2011 A Year in Photos

January- Snow, snow, and yet more snow!

February- My other loves you don't hear so much about these days.  My beautiful Lily and handsome Tomas.  It's a good thing Lily is so pretty as she is so pushy. Typical woman.

March- A first birthday to remember.

April- Easter and walking!

May- Flowers in bloom and a super hot Memorial Day with a swim

I'm not impressed parental units.

June- My first 5k

July- Fireworks!

August- Cruising the clear blue seas once again.

September- Mariela is going to be a big sister and 1st pony rides!

October- A freak snow storm that knocked our power out for a week and cancelled Halloween.

Trying to keep warm by the fire at night

Pretty much every street looked like this

November- Thankful for M's cousins and how they all play together.  Not pictured is the youngest, C, who didn't do stairs until a few days later...HA!

December- A visit to NYC with my big brother, A.R. and M

Zoom, zoom!

I was completely surprised on Mother's Day when a special package got delivered by the USPS (on a Sunday, no less!) and A.R. helped M "carry" a small box to me.  I was even more surprised to find a new camera lens, a UV filter lens cover, and a butterfly lens hood in the box!  This is coming from the child who seemingly rolls her eyes (She would if she knew how, anyway.  I just know it.) when I pull the camera out and the husband who rolls his eyes and sighs when I ask if I can just "take one more picture. Hold still."  I was so surprised, I was speechless and all I could do was hug the two of them close as A.R. fumbled for words and kept saying he hoped it was the right one and if I didn't like it we could exchange it for a different lens.  Um, no.  It's perfect dear husband and so are you and our beautiful daughter. 

Well, enough of the sappy stuff.  My loves bought me a Canon EF-S 55-250mm  f /4-5.6 IS zoom lens for Mother's Day.  We have an assortment of wildlife in our backyard that I haven't been able to capture on film and after missing yet another coyote sighting, A.R. got the idea (all by himself!) to get me a zoom lens.  Our property backs up to State protected land and we've seen turkeys, coyotes, and fox out there.  One of our neighbors even claims he saw a bear.  YIKES, to that one!  I'm loving this new lens so far and can't wait to practice more with it now that I'm brave enough to take my camera (Canon Rebel T2i) out of auto mode setting.

Here is a shot with my kit lens (EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS) of a turkey on the edge of our property line.  It is actually a lot closer than it appears:

And here is a shot a couple weeks ago of a fox in the field behind our house with my new lens zoomed to 250mm.  The fox is actually in the field pictured above, about halfway to the row of bushes/trees you see in the background.