So all the time I was putting off posting the NE journal because of busyness, I was taking a few pictures along the way. Since I had them all edited and ready to go, I though I’d go ahead and post them anyway. So sorry the are stale. Guess you can quit looking if you want.

Within 2 weeks of returning from our trip, there were 4 weekends in a row where I was gone. The first being our church campout. We had a very lovely time again and the weather was gorgeous!! Some years we have had pretty chilly nights, and the “rustic” cabins were barely tolerable. This year was still sleeping bag weather but it was surprising how quickly it warmed up in the mornings when the sun came up. The state park we use has group camp area. It is nice because there’s plenty of room for the kids to ride their bikes. The sleeping facilities are rustic, at best. The bathhouses need some serious work but we’ve been told the state has no extra $ to spend these days. I have a gazillion pics but I’m not going to post them this time.

The following weekend we went to VA for the ordination of my brother. We had a lovely, laid-back weekend with his family, plus seeing extended family as well! This time I don’t think I even took pics, except at the ordination with my SIL’s camera.

The following Wednesday I was delighted to have a friend of mine from S. Ont. come visit me. We met in NW Ont. at  a mission where we both worked. She is now married and has 2 kids and this is the first time since she’s married that she has been to GA. We went to a local swamp park where her son was delighted to see all the “crackodiles”.

The best time to see gators is in the winter on a warm, sunny day. They come out to soak up the warmth. On this day they were all over the place. And no, you should not put your child on their backs to take pictures. According to the one ranger, they’ve had people ask if they can do that.

There’s a little reptile show where you can hold a baby gator, and hold snakes, the non-poisonous ones. har har

FYI: an adult gator bites with over 2,000 lbs of force, the equivalent of having a small sedan fall on you. However, their muscles to open their mouth have only a fraction of that strength.

Sometimes they open their mouth for dental work, and to show you just how afraid of them to be.

Seriously, that mouth is loaded with salmonella. It’s what helps digest their food.

Most of the time they look more like this:

They do have a bit of a smirk, don’t they? I will say this, they are all bite and no very little brain.

Here’s another FYI: An female alligator lays eggs and the temperature of the eggs in the nest determines the gender of the baby alligators. 86* and up, they are male. Below 86* and they are female. Amazing, eh?

Here’s Evan pondering the size of Oscar’s bite. Oscar was a docile gator who lived to be around 100 years old. Most gators don’t live past about 70. They have all 14 (?) feet of his skeleton on display.

We headed down the islands for a few hours and enjoyed a picnic and a walk on the beach. This was the first time their munchkins had seen the ocean.

I left early Friday morning for Ohio. I was so thankful that God had worked out the details so I didn’t have to drive up alone. There were others headed up for the same wedding as me, but their travel plans didn’t exactly correlate with mine. So I rode up with 1 party and back with another.

I was the photographer for Walter and Dorothy and since they didn’t want a lot of pictures, I shot it alone. They had a beautiful sunshiney day that started out chilly but ended quite warm.

 

The following weekend I flew with Christy to Montana, where someone picked us up for another 3-hour drive to Alberta. Twice Christy has a been my second shooter so this time I was tickled to go along to help her. We had fun navigating snowy roads around Lethbridge.

 I even got to introduce her to poutine. Shooting in a very cold climate was a different experience, as the other 2 we shot together, we were able to do all formals outside. This time most formals were shot in a motel courtyard. The bridal party very bravely went outside for some.

By midnight we were reduced to giggles. Not that anything went wrong or was funny about anything of the wedding. Just relief-that-it’s-over and then little things from the day hitting our funny bones at just the wrong angle. Christy, I’ve been wanting to go Italy. Do you know of anyone who needs wedding photos done there? I’d love to shoot for you again!

We got a few winks of sleep before we got up to go back down to MT to fly out. It was cold all weekend (mostly around 0 or a few degrees colder) and just before we boarded the plane they warned us to use the “facilities” at the airport since the ones on the plane were frozen up.

This time I remembered my little P&S camera that was in my purse. Does that look cold or is it just me?

Yup. That looks cold. Real cold.

Then suddenly it was Thanksgiving and my family all came here for that.

We had a grilled meat smorgasbord, with a number of sides. We ate at the lake and it was quite warm.

 

My, my! What a sky! Can you see the frisbee fly?

Move over, Dr. Suess.

We had a meal cooked over the fire one other evening as my brother Phil wanted to try some dutch oven recipes. We had a delicious stew and cornbread. Dessert was blackberry cobbler, also baked in a cast-iron pot. I was so glad it was chilly, and that my niece ended up wearing my coat, because! She found my set of spare keys for my car. I had been putting off getting another one made because it’s the kind that has a chip and cost $70+ to replace it. I knew I had misplaced it around Christmas the previous year. Check your coat pockets, people! You never know what you’ll find. It might even be a $20 bill like I found another year. No, check your OWN pockets. Mine are off limits.  

Oh and the end of November, guess what we did?

 

 

Nope.

 

 

Nope again.

 

 

Still wrong.

 

 

We picked our lemons. All four of them. And they were beautiful!

Maybe next year we’ll get 8. And maybe we’ll get none. Our poor tree looks rather bedraggled from the many cold nights we’ve had this winter.

One Saturday evening in December my sister and I catered a company Christmas supper. Here is Charity’s home that looks like it comes out of Southern Living.

I took silicone muffin cups and coated them with white and semi-sweet chocolate. After they had chilled, I peeled the flexible silicone cups away. And we filled them with fruit.

That’s as far as I got with food pics. They went through the courses so fast we barely got the food out to them in time.  

And here is their little man who loves the toasty fireplace.

Oh, and there was that one night that I was up for 2 hours since the lunar eclipse peaked at 2 AM and it was eclipsing very slowly. I got a bunch of church calendar printing done while I was up, which was a good thing.

 

Moon on the right, Orion’s belt on the left:

The next is a 12-minute exposure. I tried to do a longer one by my batteries went dead. Cold weather is a real energy killer. And I decided it was time to go back to bed.

Christmas was a quiet affair with only our parents and us 3 youngest siblings. Waffles prepared by my brother and sister as my parents and I lounged around, trying to shake off the flu that so greatly invaded this land.

Thankfully I felt better the next day because we headed out to spend 2 days with some friends at a cabin in NC. And from there we headed to Ohio to attend the wedding of a friend of ours on New Years Eve. I was hired to do the reception detail shots.

I had met Emma in NW Ont. and I was delighted to see some other former misison staff at her wedding! Some that hadn’t seen in quite some time! 

We also had lots of fun with our dear single lady friends in the area. New Year’s Eve party, breakfast at Velma’s, supper at Red Lobster.

And so ended 2010. Happy New Year!!!!

About 2 months late.