It has been in the 90′s for a couple weeks now, with high humidity. My daughter has 2 pet tortoises and with warmer weather the tortoises start to move about, moving through the yard, up steps and down steps and just yesterday I found one of the tortoises in the pantry. Our house help was hanging clothes on the line and left the door to the kitchen open, the tortoise decided to come on in. Today he was knocking his shell up against the front door. They really are a lot of fun to watch. So I grabbed my camera to get a photo but he was on the move again and this is what I saw. Poor guy was trying to get up the step.

Notice the hole in his shell? Someone drilled a hole in his shell so that he wouldn’t run away.

We don’t tie him up but I could see how he could get away easily if we didn’t have a gated yard.

Tomorrow starts the beginning of a two week adventure of traveling up to northern Mozambique with my husband. I am a little nervous as the comforts of home will be very far away and this body of mine is a very delicate eco-system. I need my sleep, food(including veggies) and dessert to make for a good day. As you move outside of the city of Maputo you go into the bush where, most people say, “the real Mozambique exists”, where you have to wear skirts, no sleeveless shirts, a lot of times no electricity at nights and where the heat and humidity is way beyond anything most people have ever experienced before.

My posts wont be so frequent in the next two weeks, but I will try to put some photos up of the happenings while traveling through Mozambique.

My niece got married on July 15 and I was fortunate to be able to make the trip back home to see the wedding. I ended up having 15 hours in New York on my way back, which gave me time to take the subway downtown from JFK to see the sites for the day. The outdoor wedding was beautiful, using the barn for their reception and my time at home was a lot of fun, although my immediate family stayed behind in Mozambique and I missed them terribly. I only had a point and shoot for these photos, but I used some fun settings on the camera for different effects.

the view of Manhattan from the subway

the beautiful couple

the cute little red barn

the Willamette river from downtown Portland

We had a nice weekend in Sunriver, Oregon. It did rain the first day and we never did get snow, but the ground was covered in enough snow to make it so beautiful. It was very relaxing. We didn’t do a single thing but eat, hot tub, watch tv and play games, just what the doctor ordered! A long relaxing weekend away! We are so thankful for our wonderful friends who let us use their house.

Yes Christmas has once again passed too quickly! I hope you enjoyed everything that Christmas has brought to you this year!

I was introduced to my camera about three years ago and I never really got to know it. I have spent a lot of the last few days crying (quit literally) over my photos. I have these wonderful cameras, 3 to be exact, and I have no clue how to use them! I want to share with you all the wonderful, beautiful things I see but have yet to make that happen. So the next few days I will be working on getting to know my camera in a more intimate way, so that what I feel and experience can be shared with you all.

Here are some of the shots I took today – still need work but getting better after nearly reading the whole manual. Dang that was tough!

I focused on the mug behind

Now its focused on the Starbucks cup