Pam's Week 30: She's Buying a Stairway to Heaven...

So this week started in the pouring rain and ended with some gorgeous blue skies and sunshine.  The days in between were a bit of a mixture with me running into work in such a downpour the one day that my clothes, including my bra that would have been under 3 layers if you count my clearly not waterproof jacket, did not dry out until noon!  I figured I should have saved myself some time and brought my shampoo to work and had a quick shower on my way in; I looked like I did that anyways.

I have enjoyed reading all about Sharon's adventures in China and Tibet and seeing a gorgeous snippet of her photos, but I realized that I count on her to keep her posts on this blog up to date and I have been feeling rather lonely as of late.  I am the only one posting and maybe even the only one reading it.  Having said that, I am proud of myself for my attempt to keep it up though!

This upcoming week, I will have no excuses to not get out and get my photos taken.  Duncan will be at his week of summer camp and Danica will be camping with Grandma and Grandpa for the week.  My kitchen has been demolished in preparation for the renovation so I can't even spend time in there!  And frankly, the boxes all over the rest of my house aren't really making the living room seem all that relaxing so I might as well get out and get photographing, especially since Danica somehow fixed my camera (my guess, though it may be because I just finished reading The Witches of New York, is that in order to make up for the fact that she got grounded today, she cast a magic spell to fix my camera as her way of sucking up as she would never, ever apologize).

Wide Angle
When I first saw this topic, I assumed it just meant I would take a photo with my camera zoomed out as far as it would go so began snapping a few photos that way.  I then questioned whether there was something a little more to wide angle photography so, you guessed it, I consulted with my buddy, Google.  I then had some fantastic ideas that I intended to try today.  Unfortunately, our photo opportunities today were rather limited by the fact that not only did I not charge my camera battery nor bring a spare, but I also forgot my cellphone at home!

This is a photo of last Friday night's sunset from the beach at Brimley.  I realize Friday was last week but I figured since I posted my last blog early, I could start taking photos early too!

Picture though, if you will, an angled boardwalk along the beach leading up to a historical lighthouse.  That was my idea for today had my camera not died.  The docent at the lighthouse museum offered to let me borrow his cellphone and e-mail pictures to myself but that didn't seem quite right to me.

Adventure
As I had mentioned last week, we went camping last weekend.  One of our friends who came with us had never camped before.  You would think that would be adventure enough.  Of course, as anyone who has ever camped knows, you have never really camped until you have camped and had to take down tents in the rain!  I decided to stand in the doorway of my parents' dry trailer where Robert and I and the kids were lucky enough to spend the weekend and take a photo through the downpour (and I am not exaggerating if I told you it would have rivaled the monsoon rains in Singapore) of Randy with his garbage bag rain poncho taking down his tent.

Starts with J
This was another photo I intended to take this morning at the Iroquois Point Lighthouse as I had seen a similar one in a review of the lighthouse and liked how it looked.  My kids were cooperative but I only had one chance to capture the photo before the camera died so I didn't have the opportunity to fix the angle and not have the top of the lighthouse cut off.

Can you guess what the "j" word was?

Old
Well, the lighthouse is old, having first shone it's light in 1857.  Apparently that lighthouse was torn down and replaced by the current structure in 1870.  This light, on display inside the lighthouse keeper's quarters, was actually a fourth order Fresnel lens from the Martin Reef Lighthouse which was said to be a twin of the Point Iroquois Lighthouse.

Stairs
Truth be told, it was because of this topic that I began looking at photos of the Lighthouse.  I knew we didn't have any interesting stairs here to photograph (at least ones I haven't photographed previously) and thought I wanted something somewhat interesting as I can only imagine what Sharon has found in Asia!  Now there were only 72 of these to get to the top of the lighthouse, but they were admittedly rather terrifying, especially when it came time to descend.  I thought my heart was going to stop as Danica, who apparently was the brave one of the three of us, decided to descend through the door in the floor first.  You see, the railing did not go all the way to the top and there wasn't a railing around the spiral so she was stepping and reaching and I couldn't watch for fear of watching her fall but felt I had to as what kind of mother wouldn't watch to make sure her beloved offspring was safe.  I decided it was a very good call for my father to not accompany us given his fear of heights and enclosed spaces.  I have to admit that I may never venture up top again either.  I'm not sure whether Duncan was most afraid of the ginormous spiders we discovered at the top or the descent...

This picture was actually taken from the bottom of the stairs as the view from the top wasn't quite as striking (maybe if I wasn't too scared to keep my eyes open and my camera steady it would have been better).

Toes
I am not going to pretend this shot is at all original, creative, or something I haven't already taken photos of earlier this year.  It was taken last weekend at Brimley.  I again hoped for something more spectacular today but the dead battery impacted that again.

The description for this photo is in the wildcard as I discovered it while looking for the other one.  I decided Duncan's toes curled up while he photographed their artwork was more creative than my toes.  I guess you will have figured out that I can't actually take the credit for this photo other than it was taken on my cellphone.

Wildcard
The possibilities were endless today!  Or they would have been if I wasn't a forgetful dolt.  Instead, you will have to make do with a photo of our magic fire last weekend.  After we were done making smores, Duncan found some magic fire powder (I can't remember what it is actually called) in my parents' trailer and sprinkled it on the fire.  Voila - the flames turned blue, green, a little bit of purple.  It was quite cool actually.

I forgot that I had promised the kids I would include one of the photos they took this afternoon of their chalk art in the driveway.  Apparently it involved smashing the chalk and then turning the hose on it and watching the colours run into a pattern down the driveway.  They had done a similar creation last night but when my father-in-law saw it this morning, he washed it away before I had a chance to see it.

There's another week in the books.  It's hard to believe that 30 weeks have gone by this year already!  Time really does fly whether you are having fun or not!  Fingers crossed that the weather forecast changes back to hot sun instead of the clouds and chances of thunderstorms it is now predicting for this week....