MSU v. Iowa Game

back in october, we took a trip to MSU for our “we hope it can be annual” MSU football game. last year, we didn’t take zo the game because 1. she was little and really didn’t dig loud noises, 2. we were given 4 free tickets. heh. so this year, we definitely wanted zo to be with us.

the MSU v. Iowa game was chosen because it was on a weekend that the kids had friday off. turned out to be a night game under the lights. kinda fun. would’ve been even more fun if the spartans hadn’t lost the game in the last 2 seconds…but never mind that.

here are a few shots from the weekend. it rained ALL.DAY.LONG. and it was cold. but luckily, the skies cleared right before game time so we did not have to sit in the rain…just the cold.

this was taken in the hotel room and i absolutely loved it….but it’s a bit blurry. oh well, i used it on a sb page anyway. love the kids’ expressions.

seriously…it was freezing (and misting). think this would make a good christmas card pic? no?

we made sure to hit SBS (the student bookstore) and a new place to stock up on green gear and then we met up with chris’ best friend kevin and hit one of our old stomping grounds for lunch. of course, back in the day, the place was called “Dooley’s” and was an irish pub (um i use this term loosely considering it was an off campus bar that served mainly pitchers of cheap american beer) and underneath in the basement was a dance bar called “Sensations” (which most of the boys called “Frustrations” if you get my drift…). anyway, the building is still there and on the front porch of “Harper’s” was an inflatable sparty (see blog banner) and well, we just figured that was a sign. it’s a microbrew now and the beer was pretty good (but we laughed because it was served in plastic cups) and the tables and floors were appropriately sticky. ahhh college.

we parked the car on campus and walked almost the entire length of campus (it’s 2 miles) to get to the Breslin center where we could watch the annual green and white basketball game for free.

love this basketball arena. see how close the fans are to the floor? it’s sooo loud!

love the way they decorated the key.

there really isn’t a bad seat in the house. hope we can make a real game this season, but my guess would be we’d be up in the upper deck. course that’s where we watch the football games so what’s the big deal?

after the green and white game, we walked past the stadium and ran into the band. the tubas were warming up or making sure they were all uniformly shiny or something. but it was fun to listen to the fight song as we passed.

zo preferred to walk campus on kevin’s shoulder’s (really, who wouldn’t?). and i am bummed this is blurry. i’ve been messing with camera settings but the trouble is i forget to PUT THEM BACK when i’m done messing. this is the only proof i have the kevin was with us.

once again we were up in the nosebleed section. but this year, we were AT THE WALL. yep. i managed to buy 6 tickets at the back wall of the stadium. it takes 10 minutes of hard hill climbing to get there and 20+ minutes of moving like cattle to get back down and out of the stadium after the game. but the view is great and no one is kneeing you in the back.

this was as close as i could get with my telephoto.

at halftime, the girls insisted on staying to watch the band (even though they were freezing and wanted hot chocolate) i’m glad we stayed it was a lot of fun to see the band.

and when they weren’t on the field, the band is in the end zone. student section is to the left of them. ahhh i remember those bleachers…..sigh.

the weekend was not the best as not only did the spartans lose but my FIL was gravely ill with legionella pneumonia. thankfully, he is finally on the mend but it was a scary weekend. we were just grateful that we were in michigan already and could all make the trip to see him at the detroit hospital before coming home on sunday.

here’s the first page from the weekend.

supplies can be seen here.

All Hail the Almighty Wii

Seriously, where else can you putt with a wine glass in your hand (and have the chance of making it??)

chris actually chose this game to play against connor because he can actually BEAT him on this game. yeah, not today. connor creamed him.

after dinner, we had a family bowling tournament. chris and the kids went first and then i was to take the place of the loser.

interesting to me that the wii people are hard to see on the screen. tori throws strikes like they are nothing.

zoe demonstrating the “i’m so good at this i can stick my rear end out and still get a spare” move.

needless to say, the kids beat chris and then i took his place. yeah, they creamed me too. it’s all in the wrist i’m sure, but for the life of me i can’t figure out WHAT is all in the wrist! LOL

seriously, it’s embarassing. i’m thinking chris and i should practice sometime when the kids are at school. sheesh!

Madison Photowalk

a couple weekends back, the boys were camping at the boy scout illinois jamboree with 1500 other scouts so the girls and i decided to take a road trip to madison, wi. my girlfriend katrina had flown in from california to watch her little brother compete in the ironman. the race was on sunday so we went up on saturday to go out to lunch with them and then do a photo walk with katrina (complete with ice cream of course!) prior to the big event.

katrina is an amazing photographer and she even teaches classes at Get It Scrapped where photographic neophytes like me can learn new tricks. i must admit, i was hoping she’d photograph the girls and then send me the pics…but she did one better. she made this photo collage page for me instead. and i love it.

Tori ran into her 5th grade teacher up there as well. Her husband was competing in his 4th ironman. so amazing!

Justin did a great job and finished 400th out of over 2100. it was very fun to hang out with him before the race and then see some of katrina’s photos. what an amazing accomplishment.

all in all, a great road trip.

Lions and Tigers and Bears

we didn’t have big labor day plans. we rarely do. there’s usually something else going on like football or soccer. but this year we were free. so after church on sunday we decided to go to the zoo. we rotate our museum/zoo memberships around and this year it’s brookfield zoo again. we haven’t had a membership to the zoo in quite awhile. typically we do the shedd aquarium or the museum of science and industry. might need to do the field museum next time around….

anyway…the zoo. right before i left, i read about a photo contest the zoo is sponsoring. not sure that i got any “winning” shots but the weather was cool, the bears were out (tori was very happy) and even the condors cooperated (very rare).

i took several shots of this guy right off the bat. love the paws.

this was the girl in the other pen (assuming she’s the girl since she’s quite a bit smaller). there’s a reason for the green fur that i can’t remember. i think it has to do with the summer heat.

love this shot. can’t decide if he wishes he could get to us and eat us, or if he just wants to be somewhere else.

um, i’m thinkin’ he’d like to eat us…..

this guy on the other hand is totally nonplussed by all the people. one of these was a brown bear. not sure what that makes the other guy though. i know they aren’t grizzlies.

can’t believe they all managed to get in this thing. we had to pry connor out.

the leopards are always faves.

it is rare to get decent shots of the lions. the male was up on the back ledge sleeping (typical) but the lioness was out on display.

i like this pic too.

we always have to check out the zebras for zo. this is a grevy zebra and they do not travel in groups like other zebras do. the female was in the next pen. she’s only allowed to visit when she’s in heat. nice gig.

because we have passes, we don’t feel obligated to see it all. so we skipped the elephants, rhinos and bats and checked out a fairly new exhibit called salt creek marsh (or something like that) they have a nice wolf exhibit with mexican grey wolves. there were only 2 of the 4 visible but the other one was chewing on a bone or something and there was no way i was going to get his attention.

we joked that we saw a lot of butts on our trip. some of the animals did it on purpose i swear. connor suggested a scrapbook page of all the animal butts plus his, tori’s and zo’s….ah, i have successfully brainwashed them to the scrapper’s way of thinking. beautiful. trouble was, i didn’t take many of the butt shots. except this one. the okapi is one of my favorite animals (besides sea otters) and they are very hard to shoot at the zoo as they are painfully shy. we happened upon this one because i took a wrong turn and i’m glad i did. i just wish the chain link fence wasn’t in the way. caused MAJOR shooting issues as my camera kept wanting to focus on the fence, not the okapi.

okapi are most closely related to giraffes. and this was the first time we’d really seen why.

watch the tongue

she grabbed on to the branch and pulled it closer to her with her tongue. neat trick!

then she proceeded to eat the leaves. it was cool to watch and infuriating to try and photograph.
such cool animals.

i don’t know what the occasion was, but this condor was all about preening. usually you can’t barely see them up in the top of the pen behind the tree branches.

this is where i secretly pine for a wider angle lens. his wing span is upwards of 9 feet and i could not get it all in one shot. but he held this pose for a really long time.

this is where we decided it was a male condor.