Per our annual tradition, we packed up and headed out to “The Farm” this last weekend for the 4th of July. We left Thursday night and came back Sunday afternoon, learning in the process that this is just about Sam’s limit for unwashed country fun.
We did have good enough weather for a swim, though, and once Sam got over her (not completely irrational) fear that a fish was going to bite her in the butt, she made good use of the diving platform in the lake. Afterwords we found a leech on her. No, I’m totally serious guys. Geralyn pulled it off her and put the little blood sucker in a plastic Quick Trip cup to show off to everyone.
On Friday night we let the girs stay up late to marvel at the big bonfire and roast marshmallows. Only Sam’s idea of roasting these treats was to put them on the end of a stick, extend her arm as far as she could, turn her face from the flames, and stand about 12 feet away in the dark and dewy coolness of the grass. She still liked them well enough, though.
FUN FACT: If I put my children to bed three hours after their normal bed time they STILL wake up at 6 the next morning. HOORAY!
We had some fireworks on Friday, but the big blasts were saved for Saturday night. Mandy was scared of the explosions at first, perhaps because she was possessed of some common sense that had leaked out of everyone else’s more mature brains. Amusingly enough, though, she sought comfort in the lap of her Great Aunt Cleo. Sam, in the meantime, gleefully waved sticks of fire around.
I guess it’s worth noting that these are some of my favorite pictures of Sam and Mandy in a while. Instead of using a flash for the low light bonfire and fireworks conditions, I put on my “fast” f/1.4 50mm lens, used manual focus and manually set the aperture and/or shutter speed. The image stabilization on the lens helped, but I really wish I had remembered to bring my tripod with me; some of the shots would have been much less blurry had I used it. Still, I like how a lot of them turned out, since they really give you a feel for how the lighting really was at the event.
Great photos, looks like a good time was had by all! I love the first photo of Sam, it looks like some sort of free speech protest photo!
They really are quite beautiful. And I mean each and every ambiguous meaning one can ferret out of that sentence.