It Really Is A Magical Kingdom!

I love Disney World! LOVE IT! Maybe because I still act like a child and watch cartoons all the time. No matter how old I am now, being a "big" kid at Disney World is still fun! I get to ride all the rides with the kids who's parents don't want to ride. It's changed a bit since I was a kid, but it's just as fun. Rides...good! Cartoon characters...good! Food...expensive, but good! Variety of people...uh...good and bad! Here's a few of my favorite characters and the infamous castle!

(Above) Mickey was getting his "groove" on during the parade! I think he was doing the robot! I pushed and knocked down little kids to get this shot and it was worth it. HA HA...not really.
(Above) Of course it's Minnie!

(Above) Goofy was totally checking out Minnie! Wonder if Mickey knows about this?

(Above) "Toy Story"- Woody and Jesse

(Below) The castle was constantly changing colors. I went "behind the scenes"to get these shots! Behind the scenes is the Employees Only entrances. I guess they assumed I was a character all my own and didn't question my being there!

Bubba

Meet Bubba! He's a Texas Longhorn (not like those pansy Univ. Texas Longhorns-ha, I'm a TTU alum!). Well, Bubba is a big baby. When we got to his field, he and his "entourage" came running up to us so we could pet him....I don't think he knows he's a Texas Longhorn.

He was shy after so many pictures taken of him.

It's A Bird! It's A Plane! It's...oh..it really is a plane!

As a person that works in the agriculture world, I get to participate in some truly awesome opportunities that most people might not ever experience. This one experience was done last year at a crop duster landing field. Several crop planes were testing out their equipment before the season began. The testing was to see the accuracy of the plane to lay down chemical on crop lands. Plane speed, wind speed, and plane height from the crop are all very important factors when applying chemical by plane.

(Below) The pink spray coming out was water and a red dye.
When I was younger, I remember being woken up by crop dusters spraying a field near my house. It was always early, but I loved getting up to watch them swoop down and come back up after spraying. I still get excited when I hear a crop duster to fly by! In fact, my mom laughed at me the other day when I went to their house and heard the plane. I stopped in mid sentence during our conversation to run outside and stare, open-mouthed to watch the crop duster.

J B

My nephew, again! He is such fun to photograph. He has such a quarky personality that shows immediately when he smiles. Beware parents of this little guy when he gets to be dating age...heartbreaker! Now, being the good aunt I am, I show only happy baby pictures of him! Frankly, I don't want to scare off anyone with his non-happy baby pictures. His terrible two's are starting now! I laugh when my brother calls and tells me "little Lucifer" is about to burn the house down with his tantrums. For some reason, my brother doesn't see the humor that I see. JB has such mood swings! He can be running around the couch and laughing and then all of a sudden, he stops in mid run, pouts his lips, and proceeds to thrust his body onto the cold tile and scream like he's being beaten with a wooden board with a nail sticking out. After his scream session, he gets up and continues to laugh and play! Crazy baby, but I love him.

The Nephew - 1yr

In anticipation of the upcoming arrival of my 2nd nephew (due any day now), I'm posting his big brother's 1st birthday pics...only 3 months late! This little guy has a smile that could melt steel. He has a hilarious sense of humor and a laugh that is contagious. As I said previously in a previous blog post of his early baby pictures, he is a huge source of all my photos slowing down my computer. He's my model, my guniea pig of baby photography! I think I'll have baby pictures perfected by the time his little brother his 1!

His 1st taste of cake/sugar. I think he liked it.

Landscapes- Bonito Lake

My passion for photography started when I was 17. I remember random things in my life and the moment I wanted to be a photographer is one of those random memories. My family and I were driving back from a weekend trip in Ruidoso, NM. The trees were changing colors and every time we made a turn in the road, I had my mom pull over so I could take a picture. The changing of the trees in the mountains was my defining moment, my spark, my "aha" moment! Right then I asked my mom for a SLR camera. I had no clue what SLR stood for, but I knew it was a camera professionals used to take great pictures, and I wanted to take great pictures too!

For Christmas that year, I got a Canon Rebel SLR(film camera). I LOVED that camera! I used so much film the first day taking pictures of ducks at a wildlife refuge. They're weren't the "great" pictures I had planned on, but it was still exciting to use such an awesome camera! 1 year later, they created the digital camera-ugh! I hated the idea of a digital camera! They cost over $1000, they took the fun out of developing film, and they were too high tech! I refused to ever buy a digital camera! Well,3 digital SLR cameras, 4 digital cameras, and 10 years later, I think I like digital cameras!

The pictures below are of Bonito Lake outside Ruidoso, NM. I hadn't been up to the lake in years, so I stopped one day while I was working in the area. It was early January and had been a cold winter so far. I was in total shock to see the lake completely frozen. January-2010

While I was working in the Ruidoso area in June, I stopped at Bonito Lake again to see what it looked like without it being frozen. It was gorgeous...again! I loved the colors. It's now one of my favorite places to go and get away for a few hours.

June-2010

BIRDS

This summer I enjoyed a little beach time down in Florida. I was standing near the waters edge when I noticed this bird standing in the water, so I took a picture. Well, apparently it didn't appreciate that, so he decided to fly as close as possible to me, and it scared the crud out of me! Lucky for me, I am a quick draw with the camera, so I snapped his "fly-by" and managed a fairly decent picture!