Extra, Extra

...see all about it...
{ hehehe }

These are some extra shots I had from Monday's trip to the nature trail and Town Center, courtesy of my in-laws...

I am completely in love with those blue tiles.
...I have these exact blue tiles on the fireplace surround in my home...
{ you know, my dream home that currently exists only in my mind. }





These beauties should not be classified as weeds...they can take over the crab grass in my yard any time they wish.



...getting back to my dream home...
This is what the outside looks like, minus the cascading water.
That's in the garden.


  

Does this remind anyone else of a 1920s mob movie?

Miscellaneous Monday

So many photos, so few memes.
{...wait...that's not right.}


But I do have a handful of extra shots from last week that never made it into the rotation.
Most are from Thursday's trip to the farmstead.



This little guy was sooooo cute!!!
{if someone had told me I could take them all home, I'd have done so in a heartbeat!}





...one if by land, two if by sea...
This was one of several lanterns in the dairy barn.
and I liked it, so I took a picture.





They also have these gorgeously green well-style hand pumps with cobalt blue basins beneath as their wash station near the goats.
{beauty is in the details...except you can't really see them here.}




and who could ignore the giant red barn?!
{well, no one, because that's where you enter. ;)}
Check out that weather vane, too!




And this one....there's a story here...

My husband and I had gone out to stake up our tomato plants in our backyard one evening when we caught two bunnies nibbling away at the new growth.
{stinkin' bunnies}
But instead of running away as fast as they could, they ran a little bit and stopped.
So I ran to get my camera!
When I came back I apparently made "ridiculous clopping noises" with my flip flops {so says my husband} and scared them away. They ran under our wooden gate and I had to go see if they stopped again.
Which they did! One was about 6 feet from me, so I carefully crouched to the ground to get some shots.
I managed to take a few super blurry ones and then the bunny started hopping toward me!
Closer and closer...
{why oh why did I grab my 70-300 when the 50 is what I needed?!?}
And then as if that wasn't crazy enough, this gutsy bunny starts running at me!

What do I do?
I flinch.
A bunny made me flinch.
And he ran away for real this time.

Not long after all this, his buddy figured out that his friend was gone and came out for the shot above.

PS - If you have an interest in handmade items, then Celeste at French Onion Finds has you covered! At her brand spankin' new blog she showcases beautiful items from Etsy. And it just so happens that her first post includes one of my photographs. ;)

Trains and Industry

I took this shot in an industrial area of northern downtown Kansas City. It was a fairly foggy day and when you combine that with the old buildings, I though a vintage edit was the perfect things for this shot!

It also makes Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash play through my head!
I hear the train a comin'. It's rolling round the bend. 

And I ain't seen the sunshine since I don't know when.

Barn Beautiful

This technically isn't a barn.
It's a lodge you can rent for events, it just looks like a barn.
Nonetheless, it is a beautiful building!

There are many nooks and crannies and big beautiful windows everywhere.

And the views are amazingly colorful right now.

I wish I would have taken a shot of the floor to ceiling windows that are between each lantern, because they're actually garage doors! 

They even open to allow the indoor and outdoor entertaining spaces to become one. There's a patio beneath the lanterns, which overlooks a beautiful wooded trail. 

This one is from a completely different place, but still in keeping with the barn theme.

Dreams Yet to Come...

There are two things that I would love to do:
1. Go back to Europe for a month long vacation
2. Ride in a hot air balloon

But for now, this is as close as I'll get...


My edited shot of the Eiffel Tower turned out so well that I actually sold a copy of it!
So, I thought I'd take one of my husband's shots from Venice and fix it too. 

...In case you were wondering, no, I was not on the trip with him.
But that just gives us a reason to go back to Europe, doesn't it?!


After:

Before:

I edit with PSE 8 and here's what I did:

Step 1: Run PW's Warm Action x 2

Step 2: Run PW's Soft & Faded Action

Step 3: Using the clone tool, get rid of that unsightly wire/clothes line thing.

Step 4: Crop to 8x10.

Step 5: Attempt to remove people from bridge and decide that it's more work than you care to do. That, and because your kids are crawling on you.

And that's it. 

Not a whole lot of editing, but I think the result is nice.

_______________

The theme this week for You Capture is 'Orange'.
This shot is from this summer when we went to a hot air balloon festival.