CTAGS!...Holla!

Our family had a great weekend and a busy one, as usual. This past Friday and Saturday, Madison and her fellow Swim Belton swimmers took part in the yearly Central Texas Age Group Swim Championship held this year in Belton. It was a great meet and a lot of fun to watch! Madi and her friends really did well and there was quite a large crowd in attendance both days of the meet. Unfortunately for spectators, and if you've attended any youth swim meets you already know this, there isn't much seating and what there is isn't real comfortable after about 4 hours. Added to that the nasal-searing, eye-burning air quality of the pool house and you've got your very own test of strength and endurance. The great thing about these meets is when your child who has practiced for hours a week for months and months gets into the pool and shows what she has been working on. Olivia and I, as well as, the rest of the family that came out to support Madison, were blown away with how well she is doing. Her swim strokes look really great and she just gets better and better and faster and faster each time out. Madi and her friends all improved on their personal best times and Madi swam in two different events that she'd never swam before in competition. She set new personal records in the 50 and 100 yard freestyle and the 100 yard backstroke. She also swam the 50 yard breaststroke for the first time and finished second in her heat and seventh overall!!! Madi also got to swim in a 200 yard medley relay with three of her friends and that was a lot of fun to watch also. There was a little bit of confusion about that last event since we almost made the fatal mistake of taking the advice of several 10-12 year olds who told Madi that all the relays were over. So, after drying off and walking to the car, Madi ran back in, found out she was, in fact, swimming in the relay and had to throw her cap and goggles back on and jump back in. Yikes! Thanks for all the support from everyone and especially to her family for coming out and putting up with the chlorine, the bleachers and the periods of forced starvation that go along with these meets. Olivia was able to put her telephoto zoom lens to good use during the meet and captured quite a few shots of the action. We got an email that the results from the meet have been posted on Swim Belton's website and the girls got First Place overall and the boys came in second! Can I get a holla! Well, holla or not, we had fun and are super-proud of Madi and her great performance! Here are a few pictures from the event:

~Madison during warm-ups

~Backstroke warm-up

~Madi diving in her second (and best) event of the competition, the breaststroke. Her dives are looking better and better!

Her goggles fell off her eyes, but she ~keep going. *She would have gotten yelled at by the couches if not. They really drill that in - if your goggles come off, KEEP GOING!

~Just after this shot, she smiled at us. Always time for a smile from this sweet one!

~Madi watching one of her friends/teammates swim.

~Jack comforting Madi after her freestyle event. She was bummed about that one.

~Giving Aunt Gennie a wet hug. Aunt Gennie doesn't mind a bit.

~Papa giving Madi some love.

~Getting in position for the backstroke.

~During backstroke

Great job Swim Belton! Great job Madi! We are super proud of you!

a story that I will never know....

In my last post, I mentioned that on our trip to Crystal Lake a few weekends ago, I took pictures as we drove. I wanted to share these pictures with you today. If you read the last post you will recall that Jack was driving and I was in the passenger seat with my camera snapping pictures the entire drive. Not all the pictures taken turned out - some were blurry (we were moving 75-80 miles an hour!) and some were of things that I didn't mean to get because I had totally missed my intended target. The following are the pictures that I feel are worth sharing. These are from the trip to Crystal Lake.

We love this barn! It is clear to us that the owner is proud of his land, his Texas, and the (no doubt) hard work he has put into this land. *I got a better shot of it on the way back from Crystal Lake.

 

"The Old Store" ~ awesome old building.

Jason and Madison on the drive there.

 

I would love to explore this place!!

These pictures were taken at the Dinner Momma Camille hosted at Crystal Lake:

Johnny Dad, Madi girl, and Jason



Alex and Emily~the newly engaged couple.

Jack and his cousin Conner.

Uncle Bill, Trey, Uncle Dennis, Momma Camile, Aunt Carol and Aunt Suzanne hanging out at the bar.

Jack and I. Conner, if you are reading this, I cropped out my hand, as you can see....that is still so funny to me! Thanks for taking the picture.

The boys watching the Cowboys game.

Thumper and Meredith~also engaged to be married!


Jasmine and Dennis with their youngest son, Joshua.

Trey and Alex



Conner and Aunt Suzanne

 
Madison and Jason playing cards with Gabi and David.

And these pictures were taken on the drive home from Crystal Lake:

A hawk taking flight from a speed limit sign. Jack loves hawks and we always look for them. We thought it was pretty cool to get a shot of it like this.

 

Nothing says Texas (other than the barn with the Texas flag painted on it) like a big Long Horn! A shot of a dilapidated house (I think it's a house) taken through some dead trees closer to the road.

 

Another shot of the Texas barn that we love so much.

 

This was really far from the road but, it looks like a dog house next to a tree. The dog house was just out there, not close to a house, alone. I wondered why. What happened to the house that was there, or was there ever a house? If not, why was this dog house out there? It's a mystery. A great picture with a story that I will never know.

a Sunday morning full of beauty, peace and reflection....

Thank goodness for places like Crystal Lake! I have been dying, as you may know, to REALLY spend time working with my new telephoto lens. Well, I got the opportunity to do just that this past weekend at Crystal Lake, thanks to my mother-in-law, Camille.

Crystal Lake is in Palestine, Texas and is a favorite getaway located just about three hours from our house. We go for a weekend stay two or three times a year with Mom and Dad Johnston who waited all their lives to get a chance to become members of the club there. On Saturday, we drove to Crystal Lake in the afternoon. Saturday evening, Camille hosted her family's yearly dinner. This dinner is normally held just after Christmas but, was a little later this year. We had a great time and got to visit with family that we hadn't seen in awhile. I took pictures of those in attendance, but I'll post them at another time, if I get permission to do so from them. On Sunday morning I got up at 7am, dressed as warm as I could (including a borrowed parka and gloves) and ventured out into the freezing (15 degrees!), morning just before sunrise. Steam was rising from the icy lake and as the sun began to rise, the colors of the landscape changed every few minutes. This was a very unique opportunity for me, we are blessed with such mild winters here that we don't normally have many mornings like that. It was so quiet, peaceful and beautiful. So beautiful in fact that I didn't mind the cold for once. At first my intent was to take all kinds of pictures, switching out my lenses when needed for different subjects. However, after a few minutes in the frozen air, I couldn't feel my fingers and changing lenses became almost impossible. Plus, I didn't want to drop a lens and break it! So, I decided to just put on the telephoto lens and leave it on since that was the one I was most eager to play with. So, all of the following pictures, except one (taken before my fingers went numb), were taken with my telephoto lens. I took more than 500 pictures over the course of two days. Some where taken on the drive to Palestine and the drive back while Jack drove. I used my telephoto lens for those also and got a few pretty good shots at 75-80 miles an hour. I'll post those later too as there are already a lot of photos in this post. Here are some of my favorites from my Sunday morning at Crystal Lake.

~This picture was taken from just outside the back door of the lake house. If you look closely, you can see an old dead tree laying in the water in the background. That dead tree has been there for years (ever since I first started going to the lake with the family and I'm sure much longer than that) and has been the subject of many of my pictures. It's just really cool looking to me.

~a view from the side of the lake house looking down at the lake. I like this one.

~The edge of the water was frozen, you can see the ice here. ~Ice crystals that have formed on top of a picnic table that sits out beside the lake. This is the one picture that is not a telephoto shot.

~In this picture you can see another dead tree laying in the water. This is a new (to me at least) addition to the scenery.

~the same dead tree twice more. These pictures were taken from the Pier (you can see the pier in picture just above these two) to get a closer shot. ~frozen weeds ~an old platform. This picture makes me feel lonely. I like it though. ~this picture was also taken from the Pier. It is of the reflection of the trees in the water. The water was so still and calm that everything bounced off of it like a mirror. Beautiful. Even though it doesn't follow any of the "guidelines for good composition" of a photo, this is one of my favorite ones of the day!

~The pier and the lake.

~if you look close enough, you can see a bird sitting on top of the white trim of the little spring house, looking out toward the lake. I wasn't going for a picture of the bird (that's why it's not closer) and I didn't even notice the bird until Jack pointed it out to me once the pictures were loaded on the computer. ~A bird house among the trees with the fog in the background, I love it.

~Jack came out after a little while and walked around with me. I shot this picture of him on the pier. The lighting isn't right and his features aren't easily made out, but I like it anyway. ~Fence post. Simple, yet eye catching and interesting. ~Can you find the bird??

~My two favorite little helpers, Jason and Madison, came out for a little bit toward the end of my adventure. Here they are looking over the pier at the water below.

~a leaf with ice crystals

~once the sun came up and most of the fog was gone, all the little creatures came out to play. This cute fuzzy little bird was one of them.

~My favorite dead tree after the fog lifted.

~this picture reminds me of a painting. The reflection of the trees on the water is what makes this picture interesting to me.

~a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. ~Ambrose Bierce

~Madi picked up a leaf and wanted me to take a picture of it. Instead, I took a picture of her holding the leaf. She thought the picture was just of the leaf. Turned out to be my other favorite picture from this day!

~I got a dozen or more pictures of this herd of deer, thanks to Johnny who spotted them just before we left on Sunday afternoon.

We always enjoy our time at Crystal Lake, but this trip, for me, was special. It was special because I got to experience and capture, in photographs, a Sunday morning full of beauty, peace and reflection. It was also special because I was surrounded by family who all take such an interest and support me in my hobby/passion/obsession!