in the past 30 days: last but not least...the zoo!

This was yesterday's adventure, and it brings me up to date on the blog: hurrah! One of our summer "bucket list" items was to spend a day at the zoo. We are most familiar with the Baltimore zoo, as it is close and we had a membership there for a year or two, but it had been 5 or 6 years since I last went to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., which is part of the Smithsonian. It was a photographer's dream. It was also HOT. The forcast was for 87 F, but the car read 95 when we got back to it about 3 pm. And the humidity. We narrowly avoided the three of us melting into one big puddle. Thank goodness for airconditioned exhibit buildings! Here's my view of our day:

wildlife up close and personal: a praying mantis on the lion exhibit railing!

in the past 30 days: miscellaneous fun

This post is full of photos from several fun adventures that didn't really each need a post of their own. First, the kids and I took a daytrip to Breezy Point Beach, about an hour south of us on the Chesapeake Bay. The water was  unfortunately heavily infested with jellyfish, so there was no real swimming, but that didn't stop the fun! This beach is one of the places in southern Maryland where fossilized sharks teeth are plentiful. We found about 50 teeth in our morning there, ranging from about 1/4 to 3/4 inch in size! They are so neat. There was also a playground on the beach; I don't think my kids had every ridden a playground merry-go-round before!

 

These next photos are from Brickfair, which is a Lego convention with lots and lots of unique Lego creations displayed. Hubby took the kids on a Saturday that I was working. He took 200 pictures! :) Here are just a few...

Lastly, I took the kids to one of our county parks one evening last week, to burn off some energy. And so I threw the 50 mm lens on the camera to have some fun with the evening light. I couldn't have been more delighted with how some of the pictures came out.

in the past 30 days: farm fair

One of our summer traditions, which has been documented at least twice on this blog in previous years, is going to the county fair where I grew up, which is called "Farm Fair". We love to see my mom's best friend perform as Candy and Cupcake (a children's entertainment show), see the animals and the 4-H exhibits, and hubby loves a good tractor pull. This year the weather became ominous and the radar (thanks, smartphone) looked terrible...and then the storm blew over. I told hubby, " I guess God loves a good tractor pull too!" We had a wonderful day, as we always do.

my boys love combine harvesters!

super-cool! riding in a giant tractor-pull tractor!

earplugs in, and ready for the tractor pull!

celebrating independence

 The week has been full of the things we crazy Americans do to celebrate our independence: Fireworks, firecrackers, and running around with sparklers. Parades with fire engines, politicians, marching bands, crazy bicycles, men on tractors eating lollipops, and sheep (I didn't get a good picture of the sheep: take my word for it!). Pool time on a scalding hot afternoon. Grilled hot dogs and hamburgers. A Capitol Fourth (and Neil Diamond!) on PBS. Red, white and blue outfits, decorations, and food. And lots of fun and lots of family. Its all life as it should be, in the land of the free, and home of the brave.

See? Men on tractors eating lollipops!

 And here are my favorites from playing with sparklers and camera settings tonight!

Hope your Independence Day was as wonderful as ours was!