16 years, same speech contest.

Last night I judged a speech contest for the 11th straight year. I also competed in the contest giving speeches in many different categories for the previous 5 years. 16 years total every year at this time, I've either been dressed in the Blue & Gold or sat listening to proud members sporting the Blue & Gold.
Some topics have changed, others have gotten more in depth, but it still the same colors. The chairs have gotten smaller though!
In the past either my dad skipps out on the judging and hangs out with his grandson, that just breaks his heart by the way, or my aunt has kepted him busy for the few hours I've judged. This year because my grandmother had triple bypass surgery the day before the big contest, most of the family was tied up. I have a younger cousin fresh on 16 years of age and very close to getting her drivers license though. She and Squirt get along wonderfully so I asked her to watch him. Just so happen's her dad is my boss so she just rode home with me. I stopped got cash to pay her and dinner for the pair.j
Quick instructions and I was leaving my house to be educated and mean. I'm usually a pretty hard judge.
I heard a variety of agriculture policy speeches. A couple I was suprised on the stances the individuals took, but was proud they were passionate about the topic of their speech and were not to be swayed by leading questions to the other side of the issue.
I got back to my house later than anticipated. I appreciated my cousin and her ability to entertain and watch out for my son but felt bad that it made a late night getting her home.
I loaded them both back in my van and my son lasted mere blocks before he sacked out. Guess my cousin wore him out.

 

I'm trying to post a blog more regularly. I took this a few days ago but because I didn't have much of an opportunity to pull out the camera yesterday I thought I'd post it. The shot makes me sneeze at the moment just looking at it. I can feel the allergy pressure building!! My son loves to pick flowers for his momma, and his "just" grandma and his great grandma.

I can't see!!!

I decided to change things around on this blog today... I had been using this mainly as a photographes (picture of the day/month/week/whatever) blog. But I wanted to change it to a more generic, this is my life, kinda blog. So I changed the name and the url and am really going to try and post on a regular basis.
I read so many great blogs regularly. I'm sure I'll never get as many followers as some of them, I do lead a pretty boring life most of the time.
My grandmother had triple bypass surgery and mom parents have been over at the hospital with her. That left my brother to chore alone. Being the kind hearted sis that I am, I volunteered to help him out last night.
I think I should have thought that all the way through before volunteering though. It's MUDDY!!! Oh and it started to rain on us too.
He got hay fed and I made sure the cows didn't get in the hay patch. As we were finishing the sun peaked through the clouds and displayed a brilliant rainbow. My camera was back at the house safe from the mud, slop and rain.
I tried to rip through the pasture and get on the road back to the house before it disappeared. I didn't make it!
Even if I did make it I could hardly see it to get the camera focused.

My glasses got a tad dirty! Between the raindrops and the mud I really couldn't see.

It was worse when I took my glasses off. I seriously couldn't see to tell if my camera was in focus and focused on the focal point I wanted to show.

The sunset was pretty, I think..... I still couldn't see real well.

Me and My Man!

My boy REALLY wants to take pictures like momma does! I don't hand over the DSLR so easily though. I'm thinking very seriously about getting a decent cheap point and shoot for his birthday. He wanted to take pics with his momma. He was really silly so it took a few tries but we had fun!

Swingset done and ready to play on!!!

Squirt got a swingset from Grandma, Papa and Uncle Bubba last year for his birthday. They finally finished putting it ALL together. Just in time for awesome, warmer, swingset kinda weather.

The telescope from the top of the swingset

It's starting to look a lot like Spring

Basketball is over!!!! I love basketball but I'm glad to move on to something else for a while!

My boy has been spending more and more time outside which he's happy about!!

I tried to get him to pose nice for momma but the only way he'd hold still was to get him to tell me a story. His facial expression got kinda funny!

He's his momma's child, can't do anything without biting his tongue.

First field trip

I got to go with my son on his first field trip a while back. He had a good time with his classmates!

The Princess

She's growing fast.

New Sigma Lens

I invested part of my tax return on new glass. I bought a Sigma 70-200 2.8 macro lens. I wanted the canon lens but my budget just wouldn't allow me. This hasn't turned out to be a bad lens though!

My cousin at one of his JV games a while back.... yes I'm behind AGAIN!