camp last year and seems to be enjoying it even more this year! It's nice that the weather hasn't been in the 90s and that she hasn't had softball games in the evenings to wear her out. Tomorrow is parent's day, so hopefully I'll have more pictures. I took this one with my cell phone before dropping her off on Monday. She is shiny because she's coated in suntan lotion and bug spray! The high socks are the trade off for not wearing pants to go hiking. Somehow it looks cute on her.

 

Tyler has gone diving in the ocean two times now. Today he went down 40', which is the deepest he's allowed to go until he's 15. It sounds like he's having a lot of fun. I really can't thank Ron's parents enough for taking Tyler on this trip. What a special time for him, not just to do everything that he's getting to do, but to get to spend so much quality time with them. When he's back and the pictures are all downloaded and shared, I'll try to post a few.

Today was a beautiful day. The weather was nearly perfect so I enjoyed lunch on our patio. With Ron at work and both kids gone, it was soooo quiet! It was lovely! The bluejays were a little noisy, though. This guy was fluffing his crown, and he looked really funny.

The birds have adopted this spot at the edge of one of the beds that is covered with dead grass (and weeds, obviously) to sun themselves. I've caught them doing this the past two afternoons. The first time I saw this, I thought the bluejay was dead. I saw a robin doing it today, too. The bluejay was actually panting. Very odd. I think he looks broken.

Pictures from the Park

A gray treefrog looking very much like a rock!



Another gray tree frog. I'm guessing it hadn't been sitting on the wood as long as the other one had since it was still green.



If you could see the evil eye the tree swallow in the box is giving me, you wouldn't be surprised to hear that the bird in flight was headed toward my head!! Apparently I was too close (this is zoomed in - I was not that close!).



Fledgling barn swallows waiting for a meal



Immature red tailed hawk calling. Another hawk was in another tree calling back.



This was actually in my backyard. The house wren is still sporadically working on his nest. Not really sure what he's doing but I like watching him.