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.