It’s been an unusual several days. We’re normally such homebodies, with our quiet routines and our simple pleasures. But since my night away with Neil for his birthday last Tuesday, my routine has taken such a hit.
Wednesday was his actual birthday, and so of course we needed to all go out for supper together, since the kids missed out on the Tuesday celebration.
Thursday morning Neil was to be on a flight to Reno at 5:30am, but his taxi never showed. So there we were, 4am, gently shaking the kids awake and telling them to get in the car – we’re taking Daddy to the airport. Once the grogginess wore off, Eamonn couldn’t stop extolling the virtues of pre-dawn car rides: “This is great,” “we should do this again sometime,” and “this is so AWESOME!” Once we’d dropped Neil off and were headed back home, there was talk of watching the sunrise. We got in the house, I googled sunrise time, told the kids it would be another half hour, pointed out the window with the best vantage point, and then told them I was going back to bed. If they were still awake at 6:08, they were welcome to watch the sun come up. And with that, we all piled into the same big bed, fell instantly to sleep, and missed the rising sun together.
Since that morning, there has been a dental appointment for me, a visit with my mother and nephew, three meals out and two bagel runs, a handful of trips to the library, a new camera to play with, a business meeting, one Priceline hotel night (we got a local Courtyard by Marriott with a pool this time), a visit with my in-laws including a nice meal for all of us and a sleepover for Eamonn, a late night with Aidan watching the Hugo Awards streaming live from Reno and cheering on Neil and Clarkesworld Magazine (they won!) until 1am, many many thunderstorms, a bit of brotherly bickering, and just entirely too much action and go! go! go! for this peace-loving girl.
At least I had a new toy for most of it, and got to take a whole pile of pictures, mostly of our less-than-healthy supper choices and of horsing around in the hotel courtyard.
Neil comes home today. We will pick him up at the airport, welcome home our two-time Hugo Award winner with glee, and then I am booking my own weekend away with nothing but a camera and a crochet hook for company. (not really, but it does sound oh, so nice now that I mention it!)
Sounds fun, and hooray for Neil!
I was just noticing the great quality of the pictures before you mentioned the new camera! Did you do a lot of fiddling around with manual mode or is your automatic just super-sophisticated? For candid-like shots like the ones you posted, I never feel like I can start changing the settings around. Either way, love them!
I mostly have used Av (aperture priority) mode. I like to use as large an aperture as possible (3.5 on this lens) to get as much background blur as possible. Aside from that, I haven’t done a whole lot of fiddling yet.. It’s hard to fiddle when there’s life going on and you’re trying to catch it. I do most of my experimenting with still subjects 🙂
Thanks! I took a few photography lessons in high school but they never seemed to cover the issue of combining good photographs and real life. Will give it a try!
On the blog today: Calgon, take me away!: It’s been an unusual several days. We’re normally such homebodies, wi… http://t.co/4jaG0hm
I love your shots of your fun-loving kids! They look like they are a hoot to be around.
“A hoot” is one way of putting it 🙂
My coworker was at the awards and texted me right after it happened to let me know Neil won. It tickles me that I know people from out here that know Neil.
That is cool! Does Neil also know your coworker?
My impression is that all of those scifi people know each other :-), but probably not.