Fun, fun day at the Lake...

So Nat, Jason and Kate you have made it to the big time....yep your names are in bright lights - you are on the yellow brick road to somewhere......you, my friends, are now celebrities:-)


Joking aside, we had a great day at the lake - the weather wasn't too amazing (something to do with Hurricane Fay) but it held out enough for us to have a LOT of fun (and here are some pictures to prove it).....

Abbie really wanted to go slower....


And so did I...but I wasn't getting away with a thumbs down.....


You know you take too many photos of your kids when they can pose like this!!

But some cuteness is simply natural...

And a word of caution - you are probably not taking enough pictures of your husband when you end up with more photos of a "cow killer" than him:-(


What can I say - cute boy:-)


Kate and Daniel flipping over (Jordan had already been flung off!) Yes they do actually enjoy this and ask to get on time and time again....(don't ask?!)


YEAH!! Amazing feat of the day - Natalie after two tries (EVER) got up on the wakeboard...this is no easy task and I know after gulping down half the lake trying (and NOT succeeding) last summer. You rock Natalie!



Kate managed some magic of her own...


And, well all mom's love their kids - but pretty cool:-)


This perfectly sums how we all felt by then end of the day....though I am not sure I could find a picture that would accurately portray the aches and pains felt by the more 'mature' people in our midst the following day:-)

Great day - thanks to Nat, Jason & Kate for coming!!

House not in the rain

Oh yeah and here is a better picture of the house (no rain!)

Camera

After spending the summer with Aidan and Laura and coming home with AMAZING photos (our photos looked rubbish in comparison), we decided to do what every younger brother is born to do - imitate his older brother.....


Yep, we bought the same camera as Aidan - a Canon EOS 40D and yes, it's amazing....


We are hoping that we will get some AMAZING photos of our own - it is a steep learning curve and funnily enough it turns out that a huge part of getting great photos is actually down to the person taking them (who'd have thought?!) but still, definitely helps to have a great camera...


Anyway, have been having lots of fun experimenting with the different settings, lighting etc etc and somewhere along the way trying to figure out all the lingo - Aperture, White balance, ISO, etc etc and what the heck they all have to do with taking a photo....the kids have been enjoying posing (well for the first five minutes anyway)


Within hours of getting the camera I was asked to take the photos for a cheerleading team - I must exude great confidence and capability or something (actually I had only just figured out how to turn it on!) Anyway, these are a few of the photos that turned out OK (note that I had to move to inanimate objects as the kids got bored....)

House

We painted our house this week - it just got finished and is raining
in this photo, but still looks lovely:-)

Can you hear this??

US scientists have discovered people who can "hear" what they see.

The rare form of synaesthesia - a condition where senses intermingle - came to light after a student reported "hearing sounds" from a screensaver.

A more common form of the condition is being able to perceive numbers or letters as colours.

Several artists have been linked with the condition, including David Hockney who is able to see colour when listening to music.

Dr Melissa Saenz discovered the phenomenon when a group of students were being shown around her lab and one asked if anyone else could hear a pattern of moving dots on a computer screen.

Click on the link and see if you can 'hear' anything.....I was surprised to realize that I can hear something though I never ever thought about it before. It's not really loud - more of a background noise.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7546875.stm

6 Degrees...pretty cool stuff

A US study of instant messaging suggests the theory that it takes only six steps to link everyone may be right - though seven seems more accurate.

Microsoft researchers studied the addresses of 30bn instant messages sent during a single month in 2006.
Any two people on average are linked by seven or fewer acquaintances, they say.
The theory of six degrees of separation has long captured people's imagination - notably inspiring a popular 1993 film - but had recently seemed discredited.
One of the researchers on the Microsoft Messenger project, Eric Horvitz, said he had been shocked by the results.
"What we're seeing suggests there may be a social connectivity constant for humanity," he was quoted as saying by the Washington Post newspaper.
"People have had this suspicion that we are really close. But we are showing on a very large scale that this idea goes beyond folklore."
The database used by Mr Horvitz and his colleague Jure Leskovec covered all of the Microsoft Messenger instant-messaging network, or roughly half of the world's instant-messaging traffic, in June 2006.
For the purposes of the study, two people were considered to be acquaintances if they had sent one another an instant message.
Examining the minimum chain lengths it would take to connect all the users in the database, they found the average length was 6.6 steps and that 78% of the pairs could be connected in seven links or fewer.

Just for Laura....

Because I care - that you care - that I haven't written on my blog for
the last couple of weeks.....