Stuff on the drive

Today I woke up to a beautiful Wisconsin fall morning.  

The sun was shining and it was nice and cool outside.

One of the things Mom and I had planned during her visit was a 

tour of the barn quilts in Lafayette county in the most southern part of the state.  

Apparently they are a big deal around here.  There is even a website for them.

But we saw so many other random things that I took pictures of that the

 barn quilts got put on the back burner for another blog, another day.

So here are a few of the things that caught my eye today.

I love this faded barn.  

Here is mom admiring the Wisconsin river.

And here is a photo of the hills in Governor Dodge State Park.

Definite camping potential.

We saw some hanging tobacco and Mom thought I should take a shot of it.

Then we pulled into the small town of Shullsburg.

 It was a very cute  town that had lots of little shops along the skinny main street.

 Someone likes hopscotch because we found this court on the sidewalk.

And it went the entire length of the block.

 

Shullsburg has a population of barely over 1000

but they are important enough to have an Opera House.

The cows in Wisconsin are a little on the wild side I guess.

And this was the last shot of the day.

Also, my favorite.

Hints

Last week I saw the hints.  Hints of fall all around.

Don't get me wrong.  It still looks mostly all green and bright like this.

But when I looked closely I could see the hints of fall coming.

Hints like my bright orange Coneflowers starting to fade.

My Mums had buds almost ready to burst open.

 Fields full of the late summer bloomer, Goldenrod.

 

And the Blackeyed Susan blooming around the Post Office

The slightest hint of leaves changing along with the posted reminder of 

no hunting on private land remind me my favorite season is almost here.

Not far down the road, the green house is full of Mums and Aster's ready to 

make someones home beautiful.

I saw my first batch of pumpkins of the season.

My Apples are just starting to turn red.

And Spanky has been napping on the porch swing.

(That is really not related to fall because he does it most of the year)

But yes, I have seen the hints.

How to Photograph Fish

Yesterday Superman and I went fishing.  That usually consists of him fishing and me reading

 but I thought I would throw a line in and see how it went.

It went great!  I out fished him 3 to 1 so of course I had to brag  blog about it.  

With all of my playing around with photography

 I am often researching the best ways to take photos of certain things or people.

I remembered seeing this picture on "How to photograph your fish"

You obviously hold it at a full arms length away from you.

Simple enough.

 So I insisted that Superman take a picture of my whopper of a fish.

Check this baby out!!

So look out Chris Collins and all those other crazy fisherman!  

You might have some serious competition now.

Family

If you have noticed, I didnt have a lot of posts this summer.  None actually until just the other day.

Not that I havent done fun stuff this year.  Its more that I took pictures of fun things but just couldnt 

come up with clever, witty ways to post them on a blog so I just took the easy way out

and posted them in a photo album on facebook.

Pretty lame, I know.

When I was going through this group of photos that got taken at my brother, Chris's house

I was thinking about doing the same thing but decided against it.

I still didnt come up with funny things to say so I am just going to post them randomly.

Starting with this one where the niece and nephew took Uncle Steven hostage.

Here is my little brother and sister just standing around

Kylie visting with Uncle Steven in the safety of Mamas lap

"Take a picture of my bubble" 

Oops too late

Pretty Mary

Chase with Uncle Steven

Oh and I tried to get a picture of the cousins.

A lot of them actually.

 True kids 

And of course we had to have a photo bomb picture

This one turned out great if you ask me.

Kansas was HOT!

Need a little brain freeze?

The Petty's manning the grill.

And man do they know how to cook!!

My Petty boy.

I make good looking kids.

We had a little law enforcement visit.

Very little.

And when we made it back home 

we were tired.

VERY TIRED

Football, 7 and a Little Shower

So Thursday evening I made it to Missouri just in time to watch Grandson Masons football practice.

First I saw Levi.  How can you not be excited about seeing that face!

Little bit later, Mason and his buddy Cody came over for a drink break.

 And they needed it!  Look at that sweaty face.

Back at the house I spotted this little labor of love that 

Marcus made for Kate.  

Adorable!!

Friday night we celebrated Masons 7th Birthday.

I know,  it doesnt seem possible.

First  were the presents.

Then we all sat in line and waited.

Waited to get some of this Army cake.

 This soon to be  A Mama Again wasnt feeling great but 

brought Miss Priss (a.k.a Harper) to the party.

So she could have cake with us

 And get some hugs

Saturday morning it was shower time.  

Baby shower that is.

Harper was practicing her big sistering by

helping Kennedy with her binky.

Miss Kennedy was dressed for the party!

Just check out this spread.  Yummy!

Here is the first of many gifts.

What a cute diaper cake.

We had new guests.

 Lots of them

There were cute painted toes

That belonged to her

And adorable tennis shoes

That were hers

And yes we even had little boy feet

That belonged to this handsome little man