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Rain, rain, you're okay.
Nov. 25th, 2014 01:55 pmIt's a very gloomy and rainy day here, but I don't mind it at all. I'm at work so it's not ruining any plans, plus we need the rain since it's been sparse for the past month or so. It did necessitate the rescheduling of a photoshoot from this morning to Thanksgiving morning, but that's okay too since that way I don't need to miss any work. Not that it's even work this week--my boss and half the company are on vacation, so it's a very low-stress week to be in the office. The only downsides to today is that I had to go out for lunch in the rain, and I've watched all the Breaking Bad episodes on my tablet. :)
Speaking of Thanksgiving, it's shaping up nicely. We were thinking it would just be us for a quiet family day at home, but the other day my Dad called and said their plans fell through so they'd like to come for a visit. That's great, as we haven't seen him for a while and with our upcoming Virginia trip I wasn't sure if or when we'd be able to get together before Christmas. Then my niece Amanda messaged me on FB to say she was in town this week and wanted to see us and Dad too, so I wrote back to suggest she drop by on Thanksgiving as well since Dad will be over. Haven't seen her in too many years, so I'm really hoping that works out too. Would make for a very nice day.
But we need to at least attempt to clean the house, and that's a daunting prospect. Not that we're complete slobs, but housekeeping tends to fall down a few notches when we're busy, and with the kids we're always busy. :) Hopefully a quick sweep to put away toys and clear counters and tabletops and whatnot will do it. And some vacuuming of pet fur, eww.
We decided to update our video camera this weekend. Heather's family used to make audio and then video variety shows for Christmas when she was a kid, and she wanted to try that with the girls. But our old camera isn't HD, is not great in low light, and uses mini-DV cassettes, which makes transferring the videos to the computer a pain. Plus the microphone always picks up the noise of the tape drive motor, which bugs me. So I went out and got us a Canon VIXIA HF R500, which is all-digital and uses SD cards, so it's nice and quiet with solid battery life. Not sure if the low-light performance is any better yet, but outdoor and even well-lit indoor scenes look great, and the image stabilizer is a nice add too. Looking forward to using it more, especially on our trip!
Speaking of travel, this last trip put me over the top for my Southwest Companion Pass! Whoo-hoo! I named Hermione as my companion for now, and already called to have the Virginia trip re-booked as a companion so I could get back the points I'd booked her with. We figured I'd name her instead of Heather, because whatever trips I take will either be all of us, or me and the older two girls like I did for DC this past spring. In fact, I am sorta thinking I might try to take the girls up to New York City to visit their aunt Stef next month. She's only going to be there for another couple months, and I think Christmastime for our first NYC trip would be amazing. It would probably be a fairly short trip, I'm thinking just a 3- or 4-day weekend, but still--I am thinking yes please even though the very idea of NYC sorta terrifies me. :) I'm hoping to take good advantage of this Companion Pass, though, whether it's for our whole-family vacations or just short trips with the girls. Fun stuff!
Hermione's birthday was this past Saturday--10 years old already. She's a really good kid, I'm quite proud of her. I wish she was a little less timid and sensitive sometimes, but I really can't complain. It was rainy on her birthday so we didn't do much, but the next day we went to Fun Spot, which is sort of like a permanent carnival (without the carnies), and we had a good time. Plus lunch at Sweet Tomatoes, yummy.
I'm still working on my photos from Birmingham last week. It was a good time and a bit of an adventure, so I'm looking forward to finishing those and posting about the trip. In the meantime, I think I'll do a photo post with some other stuff from the past couple weeks. So stay tuned for that!
Okay, back to "work." Heh.
Speaking of Thanksgiving, it's shaping up nicely. We were thinking it would just be us for a quiet family day at home, but the other day my Dad called and said their plans fell through so they'd like to come for a visit. That's great, as we haven't seen him for a while and with our upcoming Virginia trip I wasn't sure if or when we'd be able to get together before Christmas. Then my niece Amanda messaged me on FB to say she was in town this week and wanted to see us and Dad too, so I wrote back to suggest she drop by on Thanksgiving as well since Dad will be over. Haven't seen her in too many years, so I'm really hoping that works out too. Would make for a very nice day.
But we need to at least attempt to clean the house, and that's a daunting prospect. Not that we're complete slobs, but housekeeping tends to fall down a few notches when we're busy, and with the kids we're always busy. :) Hopefully a quick sweep to put away toys and clear counters and tabletops and whatnot will do it. And some vacuuming of pet fur, eww.
We decided to update our video camera this weekend. Heather's family used to make audio and then video variety shows for Christmas when she was a kid, and she wanted to try that with the girls. But our old camera isn't HD, is not great in low light, and uses mini-DV cassettes, which makes transferring the videos to the computer a pain. Plus the microphone always picks up the noise of the tape drive motor, which bugs me. So I went out and got us a Canon VIXIA HF R500, which is all-digital and uses SD cards, so it's nice and quiet with solid battery life. Not sure if the low-light performance is any better yet, but outdoor and even well-lit indoor scenes look great, and the image stabilizer is a nice add too. Looking forward to using it more, especially on our trip!
Speaking of travel, this last trip put me over the top for my Southwest Companion Pass! Whoo-hoo! I named Hermione as my companion for now, and already called to have the Virginia trip re-booked as a companion so I could get back the points I'd booked her with. We figured I'd name her instead of Heather, because whatever trips I take will either be all of us, or me and the older two girls like I did for DC this past spring. In fact, I am sorta thinking I might try to take the girls up to New York City to visit their aunt Stef next month. She's only going to be there for another couple months, and I think Christmastime for our first NYC trip would be amazing. It would probably be a fairly short trip, I'm thinking just a 3- or 4-day weekend, but still--I am thinking yes please even though the very idea of NYC sorta terrifies me. :) I'm hoping to take good advantage of this Companion Pass, though, whether it's for our whole-family vacations or just short trips with the girls. Fun stuff!
Hermione's birthday was this past Saturday--10 years old already. She's a really good kid, I'm quite proud of her. I wish she was a little less timid and sensitive sometimes, but I really can't complain. It was rainy on her birthday so we didn't do much, but the next day we went to Fun Spot, which is sort of like a permanent carnival (without the carnies), and we had a good time. Plus lunch at Sweet Tomatoes, yummy.
I'm still working on my photos from Birmingham last week. It was a good time and a bit of an adventure, so I'm looking forward to finishing those and posting about the trip. In the meantime, I think I'll do a photo post with some other stuff from the past couple weeks. So stay tuned for that!
Okay, back to "work." Heh.
