Wednesday, a walk in the neighborhood: Sports mode, flower mode and one sunset mode

These first two pictures are from Tuesday. John and I went to go see the Golden Dragon Acrobats with Henry and his family. I made John wear a button-down shirt. The show was a lot of fun. John was skeptical at first, but he warmed up.

 Christopher had to stay home because children under three are not allowed at the theater. Plus it would have been too late for him. He was very sad.

Today, Wednesday, I took the camera with us on the neighborhood Keats walk. It was cloudy but bright around 5pm. I started in sport mode.

 Christopher gave John a helpful push up the hill.

 By this time, I switched to Flower mode. It seems to warm and brighten the colors a bit.

 Christopher scratched his knee, and liked looking at the blood.

 Here are the flowers in Flower mode. We have LOTS of azaleas in the neighborhood, and they seem to be nearing their peak.

 We also have dogwood trees.

These last two pictures are a comparison for myself. This picture is in Flower mode.

 This picture is actually in Sunset mode, which worked better, I think.

It's amazing how these cameras function! Anyone can be a decent photographer once you figure out all the modes! I'm very pleased that I'm getting much better pictures than I ever did with my little point-and-shoots! I don't have any real qualms about not knowing anything about shutter speed, f-stops, and apertures, etc., since my main goal is just getting snapshots of our quickly moving life. I'm getting better about navigating the menu and finding what I want, even if I don't know what the camera is actually doing. Of course, the hard part will be taking pictures inside...

Sports Mode on Monday afternoon

 These two pictures are of the shooting the breeze we do each day after the boys get off the bus.

Later, I took the camera with us on our playdate with James and Andy to the downtown park and took pictures in Sport mode. It worked well.

 Christopher had a time out with Miss Kerri for pushing John.

 John spent a lot of time tying his shoes.

Christopher takes water break.

They all walked us back to our car.

Jedi Mistress Kerri supplied everyone with lightsabers, as well as running narrative about imaginary bad guys to fight.

John and Christopher after a fun time.

Sunday

We had a couple of friends over on Sunday morning, Finn and Emmeline. They live around the corner from us and Finn and John were at the Day School together. Emmeline is at the same school as Christopher, but she is a year behind him.

All four of us, plus Keats, walked to their house with the wagon. We stood talking a bit to warm up the kids, then headed back to our house. Finn and John rode their bikes and Keats and I went with them, Emmeline and Christopher rode in the wagon with Tony pulling. C and E cried for about five minutes, but then Tony figured out E wanted to ride backwards and C wanted to ride forwards, so it was perfect.
E spent the first half hour just standing around, taking it all in and watching the boys run around. Then she started to play with the Green Lantern disc shooter, and jumped a little on the trampoline. Tony and I cleaned out the garage.

John, Finn, and Christopher played on the deck and the fort.

 After that the big boys rode bikes with the "free-range" family boys from next door. They are very nice, just not in our radar. Their second (of four boys!!) is in Finn's class at school, and John rides the bus with them, so they had a good time. Their third child, who is 4, can ride a two wheeler up and down the hill in front of our house. I was very impressed. Plus, they all wore helmets, which always scores points with me.

The big boys and I joined Tony, C and E, who were inside eating applesauce and playing with "Cars" cars.

 E read a little bit of Dr. Seuss's "The Foot Book" to us.

 John got out the doctor kit and proceeded to diagnose himself with a case of sillyitis.

We then had PB&J sandwiches and genetically engineered strawberries on the fort in the back yard. (The Costco strawberries are as big as golf balls, sometimes bigger!)

Emmeline played on the little slide in the back for a bit. She's at that age where they are serious whenever they are playing at something a little new.

 Their mom came over to get them soon after that, and we all walked them home. It was a fun time, and we will definitely do it again!

Later that evening, when Tony was vacuuming and I was worn out, we Skyped with Mimi and Pa. The boys showed them their new laser target game that I picked up for $2.50 at the consignment sale. John was mostly just excited to have a gun that made noises.

John's big project right now is learning to tie his shoes. Evidently his teachers have hit the saturation point of tying kids' shoes and rewarding kids who can tie their own with a trip to the treasure box. I don't let John wear tie shoes to school for exactly that problem, so he has been diligently practicing tying laces. He has actually got the tying part down, but we won't let him wear them until he can also undo the resultant knots... He's getting very close. I'm just happy he's working toward a goal that is stretching him a bit!

And the audience breathed a sigh of relief.

I finally got a new camera today at Costco. It's the Fuji Finepix S4500 (sort of the hybrid between the compact digital point and shoot and the digital SLR). So far it's exactly what I wanted. I can shoot movies, take pictures in "dumbass" mode, but it is just about as fast as Tony's SLR. There is not an interchangeable lens, but that's ok. There are so many features I'm sure I will never use, but they look like a lot of fun. And now all our loyal readers will finally have what they came for: more pictures of John and Christopher!

After our trip to Greenville today, including Costco, Trader Joe's and Gattiland, Henry and John needed to cut loose outdoors. We went to the small park that no one in Clemson knows is there.

Christopher had chicken nuggets and LOTS of strawberries for dinner. The head wound was acquired on the asphalt in the driveway when both boys pulled on the same broom handle in opposite directions while trying to retrieve it from under the car...

 Tony is growing out all his hair for his CU acting debut in "Proof" in mid-April.

 

 Here is the Brookwood children's co-op.

 

  Here are some "learning the camera" pictures that I particularly like.

Obviously I still have a lot of learning to do, but I'm very happy with the camera so far. Now I have to decide whether it's worth lugging around, since it's about three times the size of any camera I've had before. I love the 90-day return policy at Costco!