The 2010 Reindog Parade

Yesterday, Toby, Ed and I went to the Reindog Parade at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. (Fox doesn’t like this sort of event, so he stayed home.) Basically, it’s an excuse to dress up your dog (and, sometimes, yourself) and take your dog to the Gardens, the only day they’re allowed.

Victoria Stilwell of “It’s Me or the Dog” was our emcee. (I’ve never seen the show, but I hope to catch its next season.)

There were more than 100 dogs in the parade.

Hey! It’s Toby!

Victoria said that Cavalier King Charles Spaniels make excellent Reindogs. A judge agreed, apparently, and took his photo.

Here’s another Cavalier. We saw six or seven throughout the day.

This gal won an award.

As did this dog.

And this one.

Lots of other dogs won as well, including a group of rescue dogs who, along with their humans, dressed as the folks from A Christmas Carol. They also took the Best in Show prize.

After the parade, we put Toby in a Santa hat for a few minutes.

Then we looked at some of the other sights at the Garden.

All of the photos from the day are on my Flickr page in their own set.

If Toby’s up to it next year, we’ll take him again. And if he’s not, we’ll go without dogs. It was that much fun.

Fall photos at a local church

I pass a beautiful church every day on my way home from work. Yesterday, I gasped when I saw how amazingly gorgeous the light was with the fall leaves. So, today I grabbed my camera and stopped by. I was thrilled with what I captured.

And this? This is my favorite.

Here are a few more.

(Edited on 10/24/10 to link to Lotus’s Weekly Winners. Go check it out!)

A few photos… and hi! (And a week late Weekly Winners)

In addition to not blogging much (at all), I’ve not been taking many photos. Last Saturday, however, I was suddenly all sorts of inspired at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

When I finally got around to uploading them today, I realized that apart from one photo I uploaded to Flickr when Toby passed his Canine Good Citizen test in June, the last time I uploaded photos was MARCH — my cousin’s wedding when I was the photographer. That it had been so long shouldn’t have been shocking since I knew I hadn’t taken photos off my card since March. And, I went two months between taking photos with my SLR (though I took a few with my point and shoot). But it still was somehow…

Here are a few of my favorites from last Saturday (assuming I can remember how to embed photos in a post, and I’m not even kidding). 🙂

(I shot this photo of a Splendid Leaf Frog through glass, so I am particularly pleased with how it came out.)

I cropped a couple of these (the first one for sure, and MAYBE the third), but I didn’t do any other editing. With the exception of the first shot, all were shot using a telephoto lens. As close as I was to the water, I’m really surprised I didn’t fall into the pond. All it would have taken was someone brushing up against me accidentally.

Since it’s been so long, I’ll say that we’re all well in the Casa de Ramblings by Reba. I ran my 5K I mentioned in April and then ran/walked the Peachtree Road Race on July 5. I also injured my calf at the Peachtree, which I’m STILL recovering from (so no running since then, except for an ill-fated mile when I thought I was better — ha). Work is good, but crazy. My 10-year work anniversary is next month. Ed is good. Dogs and cats are good. My nephew Francis, who I saw last December for the first time in more than three years, skipped kindergarten entirely and is a first grader.

What’s up with you?

(Edited to add: even though these photos were taken LAST week, I’m going to use them for Lotus’s Weekly Winners. I had some technical difficulties last week, which is why I didn’t get them up for the actual week of Weekly Winners.)

We’re back from our cruise!

Remember that cruise I told you I wanted to take? Well, we got back from that 3-day cruise to the Bahamas yesterday.

It was fairly cold. I had goosebumps. A LOT.

But we had a GREAT time.

We went snorkeling in the Bahamas.

It was WINDY and cloudy on the trip back, which is why we’re wrapped up in our beach towels.

The general coldness also explains why this look is how you found me much of the time.

We did lay out a bit on Monday morning, fully clothed.

Oh, you want to see the scenery? How’s this?

You get the idea. If you want to see more, you can click either on the full set of cruise photos (all 176 of them) or on the abbreviated version of the set, which I did with a bunch of captions.

We would have preferred it be 10 degrees warmer, or at least not windy. But that’s a small quibble. It was a great vacation, and we’ll do it again.

I could write a BOOK about my cruise, but I want to write about what you’re curious about. So please tell me what strikes your fancy. Please?

Fall sunset

I hate the shorter days of the fall and winter, but I love the beautiful sunsets I seem to capture this time of year, going no farther than our driveway.

Fall is coming to Georgia, and with it more hikes

As you would expect, fall comes late to Georgia. But this photo taken yesterday at Arabia Mountain demonstrates that it’s on its way.

We were at Arabia Mountain for our first hike with Atlanta Unleashed, an (often) off-leash Meetup group.

Fox wasn’t able to come on this hike. He’s working through some fear issues, and we weren’t sure if this would be a good outing for him. Ed “borrowed” a dog from a member of our group who had three dogs. The dog reminded us a lot of Fox. Looking at the photo, I almost think it IS Fox. 🙂 As for Toby, he did GREAT with the five-mile hike. He still shows no signs of his heart disease almost two years in.

We had a lot of fun. Ed, Toby and I next plan to hike with this group in three weeks. We’re looking forward to it. Yay!

Pirates make me smile…

Dragon*Con, which is held each Labor Day weekend in Atlanta, is “the largest multimedia, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the US.” I am not much into science fiction and fantasy, gaming, and comics. I’m only marginally more interested in literature, art, music, and film.

However, I’d been told I really should go to the parade one year. This year we finally made it. I recognized the “Harry Potter” people. I recognized the “Star Wars” people and the “Dr. Who” people (the latter two largely because of my husband). Most everything else was completely lost on me.

Like who in the heck is this guy supposed to be?

(No, really. If you know, tell me. I’m dying to know.)

But when I saw a bunch of pirates, presumably from “Pirates of the Caribbean,” but I’m really not sure, I smiled. I don’t know why this make me smile — as “real life” pirates aren’t so nice, nor did I like the “Pirates of Caribbean” movies — but smile I did. These particular pirates went up the parade route getting the crowd to go “Arrrrrrrr!” on their count of “1… 2… 3…” They did it at least twice in front of our little group.

So, in honor of International Talk Like A Pirate Day, which also makes me smile, I bring you this, snapped right at “Arrrrrrrr!” 🙂

Aye, now enjoy your day friends. Aye, me dog me parrot concurs.

A sure sign of spring…

On Friday on the way home from work I saw my first daffodils of the season. Sadly, I didn’t have my camera with me, nor did I actually KNOW any of the folks in whose yards I saw the flowers.

Today, Ed and I went back to the State Botanical Garden of Georgia in Athens. There were daffodils EVERYWHERE at the garden. AND I had my camera. 🙂 I found myself lying on the ground to get the shot above, but it was worth the mulch in my hair and the muddy knees.

I’m not so naive as to think the daffodils and a few blooming plants and trees means winter is over. It IS mid-February after all. We’ll have more sub-freezing weather for sure. But spring IS coming. Yippee!

Rudolph the Red Nosed Car

Photos from our evening…

We went to an evening event at the Atlanta Botanical Garden tonight.

Here are a couple of the photos I took…

More on Sunday for Weekly Winners…