Weekend With WOWSkunk

Where do I start?! What a great weekend. I arrived at my friend, Cindi's, around 4:30 P.M. Friday. We enjoyed dinner at Kodiak Jack's. The following night was party night. The first guests arrived on their motorcycle with pop-up camper attached. It was a friend of Cindi's, Mike, and his daughter, Megan. Other guests arrived periodically after that. Cindi's other friends (by that I mean other than me) at the party were a lot of fun. We had a lot of laughs--and a lot of warmth, wink, wink! Oops, lest you misunderstand--there was a GIGANTIC bonfire during the party. This first picture shows you the size of the pile (notice Cindi's grandson in the front).

The size of the actual burning pile gets lost in the dark background.

I always manage to see different images in a lot of pictures. This next photo looks to me like there are demons in the flames. (Besides Cindi's demons, ha ha. Oh, maybe these are Cindi's demons!)

This pictures looks like a (ever so appropriate) fire-breathing dragon:

This truck belongs to a friend of Cindi's son, Cory. Notice the car and motorcycle between the wheels, to give you some perspective on the size of the truck!

All in all, it was a fun weekend and I now feel I have a lot of new friends that I hope to see again and become better acquainted with. Here they are, bringing up the rear.
Thanks so much Cindi!

Early Birthday Present

Lucky me! I got my birthday present (and Christmas too!) a week early. John got me a new SONY DSC-H5 digital camera and extra lenses. I have a lot to learn about the lenses. The UV lens, I already knew about because I had one on my old Nikon. I have to learn when to use which ones and how to use some. He got me a telephoto lens and a wide angle lens. The camera is extremely light until you attach the telephoto lens or the wide angle lens. Once I learn to use it, I will be able to get great shots of the wildlife down back of my house. The camera has 12x optical and then adding the 2x telephoto lens will give me 24x zoom! He also got me a 2GB card for the camera. My old laptop is only 4GB!!! I've experimented with a few little movies with it. With the 2GB card, I can actually film for several minutes. I will upload a few of the pics that I've taken so far (I've taken about 130 pics in the last two days).

1. My grandchildren, Matthew and Jaden, dressed in their Halloween costumes. The camera's "no red-eye" seemed to work appropriately--Jaden's eyes didn't turn red in the pic, but notice Dracula's eyes!
2. Jaden posed and asked me to take this picture of her. Too bad she stood in front of the garbage can...
3. My friend's long-haired mottled fur kitten. The kitten is adorable--as long as she/he stays at my friend's house.
4. The same friend's granddaughter, Kelly, showed me "peek-a-boo". Hasn't she got the bluest eyes?! Actually I have another picture of her where her eyes are much bluer looking. Will go back and find that one to show you all next time.

The pictures were very easy to download to the computer. And you can even zoom in and "trim" the pics as copies (doesn't change original photo) and size them to VGA (web) or bigger if you want right on the camera! I love it.