Fall in the Front

These pictures were taken just a couple of weeks ago. These are the trees in our front yard. As you can tell by the thinning of the top of the tree on the left, I waited just about a week too long to take the pictures, but the color wasn't as vibrant as it is in the pictures you see here. I chose to go for color. Two days later, all of these leaves were gone due to strong winds leading in a cold front. I'm glad I got the pictures when I did.

Thanksgiving Weekend

The day after Thanksgiving, we were given a night away from the kids as an early Christmas present. We love our kids, but we rarely (if ever) get any time to ourselves. We had time to watch a football game together, uninterrupted...time to shop at a leisurely pace...in a bookstore without the threat of somebody getting bored...time to eat in a restaurant where there is no children's menu...time to enjoy eating gourmet ice cream at 10/PM as the snow is falling around us...time to sleep in...time to have a nice breakfast in the hotel restaurant without reminding two other people to eat their food. As we woke up, I looked out the window of our room and noticed there was a light blanket of snow covering Bradley Fair that made for some nice pictures. Here they are (taken from the window in our room) for you to enjoy.

I got lucky with this one. I wish I had waited a split second longer. Notice the bird flying through the photo behind the tree in the forefront.

Some girls came out on the ground level to feed the ducks and geese. They (the birds) were pretty ambitious.

Active Forecast

Will the madness never end?

Last night, the Lil' Pokes were the Dream Team for the Wichita Wranglers and today we travel to Manhattan for my family reunion. So, the camera continues to get a workout and the photo potential for this blog grows.

Good thing we have a digital now. Otherwise, we'd be broke. OK, I'm off. Later!

SNAAAKE!!!

It was the day after Sara's 20th class reunion. We were inside the house talking with her parents and sharing stories from the night before. The kids were outside playing together and, surprisingly, getting along quite well. After all, they were shooting toy guns at each other.

All of a sudden, the front door went "BANG - BANG - BANG", immediately followed by the doorbell going "DING-DONG, DING-DONG". I thought someone must have been hurt from all of the clatter so I "sprang to the door to see what was the matter".

When I opened the door the kids said, "DAD!!! There's a SNAAAKE!!!"

I said, "Where?"

They said, "RIGHT THERE!!!" and pointed to their left just off to the side of the front porch.

I looked in the direction they were pointing and there it was.

While Grandpa went to get a shovel to "take care" of the snake, we found time to pose for some pictures. I thought that was awful kind of the snake being he was about to have a very bad day. But how was he to know?

This is the part of the story where all of the action happens. I don't have any photos but I do have video. I'd embed it here but don't want that option available to just anyone, so you can go watch it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4MG0FdXLJs

After the fella had calmed down, we had him pose for a picture next to a rake so we could show everyone how big he was. Here's one of his final pictures.

Grandpa did a little more work on him just to let him know he wasn't welcome back to visit anymore. That "not for the squeamish" video is available to view here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s2Ji-IrV1E

And that's how we spent part of our Sunday.

Got my finger on the trigger...

I have been trigger happy lately. I've taken lots of pictures over the last couple of weeks...just no time to piece together a decent post. I have T-ball pictures, travel pictures, snake pictures, concert pictures and more. One of these days (or nights), things will slow down to a crawl and the pictures will find their way here. So, until then, here's one from this weekend. Thanks for checking in!

Flint Hills

My friend, John, took a year off to work on a documentary about the Flint Hills. In my opinion, this is one of the most beautiful, peaceful, spiritual places on Earth. He was kind enough to ask me along on several trips to the middle of nowhere to assist in some taping of segments. The final documentary aired on PBS locally several weeks ago and will be airing in other markets soon.

John was needing to shoot a cover for the DVD release so he borrowed my camera to take some shots and here's what he left on my camera. These are too beautiful not to share.

If you want to learn more about the documentary (or get your own copy of the show on DVD!), as well as the Flint Hills, you can visit John's websites at http://www.flinthillsfilm.com/ or http://www.myspace.com/johnrobertohara.

Gesture of Goodwill

To prove to you that my intentions are true, here are a couple of pictures I took at Wichita's River Festival last week. Most of the night I took photos of the "freaks" that tend to conglomerate downtown (which I may share later). These two were taken on the way out of the Mardi Gras party & Cajun food fest (with music provided by "Big Bad Voodoo Daddy").

This is the old Holiday Inn building. It is now an upscale apartment complex.

This is a picture of Century II and the party going on in front of it. It's a little blurry because I was in a hurry to catch up to my family but I like the colors, and I think the blur captures a little bit of the party.

OK, hopefully, that'll hold you for a bit. As I said before, more are coming. I'm looking forward to sharing them.

Lots of pictures!

What a terrible blog keeper I've been! I have LOTS of pictures to share but my home comuter has been superly mega-sluggish so I've scheduled a tune-up for it. So, hang tight....more photos are coming. If time allows, I'll use my work computer to get some more on here.

This weekend was Snow Fun

At our house, we love it when it snows. So, we get outside and have fun in it. This last weekend we got about 6 inches of the white stuff and it was the perfect day to go sledding (i.e. no wind!). We went to our favorite spot to hit the slopes and had a lot of fun.

Sara and I both realized that we are no longer a young man and young woman. We're STILL feeling how much fun we had that day. But, I'd do it again.

Sara is providing "pole protection" here so the kids don't hurt themselves.

Amber looks a little tired here so we decided to head home and build a snowman in our front yard. We included my Grandma's fising pole as an accessory.

Hot music on a cold January night

It was a cold January night and thankfully the wind wasn't blowing. We were just coming off of a minor ice/sleet storm and waiting for 6 inches of snow to roll in. My brother and I ventured off into the night sky and waited in line outside of Ground Zero (a great venue for smaller shows here in town) to see, hear and witness the thunder of Fireflight and Disciple.

I saw Disciple last spring at the same place and they were really good (and loud)! Luckily I remembered my earplugs this time. Abandon Kansas opened the show. We didn't get to see them because we were waiting in line. I don't know why they wouldn't let us in. We had our tickets. That's OK. I was there to see Fireflight and Disciple. Neither band disappointed. Fireflight was full of energy and had plenty of power chords to fill the room. Once their part of the show was over, we went back to the merch table and met the band for pics and autographs and to pick up their latest CD as well as their original indie release.


Here's a picture of me with the band. They were all very nice and a lot of fun and, if you enjoy your music hard and loud with plenty of melody, then this band is for you.

If you're interested, you can check out their video "Waiting" below.

fireflight - waiting


Decyfer Down played after Fireflight but we were saving our ears for Disciple so we just stood back in the merch room until they were done. Disciple was relentless in their display of powerful rock and roll. Again, loud, crunchy and melodic all at the same time. We were standing in front of the speakers, which was really the only place left to stand where we could see decently. It was so loud, I could feel my clothes moving. Thankfully I had earplugs in, a lesson learned from attending several concerts where the music was so loud it hurt (Evanescence, Motley Crue, Brother Cain). It was a great show and I really can't wait until they come back through town again. Here are some pictures from the Disciple performance. You'll notice several of the guitar player. That's because we were standing on his side of the stage and we could see him the best.