Gold

When taking pictures of our favorite subjects, there are exceptional shots we always hope to achieve. The Shot. The one you immediately want to print and hang on your wall. The really tough to get shots (well, for me--many of you bloggers are amazing photographers; I don't know how you choose which of your many amazing photos to display).

I got The Shot of Nadine last week while we were in Richmond. As soon as I took it, I got ridiculously excited and couldn't wait to get home to see it on the computer and edit it and send it to be printed. It's that good. Wanna see it? (Yes, this is purely a brag post.)

Practically perfect in every way

I posted a video on the Nani blog. Nadine is singing the "Months of the Year" song that I learned . . . in elementary school? (Probably right after we learned "Home Means Nevada.") Do you other BC people remember learning the "Months of the Year" song, or am I totally mis-remembering where I learned it? Maybe it was in church . . ..

(Random church insert: We sang a song about the primary colors [which are one, two, three--red, yellow, and blue] and, because the part of church devoted to children is called Primary, I thought those were the colors of Primary. Kinda like school colors. I was embarrassingly old, probably nearly high school [or even in high school!] when I put together that the church's Primary doesn't have official colors, but that we were actually singing about those primary colors that form the foundation of all other colors. Heh.)

Regardless, I taught it (the months song) to Nadine, who learned the words in a ridiculously short amount of time. And I had to get it on video, because it's so cute.

It seems like a rather blustery day

Last Friday night, we were chatting with the newly-arrived Whitney, when suddenly the Creepy Wind started up. The kind that whips around the house (which is impressive to do in a townhouse) in ghostly noises, and shakes the trees from side to side. Then the lights started to flicker. Then the lights went out. For 27 hours. I am very grateful we got our power back as quickly as we did, and that it was a limited outage, which meant many restaurants 15 minutes away were open.

The storm was incredible to watch. Not only did we have winds of more than 60 mph and pelting rain, but we had near-constant lightning for at least 40 minutes.

The next day, we found this as we drove down one of the back roads.

It's a tree branch. Lying on the power lines. Suspended above a road. So cool!
(The desert rat in me is still amazed the east coast tree branches are as big as southern Nevada's trees.)

We slept in the basement the second night. The temperatures were up to a muggy 100 degrees, which made for very hot nights. Nadine enjoyed wearing my headlamp, so of course I got pictures, which are on the Nani blog. Nadine was a very good trouper through the entire outage, even though she didn't want to sleep in the basement (mmmm, I'm grateful for basements).

Freeeeeeedommmmmmmm!

Todd and I just spent two wonderful, fun-filled weeks away from Nadine. His parents are fantastic and they flew out to watch Nadine for us. It was really great to be a couple again and, at least for me, to selfishly enjoy a vacation (seriously, when we got to the airport I wanted to cry out, a la William Wallace, but without the torture).

We joined my parents and sisters in South America and crossed two things off Todd's bucket list: we visited Machu Picchu and Iguazu Falls. We also got to spend a couple days in Buenos Aires, where Todd served his mission, which was fun too. (We didn't actually see the areas where he served; he said they're far too dangerous. Missionaries are incredible.)

Souvenir shopping in Peru was fun and colorful.

These cute girls posed for a picture . . . then asked us to pay them for it. "Un sol" became our vacation joke.

My sister ordered, and my dad and Todd ate some of, guinea pig ("cuy"). They had it on most menus in Peru. This is the head. See the teeth? And the ears? It nearly goes without saying, but I did not eat the guinea pig. I could barely look at it.

The Incas were incredible at fitting the stones together. The stone behind us is one massive stone. I'm amazed they moved all the stones (this is in Cusco, which was the capitol of South America during the Incan reign).

Machu Picchu!

We hiked to the Inca Gate. It was a bit of a hike, but very fun and had a great view. This is Kelsey, me, my dad, and my mom.

And us again. Todd was nice to make sure I wasn't always behind the camera.

We had just hiked straight up the peaked mountain behind Machu Picchu, Huayna Picchu, which involved lots and lots of stairs for about 45 minutes. It was grueling (especially at 8000 feet), but so worth it. Luckily you can't tell how sweaty we were.

There were several llamas around nearly all the time, but we were rarely close to them. For some random reason I really wanted a picture of a llama.

Say it with me: "Llama face!"

This is the Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires. It's where their president lives. The balcony up top is what the president uses to address the people; Evita famously waved from it.

Iguazu Falls.

The falls were actually dry, but still stunning. And the dryness allowed us to see the plants and rocks around the falls.

We went to the Argentina and Brazil side of the falls. You get completely different views from each. This is the Brazil side.

Argentina side.

And of course we got pictures of bugs. This ant was bigger than a penny.

The Caminito in Buenos Aires. It's basically an area with wonderfully bright colors, tango dancers, shops, and weird statues.

And there you have it, a sampling of the 670 pictures I took during our trip.