Cultural Weekend

I got a frantic call from my neighbor saying to get outside and look at the sunset. We were all a bit surprised on just how vibrant and red the sky was. This was Thursday evening. Glad I went and grabbed my camera. It is my skywatch entry for this week!

This weekend packed full of cultural outings. My mom and I took my girls to see "Annie" on Friday night at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. It was a fabulous play. I didn't really want to go, (Figuring seen one Annie, seen them all) but I have got to tell you, this was so entertaining and each actor had an incredible voice. I highly recommend that you go see it!

Saturday we went to the Getty Museum. Always enjoyable. And lastly, today was a Mother/Daughter tea for our organization, National Charity League.This was the view from the Getty.

It is Century City/Los Angeles from a "Distance."

My entry for Photo Friday! I loved the colors in this water fountain. Also at the Getty.

Visit more photos at:

http://skyley.blogspot.com/

http://www.photofriday.com/

Art Creations Friday: "Bowling For Dollars"

OK, so I goofed on my posting for yesterday. I realized that was for the previous Friday. So--I get to play again! I LOVE this site! Really fun and challenging. This next picture of the woman is what we are supposed to use and turn into something. I don't know why, but I thought she looked like a bowling pin.

Here is my entry for this weeks Art Creations Friday.Be sure to check out all the other creative entries at:

http://artcreationsfriday.blogspot.com/

Art Creations Friday

Art Creations Friday has a weekly challenge. My sister introduced me to this site this morning and oh, yeah, I like a challenge! The challenge is to take this picture and the next posted background and make something out of it. I would like to show you my final end result.

I titled it; "Leg Up". I hope you enjoy it!

Be sure to check this site out. It is REALLY fascinating!

http://artcreationsfriday.blogspot.com/

"Messy"

This theme for Thursday's Challenge is "Messy". I think this photo says it all.For more messiness: http://www.spunwithtears.com/thursday.html

A Drop Will Do It

Watery Wednesday's post led my husband to ask if I had gone crazy. "How" you ask? It had just begun to rain late afternoon and I thought I'd give it a whirl to capture some of the rain drops. It wasn't raining hard, but nonetheless, the gutters were beginning to fill. I was taking a shot across our street in a large puddle next to a trash can when my hub drove up. OK, so seeing me take pictures of basically nothing does make me look a bit on the crazy end. But to me, this looked like a face. These are rain drops only.

This next shot was taken as I held the camera with the macro lens, almost down into the gutter with water flowing by. I liked the black and white, but as I played with the original color pic, I had fun with adding color, changing the exposure, and adding more color. OK-yes, I concede, I'm crazy. One drop will do that.

Visit: http://waterywednesday.blogspot.com/ for more watery photos of the week.

Quote for the Day

"My husband said he needed space. So I locked him outside".

I Heart Faces: "Texture"

This morning I saw that the I Heart Faces theme for this week was "texture". Being that I don't have photoshop, I am handicapped in my way of adding texture. I'm forced to pull it in the old fashion way... by taking a photo with some texture in it. So, here is my entry.There are many fabulous photos every week posted on I Heart Faces.

Check it out! http://www.iheartfaces.blogspot.com/

Macro Flowers

I went walking around the neighborhood with my macro lens on today. Found some very pretty flowers that didn't die in the storms. Loved that the sun was out. These are my top picks. And straight out of the camera!

I was hoping that a bee would land just where I wanted it for the shot, but no, one just landed in my hair. Thought is was something from a tree until I pulled it out and it started buzzing. Visit: http://www.murrieta365.com/search/label/SOOC%20Sunday

for more straight out of the camera Sunday shots.

Visit: http://lisaschaos.com/?s=macro+monday&x=0&y=0

for more macro shots.

Duck, Duck, GOOSE!

Here is my Camera Critters entry for this week.

I took these when I was in Detroit. We don't have the luxury of these wonderful geese in So. Cal. I sure enjoyed watching them. They look so strong.

Thanks to Camera Critters for having this great location to view all sorts of critters! Visit it at: http://camera-critters.blogspot.com/

I'm Done with the Storm!

Psychologically Damaged ~

The theme for Photo Friday is "Damaged". Well, I would say that the guy in this port-a-potty has been psychologically damaged! Could you imagine? Whooa! The wind was blowing so hard I had a difficult time standing. I was shocked to see this bicycle rider. What a workout he had. It was the only break from rain so the die-hards got out there to exercise. A break in the clouds.
The birds had no other choice than to fly in the wind.

PCH north of the Seapoint Cliffs.

Be sure to visit these great links for more photos!
http://www.photofriday.com/

http://skyley.blogspot.com/

Surf City, USA.

Here's a postcard that I made with the last photo

that I took of yesterday's weather. Let me know what you think~ And if you'd like to come for a visit!

CRAZY Day on the HB Pier!

Hub and I decided to put on our rain gear, snow boots and take a walk on the pier. It was about 3:30 pm. I brought my camera and a plastic bag to keep it in. By the time we got to the pier (and we live less than a mile from it) it was pouring really hard. We decided to just walk out there. Thinking that it was too gloomy to even get any good photos, we left the camera in the car. As we were walking along the pier we passed a police car. We kept going, however a message from the car made us stop and wonder what they said. I signaled as if I didn't hear it and to repeat it and the police stated that there was a funnel spout coming and we should probably come back. Well, we did just that. AND we did just that so I could grab my camera! I raced back to the car, grabbed my camera with the plastic bag, I clomped my way through the puddles back to the pier. The policeman looked at me as if I was crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah...

This is how the wind was pushing the sand along the beach. And notice: NO ONE on the beach!

This guy was trying to walk along the pier with his umbrella. What a funny moment we had watching him trying to keep the umbrella open.

The next photo is one of the first ones that I took where I thought my camera was fogged up. I kept trying to clean it thinking something was blocking the focus. Unbeknown'st to me, when I came home and played with the exposure, it occurred to me that this was the funnel spout that the police were talking about.

Here is a photo of the same photo exposed to show what didn't show in the rain.

This is one of the next few picks that I took. Ironically the funnel spout jumped the pier. Or it went through without pushing me up to the railing!

Pretty crazy weather. Very fun! I laughed so hard. We got pelted with hail, totally drenched and sat at Ruby's on the Pier which was still OPEN for heaven's sake, and laughed while the dock rocked with every huge wave that hit. What a day!

For more water/winter photos visit: http://www.spunwithtears.com/thursday.html and http://waterywednesday.blogspot.com/

Huntington Beach Pier

Just another rainy day in Sunny California! Here is the pier getting pounded. Notice the police car on the pier. I'm sure they're checking safety issues. Yesterday someone was in the right spot at the right time and while I was in my car getting pulverized, they got the photo of the tornado just to the right of this pier. Storm chasing is on my bucket list! Tornado Alley here I come!Check out more Watery Wednesday photos:

http://waterywednesday.blogspot.com/

Nick's Puppies!

This is Phoebe, Nick's pure bred German Shepard. She is in the midst of delivering her puppies. At this point she had delivered four puppies - all male.Aren't they just as sweet as can be? Minutes old... Little noise makers.

She ended up delivering 5 live births. One still born.

They will be available in a few months. Let me know if you're interested!

Packin' the Camera - Storm Watch 2010

Today was an interesting weather day. I (AGAIN) didn't have my camera with me when I was picking up my kids from school. Around 1:00 pm, as we were driving home we got dumped on by a huge storm; lightning & thunder, cats & dogs rain, extreme wind and pelting hail. It took extra time to get home as I couldn't see out my windshield and all the streets were flooded. No less than 10 minutes after we arrived home, my mom called to let me know of a tornado warning in our area. I laughed and said, yeah, we were already in it. Only one tree went down in our area.I did grab my camera, but by then the storm had passed.

The pier was covered in low fog/rain and the waves were crashing at the end of it.I turned around - I saw this. It was amazing.
Only lasted a few minutes and I'm glad I captured it.

This is the High School - photo taken from my car.

I loved the huge clouds in the background.

My son wanted to see if a kite in this strong wind could pull him on his skateboard. It worked!My mother-in-law will be happy. She gave us two of these crazy kites!

Looking forward to Thursday's storm! (Camera is PACKED in the car already)

Apples

This is a self portrait of my oldest daughter. She's seventeen and is all that! Well, at least she is to me. We had quite the laugh during dinner last night. She tried to say a profound statement but mixed it up. It was during a serious conversation.

(Oh, I hope she doesn't see this blog!)
This was what she said:

"Don't let the fear of playing the game keep you from striking out". We all laughed so hard. I have to admit the apple doesn't fall far from the tree here!

Storm Clouds at Sunset

"Clouds come floating into my life,

no longer to carry rain or usher storm,

but to add color to my sunset sky."

- Rabindranath Tagore

(Who? You ask? Indian poet- Won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.)
View more photos at http://skyley.blogspot.com/