the one were amanda posts a ton of pictures

Ok, so I don't actually have a 'ton' of pictures, because they actually don't weigh anything, but I've got quite a few that I'm too lazy to count. So, as I said before, I went to Seattle and Whidbey (or Wigby to Brandon) Island. Now, I'm not great at taking pictures because I'm too easily distracted by shiney things and forget to take them, but I did manage to take a few, and thought I'd share. Why? Because it's my blog and I can...ha...

Ok, here we are in Seattle. In case you weren't sure.

We also went to the world famous (and by world famous I mean probably nationally famous) Pikes Place market, you know where they toss fish and have other stuff. descriptive yes? They also have vendors that sell the most beautiful flowers for next to nothing!

Ok, So we've left Seattle (bye!) and have hopped on the ferry and made our way to Whidbey Island! We stayed in this amazing house that was right on the water. The picture below is a view from the sliding glass door. Nice!

Brandon and him mom did quite a bit of fishing every morning and were pretty successful! We had fresh salmon Monday night and it was actually really good. Not fishy at all! Brandon was the first to catch something, but his mom did pretty well herself!

We also had a fire pit outside, and Brandon (being the pyromaniac that he is) had to light stuff on fire. Here, he has a stick and he's blowing on it so it'll glow.

One of the days we were there, we went whale watching. That is the Olympic mountain range from the boat we were on.

We did eventually come across some Orcas! It only took like 2.5 hours to get to Canadian waters to find them, but we did.

There were actually quite a few people out watching the whales. Including a group of scientist collecting poo samples. Not even joking! Now that sounds like a crappy job :) eh? eh? no? ok I'll save my poo jokes for the 4 year olds who share my crass humor. This boat was not the poo boat, it was just a sail boat, but I liked seeing the structure of the boat when the sails were down.

And that's our trip in a nutshell. I didn't bring my camera hiking, because I was afraid I'd fall and break it.

just what is a photo worth?

I don't know about you, but there are many instances that I wish I had a camera with me. Most, if not all, cell phones have them, but the one I had couldn't transfer the pics to a computer, so I didn't count that. Every once in a while, I actually do have a real camera on me, and thats how you capture fun things like this...

A flat bed truck on a flat bed truck. Not only that, the Toyota trucks are carrying 4-wheelers in the bed. How efficient are they?

Are we by Ellis Island? Nope, just a lawn ornament store outside of Houston. I cut off the torch, that lit up. Its hard to take a picture from a moving vehicle. Luckily traffic was heavy enough, I could get the picture somewhat in focus. Can you picture this in your neighbors yard?

Apollo has many interesting quirks about him when he sleeps. He barks, wags his tail, sleeps stretched out on his back, contorts his body so his paws are sticking out of strange places, and this one is my favorite.

fayding

Well, the tropical storm Fay, who sat on the Florida peninsula, and caused a lot of damage, seems to have dissipated. We were told to brace for some heavy rain as Fay swung around to the west, and that it might be a good idea to build an arc. However, much like Hurricane Rita, not much happened. I'm not complaining at all, I'm glad it didn't do much! I'm actually glad the news tries to take these storms seriously to warn and inform people the best they can. Unfortunately, I know all of this rain means more mosquitoes (who really like to bite me and Apollo) and now apparently snakes are moving in. Go figure.This one was in the tree at the dog park where we take Apollo. Fortunately, it looked like it had eaten recently, so Apollo wasn't in danger. That and I doubt it was a poisonous snake. Thats the second snake I've seen this weekend at our complex.

yay for new toys!

Well, my camera came in yesterday! Whoop! Its a panasonic lumix with 18x zoom, its pretty much beautiful. I haven't had much practice at it yet, but its so much fun to play with. I just have to play in between puppy nap times. I think this is my favorite so far. I stole the idea from a picture I've seen before, I just wanted to see if I could do it.

In other news, I've finally completed a portfolio to apply for a graphic design internship with a local magazine publisher. I think it'd be really interesting, so I hope it'll work out. We'll see!

shoot!

I love a pun, even when it isn't a good one. I finally bit the bullet and bought a new camera (hence the "shoot") Its a panasonic, which I wasn't sure about since they're not well known for their cameras, but this one seems pretty good. Its a "super zoom" (for those who don't know what that is, (like me before I started shopping) its a step below the SLR in that its not single lens, but it has the great zoom capabilites as well as some manual setting capabilites, for a much lower price) This one has 8.1 megapixles and a whopping 18x optical zoom! Yay! I can take pictures of airplanes and they won't look like flying ants! I haven't recieved it yet, I ordered it online after looking at it at the local Ritz camera store. They wanted $50 more than Amazon did, and well....I don't want to pay that because I'm cheap. :) Happy Birthday to me! :D

Desin-y

Well, another weekend has come and we don't like to sit still, so the Elms set off for an adventure in Destin. The big draw was not the beaches, nor the outlet mall...but McAlisters Deli! WEEE! Now, we wouldn't ordinarily drive an hour just to eat at a beloved restaurant, but it was the weekend, and we were looking for adventure. (our degree of adventure may differ from other people, but its an adventrure none the less) To justify our trip, we did also go to the beach (yes, I know we live near one, but as mentioned earlier the water has been jelly-fishy) and to the outlet mall. For those who have never experienced the tea (sweetened or unsweetened) you have not quite lived. Unless you don't like tea at all....but who doesn't really? Anyhow, I blogged prior to our move about all of the restaurants we were going to miss from home, so getting a little slice from Texas sure hit the spot! I've been feeling rather homesick lately and a drive to Desin is much closer than a drive home.

To step further back in time, we also checked out the local zoo on Thursday, which is always fun. Especially when you can get cheaper tickets for being military! We saw all sorts of animals, with exeption to elephants, rhinos, or hippos. They may be too large to try an move if a desasterous hurricane approaches. I did get to pet a cow though in the petting zoo. They had a pig, but he had a barracade in front of the fence so kids couldn't reach him, which made me wonder why he was in a petting zoo....? I guess the floridian kids don't get to see farm animals as often. Not that I saw farm animals a whole lot (except the stuffed variety in my room even then, those were just pigs) but probably more than kids here. I'll try to post pictures later, my husband got a new camera for his birthday and so they're with him, but I'll share some of his photos.

Thanks to Craig and photoshop, the unconsiously designed falic sand creation has been tamed