Snow Day!

Ok, not really, considering I work from home and therefore have to work everyday no matter what the weather. BUT! Snow in Raleigh is still pretty exciting, since it doesn't happen very often.

Scenes from Albuquerque

October has certainly been a month of busy travel for us. We kicked off the month with a long weekend in Albuquerque, my husband had to travel to L.A. for work and I just got back from a girls trip to Austin.

But before too much time slips away, I wanted to share some of the beautiful scenery from Albuquerque. My husband's parents just moved there in late spring, and when we found out that our good friends from Washington State were going to be there visiting their family, we decided it was the perfect excuse to make our first trip out. And it was really a gorgeous place; so much more scenic than I was imagining the desert to be!

First, a hike in the foothills on a cloudy evening, near my in-law's new house:

Hiking Chimney Rock, Little Bradley Falls and Pearson's Falls

I'm back to share more photos from our recent trip to the mountains!

These photos are from the hikes we took near Lake Lure, NC. First, up, Chimney Rock State Park, which was only a few minutes drive from where we were staying. After a winding drive up the mountain, we parked near the base of Chimney Rock.

End of Summer Trip to Lake Lure

Another vacation post! We've been traveling a lot this summer, and have several more trips planned over the next few months. But before fall officially begins this weekend, I wanted to share a quick recap of our trip to beautiful Lake Lure.

Lake Lure is in the NC mountains, about a four hour drive away from Raleigh, and where a lot of the scenes in Dirty Dancing were filmed. We spent four fun days in a house we rented right on the lake, hiking, swimming, canoeing and relaxing.

The lake view from the living room.

October Photography Challenge: Week 3

 

I'm participating in the October Photography Challenge by Our Wired Lives this year, to push myself to try to take a photo each day, and learn some new things on my camera. For more details on the challenge, go here.

Here are my photos from the third week of October. Some of these were taken out of order, since we were traveling, but close enough!

Accomplishment
 

Wonderfully grouted shower tile. This bathroom project, especially the tile part is my baby. Lets just hope it doesn't take a full 9 months to complete though!

October Photography Challenge: Week 2

 

I'm participating in the October Photography Challenge by Our Wired Lives this year, to push myself to try to take a photo each day, and learn some new things on my camera. For more details on the challenge, go here.

Here are my photos from the second week of October.

Close-Up

Grain-free cheesecake swirl brownies with orange food coloring, which were amazing. Melty and gooey when warm, and like fudge when cold. And I didn't notice it until I uploaded this photo, but doesn't it look like an eye in the middle of the brownies?!

October Photography Challenge: Week 1

 

I'm participating in the October Photography Challenge by Our Wired Lives this year, to push myself to try to take a photo each day, and learn some new things on my camera. For more details on the challenge, go here.

Here are my photos from the first week of October.

Self Portrait

Cell phone picture, while on one of my walking breaks from jogging. I like to think about my 'to do' lists while jogging, and of course I remembered I needed a photo for the challenge after I messed up my hair and didn't have on much makeup!

Fall Leaves

Whew! I am exhausted. We just got back from a week on the west coast, and I seriously underestimated how much the three hour time difference would effect me. But spending time with family, friends, and being back in the office for three days took a serious toll. Everyone wanted a piece of me, and I was just too exhausted to blog in the evenings; crawling into bed at 8:45pm PST was way more enticing, after involuntarily waking up each day well before sunrise. So, sorry for my week off of blogging! I was just too beat, and have been fighting off getting sick all week, on top of just being sleep deprived.

I'm also pretty tired from the hours we just spent in the yard this afternoon, mowing and raking up all of the fall leaves. Where I grew up in Washington State, we really never had to deal with leaves, just pine cones. But they're so pretty before they fall, it's worth the clean up work. Pretty fall leaves are definitely one of the advantages of living on the east coast, especially when all you have to do to see the colors is to look in your backyard!

Next year though, I definitely think we need to invest in a leaf blower. With just one rake and a broom between the two of us, it took way too long to pick these all up!

Do you have pretty fall leaves that turn into tiresome lawn debris where you live? Is the prettiness of the fall leaf colors worth the extra yard work?

Mantis

I know, I know, I post way too much about animals and nature and stuff.

But whatever, I just had to share these two pics I just took!

As I was taking a quick afternoon break on our back deck, guess what I spotted on the railing?

A tiny praying mantis! This little mantis was only a couple of inches long. And, of course, it was praying.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share. I've never seen a praying mantis in real life before, so I thought some of you might enjoy seeing it too!

Animal Photography: Some of My Favorites

What? You thought I was done with talking about the awesome Lazy 5 Ranch?

Nope, because I didn't even show you the best photos yet!

Animal photography is super hard. Or, at least for me it is, since I've only had a nice camera since March, so I'm still learning. And since I'm still learning, and animals don't seem to like to stay still for photo ops, I always shoot them on continuous shot (I took almost 1,000 photos the ~3 hours we were at the ranch!). Most of them turn out blurry, but sometimes I luck out and get a really clear or really cute shot, like I did with the photos in this post. So of course I had to share!

This guy way so silly, and because of continuous shot, I was able to make a funny GIF.

The giraffe, and his tongue, was one of my favorite animals.

Munching on food photos are fun, but were really hard for me to get because of all the fast chewing!

Sometimes all it takes is a little cropping to make a photo a favorite.

Eyelashes!

This guy was a rarity, he was actually posing for me, and I was sure to reward him after taking his picture by throwing him some food.

Sad panda rhino.

Some more favs.

And I saved the very best of the best for last, the baby animals! I love the side-eye look this grumpy baby cow is giving the camera.

Baby pigs wiggle A LOT. So hard to get a clear picture!

And my two favorite baby deer photos.

Do you like taking photos of animals? Any tips for taking clear photos of them, or do you also rely on a little luck with the continuous shot setting on your camera?