Photos: Wild Outdoors of Wisconsin

Thought I'd make a post just of some of the great pictures I caught during the trip. I'm really in love with a few of them.

 

We went out to a natural spring near their cabin. There were all kinds of berries near the water.  These are poisonous.....but beautiful.

Blackberries

So peaceful

There was a horrible storm that came in one night.  This was off the back porch of the cabin.  I took 5 of 6 other shots of the lightning, but the whole shot was just bright white, it looked like daytime it lit up so much.

View from a lookout in Iowa looking at the Mississippi River and Wisconsin

Tried looking this guy up online, but can't find it.  Prize to the first person who finds it.

These are my 2 favorite shots.  That ladybug was zooming all over that plant, but I caught some really good ones of it. 

Crossing Wisconsin off my Bucket List

After work today, I am taking off for a state to cross off my bucket list: Wisconsin (if you couldn't guess from the post title).  The Finleys (30 second background: Tim was my 7th and 8th grade math league teacher...yes I know, nerd alert, I own my nerdiness...., I started babysitting his daughter, Kristen, shortly after I started in the league.  Fast forward 13 years and now Kristen is essentially my little sister, Tim and Amy are like my own family) have a cabin in Wisconsin, and are going to be up there for a few weeks.  I am going to go up for a long weekend to go to a country music festival with them, the Star Spangler Celebration.

From the map above, their house is south of La Crosse and north of Prairie Du Chien near the Iowa Border.  I'm really looking forward to the trip.  Going to get a little fishing in, a little World Cup Soccer action in with true soccer players/fans, and a whole lot of country music.  I'll be up there through Sunday mid-afternoon before I have to make the long 7-hour haul back home. 

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

myly

My Brother, the Photographer

Jeff just recently got into photography and his work is simply amazing.  I thought I'd share, seeing as it's a really small group of friends and family that even know about my blog.  I'm really proud of him and can't wait to see what he captures next. 

He entered both of these photos below in a photo contest at the Lewes, Delaware Public Library.  This was his first time entering any of his work in a contest, and he ended up taking 3rd place for the picture below of the pier.  Terry and I are planning to frame this and put it up in our newly finished guest bathroom.  We're going to have to lighten it up just a little bit, but we think it will fit the space beautifully.

 

Believe it or not, he really did capture this photo below with the butterfly in the waves.  In the contest, Jeff got robbed (for real, but long story) with this photo because the judges thought that the butterfly was photoshopped.  Jeff did enhance the blue of the water, but you can see from the original photo to the color-enhanced, that the butterfly was really there. 

I hope that you guys enjoy and any positive reinforcement you feel like leaving in the comments will certainly get passed on to him.  :-) 

Using one word....

USING ONLY ONE WORD
Not as easy as you might think! It's really hard to only use one word answers.

Significant other?  adore

Your hair?     long

Your mother?   independent

Your father?     insignificant

Your favorite thing?  photographs

Your dream last night?   friends

Your favorite drink?    coffee

What room are you in? Computer

 Where is your cell phone?  purse

Your hobby?  reading

Your fear?   instability

Where do you want to be in 6 years?  happy

Where were you last night? home

Something that you aren't?  liar

Muffins? chocolate

Wish list item?  vacations

Last thing you did?  Read

What are you wearing?  summery

TV?    Bravo!!!

Your pet(s)?  Terry?

Friends?  priceless

Your life?  adventurous

Your mood?  content

Missing someone? always

Drinking? water

Your car? happy

Something you're not wearing?  sweater

Your favorite store?  Lowe's

Your favorite color?  Green

When is the last time you cried?  Saturday

Where do you go to over and over? Home

Happy Summer Solstice

It's the longest day of daylight in the year today for the northern hemisphere, woohoo! 
Of course, me being a little science nerd that I am, I looked up some things about the Summer Solstice and thought that I'd share. 

Sol + stice derives from a combination of Latin words meaning "sun" + "to stand still." As the days lengthen, the sun rises higher and higher until it seems to stand still in the sky.

I found this interesting.  Earth is actually farther away from the sun during the summer than it is during the winter months, because our planet's orbit is elliptical, a squished circle of sorts.  Earth is tilted on its axis 23.5 degrees, so it leans one way as it spins around its axis while orbiting the sun. On June 21 this year, the North Pole is pointing toward the sun as much as is possible.

The sun will be as high in the sky as it can go at 7:28 a.m. EDT and will stay in the sky for a fraction of a second longer than the day prior or the day after.

Even though today the Sun is at it's peak, this doesn't mark summer's peak heat (although I wish because it is a scorcher outside today). The reason it's not the hottest today has to do with the slow pace of the oceans heating up and cooling down. By mid-June the oceans in the Northern Hemisphere are still cool from winter's chill, delaying the peak air temperatures by a month and a half, according to NASA.

I hope you all get to enjoy your sunlight today!!  Hopefully by 7 tonight it will cool off enough here to bear being out in the heat. 

myly

Holy Jalepenos!!!!!!

Just a little over a month ago, I showed you our herb and pepper garden. Well, the peppers are making me proud!!! Already I keep asking Terry if "today is the day" when we can pick our first jalepeno.  To my dismay, he is still carting home produce bags of store-bought jalepenos and I can't help but hold contempt for them. 

I really like this picture for some reason.  It's just really pretty and simple. 

Ahhhhh, get in my belly!!!!!

Here's our red bell pepper.  Yes, I know that it is green, for all of my sarcastic friends out there, but it's still growing.  It's still gotta go through puberty and change it's color.  I wish we had as many of these growing as there are the Jalepenos.  I counted this morning and we have 17 growing and 5 flowers on their way.  So happy!

I'll let you know when we pick our first batch and how wonderful they were!

All the pretty flowers

I have a current love.....it's my tree in the front yard.  Originally I was worried about it because it looked well beyond dead while all the other trees on the street were bright green and vibrant white and beautifully fluorescent purple.  It must be my ugly duckling tree though because it is in full bloom now and I could take pictures all day of it, but my camera just doesn't seem to capture how amazing it is. 

This purple flower is currently growing under our mailbox.  Neither of us know if it's a weed or not, but it's just too pretty to cut.  So if you know that it is a weed, please let me know.  I probably still wont pull it, but at least we'll know more about our lone mailbox flower.

We bought this rose bush at Home Depot two weekends ago and it was yellow and peach.  It has started morphing colors and it's looking more and more pink now (to my disappointment), but it's still beautiful. 

These are leftovers from the previous owners.  I love them. 

Again, leftovers, but the orange ones (in the picture it looks almost red, but they are bright Texas Longhorn orange) are surrounding almost the entire perimeter of our house.  The yellows are starting to pop out now, so the fun doesn't seem to be stopping! 

I'll keep you updated if any more fun flowers pop up or we buy anything else during our trips to Lowes/HD. 

Myly

Dancing in the Rain

I really love my life sometimes

England-1 : USA-shoulda been 0

Saturday we had a few friends over to the house to watch the World Cup Matchup between USA and England.  Terry's boss is from London, so she was over as well watching, which made the game all that more enjoyable.  Our only goal that we made though was pretty pathetic.  I mean, yes, a goal is a goal, but that was a walk in the park on any other day and was clearly just a fluke that it got out of his hands, and still decided to travel backwards into the net.  Go USA! ha  Above is my culinary addition to the game (mini-cheesecakes....mmmmm.

Here was the menu of the day:

3 varieties of mini-sliders; Beef sliders with green onion and gorgonzola on pretzel rolls, salmon slider with chive and feta on ciabatta, and turkey sliders with all-spice and provolone on top on french bread.  spicy cream cheese and shrimp filled jalepenos wrapped in bacon, fruit salads, veggie tray, salami rolls, chips and homemade salsa, tri-tip later in the evening.  This is why I'm skinny.  ......right.

Sarah (from London), me and Catherine for the feasting. 

Little pong action

Bermuda

Not a long post, this one is mainly just for the pictures.  We had a short but lovely stay at Bermuda during the cruise.  We docked at the Royal Navy Dockyard, which if you are looking at the above picture as a "J", is the furthest point on the hook part of the J.  We took a ferry over to Hamilton first off, to see the Capital.

(This was not our ferry, just a beautiful shot of the crystal blue waters.  Also, I just loved that the tugboat that helped us into dock was called Faithful)

This was a beautiful Church in Hamilton, called the Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity. 

Had to capture the driving on the opposite side of the road, since I've only seen that in person one other time in my life. 

After Hamilton, we were brave and hopped on the local bus system and started heading back towards the Cruise ship but on land.  Our first stop was at Gibb's Lighthouse.  We hiked all the way to the top and it was gorgeous!

Next, we back-tracked for a 30-minute walk to Horsheshoe Bay, where there are the pink sand beaches.  As you can see.....not that pink unfortunately.  It was still gorgeous, just the lack of pink when it was all we had been hearing about was a little disappointing. 

We hopped on the public bus system again and saw a lot of interesting sites.  We drove by where the PGA Grand Slam takes place.  We drove over the word's smallest drawbridge, Somerset Bridge (shown below from the bus window). Lots of churches, and it was interesting to see how the natives live once you are outside of the tourist areas of the island.  Very simplistic, very layed back.

We finally made it back to the Royal Navy Dockyard, which was very touristy, filled with overpriced shops and stores.  There were a few historical homes on the point as well as a fortress, but we didn't have enough time.  Mom wants to go back again, and I told her I'm all game.   :-)

Bahhhh-ston Massachusetts

Back to ports of the cruise (how has it already been 2 weeks ago already?!) 

Boston was such an incredible city.  I've driven through before, but never got to experience it.  We spent almost the entire day on stops on the Freedom Trail, and it was incredible!  First stop though was the original Cheers on Boston Common.  Clam Chowder in a bread bowl......Yummy!!!

One of the first places on the trail was the burial ground where Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, Ben Franklins Parents, and those who died in the Boston Massacre are buried.  It was swarmed with people. 

We saw Paul Revere's Home as well as his statue, with the King's Church in the background.

The beautiful bridge leading over to the USS Constitution and Harvard

The weather cooperated perfectly for us.  It was shady and breezy and overcast the entire day, and as we were getting back to the ship, it started to rain.  Perfect timing to our fun day.  This last picture is one of my favorites from the trip.  It was as we were pulling out from Boston.  It was through our porthole in the room too, so I'm so happy that it turned out as good as it did.

I think that Boston was my favorite port of the trip.  We just had a great day and got to see so much history of our country.  I would highly recommend visiting if you haven't been before!!