Good, Good, and Not so Good

Good: My sister arrived safely last night! We love having visitors! Easton has been so excited and Mia is glad to have someone else to look at all day besides myself.

Good: I think we can safely say that Easton is now fully and officially potty trained. Yes, he is 3 years old but he had to do it on his own terms. I was freaking out because he has to be potty trained in order to go to this preschool that we have him registered for in the fall and I wasn't sure if it was going to happen in time. There have been a number of occasions when we've been grocery shopping and I've had a cart full of food plus Mia and he's had to go. I've sent him in the men's restroom all on his own and he's come out victorious! Now, I was never in there to witness whether or not the pee fully made it in the toilet but it never got on his pants. That's a good thing right?

Not so Good: Today we had our first visit to the Urgent Care for stitches. Easton was running around with his friends (they were all dressed up cute in Batman/Spiderman outfits) and he tripped and fell and his forehead went straight into the sharp edge of the wooden banister. The whole getting stitches thing was quite traumatic for me and Easton both! But Easton was a very good boy and held very still for the doctor.

Last of the Homework

Finally ready . . .

So my photography blog is finally ready for visitors. Feel free to take a look!

http://appleorchardphotography.blogspot.com

More Homework

Here is some more homework . . . . maybe with all these photos I need to get my photography blog ready for visitors other than myself! :0)

Tri the Pee Dee

Yesterday I competed in the Tri the Pee Dee Triathlon in Florence, SC. 700 meter open water swim, 15 mile bike, 3.1 mile run. Time: 01:34:54. It was a request to Scott for my birthday (though not until the 24th) . . . that we could all go up there, stay over night, and they would cheer me on as I tried not to die and cross the finish line. :0) It was definitely lots of fun though I am feeling some soreness today. I don't know what it is about doing these triathlons but it feels so good! Maybe I am just enjoying being athletic again like back in the good 'ol high school and college days. But it also takes discipline and hard work in training. It presents a challange and I really like that. In this race I managed to come in 2nd place in my division (I missed 1st by 50 seconds)!!! Finishing alltogether was a massive accomplishment as this was my first real lake swim. But to be able to be competitive in my division and even in overall women is GREAT! Here are a few pics. Scott was doing well following me in the swim until Easton distracted him. So we ended up with 8 pictures of some other lady swimming. :0) I'm in the middle in the black suit.

For my next triathlon I'll be in Utah. Hooray!!!

Homework

I have been taking an online class having to do with Photoshop. I decided that I would post some of our homework assignments here on the blog. I'm a few days behind on the homework but hope to catch up over the weekend after we get back from the triathlon in Florence. This pic is of Mia at the beach. She looked so cute in her little outfit!

Lens Giveaway on the MCP Actions Blog!

For any readers that are into photography and have and SLR camera, I wanted to share this cool giveaway info from the MCP Actions Blog (mcpactions.com). I'm sure there are going to be hundreds of people enter but hey, it's worth a shot right? It's a Tamron 18-270mm (for a crop sensor Nikon or Canon) or the 28-300mm (for a full frame Nikon or Canon).

To enter, you will need to do the following:

- Post to your blog, twitter and/or facebook about this contest (let people know how to enter and provide a link)

- Go back to the blog and leave a comment writing where you posted (with link so that it can be verified if your post is picked from the random drawing)

- In your comment, please write why you want to win this lens, where you would want to most the lens, and for fun tell us how many lenses you currently own.


To qualify, you must:

- Have a US mailing address that the lens can ship to – this can be yours or a friend or relative but make sure you have one prior to entering (Tamron USA is only authorized to sell and distribute in the US)

- Have a Camera that works with Tamron Lenses. If you do not have a Nikon or Canon SLR, a similar range lens for Pentax or Sony will be substituted.

- Do all the above items explained in the “enter section.”

Randomness . . .

Warning: complete randomness.

*Our internet modem fizzled out on Friday of last week. AT&T wanted to charge me $100 for a new one but I worked my magic and convinced them to give it to me free. They even waived the shipping! That being said, we have been without internet until late this afternoon. After going 3+ days without internet I feel like I am out of touch with the world. It's crazy how much I depend on it every day.

* We had a fun 4th of July. We spent it at a beach house with our friend's the Hardy's. It was hard to come home and get back to the daily grind. Stay tuned for pictures from the beach.

* In the last 2 weeks Mia has explored every inch of our house. She is loving her new found freedom of crawling. She is starting to pull up to standing already here and there which scares me. She seems to be doing things a lot faster than Easton ever did. She can also go up stairs when her mom puts her cell phone half way up. :0) Guess it's time to get a gate! The one down side to all of this exploring is that I have to make sure the floors are clean at all times. Any little treasure she finds goes right into the mouth!

* We have been dog owners for about 8 weeks now. Wowzers! I didn't expect having a puppy to feel exactly like having another kid! I have to feed it, clean up after it, entertain it, bath it, take it on walks, yell at it to stop chewing up the back yard and to stop biting . . . . the list goes on and on. I now know why while growing up I stuck to the kind of pets that live in a 10 gallon aquarium or a small cage. :0)