223: Where the Blue Ridge yawns its greatness, Where the Tigers play

Just a quick note with this one so I can get to sleep....full day ahead of us! Eddie and I got down to Clemson this afternoon and enjoyed a very good evening/night with some of his grad school friends. We also were able to walk around campus earlier and I snapped a few photos. This photograph is from a memorial on the Clemson campus to commemorate veterans of various conflicts and wars. I remember seeing the statue of the soldier on previous trips to campus but never realized that the mold was embedded in two nearby columns. I kind of like the idea that the statue is walking away from its mold in this photo.

222: A Gift from Horticulture Dave

My friend and co-worker Dave is a counselor on campus and also has a degree in horticulture. He brought me a beautiful bouquet for my birthday last week (made from flowers and herbs from the gardens he has planted at the Counseling House) and brought three new flowers to liven up my desk today. (So very thoughtful!) I had a feeling that the flowers would become my photo of the day today because they were such a great color.

After work I took some time to set up a still-life scene with the flowers and a pumpkin we have for Halloween. The pictures ended up looking nice but very staged and boring. I shot this one on a whim as I was finishing. I really like the result of the light coming in through the petals.

P.S. For those of you who are followers of our trivia team via my photo blog.....our team tied for 1st tonight and Jacqui won 1st for our team in an intellectual bout of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Go team! Also, I'd like to thank the team for never failing to make me laugh and making my day a little brighter and happier, no matter how the rest of my day has been.

221: Swanky!

Tonight was the CNU Photography Club's 1st Annual Mocktail Art Show. It was a stunning success and I am a very proud advisor tonight! Their hard work really paid off. The room set-up was beautiful, the music was perfect, the mocktails were tasty AND there were a lot of people that came! Great job everyone!!!

220: Jocie-Pants

Jocelyn is a co-worker and good friend. She is also a loyal blog reader. :-) Tonight Eddie and I headed out to see her kids at their football game. (Her son plays football and her daughter cheers.) It was raining out so everyone had their umbrellas. I caught this photo in a rare moment of Jocelyn not running from the camera.

219: Kinder Surprise!

One of my wonderful birthday gifts this year was a box of three Kinder Eggs from Katie. These delicious hollow chocolate eggs have a yellow capsule inside of them that contain a toy. The toys are surprisingly awesome and generally require some assembly. A bunch of us became slightly obsessed with them during our trip to Greece while at JMU. They are practically impossible to get in the states so I was completely surprised to see them in my birthday gift! (Katie knew someone who recently traveled to England and had her bring the box back.)

I knew that I wanted to use one as a photo of the day so I managed to not eat any until tonight! The toy in the egg from tonight is a blue kangaroo with sunglasses on. His pouch can be used to pass notes in class, according to the cartoon instructions that came with it. I can't wait to eat the next two eggs. I'm sure you can expect more photos of the day from them. Thanks, Katie!

P.S. I want to give a little nod of appreciation to loyal readers Sara (Z) S. and Julie K. :-)

218: I see you!

Eddie and I had a nice afternoon/evening with my parents. After we had dinner my parents headed home and Eddie and I headed to main campus to check out the Trick-or-Treating program. Each year the residents of the halls decorate their halls and pass out candy to the kids that come by. A lot of employees bring their kids and it's a lot of fun. I snapped this in one of the halls.

217: Duuuuuuuuuuuuuukes

Eddie and I spent the day helping out in the Press Box at JMU for the Parade of Champions high school marching band competition. It was a fantastic day that I could write a million paragraphs about but we're about to head to the hotel next door to meet up with Laura (she was a grad student at JMU when I was here in undergrad) for some Dave's Express delivery.

Long story short, today was a good day for me to see a few key people that had a great influence on me in my life, to watch the bands of my good friends that work so hard as band directors and marching band staff, and to (of course) get completely awestruck by the Marching Royal Dukes, again...just as I have been for a long time now...even when I was a member.

Post Update: I was trying to upload a video from the evening performance of the MRDs but even after "thinking" for an hour the video hadn't uploaded yet. So....here's a shot I snapped with my pocket digital from the sideline of the MRDs coming off of the field while playing. The high school drum majors were going nuts. What a band! Seeing them makes me want to go back to school as a freshman and march for four years!

216: Leaf Peeping

This blog entry is brought to you by The West Wing:

BARTLET: Good morning. This month, as autumn is in full bloom in much of the nation,the weekends willbe devoted by many of you to leaf peeping and football... watch... ing...

(He starts to laugh.)

TECHNICIAN: Cut tape.

BARTLET[still laughing] I'm sorry. Leaf peeping? Is that something we do now?

--------------------------------

Eddie and I left Newport News (early from work!) to head up to Harrisonburg for a weekend at JMU to help out with Parade of Champions, the high school marching band competition hosted on campus each year. I had been looking forward to the drive all week, knowing that the leaves were going to be beautiful...and they were. I love autumn in the Shenandoah Valley!

215: Happy Birthday To Me!

I had a really good birthday. It started with donuts with my coworkers and ended with a trivia night with some of my favorite people in the world. The Weekend Pub has an anonymous bar-patron that "buys" a yard of beer for regulars that are celebrating a birthday. I received my yard of beer and Norris led the ENTIRE bar in a rendition of Happy Birthday for me before the trivia rounds began. Our table, which was five tables pushed together, was full of my friends who came out...some drove from across the water and from Richmond. I am really lucky to have such wonderful friends. It's sometimes overwhelming to think about my friends. I can honestly say that I have a solid group of individuals that I can always count on for love, support and laughs....no matter what.

The photos from tonight are hilarious. I wish that I could post them all but instead I'll post a photoshopped photo of my yard of beer with a birthday cupcake.

Thank you to all for your birthday wishes.

P.S. For those keeping track, we didn't place tonight. But I'm okay with that. I had a GREAT time with my friends!

214: Slavick Family

I had the pleasure of taking photographs of the Slavick family this afternoon. Brittany was an orinetation student director this summer at CNU. Her brother, Dylan, is a senior in high school and her mother, Lisa, is a hilarious woman (and a facebook addict!). We met up at the Lion's Bridge and enjoyed spending time climbing trees, sitting on walls and taking in the unseasonably warm day. I took A LOT of photos today but had to narrow it down for posting today. I chose three photos....one of Dylan, one of Brittany and one of the three of them together...for today's entry. I went with a theme of three black and white portraits just because I thought I should have a theme.
This is Dylan with a sweet old car that was parked by the bridge. We borrowed it for a backdrop. Dylan was very patient during the afternoon even with the wall/rock/tree climbing...plus he had a sweet fedora that he rocked during part of the shoot.

I took many more traditional portrait shots of Brittany and they are beautiful. I liked this one because it was a different angle and feel from the others.

I love it when people are caught laughing in photos....and these three did a lot of laughing. It was really fun to photograph them. I can't wait to get through all of the edits and share the rest of the shots with them.

213: Red Crooked Sky Dancers

Three members of the Red Crooked Sky Dancers were on campus this afternoon to share about their tribes and cultures as well as perform some of their traditional dancers. I had seen them at the Newport News Fall Festival and so I knew I should bring my camera to work today! I am pleased with how many of the shots came out, especially being able to be so close to the dancers. My favorite, however, was taken from a co-worker's window from above. I am a sucker for photographs utilizing shadows or reflections so this one is my favorite:

212: B-A-N-A-N-A-S

Nothing of interest in my day to photograph today. Eddie bought a bunch of bananas to bring to his staff meeting in the morning...that was about the most interesting thing. I livened the shot up a bit with some Photoshopping. I like the "pop art" kind of feel it now has.

209, 210, 211: Weekend!

This weekend I headed down to Durham, NC to hang out with Andrea. We had a really relaxing weekend that included seeing Kathy Griffin (hilarious), watching movies and having some good old fashioned girl talk. Here are my three photos from the weekend...

209: Durham Bull

I shot this from the car on our way to the Kathy Griffin show. The performing arts center is right next to the ball field so I also so that big bull billboard in the outfield. Fun find.

210: Ears

Sean and Andrea both love Disney and even have a fantastic bedspread with Mickey, Donald and Goofy on it that reminded me of the Tiki Room. They have their Mickey ears hanging on their bedroom door. I liked that panel behind the ears and the contrast of the black and white.

211: Morning Rehearsal

I left Andrea's around 9 this morning to head back to Newport News for a softball game (which annoyingly didn't even happen because the other team didn't show up). The route back to the highway took me right by the Duke University campus. I couldn't be so close without stopping by so I made a slight detour and parked by the chapel. I was pleased to find the doors unlocked and absolutely delighted that the choir was rehearsing for their morning service. The music was gorgeous and filled the sanctuary. It was a very good way for me to start my day.

208: Spooky

The photo of today is from the Weekend Pub....they have it decorated for Halloween and I was amused by the addition of the arm hanging from the ceiling tiles:

Trivia tonight was less than stellar. Norris wasn't there and the guy reading had the worst trivia questions EVER. We tied for first and Eddie won the Rock, Paper, Scissors battle for the win.

207: Mmmm Butter

Each Wednesday we switch off cooking for our pre-kickball dinner. This week is Dan's week. He came into work today with two large Country Crock tubs and I asked if it was dinner. He said yes and that we were having butter for dinner. It became a joke that ended with him doing a pretty impressive impression of the Gingerbread Man from Shrek. I took this photo of Dan showcasing his butter dinner before he cooked it. (It was really potatoes and mini-hot dogs to go with our beef sandwiches.)

For those readers keeping track, we lost yet again tonight to the top team in our league. The final score was 3-2 so it was a close game. Maybe next week...

206: Oyter Point Panthers

Eddie and I headed down toward Denbigh to see Jocelyn's son, Dalon, play football and her daughter, Jai, cheer. They were both great and such polite and nice kids. Unfortunately my camera decided to die (I didn't realize my battery was low) so I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted. I'll have to go to another game. :-)

205: New husband?

Nope, just a husband that shaved his facial hair off this afternoon!

204: HG In Costume

Today Eddie and I went down to Tim and Amanda's to watch football. This used to be a weekly event when they lived on this side of the water and so it was nice to get to hang out again. Amanda put Hannah's Halloween costume on here for a mini-photo adventure. Hannah wasn't too keen on sitting still but she was adorable so no big deal. :-)

203: Duuuuuuuuuuuuukes!

Eddie and I got up early today and drove up to Harrisonburg to go to the JMU vs. Richmond football game. We got there in time to walk across campus from Rikkers Lot (the parking lot across Main Street from the Music Building....we joked that Scott had paid enough parking tickets to pay for the lot) to the stadium. They finished the walkway from the bottom of the Quad under Main Street but it's not open yet as the new music building, which looks amazing. Campus was beautiful, as usual, especially with the leaves starting to turn.

The football game was awesome, despite the JMU loss....stupid fumble! I, of course, loved seeing the Marching Royal Dukes. The band is just as big and as wonderful as they have always been. I couldn't choose just one photo from today so I'm cheating a bit with a few favorites.

*The trumpets playing each other's instruments during the Post-Game playing of "Get It On"
*Post-touchdown streamer celebtration in the student section

*Duke Dog!

*Scott with the band during pre-game run through.

*Jimmy with fall colors. Love him!

202: Howl-O-Scream

A group of us headed up to Busch Gardens today after work to enjoy their Halloween festivities. We had a lot of fun going through the haunted mazes and riding some rides. It was not very crowded, which was really nice. I took this in the haunted house beneath Escape from Pompeii (Mom and Katie: Read: Pom-pee-eye). The figure in the photo is Terry. (I'd like to go back through to get a better capture of a shadow of the person rather than as detailed as it was in this shot. Probably could get a better shot by being further back. I was working under pressure and afraid of a werewolf popping out!)

201: French Toast...Seavers Style

Tonight Eddie and I had breakfast for dinner. He showed me how to make french toast the Seavers way. It was quite tasty and a nice way to end the work day and help my brain gear up for trivia. (Our team ended up in a tie for third and lost the Rock-Paper-Scissors battle but we have been told that we'll still be up on the update of the Pub Quiz of the newly updated Weekend Pub website.) This is a photo from our first batch of french toast. Tasty!

200: Crocs and Socks

Yet another fun WAKA Wednesday! Kickball game was good despite the loss. The team played well as a team and I made up for my two dropped fly balls last week with a catch this game. We went out for darts and music with the team after to celebrate Liz's birthday. I took this shot of Katie and her amazing attire while we were watching the dart match.

199: Gaby

Today I took some photos of the exec board of the Multicultural Student Association on campus. They are a fun bunch of students. Gaby, who is the president and a common sight in our office, chose to have her photo taken by a quote they have up in their office. I normally don't care for posed shots but I really like how this came out.

198: Pumpkin Patch

Today after work had the fun opportunity to take some photos of my coworkers' son and his baby cousin who was in town for a visit. We headed to a church that had a pumpkin patch set up. Both babies wore chicken costumes, which was really adorable. I am always glad to get to practice my photography, especially when the subjects are my friends and their families. This is Lena, cousin of Baby Luke who has been a photo of the day a few times. :-)

196 & 197: Weekend

196: Eddie, Amanda and I had the pleasure of attending the wedding of a friend that we worked with at Denbigh with the marching band. The wedding was beautiful and the food was TASTY! This shot was cropped from a wider photo of the bride coming back up the aisle after the ceremony.

197: I headed to the Newport News Fall Festival of Folklife this afternoon. It was a nice chance for me to check out lots of hand-made crafts, listen to some good bluegrass and take some photos. I ended up getting a few shots that I really like but I think this is my favorite. I stood and watched this gentleman throw three or four pots. It was fascinating.

195: Chalk for Peace

There was a neat "program" all day today outside of the student union where students could draw with chalk with the idea of promoting peace and understanding. The end product was pretty awesome with so many positive messages about diversity, peace and beauty. I snapped a quick shot on my way out of work of a colorful flower with the chalk still next to it.

Sidenote: Eddie and I saw "The Invention of Lying" tonight....it was awesome. I highly recommend it!

194: Unprepared

So my pocket camera battery was dead and I only charged it for a few minutes between work and errands thinking it would be enough for tonight...I didn't get any real decent shots off before it died. We sat at a new table at trivia tonight and I got to look at a collage up close that I hadn't seen before. Lots of pictures of the pub owner and some regulars....the photo didn't turn out well but I didn't have much to work with. Better luck tomorrow I hope.

For those of you keeping track at home, we didn't place tonight. We missed third place by a half a point!