Sad, but Hopeful

It’s been a sad few days. My zoom lens, which I use most often, has ceased working. It won’t autofocus and as it attempts to, it grinds horribly. This all began a few days ago, so last night I wrapped it snugly in a box with bubble wrap and then sent it off to Nikon this morning. I sure hope they can fix it. I really haven’t felt compelled to take many pictures since it died, but I do have a few that I should probably post, but not at midnight…perhaps after some sleep. Goodnight. I’ll be dreaming of functional lenses, hoping for the soon return of mine in working order!

Goalie Girl’s New Gear Tested

Yup, Erin tested out her new gear at a skate and shoot tonight with Jeff. She got on the ice before anyone else showed up and even before Jeff came out of the locker room. She immediately determined that in order to skate backwards, she had to stride properly, otherwise her pads were in the way.  She quickly became frustrated, feeling as though she was unable to move and also like she was wearing much heavier equipment. As far as the weight goes, she went from very cheap, beginner goal pads  to high end, well made pads with much better protection and specifically designed for butterfly goaltending. Once Jeff got on the ice and had Erin do a few exercises, she was much more comfortable. She even made a few glove saves, which she struggled to do with her old glove. By the time the skate and shoot was over, she said it went from being the worst skate and shoot, to the best. I suspect she really likes her new gear…

Unfortunately, the cold was bothering me more than usual today, so these pictures aren’t great. I was shivering as I shot them, so they are definitely not very clear.

If I hadn’t seen her flop down, I would have thought there was just a pile of equipment in the crease! Heavier equipment means more effort when getting up. Good thing she’s building up some good muscles!

Jeff took a bunch of shots on her.

The real test will be next Friday when she has a 3 on 3 session with the Edge.

Fabulous Mother’s Day Weekend

On Saturday, when we went to Canada, I told Jeff that all I really wanted for Mother’s Day was to go out to eat at Montana’s. You may remember a post from a couple years ago about Butterflies in which I mentioned Montana’s. Since that time, that location has closed and the only Montana’s restaurants are in Canada. Since we were only going to be 30 minutes from one of them, I asked if we could have dinner there. My inlaws went with us, so we all had a delicious early dinner at Montana’s. We decided that would be our Mother’s Day celebration with Jeff’s mom, then we’d both relax on Sunday.

My family decided that I should choose what I wanted to do for Mother’s Day, so we went to Starbucks and Panera, then to the lake in Webster Park. Erin had part of a bagel left over from breakfast, so when a curious squirrel came near, Kyle threw out a piece of Erin’s bagel. The result was pretty funny. I suppose I should mention that the winds from Saturday hadn’t slowed down much and it was only 40 degrees F.

The squirrel was not holding its tail that way, the wind was blowing it that way! At one point the piece of bagel that was on the ground began blowing away, so the squirrel grabbed it back.

Apparently this squirrel understood from whence its food had come, for it strolled over to the Jeep, sat up on its haunches, and reached up with its arms, batting toward me as I hung out the window taking pictures. Good thing it didn’t decide to jump up onto the camera or something! I am convinced that if the wind hadn’t been blowing so hard, I could have heard what it was saying, lol!

Once we stopped feeding the poor creature, it apparently got annoyed and decided to look threatening from a post that was directly in front of the Jeep.

Perhaps it was just preparing to pray…

The wind was blowing really hard and the silly seagulls couldn’t fly very well. They would dive down, pluck a fish from the water, then get blown backwards and drop the fish. It was absolutely hysterical! I imagined the fish saying “I’m caught, I’m freee, I’m caught, I’m free, oh just kill me now!”

As we were giggling at the silly squirrel, I was keeping an eye on two men with sailboards. They appeared to have arrived shortly before we did and were putting their boards together as we sat there. Eventually they donned their wetsuits and launched out into the angry cold water. I sat shivering just thinking about the temperature of the water! Even though they were in wetsuits, their faces and fingertips were still exposed, brrr!

Call me crazy, but that just doesn’t seem like a good idea! Too cold and too windy!

After leaving the lake, we went to a garden shop and wandered a bit, then stopped at Wegmans to get a snack. I was getting tired and sore, so we headed home, but we still wanted to go to the park to take a picture. I took a short nap, then we headed back out to get a Mother’s Day picture.

Erin found a tree that looked like a chair, so she sat and asked me to take a picture. She’s so funny! She is sitting on the ground with her arms resting on two “armrests.”

My Mother’s Day was quite relaxing and enjoyable. Thanks Jeff, you are awesome and wonderful and I love you soooo much! Oh yeah, I didn’t post the picture of you either!

Highland Park Beauty

As I mentioned in my previous post, my in-laws invited the kids and me to go to Highland Park with them last Thursday. It was a cool, but gorgeous, day so I took tons of pictures. The colors were awesome!

My father-in-law contemplating…something.

Erin, being extremely photogenic, is fun to photograph.

Every now and then Sarah lets me take her picture.

As we were heading back to the car, I couldn’t help but take a picture of the petals all over the ground.

I was a bit sore by the time I got back home, but it was a beautiful day and I thoroughly enjoyed our wanderings through the park.

Yikes!

Where has the time gone? I have been meaning to post for days, but there always seems to be something else that needs my attention. The last week or so I’ve had something going on everyday and I just haven’t had the energy at the end of the day to post.

Last Saturday, May 1st, Kyle ran a race in a nearby town. This was a new race this year, so there was a fairly small field of, only about 80, runners. For the first time in the three years he has been running, Kyle won first in his age group. He was rather pleased, so it was pretty cool!

Before the start of the race, the runners were getting some instructions about the course.

This is the timing company that was timing the race. They are an incredible group of people. The owners also own a running store where they sell running shoes and apparel. They also host weekly running workouts and workshops on various topics that are important to runners. They are great people!

Erin had been under the weather the week prior to this race, but was starting to feel better, and wanted to go watch. I figured the sun would do her some good, so we sat and waited for Kyle to finish. She still looked a little pale, but she enjoyed the warmth of the sunshine on her.

Here’ s Kyle finishing eleventh overall, first in his age division.

On Thursday, my in-laws called to see if I wanted to go to the park to check out the lilacs. I, of course, couldn’t pass up an opportunity to take some pictures… I took an awful lot of pictures though, so I think I’ll put them in a separate post.

After a crazy, busy week, I had a chiropractic appointment on Friday. I was a bit ahead of schedule, so I went down to the lake to see if I could find the swans. Not only did I find them, but they were right on the shore preening, so I got some great close ups!

This swan was cracking me up. If I tried to stand on one leg and crane my neck around, I would be on the ground. This silly swan spent a very long time on one foot…pretty impressive!

There was also a goose.

We had planned a trip on Saturday to Canada to visit our favorite hockey store. I was going to take Joe to the dachshund parade in the morning, then we were going to leave at noon to go to Canada. Since we were supposed to have 50+ mph winds over the weekend, the parade was cancelled. I suppose the organizers were afraid we’d have dachshund kites… It turned out that it was a good thing that we left earlier than planned, since the owners of our favorite hockey store are in the process of closing the business and don’t keep their regular hours. They have been selling hockey equipment for 40 years and are now ready to move on to the next chapter in their lives. It was a bittersweet visit. These people are amazing. They just love helping people and we will very much miss them. Erin, although having never been there before, loved the place and said she was very sad that they were closing. Since they are closing, we got rock bottom pricing. She got a HUGE discount on a pair of very high-end leg pads and she also got a great glove and blocker. In the end, she got all 3 for less than the original sale cost of the leg pads. Kyle also got a new pair of skates. He had been wearing a pair of Jeff’s skates that are about 2 sizes too big for Kyle.

Erin was just a little excited…

A close up of her awesome blocker.

As we were waiting to cross the border, back into the US, I took a shot of the flags. I think they show fairly well how windy it was.

Since this post is now ridiculously long, I’ll post the rest of my pictures from the week in a separate post.