That *Is* The Moon

I’ve been reading up on moon photography since we have so many long nights coming up this winter. I thought it might be fun to try and get some moon and star photos. I haven’t gotten to practice any of the tips yet since it’s been summer, but it’s finally starting to get really dark at night.

Especially if your youngest wakes you up at 3 in the morning! I just happened to go downstairs after getting him back to sleep and saw this awesomely big and bright moon! I couldn’t remember most of the photo tips, but I did remember I needed my tripod.  

I gave it the old college try, but it didn’t turn out quite as nice as I had hoped. It’s just a tad out of focus, which I am blaming on the fact I was half asleep at 3 am. But you can see the craters and shadows on the moon surface, so I think with a little practice I can do better than this. Stay tuned!

Left Behind...

The downside with “watching” a well is that it is very similar to babysitting. At some points in the drilling, you have to be “on-call” to decided when the well should stop drilling for a casing point. Unfortunately the joke amongst geologists that casing point always needs to be called in the middle of the night, weekends and holidays is not an exaggeration. 

The first one probably didn’t need as close of an eye as I put on it, but since it was my first well, I didn’t want to mess it up. So our weekend plans turned into Matt and his parents being on their own without their fabulous tour guide - ha!

Matt decided to take them North to Talkeetna via Hatcher Pass. We sent them to Denali earlier in the week on the train and they had a quick stop in Talkeetna. It wasn’t a long enough stop to get off the train, but they both thought the town looked cute. So back north it was!

The weekend was a bit overcast, but a little blue sky managed to peek through the clouds. You can see that fall is in full swing up here, the leaves have gone yellow on most of the trees. One good windstorm and most of these leaves will be gone - boo!

The obligatory Talkeetna sign photo! It’s so hard to get photos of my mother-in-law because she always hides behind her cute grandkids. But I had a specific request to get a photo of the parents from Matt’s sister, so he managed to convince them to both pose. Of course, a grandkid still ended up in a few of the photos… :)

Thomas also wanted to pose with his own sign. Unfortunately for him, he’s still a little small for the particular one he chose!

He did manage to find this old snowmobile though! Like I said - this boy loves machinery! Matt actually sent me a photo while they were there and I couldn’t figure out what it was… 

Matt is going to have to be in charge of machinery names. I’m trying to learn all the construction ones so I can point them out while driving, but I only really know dump truck, front end loader and bulldozers. I obviously need to study more!

And of course, my two boys were distracted by the float plane on the way out of town. Most of the flight seeing tours of Denali take off from Talkeetna, so there are a ton of planes. But this bright red one sitting on the lake obviously caught their eye. I have to say, the hubby is becoming quite the photographer! :)

Spud Party

I’ve been a geologist for about 10 years now and I’ve never been the person in charge of watching a well. I’ve planned wells and worked fields where wells are being drilled, but never been in charge of saying “stop here and run casing!”. Luckily, my boss is all about expanding his employee’s skills sets, so he asked me to watch the next well in our field. I happily accepted with the understanding that I was scheduled for training in Houston at the end of the month and didn’t really want to miss it. No big deal and suddenly I was the geologist on the well. Woo!

Back when I worked production, the old guys had a tradition when they had a well about to start. Starting a well is known as “spudding”, so they would go get spuds on spud day. I felt like this was an honorable tradition, so we had our own spud party for dinner that night. I doubt anyone else was as excited about the potatoes as I was, but they were good sports anyhow.

Also new this week was the doorway bouncer! Well new to Henry - it was a hand-me-down from a co-worker to Thomas. Thomas used it a few times, but he wasn’t in love with it. Thomas loved to stand up when he was about 2 months old, so he just used it to help him stand without our help.

Henry just started trying to stand up recently, so it’s still a bit of a novelty for him. But the real excitement was when he realized he could bounce. Apparently this kid looooooooves bouncing! Thomas thought the bouncing was exciting as well and started running circles around his brother. Ha - who knew a bouncer could inspire such excitement?

Happy Birthday Mom!

One of the downsides of being so far away is that it is hard to celebrate everything like you would really want to - like a parent’s birthday. I decided to try and surprise mom with a Skype session for her birthday. But it had to feel like a party on our end, so I went on a cupcake quest during my lunch break. 

For the record, I don’t especially like buying cupcakes. I think they are super easy to make, less delicious when I buy them and waaaaay overpriced. But when you make these decisions the same morning you want to skype, sometimes you just have to sacrifice your morals and go buy $3 cupcakes. 

At least this time they tasted as good as they looked! 

Skype time! Nonni answered the video call and started laughing. She seemed to think we were a little silly, but also seemed pretty excited about the fuss. She was less excited she didn’t get a cupcake, but I promised to make it up to her during my trip to Texas later this month. 

Of course we couldn’t get Thomas to wear a party hat. Though he seemed to think his choo-choo needed one. Henry, easy going as ever, didn’t seem to mind his at all. 

Family time in the digital age! Nonni loves Skype sessions with her grand-babies . We don’t get to do them as much as I would like, but Thomas is at an age where attention span is an issue. When he sees the Skype icon on my iPad, he always asks “Call Nonni??”. 

As soon as she is on the line, he runs away. Toddlers…

Once he’s older, he’ll be able to call her whenever he feels like it on his own. I bet my mom can’t wait for that day. Until then, I try to provide entertainment or contain Thomas to make his attention last as long as possible. (Just be patient Nonni, it will get better!)

Even worse than buying cupcakes she couldn’t eat, we opened a package *she* sent to *us* on *her* birthday. Worst daughters ever, huh? She really crammed the flat rate box full on this one, so the Tastyakes may have taken a bit of a beating. Ha - look at that poor smashed Butterscotch Krimpet! It was, of course, still delicious. :)

Happy Birthday Mom, we miss you bunches!

Seward SeaLife Center

Matt wasn’t with us on our last visit to the center, so he didn’t get to experience Thomas’ obsession with the boat. As soon as we got our tickets, Thomas raced toward the stairs and ran straight to the boat - Matt has no clue where he was going, but dutifully followed along. 

This boy loves his boat! We did manage to drag him away from it without spending an hour there, which I consider to be progress.

He usually runs by the entire front part of the center (once he is done with the boat). This time he seemed to notice the wall of numbers that correspond to an audio segment on the handset. He, of course, thought it was a remote and was trying to turn things on with it. I did manage to get a audio clip playing and he held it up to his ear to listen. To Thomas? Booooooring! 

That was the end of that…

We bought Thomas seal “art” when we visited Brittney & Duncan in Alaska two years ago. It was too big to safely pack in our luggage, so it stayed in Alaska until Brittney travelled down to Texas. And a few months later it was back! We decided that Henry needed seal art for his room as well, so we grabbed another painting while we were there this time. Both of the paintings were done by Tongass. I can’t really tell the seals apart, so I am assuming this is Tongass thanking us for supporting his creativity. :)

The sea lions are much easier to tell apart, because there are a few. This is Woody, he looks especially proud here because his little baby is doing well and actually starting to swim around in the big tank. Any parent knows what a sense of pride you have in your offspring when they manage such big development milestones!

Thomas checking out the octopus sculpture made from trash pulled out of the harbor and bay. I think it’s a really neat sculpture, but the little guy usually runs right by it. This time he stopped to (briefly) check it out. A connoisseur of the arts or just entranced by bright colors? Hard to say!

Henry, as usual, was missing most of the fun being stuck in his car seat. He didn’t really seem to mind though, he was as happy as his always is!

I wanted to enjoy the view off the back deck of the center for a little while, but Thomas kept running back inside. So I decided it was the perfect place for a snack break. We all got to enjoy some sun and Thomas was happy to sit there and finish his fruit pouch. Win-win!

Another new activity - Thomas noticed the chalk board at the end. I think you are supposed to write how you will help maintain the sea and marine life health, but most people just doodle or write their names. I managed to find a piece of chalk big enough for tiny hands and Thomas happily contributed a doodle to the board.

We’ve never done the penny thing before, even though I loved making them as a kid. I figured he had behaved so well, why not let him make one??

Mistake!!!

He was super into it, but he didn’t want any help - standard toddler phase we are going through right now. But it gets a little hard to turn once you get to the penny smashing part. I kept trying to help and he kept yelling at me to go away. We somehow managed to get through the penny by me turning it when he let go of the wheel to shoo me away. 

Somehow we ended up decided to do it again for a second penny… Do we not learn??

I think Matt ended up carting him off once it got to the hard part and I spun through it fast enough that we didn’t hit full toddler meltdown. Crisis *mostly* averted.

(And as I was uploading this photo I realized it looks a lot like the boat wheel - maybe he thought he was steering a boat and we were all trying to send him off course??)

Seward Sailing Trip

Another weekend full of excitement - I planned a (hopefully) fun filled trip down to Seward! Matt thought the whale trip we did earlier this year would be fun with his parents. Of course, the whales aren’t migrating this time of year, but I figured there would be enough sea life to be entertaining. 

Thomas seemed pretty excited about being back in his favorite sea side town. It seems like we always find something new and exciting when we visit. We found this otter bench by the tour check-in (after I went to the wrong place the first time - whoops!). Thomas was pretty excited that Iet him crawl up on the otter - though I don’t think he even noticed it was an otter. 

But he was more excited about the boats! This guy loves transportation - if it’s a train, plane, car or boat, he has to make sure and tell us. In fact his current favorite phrase is “Boat on the water!” - it’s mostly used in his tub with his toy boat, but here were a ton of real boats on the water. Cue toddler excitement!

We finally got boarded and headed off on the tour. Luckily it was a nice day for cruising around the harbor. Well for most of us… Seems like no matter how calm I think it is, I still manage to feel sea sick. (Matt’s dream vacation of sailing around to small islands may not include me. There’s some joke in there about his dream vacation being alone…)

In any case, I felt better when I was up on deck, so luckily it was nice enough to hang out there as much as I wanted.

Thomas is looking for the whales he’s heard so much about, but didn’t see much of last time. Unlike the previous boat, this one had railings that were made so that small kiddos could wander around the top deck without the fear of slipping through the railing. Wander might be a bit generous, we still were right behind his every step…

The first part of the cruise felt super boring compared to the last one when we saw whales right in the Seward harbor. They served lunch pretty quickly, but then we were just cruising and cruising with no stops to see things. Turns out it was intentional - one of the cruises had spotted Killer Whales out near the bay and the captain was trying to get us there before the pod took off.

And he succeeded - the whales hung out long enough for us to get close and see them. One guy even decided to wave hello to our boat!

I took *so* many photos of the whales playing. They kept getting closer and more exciting, so I kept taking more. They ended up getting really close to the boat for us. One of them even jumped up in the air and splashed back down, but of course I didn’t get a photo of that. It was still pretty exciting to see though. 

Henry wanted to know what all the fuss was - poor guy misses all the excitement being stuck in his car seat. 

After the orcas finally got tired of showing off for us, we cruised back across the open part of the bay (where I decided maybe some ginger ale might be in order…) to start our journey back. Although the big Humpback whale migration was over for the year, apparently this little guy didn’t get the memo and was still hanging out. Lucky for us! 

I know this isn't a great photo - which I usually don’t include, but I wanted to show how close the little guy got. He was diving off in the distance, then kept getting closer and closer to our boat. He apparently saw our boat, dove under and surfaced right on the other side - look how close he is! So a photo of a whale’s back may not be thrilling, but seeing him pop up and spray water everywhere was the highlight of the trip for me!

I didn’t notice this block of buildings last time, but the captain pointed them out for us. These are a military outpost, circa WWII, which has quite literally gone to the birds. These buildings were built as a look-out and are on the top of a cliff on an island at the edge of the bay. That would not be my first choice of outpost - you know those things were super cold and damp. No fun!

I don’t think the sea lions ever move. They were all crammed up on this rock sunning themselves last time we were on a boat tour… :)

Matt’s mom had a list of things she wanted to see on this trip and an Eagle was pretty high on the list. The two of us were out on deck and I was telling her that we saw one in about the same location last time. She was sure they were all somewhere else for the day, but I managed to spot one hanging out in a tree - those white heads are pretty easy to see once you know what to look for. Check one off the list! (Whales may have been on the list too - so at least two checks!)

Thomas did a great job on the boat. He fell asleep on his Grannie for a little while, but it was nowhere near his usual nap length. So I was pretty impressed that we were only about 15 minutes away from the harbor before we had to pull out the iPad (also known as the last line of defense in toddler meltdowns!)

On the walk back to the car we passed by a guy who was the epitome of a hipster playing a violin for tips. Thomas paused to watch him, not surprising since Lindsey Stirling is a favorite of ours to watch on youtube. Anyhow, Matt gave him a dollar to put in the guy’s violin case, but Thomas had no clue what we wanted him to do. I think most of the people there were as entertained by Thomas and his slow-as-molasses delivery as they were with the guy making music!

All in all, a great day in Alaska - you just can’t beat the sunny summer days! And the fun wildlife certainly doesn’t hurt!

Under Attack!

There are a few toys that I honestly think Matt likes more than Thomas does. Case in point - the giant bag of balls he bought for "Thomas" at Target last year. I think it was right after Christmas and these bags of balls made for those tiny ball pits they sell that time of year. We don't have a ball pit, but 100 balls for $4 seemed like a steal. 

Today, the two of them were having such fun putting the balls in a tube and launching them up in the air. The giggling was so cute! And since the balls are so bright, I thought it might make for some cute photos. 

As an aside - if you noticed his outfit looks a little weird, it's not out fault. We sent him to school in a normal outfit and he smeared spaghetti sauce all over his shirt. And since he had done the same thing with chicken & dumplings earlier this week, he didn't have a spare shirt. He did, however, have his swim suit top... 

Anyhow, back to the cuteness... As soon as I got over there to take photos, I became a target. And while Thomas wasn't entirely sure Dada should be launching things at his momma, he still kept supplying the tube with new ones. 

See what I have to put up with? And it's only the two of them! Just wait until Henry gets old enough to be in the mix as well...

I'm doomed.

I couldn't really get mad though - they were both having a great time launching the balls across the room. And they are soft enough it didn't hurt too much...

Although their relative "softness" made them an easy target for a big, black lab that happens to be obsessed with balls. She's probably taken out about half of them - they can't even stand up to a gentle grab (not that she is all that gentle!). Thomas gets so upset when she grabs one and I hear him yelling "my ball! my ball!" from across the house... Poor guy!

On an unrelated note, the days are getting shorter again. The past few days have been cloudy, so it's even been dark on my drive in to work... Boo! The only upside is the sunsets are back and we can see our volcano again! 

Hello Mt. Redoubt - we missed you!

Of course later I was telling Matt the volcano was out and noticed something that I hadn't seen before. What was that thing?? So I went and grabbed the binoculars and saw it was the sun* setting! How cool!

I ran and got the camera to see if I could get a photo of it since it was getting pretty dark - and I managed to get a pretty clear one! There was a little bit of monkeying around to get the photo true to what I saw since I was shooting pretty late in the day with a long lens (gotta love Lightroom!).

*Ok, I have to be honest. I really, really thought it was the moon! Then I was trying a iPhone photo through the binoculars (because I read online that was a thing) and by the time I had figured how to line the phone up, the "moon" was half gone. I couldn't figure out why the moon was disappearing so soon?

And that's when it occurred to me that the sun was the more likely astronomical body to be disappearing at 'sun'set. I have no problem blaming this on a lack of sleep - it's been a long week. But the photo was still awesome - moon or sun! :)

Haha - and it just occurred to me that I should have told Matt "That's no moon..." when I realized my mistake. Why can I never think of these clever things at the right moment?? Argh!

A Macro Rental

I did it! After debating it for a few days after the photography club shoot, I decided to bite the bullet and rent a macro lens to test out. After I got it, I realized it wasn't the exact one I was thinking of, but it certainly would work to test the concept. It was a Tamron 90mm and I thought I was getting a Tokina 100mm. Sure, I could have just gotten the Nikon, but there is a pretty big price difference and macro isn't an everyday thing. It seems like a good one to try out a non-Nikon lens.

And even though it wasn't the right lens, I had a ton of fun with it. The week was over to fast and I had to give it back. Guess I have something to lust after for awhile!

So on to the photos. There isn't really a theme to this post except playing with the macro lens. It's obviously great at close up photos, but it is supposed to be a good portrait lens as well. You be the judge!

The strawberries taste amazing right now! They aren't Alaskan strawberries - those have been in short supply thanks to the rain, but any kind of produce that tastes amazing up here is a bit of a treat. Though with the macro lens, I noticed the seeds weren't so beautiful... That makes me really appreciate food stylists and their perfect strawberries! And strawberries are slightly hairy - who knew??

Macro is already opening up a whole new world! ; )

Wildflowers in the backyard. I read up quite a bit on macro *after* I got the lens and the challenges of taking extreme close up photos. Zooming in super close can give you a super small depth of field - you can see here that not much besides the front flower is in focus. This is possible to work around, but I didn't have my tripod out, so I was compromising on the shutter / f-stop. Practice makes perfect, right?

I know it's hard to tell on here how crisp these photos are because I downsize them for the internet. But they are pretty awesome! This is a crop of a photo of the flowers in our hanging baskets. And the stamen is super clear. Ok fine, I'll just go crop and zoom in again and see how it looks.

Keeping in mind this is maybe 1/20th the size of the full image... Look at that clarity! You can see pollen! And if I could remember my middle school science better, I might remember what the other parts are called. But they are there in great detail, whatever they are called!

Ok, I'm good. The photo of the peeling bark has calmed me down. Matt has been working hard on clearing out the dead trees and abundance of alders in the backyard. I've been running around taking photos - seems a fair distribution of labor, right?

I had another photo right here and I was typing the caption up: "I don't love this photo as much." Then I couldn't think of any reason to share a photo I didn't like that much. It was a tomato and lettuce from the farmers market that we made awesome BLT's out of. The sandwich was amazing - the photo? Not so much. So the photography skills aren't quite up to the cooking skills - I'm ok with that. 

This photo I love. I don't do black and white very often, but sometimes a photo just needs it. This was a perfect example of where the color took away from the dramatic feeling I get when I look at Henry's beautiful eye. And to top it off, I can even see my reflection in it!

Completely off topic - why do babies have such amazingly gorgeous eyelashes??

Too be fair, Thomas has some pretty long eyelashes too. And you can see some of the dings in his glasses... I'm surprised they have done as well as they have so far. He needs a new pair though - they look like they are starting to be too short for his face. It's not just clothes and shoes they outgrow quickly as this age, is it?

I struggle with Thomas and his glasses when I want to take photos. They recommended against anti-glare for kids. I can't remember exactly why - maybe it made them easier to scratch? But I do remember my protest for them was because of photo taking. Their brilliant advice? Take them off for photos! Thanks...

Sometimes I do. When we do the monthly photo shoots, I take them off. But day to day, he has them on and I'm not going to force him to have blurry vision to take a few photos. Plus he looks like something is missing now if they aren't there. So I mostly leave them on, but then in photos like this where there is glare. I think it's still a good photo, but it would be great without the glare... *sigh*

Natalie has officially gone gray. I know, it's not really news, but she is starting to look like a distinguished lady instead of the wild crazy girl she once was. 

Look at this guy and his super awesome head control. I'm thinking any day now he will be sitting up. Well it's probably more that I am hoping he will sit up soon. Life gets so much easier once they don't fall over quite so easily... And I will also say a 90mm lens is a little challenging to use in the front room - the magnification on it meant I had to be almost across the room to get more than just his head in the shot. But other than that I thought it did a great job on both close up shots and the portrait style photos. Yay for a multi-tasker!

And as promised to my sweet hubby who did all the hard work - a blueberry pie! Except we didn't have enough blueberries, so I added some leftover raspberries from Brittney's yard - so an Alaska Berry pie! I know there's no scale, so it looks huge. Nope! I finally got to use my 6" pie plate I bought forever ago and never had a reason to use. It was the cutest little berry pie ever! And pretty darn tasty if I do say so myself. :)

State Fair

Our daycare randomly decided (ok, maybe it was on the schedule - but who really looks that closely at those?) to close for an inservice day today. Recently Matt and I have discussed using our Fridays off to go do stuff we can't do with the kiddos in tow - like fishing. But this week was just not meant to be... So with a Friday off and two kids to entertain (ok, one - Henry doesn't really need much entertaining!), we decided to go to the State Fair and try to miss the crowds sure to be present on the first Saturday it was open.

Our plan was a winner, the crowds were pretty minimal. Though somehow I still had to wait in line 10 minutes for fried cheese curds. I know it's just slightly fancier cheese sticks, but they were so good last year! Totally worth the wait again!

Mmmm look at that fried, stringy goodness. I'm not sure Matt was as impressed as I was by them. His loss and more for me! Though Thomas did request his fair share. 

Then off to the animal barn. He loved the "birds". I did manage to get him to say chicken - he's in the stage where he will repeat almost anything you say if he's in the mood. I love the chicken on the left - what is going on with his feathers?? He looks like I feel most mornings!

We even braved the petting zoo. He wasn't too sure about the sheep running into everyone in a mad attempt to get every last morsel of food, but he seemed to like the calm, small goats. I thought he did a great job petting them gently and only had to keep him from going in their goat house (seen in the background) once!

This horse was super pretty. I don't think I've ever seen a blond & brown horse.

Maybe she's born with it... Maybe it's neigh-belline!

Ha - I saw that joke online somewhere, it seems like a perfect time to use it. Too cheesy? 

*sigh*

Back to the fair!

This was a new addition - it's to promote hand washing after the petting zoo and the person who came up with the super cool farm themed hand washing station has been renting them out all over the lower 48 for fairs and such. Of course, Alaska is a little far to take one for a rental, so we are the only place that owns one. I was so excited for Thomas to try out - turns out he wasn't so excited. I think it was the chickens blowing hot air that kinda make him nervous. That's understandable I guess...

Thomas trying to hula-hoop with me. He didn't quite get the concept, but he certainly tried real hard to have fun with it. I was very proud that I haven't lost all of my hula-hooping skills since grade skill. I managed to keep it up, but walking with it was definitely not happening. In my defense, I had a toddler rushing at me most of the time.

This little guy was all tuckered out after the excitement of seeing all the animals from a safe distance. Luckily the fancy stroller fully reclines for a nice napping area!

The other little speedster was super excited about riding the trucks! He was way too short to ride it alone, but they let the parents ride along with the little ones. He had his hands on the steering wheel the whole time, but according to Matt wasn't so great at turning it. We honestly weren't sure if he liked it, but when it was time to get out he got upset - so we'll take that as he liked it!

I know Alaska isn't as hot as Texas, but this still seems like a very *bad* idea...

This fried Elephant Ear on the other hand? A great idea! And Nutella sauce on top?? An amazing idea! I'm not sure which of the three of us made the biggest mess - my money is actually on Matt. He preferentially had the Nutella side. 

Happy baby! With his every present Biraffe...!

Apparently the band that started playing was "too loud!" for Thomas. I didn't think they were loud at all, so my guess was that he was all worn out at this point. We didn't consume much fair food or see many shows this year, but everyone had a good time - so I still call it a successful day.

On the exit from the fair though, Matt decides one more adventure is in order! He wants to drive up the road a little way and cut across Hatcher Pass. I think he was feeling left out from my adventure with my parents the other day. It was later than we intended to leave the fair, but why not? Plus I heard the blueberries were starting to ripen on the pass, so I was game!

Turns out we have no clue what blueberry plants look like! We drove and kept stopping to look, but nothing looked like the potted blueberry plants we bought earlier this year. We finally came upon a few other people that looked like they must be picking blueberries, so I sent Matt off to investigate while I hung out with the napping kids in the car. 

Success!!

It turns out the wild blueberry plants are less than a foot tall and we would have never seen them just looking from the car. The berries were pretty small and we really didn't have much to store them in. So Matt picked enough to almost fill an empty starbucks cup we had in the car and we called it good.

He's been asking if that is enough to make a pie... Maybe a teeny tiny one...!

Six (27.5) Months!

I feel like most months I can pull off a pretty successful mini-photo shoot for the kiddos. This was certainly not the case this month. I've read enough articles to know that if your toddler isn't in the mood, no amount of forcing will make it happen. I tried cajoling, to the mixed results you see below. I still think the photos turned out cute, but there isn't a classic "Awww look at those brothers happily sitting next to each other on their chair" pose:

This is the closest I got, actually. But then I decided Henry's safari pants clashed with the sticker color and took a short break to change him. I think Thomas took that to mean that I was done... 

Without his brother to support him, Henry had a bit of trouble staying upright. But falling over didn't seem to bother him, he actually found it quite humorous!

Thomas was more interested in his choo-choo and hiding from the camera. Henry was trying hard to keep tabs on his big brother, but Thomas is pretty darn fast when he wants to be!

This boy must be round bottomed, because he is topsy-turvy! And I love, love, love his eyes when they catch the light. I think he and Matt have identical eye color, so no surprise I already love it, huh? :)

I also love you can see his hair wispies. It's getting longer in the front and it makes me think he looks like a surfer dude, albeit not one with a whole lot of hair. 

If expressions could speak, this one would be asking why I still had the camera out and could we please just play with the choo-choo??

And a smile at last!!

I'm beginning to think that the moods of a toddler are a lot like the weather in Texas - if you don't like it, just wait a few minutes and it will change. Ha! :)