Coming!

Come, Thou long expected Jesus

Born to set Thy people free;

From our fears and sins release us,

Let us find our rest in Thee.

Israel’s Strength and Consolation,

Hope of all the earth Thou art;

Dear Desire of every nation,

Joy of every longing heart.

Born Thy people to deliver,

Born a child and yet a King,

Born to reign in us forever,

Now Thy gracious kingdom bring.

By Thine own eternal Spirit

Rule in all our hearts alone;

By Thine all sufficient merit,

Raise us to Thy glorious throne.

("Come, Thou long expected Jesus", an Advent Carol by Rowland Prichard and Charles Wesley.)

(Thanks mom for the pictures!)

You're My Butterfly...Sugar...Honey

One of the popular tourist spots in Callaway Gardens is the Cecil B. Day Butterfly Center.  We arrived at the Gardens pretty early and had the Center to ourselves!  One slight drawback was that it was cloudy out and the butterflies like the sun.  But some of the butterflies were still very active.  One other slight drawback is the humidity is about 90%!  Hello frizzy hair!  It also took about 20 minutes for our cameras to unfog!  But the wait was worth it!

I couldn't help myself!  I had to post more flowers!

The butterflies were beautiful, even with the cloudy skies! 

These two were chasing each other and when they were together it looked like a crazy person (and I looked like a crazy person trying to photography them together as they would not stay still for very long)!

PURPLE FLOWERS!!

Did I mention how much I enjoyed Callaway Gardens?  :)

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

I love Christmas!  Love Love Love!  I started putting up my Christmas decorations the weekend after Thanksgiving and it has been a progress, but I think I am almost done (though it would help if I stopped looking at Pinterest and finding new ideas!).

It is a good thing I went to those photography lessons, am I right?  Sheesh!

This is my mantel area (in case you couldn't tell!).  I found the idea of the picture frames on another blog which pointed me to Pinterest (here: http://pinterest.com/pin/529050617/ and here: http://pinterest.com/pin/578485235/).  What a great way to remember the meaning of Christmas!  The nativity scene is from Waccamaw (oh how I miss Waccamaw).  Disregard the 4th wise man in the nativity...I am not sure why there are 4.  Maybe he is the innkeeper?  And of course my mom made the stockings for me and Allie (the dog)!

Random Christmas decorations in a chair.  I had the decorations, so I had to put them SOME where!

Here is my tree!  And look...two presents already wrapped!  Go me!

And this is a sneak peak of some of the Christmas presents i am making!  I took up knitting last year (thanks mom) and love it (I think I am on par with a record number of 'loves' in this blog post).  Last year I gave my friends cup coasters, and this year I am working on another homemade gift!

I do love Christmas and all that it means.  I love the birth of Jesus Christ.  I love spending time with my family.  I love giving presents (I particularly enjoy that at work we give Christmas presents to the Guardian ad Litem program and other organizations.

Merry Christmas!

Oh you can be sure this is NOT the last Christmas post!

We're From The Country And We Like It That Way

Before I begin, I still have one more post from Callaway Gardens, but I am blog-digressing for a moment (I don't care that that "blog-digressing" is not an actual term).  As a bit of background, my parents live in the country and I love it.  I love driving by cotton fields, peanut fields (and I love love love the smell of freshly turned peanuts!), and corn fields (though I don't like to eat corn...except for popcorn...and candy corn).  Why do I love these fields?  For the delicious food grown?  Nope.  I love the straight lines of the fields.  Random and weird?  Yes.  But I embrace my inner love for organization lines.

So anyway I was going to my parents house (with my parents) from Florida the other day and we had to pass over the Chattahoochee River (insert Alan Jackson song here).  Well, right when we got to the bridge to cross the river, a truck stopped us because something was coming over the bridge.  Something large that took up both lanes.  I was pretty excited as I wasn't sure what was about to come over the bridge and we were first in line to see what it was!  Granted, my parents told me it was probably a cotton picker, but I was pretty sure it was a space shuttle or a UFO.

As we waited, suddenly a giant ship (okay, it was a cotton picker) emerged on the horizon.

I love it!  Only out in the country would this happen!

Now I have decided I would like to drive a cotton picker.  I could see myself as a farmer.  (Not really...I like the idealized romantic thought of being a farmer, but I am not sure I could be one.  However, I do have the utmost respect for farmers and their hard work and the food they grow for me [except for the corn]!  They ROCK!)

Hurray for Christmas - Fantasy in Lights (Photography Class)

Let me start out with I am not a photographer.  When my parents retired, they both took up photography (you should check out their pictures, http://lakeseminolephotography.com/, they ROCK!!) and love it.  Last year, they went up to Callaway Gardens' Fantasy in Lights photography workshop and had such a great time, they wanted to go back.  Callaway Gardens also has lots of geocaches and so my parents invited me to their trip this year!  YAY!  I also went to the photography workshop (it was for 'advanced' photographers so I sat in between my parents and asked zero questions and smiled and nodded like I totally knew what was going on...which most of the time I did not).
An example of by noobiness - my remote clicker got stuck one time and this was my 'shot'!

Another example - I couldn't put the camera on the tripod and had to ask my dad for help.  #fail

After about an hour in the classroom, we went over to the Gardens for a preview of the Fantasy in Lights, stopping at many of the scenes to take pictures.  This was the point of the class, to go through the show before it opened to the masses so we could stop and take pictures without spectators/cars/trolleys getting in the way.  Truth be told, at first I was too nervous and wasn't having a blast, but once I figured out a couple of kinks, I had a GREAT time!
In person, you only see one of the kites at a time (they blink back and forth), but slowing down the ISO and increasing my aperture (I have really no idea what I just said or if I even said it correctly!) I was able to capture all the kites in one shot (no photoshopping required!).

Callaway has introduced the LED lights to its displays, which look awesome in person but are a bit hard to shoot.  The nutcrackers are all LED.

Santa's workshop is also LED now.  I love the purple LED lights (let's face it, a snake could be purple and I would like it)!

As part of the tour, some of the trees around the park/gardens are lit up (either lights on the trees or a colored spotlight aimed at the trees).  This shot is actually two trees!  When you see the trees in person, you don't see the colors you see in the photograph.

And then there are swans.  To be honest, I am not sure what swans have to do with Christmas, but it is pretty neat to see their reflection in the water.

Even after only 1 hour of instruction, I did learn a lot about photography and the camera (probably mostly from my parents showing my how to use the camera).  And I learned that though I am not an avid photographer, I really enjoy the Photoshop part!  :)

I See Your True Colors, Shining Through!

Another great surprise (well, not really a surprise as we knew it was coming so I am not sure why I wrote surprise) in going to Callaway Gardens in the fall is the changing of the colors.  The colors were magnificent and amazing!

And I really have nothing to add, the colors speak for themselves!

Seeing the falls colors makes me now want to go to Callaway in the spring to see the azaleas.

He Can Call Me a Flower If He Wants To!

Of course, you cannot go to Callaway Gardens without taking in the beauty of the flowers.  Even in November, there are quite a few flowers in bloom (of course that is partly due to climate control, but whatever!).  Between the Butterfly Center, the Sibley Horticultural Center, the fall flowers, and of course the fall tree colors (reds, yellows, and oranges oh my!), Callaway was FULL of color!

I had to take a picture of these mums and their colors!  Even nature loves Florida State!  :)

This trip was technically my 3rd time to Callaway, though the first time was just a short up and back trip about 6 years ago to see the Fantasy in Lights and the second trip was a Geocaching day trip when we stopped outside Callaway's Country Store (amazing speckled grits!) for a cache and then went on to FDR and other state parks.  So, even though this was my 3rd trip, it was really the first time I had the opportunity to enjoy everything Callaway has to offer.  We visited just about everything in the Gardens (well, we didn't play golf), but I am already excited about my next trip back.  I feel as though I am suffering from sensory overload and need to go back and see everything again!

These shots were taken in the Sibley Horticultural Center. 

Can you tell I like purple-esque flowers?  Just keep reading.  :)  Side note:  God is so good!  He so often pours down blessings upon us just to display His love for us!  It was supposed to rain Tuesday night (during the photography class), but it turned out to be a beautiful night with no rain.  Then, it was supposed to rain all day on Wednesday, but we were able to go to Callaway and the Sibley Center and even geocache all morning with no rain!

Mum's the word!

I think this is some sort of cactus thing?  Maybe?  I don't know.  All I know is that it was pretty!

And there are still more flowers and pictures (BUTTERFLIES!  CHRISTMAS LIGHTS!!  FALL COLORS!!  OH MY!!) to come!