Night shots

As I mentioned, the other night we went to Waldameer just to take a few pictures. I thought managed to capture some interesting shots.

So many pictures, so little time.

In the past two days I have taken 425 pictures.

I know. It's a sickness.
There are some "Waldameer at Night" pictures...
and some funny pics of Liam and his buddy on the way to the playground. (They decided they had to bring flags and chant loudly and randomly about how much they love America. )

There are some odd playground shots...
and shots of the old dilapidated school where the playground is located.
There are nature shots from a walk at Asbury Woods...
and a bunch of shots of my man. (No, he's not doing anything untoward. He's taking a picture of the way the bench arcs around in the back. Get your mind out of the gutter. Sheesh!)
There are some beach sunset pics too.

What I lack is the time to sit and play with these as much as I'd like; as a matter of fact, all of these shots are SOOC. I haven't even finished the vacation pictures yet, and there are so many more pictures out there just waiting to be taken.

Isn't that a good problem to have?

Animals aren't the only thing in the zoo

One thing I really like about most zoos is the attention to the environment and landscaping. Pittsburgh Zoo had beautiful flowers throughout the grounds. Behold:

Pickin' and Grinnin'

I've mentioned here before that Dan has been a musician for many years. He's been in tons of bands, but that has fallen by the wayside in these past few years.

This past Saturday we were invited to a party at the home of one of Dan's old musician friends, and of course that was as good excuse as any for them to play together.

It was really nice to see Dan and his old pals having so much fun together.

I swear, Don is having fun, contrary to what his expression looks like here!

And I never saw this coming.

See, two weeks ago things hit rock bottom with Dan and I. They've been bad off and on for the past few years but this was a knock-down-drag-out fight to end all fights, and we both talked seriously about divorce.

And I don't really understand what exactly happened, but it's like a switch went off. We've fought and reconciled before, but not like this. Somehow, we've both realized how hateful we've been to each other and we've had some really deep talks. It's like we're two different people. We're working on things and I think we both feel a sense of real hope and trust in each other for the first time in a long time.

It's about time.

The Carousel

On our Pittsburgh trip we also visited Kennywood Amusement Park. I'll have tons more pics to share later but today I wanted to post these carousel pics. Definitely the coolest carousel I've been on in a long time.

The whole family got in on the action....that's Dan and Emily up there.

Liam was going to ride this scary tiger, but you can see from the expression on his face that he thought twice about it....

and he ended up on a nice safe bench. You can see him back behind Em here.

The carousel was gorgeous. It had a vintage Wurlitzer...

and fantastic carvings.

During the ride, which was at a really fast speed, I attempted a couple of motion shots.
I have to admit that some of the horses were downright creepy.
And I thought the carousel was even more beautiful at night.