A Baby on the Way!

I had the extreme pleasure of spending an afternoon with Jenny, Tim, Lexi and Baby V last weekend. I don't know who wound up being more important - Baby V or Lexi! :)
Looking forward to meeting your little girl!

Meet Lexi - their first Baby Girl :)
She definitely steals the show!

Quick Visit to Florida

So, my Florida photos aren't particularly creative or exciting but any excuse to make a blog post 2 days in a row is good enough for me!

I wish we had palm trees in Ontario!

And whatever this is too!

There's nothing like vibrant colours on the beach!

I was too wimpy to swim but I got my feet wet!

Sandpipers are so much fun to watch! They do everything in unison!

Graceful egret

Pelicans fly slowly enough that they're relatively easy to photograph.

Don't want to be gator bait!

A fern in the shadows

Ponies and Pigtails

We went to Pickering to celebrate Liz's 30th birthday this past weekend. Most of their friends have children so the party was geared towards both the kids and the adults. Her awesome husband threw a great party - compete with pony rides, a clown, a keg and tonne of food!
I had great aspirations to take photos but that didn't really happen :(

Alex and Miss Dani on one of the ponies. This was a very quick moment, she started to scream a minute later :)

I wish my eyelashes were as long!
Miss Jenna was sporting pigtails, I thought they were cute :)

In lieu of sunflowers

One of my neighbours told me about a sunflower field that she thought I might like to photograph; she told me about it ages ago but I just never found the time to drive all the way out there. I still see a lot of sunflowers in yards so I thought I'd go out this afternoon in search of this field. I definitely found it but unfortunately I was a bit late to capture them while they were alive; but to prove I did go there I took a photo of some dead ones anyway :(

Since I was driving around anyway, I stopped a few times to take pictures when something caught my eye. We had strange skies today; mostly cloudy but every now and then the sun would peek out. I liked how this field looked - dark but with a bright sky!

There was barely enough room on the side of the road to stop to photograph this spectacular red barn (the colour is spectacular, not-so-much the barn) but I did manage to get one. I LOVE buildings that are falling apart!

There were 4 horses in this group including this little guy who decided I was more interesting than eating :)

I have a soft spot for cattle so when I stopped to photograph something else (what I think I'll use as my contest shot this week) and saw this I had to shoot them too. This little baby, when lying down, looked more like the size of a cat. He's still a bit wobbly :)

Holiday Monday

Ok ok so I know it's Thursday already but I've been busy and am only getting around to posting these today. I would have done it yesterday but I stayed out late with a bunch of great WB girls (we closed the joint in fact!) and just didn't have the energy to post when I returned home.
Anyway, so Monday was a lazy-day for me; well, except for all the muskrat stalking. My father (and helpers) took out the dock at the lake that morning because the water levels are starting to drop; it seems a muskrat (family?) was displaced and several of them kept popping their little heads up close to shore. My mom managed to capture a really great close-up but they weren't so cooperative for me. This is the best I could get. I do like how the water looks around him though.

Where there is gunk in the water, there are frogs to be found! I'm more than a little curious about his interesting colouring; his head blends perfectly with the muck and I have to think his legs would help camouflage him when on land(???).I haven't the first clue what this is but they're everywhere at the lake right now. I'm really beginning to appreciate the season-ality of flora....

Just a burr

Chippy here was super-cooperative; he stood up and looked right at me, posing :)
Look how long his "fingers" are!

Prancer

This counts as my entry for Friday even though it's an hour into Saturday. I spent the evening with one of my "best girls" tonight and didn't even think about my blog until now.

I almost pulled an Aunt Heather and almost hit this deer (inside story); she ran right out in front of my car and then just stood there and watched me. I pulled over and tried to snap some shots but my camera wasn't really cooperating (shutter wouldn't work, temporarily) while she was standing still so I only managed to get one while she was running away. It's a bit blurry but it's not every day I get to photograph deer so I wanted to post it anyway.

Snail Trail

Snails....where they shouldn't be??

Ratatouille

Little Darlings :)

Chipping Sparrow

At least I think it's a chipping sparrow :)
I was stuck in the city this weekend so I didn't have the luxury of hunting down a 'real' animal to photograph, hence the bird shot! I'm still not sure what I'll enter in the contest, something new or something I photographed before...but this is what you get for today. NOT easy to photograph! The little buggers don't sit still for long!! :)

Best in Show

Last night was the Westminster Kennel Club's 2008 Dog Show, in which the sweetheart little beagle won Best in Show (he was my favourite....really), so when I came across this little cutie sitting outside of a store I thought he (??) would make the the perfect little model for my blog entry today.

In case you're interested in what last night's little winner looks like here is a photo I swiped off the website. I absolutely was not there to take pictures :)
He may be a simple, common little beagle but he pranced around the ring looking so proud! It was adorable and I'm not usually into dog shows....

Sciurus griseus

Don't be impressed (in case you were!); I had to look up the Latin name of this little fella who hangs out in the tree in front of our house most mornings. It's easy to distinguish him because all the others are black! I love that his little face is covered in snow from playing.

It's a Snow Day!

Given that I didn't go into the lab on account of the weather today I decided I had better not venture very far (in other words, no use of the car) for my photos. So I ran around the area searching for things to photograph. Nothing overly exciting today....

I followed this little critter around as he literally ran along the side of a building.

I liked this one because not only is the knot covered in snow but you can still see the colourful mosses on the bark.

This chair sits outside between 2 lilac bushes year-round; the snow gets knocked off by the squirrels dancing around in the trees!

I just thought this looked neat; the snow melts perfectly as the heat escapes.

Sunny Sunday

We had a really late night last night and, therefore, got up late this morning (seriously, it was almost noon). We had a great breakfast with Kevin and Tracy then headed to Smiths Falls to celebrate American Thanksgiving with Brannon's family (for anyone following my blog who doesn't know, Brannon is my hubby; and our sister-in-law is American). Usually Brannon's a get-from-point-A-to-point-B-as-quickly-as-possible kinda guy and doesn't really enjoy when I ask him to pull the car off the road to take some pictures but today he was a good sport.Most of these I took while we were in transit but he did stop to let me take some photos of the house with the caved-in roof. Enjoy!

Snowy cattails

We saw this deer hangin' out right across the road from Kevin and Tracy's; I couldn't get close enough to get a better photo but she's beautiful all-the-same.

I was informed that there was an old log home at Fallowfield Rd. and Dwyer Hill Rd. whose roof had collapsed; sure enough we found it. I would have loved to have gotten a little closer but the area was entirely fenced in. Maybe another day when I'm feeling a little more daring, I'll hop the fence and get a closer look!

The skies were nothing short of brilliant this afternoon.

Again, I took this one through the front windshield...

I think I was just lucky to get this one as the sun started its descent.