Color by Night

Rob and I went up to Estes this weekend. We decided to make it a photography trip, and took some night shots at Bear Lake. When we got there, it seemed pretty dark becasue the moon had not yet risen, but as the moon rose, the sky got lighter and lighter. I learned a lot about exposure, aperture, ISO, and shutter speed. It was a nice night, although it was getting a little chilly when we left. Then we slept for a few hours and went back to Bear Lake for some sunrise pictures.

The shot below was one of my favorites from our night adventure. This is the raw image from the camera -- no Photoshop done except for adding my name :) Our eyes couldn't pick up any of the color, but by leaving the shutter open, our camera absorbed the light and captured the color as if it was daylight. You can also see that we caught the North Star in the picture, and hence the stars are rotating around one of the stars.

This photo was taken at 9pm by leaving the shutter open for 10 minutes.

Google Voice and Eve Update

Rob and I are planning an upcoming trip to New Zealand. It is one of those trips I've always wanted to do, and we figure that now might be a good time to do it! So we are busy planning. Luckily, we can do most things through the internet, but some things we cannot do and we must do by phone.

So today I called New Zealand using Google Voice. It is this neat application you can use with either a phone or a computer, and it only cost 2c a minute to call NZ! Very cool! It worked really smoothly! And, calls to the United States are free, so if we bring Rob's phone with us to New Zealand, we can call home for free as long as we can get wireless!

I miss having a dog this week, but I am looking forward to the phase report that comes out tomorrow! Last week Eve was in phase 6! I'm kind of surprised she made it this far, but now that she did, I think she can make it all the way! Good luck Eve! I'm hoping I can go see her graduate!

Here's a cute old picture of Eve, who's all grown up now ;)

Back to Puppies

Last weekend Rob and I puppysat Vernon, who is Vigo's brother. We had an overlap of one night so we could let them play and get to know each other :)

They were very happy to play with each other -- don't they look happy in this picture? I felt like I was the mom to twin boys... always had to keep an eye on them so they didn't get into trouble!

Vernon is darker in color and is on the left, Vigo is bigger and on the right.

They trotted around in the backyard for probably 20 minute, just holding the same toy and being happy to be together!

Then they switched to trotting with a rope -- they never did play tug with it though.

Two tired puppies relax when I tell them "That's Enough!".
They patiently wait until I say OK.

"Can we play yet please? Look how good we are! Plus, we're super cute!"

Fall is here?!

Beautiful colors in Colorado means fall is officially here. I still like to deny it, since my garden is still growing, but I do love the fall colors!

My friend Stacie and I took a drive up to Estes today to take some photos of the aspen and play around with our cameras. Boy do we have a lot to learn! But we had a lot of fun learning together and I think I got a few good shots (maybe a total of 3 of the 278 pictures that I took)

Some mountain peering out behind the aspen trees -- Stacie found this spot and then I 'borrowed' it once she was done :)

"Depth of Field" or "Depth of Color" shot... I'm still learning how to do this more consistently.

Now I have to go get ready for work... another work week coming up. Man, I sure do love weekends!

Guide Dogs and Firemen

A few weeks ago we had a Guide Dog outing to the firestation. Rob and I both went.

Last year Eve was afraid of the firemen, but this year none of the dogs were afraid at all. In fact, Vigo was more interested in the other puppy (Mulan), than he was with the fireman. Silly puppy!

Greyrock Hike

Wow, is this Brianna's blog? For once, she has no dogs in her posts :)

Rob and I had the weekend Vigo free, so we decided to do a hike we've been wanting to do all summer. It was a hike in the Poudre Canyon called Greyrock. It was a beautiful day for a hike. This is Rob with Greyrock in the background. We actually hiked all the way to the summit -- if you go around back it is a gentler slope so you don't have to rock climb.

Overall, Rob and I would give this hike 2 thumbs down. Yes, it was pretty, but the trail was poorly marked. We got lost 3x.... one time we were definitely on 'a' trail, but then the trail just stopped. We spent at least an hour hiking around that area trying to find the trail. We even ran into another group who were doing the same thing. Finally we decided to backtrack, and after about 15 minutes we found where the trail had split and we had gone straight but the TRUE trail was a switchback. Ugh. How frustrating. Then on the way back down, we got lost again but we could see the trail in front of us, so we just kept going even though we were obviously not on the main trail.

Overall, I think we hiked over 8 miles (including our detour). We thought we'd be gone for a few hours, but instead we were gone for 8 including driving. And now we are tired and sore. But it was pretty and we made it!

Rob and I at the summit.

The view was nice at the top.... we could see smoke from a forest fire that just started this morning near Loveland. I hope they can get it under control soon!