Lauren and Jen's Excellent Adventure - Last bit of Savannah

Everyone says : go to the Riverwalk. So, we did. And to be honest, neither of us was overwhelmed with it! Lots of restaurants, some tacky trinket shops, and a renowned candy store (who's name escapes me) that makes "to die for" pralines. Me, being the candy person I am, broke my "eating well" to try and sample, and fortunately, I don't care for them. So, that saved me a bunch of calories!

Anyhow, a few last photos from the Riverwalk, and then we're on to Charleston! Oh, and BTW...I watched the movie Forrest Gump over the weekend (finally). What an excellent movie!

It's a darned shame that I'm not a few inches taller, then this sculpture might look like it's ON the river:



I love bridges with suspension cables:





The Waving Girl:



The cauldron from the 1996 Summer Olympics. The yachting events were held in Savannah.

Kubota Garden

First off, thank you to those who weighed in on their opinion of the poppy shots! I don't know if I'm any closer to making a decision though ;)

On Saturday Brett and I took a walk through Kubota Garden. It's about 15 minutes from us, but I didn't realize that in the almost 4 years we've lived in this house he's only been once. I go several times a year, however it is pretty secluded, so I don't wander far. There are so many little paths and bridges and beautiful places to explore, so I was grateful to have him with me, we discovered some lovely spots!

It was a sunny day, so not great for shooting, so I went back yesterday when it was a bit overcast which was much better. One of the (many) things I'd like to work on photographically is taking more landscape shots. I'm not very good at it, so I need to practice....a lot. I'd love to find a local class to take on landscapes...I'll have to do a little hunting to see if I can find one. Anyhow, besides my macro, I also took my (rarely used) 12-24. I was probably about 2-3 weeks late for the full on color, but it was still pretty.





This one I actually backed up and took with my macro. The background wasn't all that interesting, so I thought isolating it and having a blurred background might work:



and some macros:

 

 

 

A few more poppy shots....

On our stairs I have about a dozen of my macro images hung. About once a year I update most of them, and it's about time to do so. I know I'd like one of the images to be a poppy, which of these would you choose....or would you choose one of the orange poppies on the blue background that I posted last week?

Thanks for your opinion!

Lauren and Jen's Excellent Adventure - Savannah Randoms

Yep, just random pics from the Historic District of Savannah:

No, we're not morbid, however we did briefly stop by another cemetery, this one is right in the middle of Savannah (I can't recall the name off hand). This gravestone stuck with me. In case you have a hard time reading it, it says that Anne died a few days after the birth of her 15th child, at age 41 in 1793.



Since my Brother in Law's name is Gordon, I had to shoot this street sign ;)



I have a thing about doors, and doorknobs.....



Speaking of which, this church door has NO doorknobs. I guess you need to know the secret knock to get in!



The ceiling of Saint John the Baptist Church:



The steeple of the First Presbyterian Church, where the feather dropped in the movie Forrest Gump. Apparently I am the only person who has visited Savannah and has NOT seen the movie. I think I ought to ask Brett to add it to his Netflix queue!



Peeking through the gate into someone's lovely backyard:



One of the 22 squares in Savannah. I love how the city was laid out around them!

In the Blink of an Eye!

How did this:



...and yes, he had jaundice....

get to be this:



in the blink of an eye. REALLY!

Today is Colin's 22nd birthday, and I swear it was just yesterday I was changing his poopy diapers!

In honor of the big day, I pulled out some old photos... 1st Birthday:

 

4th Birthday:



8th Birthday:



and 12th Birthday:

 

Now he lives across the country, living the dream....aka looking for work and settling into living the life of a New Yorker. All grown up. CRAZY!


HAPPY BIRTHDAY COLIN!

Lauren and Jen's Excellent Adventure - On the hunt, Savannah

While we were on our tour we ran across this guy. He is OLD, and was used to tie up one's horse to. Next to him concrete steps were in place so that the ladies wouldn't have to show their ankles when climbing into the carriages (heaven forbid)! Cleavage is ok, ankles not so much. Go figure! For whatever reason he spoke to me, so after lunch I dragged Jen all over trying to find him again.



I knew I wanted a "portrait" of him as well, and the large tree to the side of him provided the perfect textured backdrop:



And, just because, the RAW file, SOOC of the image above. When I started shooting RAW I hated how dull the images were. It took a little learning to figure out how to bring out the potential of an image for sure. I do love how much latitude shooting RAW affords when processing.

 

A collaborative effort

It started a year or so ago....(and yes, I started it).... Hazel jokes whenever possible about Brett (and me too now....grrr) being "older than dirt."

So, we decided it would be fun to surprise him with a very special cake :) The plan was to take both she and her little sister Violet to the candy store to pick out the candy. Unfortunately, Miss H got in trouble that morning, so V and I drove across town and had a nice time visiting, shopping, and playing. We got candy that looks like rocks, gummy worms and centipedes, and gummy turtles and frogs.

Usually Brett wants German Chocolate cake, but decided this year he wanted Chocolate Raspberry, so the search was on. Thank goodness for Allrecipes.com! Yummy chocolate cake, whipped cream and cream cheese icing, some good raspberry jam, and a ton of fresh raspberries between the layers. The recipe called for splitting the cakes in half horizontally, which for some reason really made me nervous....can you believe it? After googling how to do it, then texting Joy asking for advice, she popped by to demonstrate for me. I'm so thankful for great neighbors!

Had we not been decorating it, I would have put raspberries on the top. And yes, I'll readily admit, I'm not all that hot at cake presentation. That said, the sides were not supposed to be frosted :)



H enjoyed eating the candy, V enjoyed decorating! I think she could have spent another 15 minutes or so re-arranging where she wanted the critters on the cake. Oreo cookies made the dirt.

Notice the sheer pleasure on H's face once I pulled out the candy:



 

The cake started listing, so we had to add wooden skewers to make sure it didn't slide apart!

 

 

The completed creation:

 

Then we had to wait for Brett to get home to surprise him. His brother had come into town that day as well, so it was an especially special day. Unfortunately I used my P&S for these photos, and my shutter was so slow on the group pics that they are horribly blurry :/...so no sharing.

I loved how the girls hid to surprise Brett. H got under an end table (not a bad spot). V got under a chair, face down, not hidden at all. It was so cute!

The birthday "boy" was surprised, and enjoyed his Older Than Dirt cake very much (even if it was a pain to slice). It was delicious! I'm very proud of myself....that entire cake, I truly only had ONE bite (yay me)!

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRETT!

Rainy, dreary, yucky day....

What better place to go than the nursery for some spring color?

This Lantana, which was trained into a small tree, caught my eye from about 30 feet away:



And I don't know that I've seen a Hydrangea with these colors before. As a "green" girl, I was immediately drawn in!

Lauren and Jen's Excellent Adventure - Historic Savannah Walking Tour

Ok, back to the trip for a bit :) Jen found a private walking tour for us EXPLORE SAVANNAH WALKING TOUR and I highly recommend if you visit that you check it out! We met Bobby at one of the Squares at 9:30am, and spent 2 hours with him walking around seeing the beautiful historic district, and hearing some of the history of the city and it's residents. It was a great way to spend the morning.

We then had a delightful lunch, and spent the rest of the day on our own exploring. HOWEVER, both Jen and I are "directionally challenged" so it got pretty funny trying to find our way around. Besides seeing some things we hadn't seen in the morning, we also wanted to revisit some spots so we could take our time photographing them. Thankfully at one point we ran into Bobby again (with another couple in tow) and he was kind enough to mark our map with the walk we had taken with him in the morning. Crisis averted!

As much as I'd like to visit Savannah with Brett, doing so with Jen was heavenly! I was able to shoot to my heart's content....as was she. We could spend 10 minutes just shooting some details and not worry about the other being bored.

This day's photos will come in fits and spurts, there are a few that I like. Once again, we were fighting dappled sunshine coming through all the old trees, so shooting buildings was a challenge. The details were a bit easier to deal with.

Is this downspout not to die for? I love it!



I got all excited when we got to the meeting place....I hoped all the wrought iron railing would look like this, lots of texture and age! Unfortunately, most have any, many, many layers of black paint over them :/









Dontcha love the crack in the wall? Just adds to the charm of this stairway:

Poppies

Is there anything not happy about poppies? Really! I decided to shoot them indoors before I plant them in the garden. It's kind of nice not to be fighting the breezes for a change! I used several different colors for the background so I'll probably post a few more another day to get opinions on which color you prefer them on.

I shot these with a MUCH narrower aperture than normal, I've got stuck in a rut of shooting wide open, so I'm trying to break myself of doing that all the time.

Lilacs

I adore lilacs! At our old house I used to cut the branches that came over on our side of the fence from our neighbor's tree. I loved the way they made the house smell. I wish we had room in our tiny garden for a tree, I'd put one in in a heartbeat. Instead, I visit the ones at the botanical garden for my fix: