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January brought a bundle of true joy into
our lives with the birth of our daughter,
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She's got her own web page (of course!) at
http://natalie.dominafamily.org. |
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A brief distraction from taking pictures only of Natalie, Natalie's cousin (Cheryl's sister's daughter) Maddie had her first birthday this spring, so here are some pictures of that event (some including Natalie, of course). |
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I've been so consumed with taking pictures
of Natalie that I've not taken much else -- in nearly 5 months so far, so
just for something different (and to help us remember what the house /
landscaping looks like each year) here are a couple I snapped one evening
after work.. Okay, so the sun was too bright in spots, and I didn't think to put the trash can away and close the garage door...but hey, it's something other than Natalie. ;-) |
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We took Natalie to the Virginia Highland Summerfest where we met a few friends and saw a couple bands that we saw last year on The Rock Boat. |
Well, I finally got a new camera. It is a Canon SD850 IS. I'm still evaluating it. It's wonderfully small, turns on and is ready to take pictures very quickly, has an amazing close-up capability as well as a decent (4x optical) zoom, has stabilization to allow clearer non-flash and zoomed pictures, takes much better movies than my old one, BUT it allows less manual settings and my first impression overall is that its average full-auto setting still pictures don't seem to have the depth nor fine detail of my much older Canon S45, plus the new one seems to produce more noise in the pictures even with a flash and a low ISO setting. I need to do more comparisons to my older pictures. Unfortunately, with my S45 being broken, I can't take side-by-side comparisons of the exact same composition. I think I was hoping for more for my $400!
Anyhow, here are a few macro-focus close-ups of some tiny flowers along our front walk:
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Mid-June, we had a whole lot of trees removed from our back yard in preparation for expanding the grassy area and some new landscaping. Watching them do it was pretty cool. |
July
Well, it's July, and nothing new has happened to the back yard. It looks like we missed a window of opportunity while deciding between who to do the landscaping work, so now it looks like nothing will be done until October. Oh well. In the mean time...
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Natalie's cousin Ryan had a party for his 4th birthday. |
Also in July...
We decided to control the seepage we sometimes get into our crawlspace after it rains, and eliminate moisture from getting up into the house altogether by getting our crawlspace "encapsulated". Wow what a difference. I still have a small dehumidifier in there (below), but even with it set to a dryer setting, it hardly ever runs now. (No, it wasn't cheap, but I think it's going to make a difference in the rooms above it that will make it worth the cost...I hope) At the very least, we can definitely use that area for storage now! We used AquaGuard of Atlanta for the work.
| Before | After |
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(I didn't get a "before"
picture |
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And a few random pictures...
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| Above:
Me eating "mushy mop" (you have to be from my family to
understand
it) on my birthday. Below: A squirrel perched upon one of the tree stumps created last month. |
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And wrapping up July, our friend Sheila's birthday party. |
Of course, the rest of our time has been spent with Natalie...and adding zillions of pictures to Natalie's web page.
August
August this year has been hot, hot, hot, so far (as of 8/13) -- temperatures between 98 and 103, setting new records for Atlanta.
My nearly a decade old, 1998 Olds Intrigue, which has been an awesome car by the way, decided to object to the heat wave by somehow developing a crack in the radiator that grew over about 1 week's time during the peak of the heat. I was surprised to find out that the radiator tank ends are plastic. I guess they've perfected the bonding of the radiator tubing/fins to the plastic, but then in my case the plastic tank itself cracked from just below the upper-hose outlet, down roughly 6 inches! What lousy timing -- not the weather, but that I'm planning on trading it in this fall when the 2008's come out. Stop-Leak did nothing, and I really didn't want to replace the radiator. My best friend Gary offered up an idea that saved me a bundle: J-B Weld. If you've never heard of it, it is an amazing epoxy that bonds to just about anything and can handle 600 degree temperatures -- it can even be used to mend engine blocks! A nice coating of that over the cracked area and the problem was fixed. No more leak (at least not yet, knock on wood).
 The crack, starting just below the upper-hose outlet. |
 After light sanding and cleaning for bonding, it's even more visible. |
 The J-B Weld after it dried. It coated and sealed very well. |
September
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We finally got our "new" back yard in September. Click to see the pictures of the transformation. (Okay, so this spilled over into the beginning of October, too, but it was mostly done in September.) |
We also went to a birthday party for our
friends Todd & Nancy
October
October was party, party, party...literally. First was a party for our friend Marsha's birthday, then a small one with family for Cheryl's birthday, then we had our annual "July" party, finally, in October of this year after the backyard was complete.
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Our friend Marsha's birthday party |
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Cheryl's birthday dinner with family. |
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Our annual "July" party in October. |
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Natalie's first Halloween Party -- a Halloween party for babies. |
November
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We took a road trip to Chicago for Thanksgiving to spend it with my family this year. |
December
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The Holidays. Christmas Eve dinner was hosted at our house this year and Christmas day we went to Cheryl's sister's. |
