State Fair of Texas

This was our 4th year visiting the State Fair. We streamlined the experience to the essentials: Corny dogs, World On a String puppet Show, a walk through the arts and crafts building, cotton candy, say howdy to Big Tex, and a few rides for the kids.

You can't go to the fair without getting a corny dog! Or two!!

Weeks ago Norah had insisted that she needed her own bag of cotton candy all to herself at the fair. Attempts to reason with her failed. Bryan, hoping to dissuade her, said she could have her own bag of cotton candy only if she bought it herself. Of course Norah agreed. She worked hard cleaning up toys and and wiping off the kids table for weeks and weeks earning 25 cents at a time to pay for her $5 bag of cotton candy. Afterwards she conceeded that half a bag would have been more than enough.

 

Fossil Rim Wildlife Center

 

Ok, last post from our weekend in Glen Rose. Before heading home we visited the Wildlife Refuge. It wasn’t what I expected - you drive along a loop at about 10 miles per hour through the park tossing animal food out the window. The animals are accustomed to this which led to some uncomfortably close encounters. I don’t love seeing wildlife interacting so unnaturally with people but it was an unforgettable experience and the kids loved it. Freya was squealing and pointing her little heart out. Also, it went on for-ev-er. Oh my goodness. There were so many different types of African grassland animals (I honestly think there were 6 different types of Oryx) that towards the end they all started looking the same. Except for the Zebras and giraffes - they stood out.

This was an exciting moment

Big Rocks Park

The day after visiting dinosaur valley we played in a city park called Big Rocks. The rock formations were a lot of fun to run around in and explore. This was candid I swearI feel like I haven’t gotten a good picture of Norah in a long time. She is so difficult to photograph because she never sits still and when I ask her to let me take her picture she just says “no thank you” or “that’s ok.” She runs all over the place and doesn’t look back to see if you’re keeping up. She’s kind of like trying photograph a little wild animal. Essentially what this boils down to is that I need a telephoto lens for Norah. My pictures of her are pretty much like this:

Freya is also a challenge to photographI love this shot I got of Brian and BenjaminThis is Brian helping Alice cross the river after she had been left in the dust by Norah and Benjamin

The dam I was standing onComing back

We met this cool group of people that come to Big Rocks every Sunday to practice driving scale model cars. They set up a canopy and chairs and bring cars for their kids and just spend the day together. They enter in local competitions but I forgot the name of their group.  They were really nice and let the kids check out their cars. I asked if I could take their picture and emailed them a few later. This was my favorite shot

and just for good measure here are some close ups of those awesome cars

Glen Rose and all it's charm

After visiting Dinosaur Valley state park we spent the night in Glen Rose. Glen Rose has a charming town square complete with an old court house in the center and christmas lights.  Bryan said it reminded him of Back to the future.We ate dinner at a local Italian restaurant that was in what used to be a Coca Cola bottling plant. The restaurant had old photos and fun facts on display and we learned that at one point Glen Rose had the highest coca cola consumption per capita in the USA. Interesting no?

My photo teachers had assigned us to practice capturing stop action and motion blur that week so I practiced on Glen Rose. We were chatting with a local couple and I mentioned this vintage truck I had seen

We were chatting with a local couple and I mentioned this vintage truck I had seenThey tipped us off that there was a car club meeting at Sonic - which happened to be across the street from our best western

Dinosaur Valley State Park

We took the kids to see the dinosaur footprints over the first weekend in October. There were hundreds and hundreds of prints in the just the one part of the Paluxy River that we visitedBryan and I were amazed by the printsYou could actually touch them and feel their claw marks

Touching something that is 60 million years old is pretty mind blowing  . . . if you’re an adult. The kids honestly didn’t seem that impressed. There was much discussion among the adults about the phenomenon of kids being unimpressed by impressive things and we postulated that when you’re little you’re constantly encountering new things so you expect to discover something new. How is a child to know that something 60 million years old is remarkable? 

 We were really trying to get a big reaction out of them and they humored us a little but they were much more interested in running through the river and hunting for sticks to poke each otherFreya was quite a handful. She saw the other kids running around in the water and became unsatisfied with staying in the back pack.  he rocks were so slippery we were having enough trouble keeping Alice upright without having to worry about Freya. So we kept placing her on the rocky bank and letting her run to water at which point we would intercept her and move her back to the far edge of the bank. We did this over and over and over again

I’m so glad we went and I would love to return for another visit if we get the chance. It was wonderful to see the kids enjoying their romp in nature.  I feel so lucky that we were able to find a weekend when the water was low enough to see the tracks but high enough (and warm enough!) for play.

 

 

Norah's Illustration Friday Submission: Star

Arboretum with Grandpa and Grandma

We went to the Arboretum Pumpkin Village with my parents before they went back to Denver on Saturday. Every fall the arboretum blows me away with its beautiful display of pumpkins. 

Everyone was very patient and accommodating with me as I practiced using my camera. 

Alice had to sneak out early to go to a birthday party so Norah got some quality one on one time with Grandma. Together they completed the great pumpkin search and found every variety of pumpkin displayed.

Dallas Skyline Photo Practice

Last week my mom and dad came to visit and help me with the kids while Bryan traveled to Germany for work. Just a day or two after they booked their tickets Bryan’s trip was cancelled but I’m still so glad they came. It was a welcome break for me. My photography teachers arranged for rooftop access for their students and friends to take some pictures of the Dallas skyline. Bryan and I were able to go together on account of the free baby sitters. We  enjoyed a nice dinner in Deep Ellum afterwards.

The light was the prettiest when we first arrived. This is my favorite shot because of the beautiful sun rays but I had used a f/6.3 aperture to get enough light. I think it would have been better if I had used the tripod and used a narrow aperture to get some more detail. There was so much light at this point I think I could have used f/22. It was kind crowded on the roof and I had to choose between a spot where I could use the tripod vs a spot where I could see the whole skyline. I learned how to adjust the highlights and shadows in lightroom last night and it made a huge difference for this picture.

This was a tripod shot much later in the evening. The color from the sunset was mostly gone and it was much darker but I had cranked up my ISO to 800, f/8 aperture and slow shutter speed of 1/20  and it looks like daylight. I feel like I learned so much from practicing adjusting my manual settings over and over again that night. It was incredible to me what a huge range of exposures were possible in such low light.

This shot was taken about the same time as the above one with an ISO of 200, f/8 and shutter speed 1/5