Tropic Thunder

Last night I went with a group of friends to see the movie "Tropic Thunder" starring Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey Jr. It was vulgar, crude, rude . . . and totally hilarious!! After spending the last 2 days sweltering in my apartment, it was nice to get out of the house and into an air-conditioned movie theatre! I was quite surprised at just how many "laugh outloud" moments there were in the movie . . . I was totally expecting something much heavier on action. I particularly liked Robert Downey Jr.'s performance. I thought his accents were great and he set the right tone.

Now it's off to the waterslides to celebrate my brother-in-law's 30th birthday. I think today is going to be a little cooler than the past few days, which will be welcome relief. I'm not sure I'll survive this hot weather much longer . . .

Family Reunion

It was really hard to boil down a whole weekend's worth of pictures into just 4 for this blog (if you are my friend on facebook, you can check out more pictures of the weekend on facebook)! The weekend was fun, though I did discover, or more accurately, confirm, that camping isn't my thing. I'm really not such a fan of having to leave the building to go to the bathroom, and it drives me nuts to sleep in a sleeping bag that shifts and move everything I do . . . Anyway, this first picture is of the two sisters walking together. Keeping in mind that this is my step-mom's family: on the left is my great-aunt Viola (who's 81 years old) and my grandma Evaline (who is 78). They are the only surviving siblings of the family.
Me and my step-mom Barbara. This is one of the few pictures I have of me since I was too busy fiddling with the settings of my camera to have anyone take a picture of me :-)
One of the many duck pictures I took over the weekend. At one point around the lake area there were about 20 ducks congregating. The colouring on some of the ducks was really pretty, so I was trying to get the best pictures I could. This particular picture I was really pleased with, so it's my new desktop background picture here on my computer. Yes, for the time being, a duck has displaced my usual picture of Hugh Laurie!
My five other campers! My grandpa, 85 year old Bob Bixby, was the only male in our group. Needless to say, he had to be very careful to knock on the door each morning before coming into our cabin so that he didn't catch anyone changing their clothes! From left to right: Grandpa, Barbara, Grandma, Viola, and Viola's youngest daughter, Kathy. Believe it or not, Grandma and Grandpa actually spent two nights outside in a tent while the rest of us stayed in a camper's cabin. The rest of us shared the relative comfort of a large room that held a queen-sized bed (which Viola and Kathy shared) and a pull-out couch (which Barbara and I shared) and electricity (which only worked part of the time). Although I didn't necessarily enjoy the whole camping aspect of the trip, I did enjoy seeing family and hearing all the old stories!

New Toy

Out with the old . . . my first digital camera, that is. This was the first camera I purchased for myself (I think it was about 3 years ago). At the time, it was a good camera. It's a Sony Cybershot DSC-P73. I took a lot of good pictures with this camera.

And in with the new! After much consideration and research, I finally settled on the Nikon Coolpix S550. I looked at several different models online and decided that if I was going to upgrade my camera, I may as well go with a "big" upgrade. It has 10 MP and 5X optical zoom. The LCD screen is 2.5 inches, which, compared to my old camera, is HUGE! I was close to getting a Canon camera, but then I took a closer look at the Coolpix by Nikon and decided that it was for me. It was, even without my $100 in gift cards from Future Shop, cheaper that my first camera, which just goes to show you how much prices on cameras have dropped in the past few years. I even got a 4GB high-speed memory card and a camera case to go with it. So far I'm pleased with it (though I've taken fewer than 10 shots so far, so I probably don't have a complete idea of how good/bad it is quite yet).

Well, I'm off to read my manual and discover all the things there are to know about my new toy!

Thoughts and prayers, please!

Please keep my friend Dianne, and her husband Chris, in your thoughts and prayers! They are in the process of adopting a baby girl from Ethiopia and have found out that their referral is sitting on someone's desk in Edmonton! I can't imagine what it must feel like to wait for something so important! Dianne is handling it beautifully though (you really are Dianne)! So like it says in the title of this post, please keep my friend in your thoughts and prayers this weekend!