I love my Nikon camera. What sold me on Nikon was the brilliant colors in my photographs. They are so vivid and gorgeous. The pictures look so bright and cheerful — the kind of photographs that make you wish you were there at that very moment too.

   I was really blessed to find a sale on my 55-200 mm telephoto lens at buy.com. I had been eying it up and hoping for it. Then, the deal popped up and I struck. I cannot sing enough praises about this lens. It picks up minute details from many, many feet away with very little noise or vibration. Meaning, no tripod needed to take crisp photos from many feet away.

  This picture, for example, was taken using my 55-200 lens from a distance away. It looks equally as good as it would have on my 18-55 lens.

This photograph is another example of what the 55-200 lens can do. You can see that once again that it catches every detail to the point of looking as though I was right on top of the subject.

I cannot say enough wonderful things about this lens in particular or even Nikon in general. If you are considering a DSLR, I strongly suggest looking into Nikons first.

     When traveling long distances with children, there are a few things that will be your saving grace. The first thing is snacks. Gummy fruit snacks, peanut butter crackers, juice boxes and the like. Nothing to shut a whining mouth as fast as a snack. And even better, a snack that involves sugar. You just have to decide if the immediate gratification is worth the aftermath later, though.

   Another wonderful distraction device is the portable DVD player. For without which, I don’t know where I’d be. My heart aches for all the wonderful Mothers who’ve traveled the country before me, DVD-less.  (And my heart literally breaks for the Pioneer women who traveled west in their wagons.) We originally had a single screen DVD player which was wonderful and fabulous. But now we have three children and one screen doesn’t reach all of them. So they fight, fight, fight! We decided that we’d gotten every single penny’s worth out of our single screen so investing in a dual screen wasn’t a bad idea. They were on saleat buy.com Ahhhhhh, sweet relief.  Now we have three screens in our van and I have to say — niiiice! Of course we don’t let them watch TV for every trip — just the ones longer than an hour or so. And we don’t let them watch it the entire time but it’s a great distraction!

    I dislike packing for trips a great deal. It’s not fun. There are so many little things to remember. How does one ever remember it all? Truth is, we all know that we don’t. It’s kind of like a fun little game to play — what will I have to end up going to the store to get? If you win the game, it’s a $5 item. If not, well, then there goes dinner money.  This is probably why it’s 11pm and we’re leaving tomorrow and I have not one iota packed. I suck and I know it. My house isn’t even clean. Very unlike me. Everything keeps swirling through my mind…. kick boards, hairbrush, shampoo, shoes, sandals, beach towels…. swirling and swirling. All I have to say is thank God I am not pregnant or have a small infant. Carseats, prenatal vitamins, saltine crackers, etc. Ahhhh, time to get off my booty!

We have been functioning without a printer for a while now. Maybe a year? Functioning isn’t the correct term though. We’ve been doing without in many cases. If something absolutely positively has to be printed, I go to the library or my in-laws. Otherwise, I haven’t printed. Our printer’s drivers were lost on our old computer and the printer’s manufacturer no longer offered them for download. Sad but true.

We decided it was time to purchase a printer. I went online and read reviews and all that good stuff. I’ve always used an HP printer, however I’d been seeing all those ads for Kodak printers that were claiming to save you so much money in ink costs, so I wanted to check those out. I was indeed impressed with the price of their ink verses the other leading companies; substantially cheaper! 

We decided to take the plunge and got the Kodak 5250 all in one. It wasn’t too pricey (actually on sale so SCORE!) and it was wi-fi adaptable. So far I am very satisfied. Even though the ink is cheaper, the quality is still high. It is also prints very quickly and is easy to set up. Both big in my book. I would totally reccomend it for anyone looking for a printer.

Bedtime! Daddy puts the kids to bed while I take Fancy out of the bath. They cry for me to sing to them, so I go up and he takes over with Fancy. I sing songs and tell them goodnight. I come down and read to Fancy.

All is quiet upstairs, so I take Fancy up to her bed.  We turn on the first episode of the season of our guilty pleasure: Big Brother!

Except three minutes later, we heart the pitter patter of little footsteps. It’s Warrior. He has to pee. Fancy hears him and starts to scream. When she gets interupted going to sleep like that, the best thing to do is to remove her from her bed for a few minutes and try again a  bit later. So much for adult time.

 
She sits in a sleepy haze next to me as we watch the remainder of BB.

Finally, Forest and Warrior are sleeping when I check on them.

So we put Fancy in. Now it’s 9 and they’re all finally sleeping. Whew. (And that is a cup of water with her, not juice. Her “Nina” cup is her security blanket.)

Now it’s work time.

Assignment due.

Clean the bathroom.

Fold a load of laundry with the hubs.

He watches some of the John Deere Classic.

Sweep the kitchen floor while Daddy grinds his coffee and packs his lunch for the next morning.

Aunt Janet comes over bearing a gift of Mary Kay lotion (love!!!!) and hangs out for a while.

We eat mini doughnuts from Schwans. (That are amazing!!)

I water my posies outside.

Love the look of a glowing house through an opened door on a dark night and stop to admire it for a second…

Time to get into bed. Watch an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond in bed with the hubby…

Now it’s time to shut my eyes and do it all over again tomorrow….

Looking back, it’s no wonder I’m tired after a day is over. While I’ve photographed a great deal today, there was so much I didn’t photograph. I’ve done everything except business card printing, it seems.