A Quiet Spring Break

Joy and I had last week off for her Spring break. We did some yard work and organizing in the house, but also relaxed quite a bit.

We took a couple of trips to Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden (pictures), plus a Saturday afternoon excursion to Moulton Falls (pictures), near Battle Ground in Washington. It has been fun learning to use some of the features of our DSLR.

Now, it's back to work time on a very rainy Monday. Driving to work this morning, I had a couple of unpleasant encounters with other motorists. You'd think that people that live in Oregon would know how to drive in the rain, but apparently they don't; driving too fast and changing lanes on very wet roads is just crazy!

New Camera!

We bought the Nikon D5000 camera at Costco. It came with two lenses, one a wide-angle to short telephoto, the other short-telephoto to medium telephoto. It has been fun to get out and take pictures of animals, birds, and scenery.

We have next week off for Joy's spring break. There is a lot of spring cleaning and organizing to be done around the house, but we'll have a chance to get out and enjoy some spring weather and take some neat photographs.

A great weekend--and now rain

On Saturday, we went on a very nice drive up the Columbia River Gorge with our friends Les & Keri. The temperature was in the 60s and the sky and river were very blue. We saw wild flowers and waterfalls and mountains. The only problem I had was that I couldn't walk to see some of the waterfalls, so I had to stay close to the car. Oh well, at least I'm not still on crutches. A photograph from the trip. That evening, we watched The Ugly Truth with them, a funny movie.

By Monday, the weather had turned back to more normal Oregon weather, cloudy, rainy and cool. There was actually some snow on the hilltops for the first time since December.

I've pretty much settled on buying a Nikon D5000 DSLR camera. The reviews on it are very good and the price is significantly lower than the Canon I was looking at, especially with an instant rebate available through the end of March.

March is here

It was a nice weekend for the end of February. I'm no longer using my crutches, which is a good thing. It is wonderful to be able to walk, using both hands to carry things.

Yesterday, there was a gorgeous sunrise here at work (picture) and this morning, the almost full moon was shining brightly as I was leaving home to come to work (picture).

Today, they are having snow in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where my brothers live. What weird weather! At least for this "winter", I am glad to live in Oregon! :-)

Joy and I are trying to plan some vacation time for the summer. With her back in school, the available times are limited. I'm sure that we'll come up with somewhere fun to visit.