Speaking of Roses...

Took these a little while back with the boys. I don't think I blogged them. I did put them on facebook recently. I don't know the names for the various varieties shown here, but if anyone is interested, just let me know and I can see if I can figure it out.

I wouldn't be too surprised if one or two of these make into a stippled drawing...

Tiny Rose

Jake got a small rose bush for Karen for Valentine's Day and it is not only hanging in there, it is starting to blossom. This one is only slightly larger than my thumbnail.

Happy Easter!!

We just got back from celebrating Easter (a day early) with Gramma, and she gave us some pictures from her birthday. I think I grabbed my camera case, but not my camera that day.

Anyhow, thanks to Erik for supplying the donuts and sharing them so willingly.

We decided cake was probably not in our best interest and got creative with some candles instead.

Erik, Gramma, Jake

And, no, we haven't forgotten that Easter is all about the greatest gift - the grace of God, the sacrafice of Jesus who took on our sins and accepted our punishment for those sins when He died for each and every one of us. All we have to do is accept that gift! And of course, the wonderful news that He is risen and alive today and has sent His Spirit to live within us (when we accept His gift)!!

Happy Easter, indeed!!!

Black-crowned Night Heron

This guy sat patiently while I did my best to steady the camera in the dying light of day. Of course, not knowing what I was up to it kept an eye on me. The one decent shot I got doesn't show the two long plumes extending from the head.

When it did turn its head, I was unprepared and tried to get a quick shot. You can see how long the plumes are, but that's about it. Hopefully, I will have another chance with this one.

Double-crested Cormorant

I saw another cormorant yesterday, this was definitely an adult. Here he is in the classic pose of drying his wings.

Here are a few mallards gliding by to give an idea of relative size. The cormorant put his wings down as I approached and then put them out again while keeping a wary eye on me the whole time.
I finally got too close for comfort and he started running across the water to take off, only to land in the water and take up his wing-drying pose on the other side.

LegoMania

We went to the Chandler Fashion Mall this weekend to check out (and help out with) the Lego event building a large-scale model of a pirate. How large? When finished it was supposed to be 8 feet tall. We never got to see it completed; they tore it down within a couple hours of completing it to ship the pieces to another Lego store. This was as far as we got to see it built.The boys enjoyed making large-scale bricks. The scale model used to build the large model was 1/4 the size of the finished model, so each brick had to be 4 times larger than a typical Lego brick. What fun! Erik worked on bricks for the face. So much of the model is black, Jake spent time on those tables when he wasn't socializing.

Their were volunteers from the Arizona Lego-Builders Association and a master builder to oversee the project. They had some fun things going on to keep spirits up.

There were some races to see who could build the fastest 4x brick. I tried my hand (literally) against a speedy volunteer in a piratey one-handed build. I lost (Arrrgh). They gave away some Lego things and Erik won a Lego bank by guessing that the master builder was thinking of a dragon named - "Puff." He got a little hint from me and more than a little push from me to even raise his hand and suggest it. He gave the bank to Jake.

After being there for quite some time, one of the volunteers challenged Erik to build a ball instead of a brick. Here he is with Dan, the master builder, oohing and ahhing over the ball. Dan was a real character and all the kids enjoyed him.

I would imagine this job ranking right up there with Park Ranger.

Cormorant Visitor(s)

Last week I took about 6 shots - each progressively closer - of two cormorants at Papago Park. I looked on-line later in the evening to find that it appeared to have been a juvenile double-crested and a neotropic, once considered somewhat rare in Arizona and first spotted/reported about 1980. Lucky me. I went out to the truck to check out my photos, and the screen comes up "No card in camera" meaning I took 6 shots and got none. Oh, well. I'm back to work a new schedule starting Monday, so I'll try to find them again.

For those wondering what cormorants are - they are diving birds. They often sit on rocks or branches after eating and spread their wings out to dry.