Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day!

Thanks, Mom, for being the best. For real. THE BEST!

P.S. I chose this picture because my mom's name is Barbara, but many people call her B for short. She's been collecting cool images of Bs (bumble and otherwise) for years, so I thought this would be appropriate for today. I took it at UMass last Saturday.

Stage Crew Dance Team

On Saturday, Eric and I headed to UMass Amherst to see my sister's dance team perform. Before the show, we met up with my sister and Eric's brother for lunch and ice cream.

My parents also came for the show, so we sat with them. Emma was great, of course. I always feel so ridiculously proud when I watch my sister or brother do something cool, like dance or play an instrument. This was one of those times.

Emily is closest to the camera

Emily is closest to the camera

Emily is in the center of the front row, in pink

The show was the Curry Hicks Cage (a gym on campus), and there were a number of teams and clubs from UMass and nearby high schools performing. We didn't stay for the whole show; it was just toooooooooo hot. I felt so bad for the dancers in costumes with long sleeves. The sweat was just dripping off of everybody, the audience included. Despite the heat, I think we all had a good time. A really, really good time!

*Today on the ELM blog: custom bridal shower invite + a few pictures from the party!

Family Weekend

Yesterday Eric and I drove out to UMass to see my sister, Emily, dance. We met my parents and brother there. This is her first semester as a member of the Stage Crew Dance Team, and my family's first time seeing her dance with this team. It's not easy to become a member of the Stage Crew team, and I'm so proud of her. She was wonderful and beautiful. The whole team was great, and you can tell the girls work hard. 

They performed in the Mullins Center as part of the 22nd annual Color in the Cage event. Stage Crew was really only one of 3 dance acts. The other performers were members of color guard or baton twirling teams. I've never been to anything like that, but some of the stunts (is that the right word?) were very impressive. A lot of it made me giggle, I'll be honest, but I appreciate these people putting themselves out there and participating. It certainly doesn't look easy. 

While we were at UMass we also got to see Eric's youngest brother, Will. We took him to lunch at Antonio's (yum) and before we left he got us soft serve ice cream from the dining hall. That was a mistake. While he was getting the ice cream, it started to rain. And by rain I definitely mean downpour, torrentially. We had to wait a bit before we could actually get to the car, and even then we had to make a mad dash. It was fun, but sort of ruined our good-bye.  

Since we got to see my parents, I brought the Mother's Day gift I made for my mom. Yep, more cranes. I made her a mobile of 100 cranes. There are 5 strands, and each has 20 different colored cranes (the same 20 colors on each strand, but no duplicates per strand). I folded all of the cranes on Tuesday, and I strung them all together on Thursday. 

Right now Eric is out with his mom, just spending the day with her in Boston. He's taking her out to lunch and anywhere she wants to go. I'm going to go enjoy the sunshine.

Happy Mother's Day & happy weekend! 

Think We Can Swim Across?

Today I decided to play around with Aperture Priority mode on my camera. After explaining how to adjust the aperture to little miss spy's Dad, I thought that I should experiment with it myself. Little miss spy's Mom gave me these knights in shining armor, because I worked with arms and armor at The Wallace Collection during my semester abroad. Using my extensive knowledge of staging (I got an "A" in Theater 100 at UMass), I've created a dynamic scene of two soldiers arguing, while their comrades look on. By changing the aperture, I threw the background out of focus, isolated the arguing pair, and thus heightened the already immense tension of the scene.

The soldiers, of course, would be a lot more intimidating if they were bigger than a bottle cap.

Heron

I think this is a heron. We saw it when we were visting UMass Amherst on October 4. Unlike the dozens of ducks and hundreds of geese visiting the Campus Pond, this guy (or gal) was a real loner. I don't really know anything about birds, but now that I'm thinking about it I don't believe I've ever seen a group (flock?)  of herons. Do they simply dine alone or do they also prefer to travel solo?

A Squirrel

We saw this little guy when we were visiting UMass Amherst over the weekend. He was busy gathering food and ran up this tree when we got too close.

The squirrel and I had quite a stare down, which allowed me to snap a few pictures. I guess he won, since I eventually walked away and left him to his business.