Thursday, November 18, 2010

Miscellaneous...

A couple of weeks ago, we bought 2 Groupons ($10 for $20) for the Swiss Bakery in Springfield. We had been there once and we both loved it. You enter the bakery and it feels like being home. I love the smell of a bakery!



So we went there again, but this time with a groupon and got plenty of baked goods for 20 Dollars.



Yummy!



I thought these beer-cup cookies were pretty funny!





In the afternoon we met our friends again. When we were living in Arlington, we did something with them every week, but since we've been living in Springfield we think that DC is soooo far away (it's actually only about 20 min away)



They love sushi and we love sushi...so we decided to get some good sushi. We tried a sea weed salad. Sounds weird, but it was really, really good!
We looked up a recipe and tried to make it and went to an Asian grocery store...but they only had other kinds of sea weed... :-(



We got a new camera, so I've been taken even more pictures than I normally do to try out different settings. I love it!





Last Saturday, Anthon took the LEED AP test and while he was taking it, I took some pictures of the city...



The Abraham Lincoln Memorial



From the A.L. Memorial... I love being able to take good night pictures!



The Washington Monument



A.L. Memorial



While most tourists only take a picture of the front of the building, I walked around the building and saw this beautiful sun set!
This is a tip I read in a book about photography. Not to only take the standard tourist pictures.









The Second World War Memorial





Sorry, nothing is in order.





The Korean War Memorial







We've also been trying some portrait pictures. It's so much fun discovering all the settings and effects and applying the things I read in the photography book.
But of course, we are still beginners...







It was already really dark, but the camera still takes these nice and sharp pictures.





The Jefferson Memorial
I tried to photoshop the picture and removed the construction successfully...but I forgot to save it... dang it! But I'm amazed how much you can do with photoshop, if you need to.



We also went to the Arlington Cemetery.
I had the wrong lense with me. So I couldn't take a picture of the guard... but this picture still turned out to be artistic. It shows the reverence of the people watching the changing of the guard.







Exploring in the house...









The irony in this picture...



There are sooo many pictures we have taken but that's enough..
I'm really excited to go back to Germany in 2 weeks and take pictures of my family and friends and practice that a little bit more.
One of my goals is to become better at taking pictures of people.
I'm excited to see my and Anthon's family, to eat German food, German candy, to see my friends, to go to church (to finally go to Relief Society again!), to spend more time with Fynn, to get to know Rebecca's boyfriend, .... so many things to be excited about!

See some of you in Germany! ;-)

Monday, November 1, 2010

My 1st real Halloween

This weekend we had beautiful weather and since I love taking pictures and the trees look perfect right now, I had to take some fall pictures.








After that, I convinced Anthon to go to one of our favorite places- the Hidden Pond.
It's only about 5 minutes away and we look going for a walk there. It's beautiful and there are not many people.



I wanted to take a better picture with better lightening, but my photo model was too impatient... next time..



This is Hidden Pond- isn't it beautiful?!?






The colors were so vibrant that I didn't have to photoshop the pictures very much...







When we came home, we carved pumpkins- it was my first time and it was so much fun that I hope that we will do this every year!
I love arts stuff...





In the morning, we had watched the Halloween movie "A night before Christmas". So I decided to carve Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town.
Anthon carved the Oogie Boogie Monster.











Judie carved Kaylie's Middle School initials.





Our master pieces:











While we were waiting for the kids to come, we watched "The Night before Christmas" (again) together with Judie.



I didn't have a Halloween costume... I was just... a pumpkin... or so..



It really was a fun experience. It was cute to see all these kids in their costumes. Yesterday, I wished I could be a child again... I never got to do that, since we don't really celebrate Halloween in Germany...

But I'm excited to celebrate Halloween at our place next year!