Kevin and Catherine

Wednesday night all of us girls went up to Catherine's bridal shower. We quilted, ate crepes, and got to know Catherine a bit. She was really personable and open, especially for having just met us that night. She and Kevin will be living on the East Coast for a couple of years, finishing grad school and working.



Thursday was the reception, and Dad and I took a bunch of pictures. I have decidedly less talent for taking candid pictures of people than I do of taking still life pictures. I always seem to snap a picture when someone's eyes are half closed.
That said, here is a selection of the pcitures I took (which doesn't really include the pictures of Kevin and Catherine's guests, since I knew about 10 of them).

"Never Having Kids"

Okay, so I feel like I should explain this to everyone, so no one gets confused or offended.

I love kids--I think they are fun, refreshing, and hilarious.

However, some of you may have heard me (possibly several times) say that I am never having kids.

This usually (read: always) happens when I am in a room/grocery store/doctor's office where there is a child who is screaming their head off, throwing a tantrum, or otherwise causing trama to their parents and those around them.

I understand that kids are just grumpy, sad, or sick sometimes. And I understand that parents only have so much control over the way their kids react to things, whether they are sick or not, or if they fall down and scrape their knees, etc. Maybe there is a good reason the kid is screaming their guts out, maybe there isn't.

So, just in case you hear me mutter under my breath "I'm never having kids," know a few things:

1) When I say this, it's usually because I picture having kids by myself and how difficult that would be.
2) This is my way of not getting completely irritated at the kids (who may or may not know better) or saying something rude to the parents (who may or may not be able to do anything about it--I realize that women with screaming babies still have to go to the grocery store).
3) Having no kids myself, I haven't developed the ability to block out endless minutes of children wailing that they want a treat, toy, or to stay at the playground for five more minutes. Or just wailing for no apparent reason.
4) I am not a bad person.
5) I really do want kids.

First pictures

So, these are the first pictures I took with my new camera. They're all of flowers... the TNI gardens are just so close (nice and handy for a lunch break).
The third and fourth pictures are from Rock Canyon, and the rest are from TNI. I didn't mess with any of the settings on the camera, so they're not anything fantastic, but it was fun to stop and notice the beautiful things that are always around that I never take the time to really look at.

Focus, Beep, Click

So, I bought a new camera yesterday. I decided to get a Nikon D60--and I am so excited to start taking photography classes. Inkley's (love them!) has a 9-part photography class series that I'm attending for the next several weeks, and then I think I'm going to enroll in a Community Ed class at UVSC.

I took a bunch of pictures of the Tahitian Noni Gardens today on my lunch break, so I'll try to get those uploaded later tonight. I don't know if any of them turned out. I was just playing around a little bit, and I didn't have a tripod or anything, so we'll see what they look like, I guess.