Maple Leaf Festival

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Maple Leaf Festival Baldwin KS

Hi, October is one of my favorite time of the year. The third weekend in October is always marked on my calendar. It’s a tradition of mine to go every year with a family member. Some years it has been all of them and this year my son, son-in-law and grand daughter was with me.

The atmosphere is just awesome; people, crafts, food, the smell, colorful leaves and plain ol’ fun.

maple leaf crowd
Maple Leaf Crowd
maple leaf food
Maple Leaf Food

The best part of the whole day was my souvenir. Yes, each year I like to buy one item to remind me of the day. This year was the best to date.

The Forever Hands booth. Once I spotted the Forever Hands booth I knew I found just the souvenir for this year. This was one of the very first booths we stopped at. Typically we walk throughout all of them and then I go back to the one I liked the best. There was no question or doubt, this was it.

A sculpture of my grand daughter’s hand- to last a lifetime. What a memory! Clickable gallery below.

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The last image in the gallery; I was worried Brie’s plaster hand was going to have a huge thumb! She was wiggling her fingers in the mold. Once the mold was set and Brie’s hand was removed; we were told to come back in a couple of hours while the plaster set. Upon our return; I was quite pleased……

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Forever Hands

This lovely sculpture is at home next to my computer. I look at it often while working and remember our Maple Leaf day together.

Have you ever preserved your children/grand children’s hand-foot print? Please do share!

Best Wishes,
debra

Ellen DeGeneres Visits KU

Hi, October and November are busy months- sorry for the delay in posts! This time of year is family portrait session with the beautiful autumn leaves. I took a much needed break. Did you hear…….

Ellen DeGeneres visits KU

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What an unexpected fun experience! Working most of the weekend on gallery edits- I took a moment to troll my Facebook account. Yes I call it trolling to keep up with family and friends near and far. I stumbled onto the above notice of Ellen coming to KU- Kansas University. That’s only 20 minutes from my house. Ellen is one of my favorites to watch on TV. Off I went!

Many people with lots of energy and excitement. I just added the 200-500mm lens to my camera gear which provided a fun outing to test the lens. The Ellen DeGeneres event took place between the football stadium and the hill in front of the Campanile Memorial. Ellen was not physically at KU. Her camera crew set up the satellite stage for Ellen to video conference with the crowd on the KU campus. She asked that everyone dress up as a Royal Baseball player. Several did and others like me did not. I had fun people watching! The gallery is featured below.

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This segment was taped live to be aired today- the first day of the World Series. Be sure to watch Ellen. I’m wearing a pink sweatshirt in the distant crowd to the right. I was told the camera could pano the whole audience.

Go Royals!

Best Wishes,
debra

Lunar Eclipse

lunar eclipse

Hi, did you see the Lunar Eclipse last evening? I grabbed my grandma camera, tripod, a chair and made myself comfortable in the backyard. The evening was nice, cool and entertaining.

My husband mentioned the lunar eclipse to me earlier in the evening. I Googled moon camera settings. One website recommended a 500mm lens, which I do not have- using manual mode 1/200 sec, f/10, ISO200 with a tripod. The longest lens I currently have is the 200mm. Below are three images taken with my gmaCamera!

Lunar Eclipse

This image was taken at approx. 9:00 pm Central time.

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Approx. 9:10 pm Central time.

lunar elcipse

Approx. 9:15 pm Central time.

lunar eclipse

At approx 9:20 pm the moon was totally in shadow. My image was black. Nothing to show. What a fun evening I shared with family afar on Facebook. Three of my sister-in-law’s were sitting in their yards looking at the same moon as me from different parts of the country. It’s amazing how we can be so far apart, yet share a moment like this via the world wide web!

Who did you share the lunar eclipse with? Please do tell- I enjoy reading the comments!

During my time in the yard, gazing up at the moon- I thought of the movie, Ladyhawke. I’m going to have to see if it’s playing on Netflix. Good movie!

Best Wishes,
debra

Meet Up Monday Link Party 38
Meet Up Monday Link Party 38