A Three-Year-Old Party

 Chloe's birthday was not yesterday, but since it's later this week we decided to have it on the weekend.  We had it at the park.  We got our cake from Cakes on the Vine.  The baker/artiste is a friend of mine and she does wonderful work!  What follows is a quick rundown of events and a huge number of pictures.  I have put up only a representative smattering of what I took.

Not everyone was pleased to be there at first.  Here is one of the cousins looking a little tired.

 and another cousin, not quite in the festive spirit...yet.

 My sister and my other niece didn't waste any time enjoying themselves, though.

 And one of the great grandmas came!

 Of course I MUST publish questionable pictures of my favorite sister...

 I showed off my new lens and the awesome angles it can manage.

 then I got down to some serious photography.  A few pictures actually turned out.

 ...AND we have smiles!

 Hot dogs and chips were on the menu with cake and ice cream to follow.

 I like this next one with the sun in her hair.

 Look at these two!  That's how cousins play!

 I cannot get over how grown up my oldest niece is!  She is so pretty!  She was very helpful too!

 This young man usually manages to avoid my camera...usually because by the time I level the lens at him he is disappearing.

 My father is proud of his iphone...it's a phone that takes pictures.  Stop it Dad!

 I think this next one is one of my all time favorites!

 CAKE!!!!

 opening gifts took about a half second for her to get into opening mode.

 My sister got her a stuffed caterpillar and she absolutely loved it!

 Her grandparents got her a talking Elmo...that was something that made Chloe happy, no doubt!

 and here you see a camera!  Chloe now has a camera!  I was shaking with excitement as you can see!

 This particular cousin grabbed a toy microphoone and was singing her ABCs with gusto and great accuracy!

 When it was time for cake I had to put my Precious down.  My sister picked it up and snapped a few.  I give you a few examples.

 I would say, "She is obviously experimenting with the depth of field of my lens." but I have a feeling she was just taking a picture of the cake.

 This last one was another of my sister's shots.  Not bad, huh?

I think it was a fairly simple birthday party, but I think everyone enjoyed it!  I know Chloe did!  She made out like a bandit!  Everyone brought great gifts!  Thanks to all who came!

Bubble Wrap

I introduced Chloe to bubble wrap yesterday.  It was awesome.  She was very  She was busy for at least 10 minutes.

I am at the end of my summer job.  The last week or two have been very nice.  The stress of the summer, the move of the elementary school, is over.  School is in session and it's just a matter of finishing the odds and ends.  This week I took a bunch of surplus stuff to a local auction house.  Everything from exercise equipment picked up over a long period of time at yard sales by a PE teacher (who must be a few bricks shy because they asked me to crawl up into the back of a wasp infested trailer to retrieve one dear piece of exercise equipment.  I said, "I'll try if I get time."  You would be amazed at how busy I was. ) to text books and a washer and dryer.  I tried to find a better way to dispose of text books, like recycling, but they wouldn't take them unless the covers were taken off.  Well, back to the auction house.

Over the summer I have been using my Kindle a lot.  Turns out the Kindle 3 allows you to use the text-to-voice option.  I have been listening to books all summer.  I have gone through a dozen books or more.  Most of them ones I have already read, but still, it's better than nothing.  Today, I finished "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."  Last week I had the misfortune to break the screen on my Kindle.  I was afraid that I'd have to buy another, but after a little research I discovered that I could buy a screen and replace it for a fraction of the price to replace it.

The replacement screen came in and then it took me 45 minutes with a Youtube video and all the small tools I could find to fix it.  But, it IS fixed!!  Hurray!  I had been using Cora's Kindle before this.  Which was fine, but it WASN'T mine.

Chloe has not been having the best time getting to sleep lately.  When we got back from our camping trip we had several nights that were...hard.  She ended up sleeping with us several nights.  Then we seemed to be finally getting back to the regular schedule.  And then it all fell apart.  We finally ended up letting her cry it out in her crib.  It was a horrible loss of sleep for everyone.  Last night was about 15 minutes of crying.  Tonight...well, it seemed like magic.  She was out in no time.

Tomorrow is Friday.  Thank goodness!

A Couple Panoramics

 The view from the end of one of the streets.

 The view from the campground.

and Nana and Papa's going out for their fish!

A Weekend Camping Trip in Pictures.

 We went camping with Cora's parents and also did some fishing.  It was a good weekend to get away from the valley.  Chloe spent the night with her grandparents and we followed along the next morning.

 Above is the expression she wore when she saw us (her mom to be more precise) after 24 hours!  She missed us, and we missed her.

 She was showing us her range of emotions for the camera.

 The girl loves berries.

 and she has a pocket full of sea shells...in this case, freshwater clams.

 I did some long exposures and I think they turned out well.

 This is how it was Sunday afternoon.  While the girls were taking a nap, I read.

It was a great weekend, and my father-in-law caught a fish, so it ended well!