feedback, please!

i would love some comments about this photo--should i use it? is the complete lack of a focussed spot too distracting? i personally love the color, love the composition, but i am sometimes not the best judge...thank you!

thanksgiving in texas

i don't care how long you cooked the turkey, i am not eating it with those feathers on it.

*or*

"...psst...kid...when the farmer turns his back, run away. NOW. don't eat the free food, don't take anything with you, just fly south and live on a beach somewhere. send me a postcard."

thanksgiving in texas! too much food, lots of fun farm things, and, of course, "the nutcracker." enjoy!

there is a very good reason we don't take our children out to nice restaurants

lindsay supervises jake in the post-turkey fry-oil drain (it was a mess, but the turkey was fabulous)

gus driving a very full mule o' friends and relatives!

triple A: ashley, abigail and astrid (actually a quad: augustus is driving)

one of the bajillion black dogs that populate the farm

happy rich!

aunt lindsay forcing affection on gus (he loves it)

all that niece and nephew love made her craaaaazy

mom and ashley

gus making friends for life with zilla and madux

sophie showing ashley and gus the proper way to feed a horse (she almost lost a finger doing this over easter)

ingrid!

pretty, pretty ingrid

augustus, who you might remember from six months ago as the horse who got attacked by aforementioned black dogs

his hide has healed beautifully, but he's a bit skittish

cowgirl sophie

independence, thy name is john deere battery-powered tractor

but when the battery dies, it becomes a daddy-powered tractor

sophie quickly figured out the best use for her new toy

uncle jake shows sophie the grown-up version

at the wortham center in houston for "the nutcracker"!

daddy and silly sophie

gus looks so lovely and so NOT like a girl

sophie in her snow princess dress

checkin' out all the people sitting below us

intermission with one of the mice!

sophie didn't want to leave it, but once we did...

...we had our infamous meeting with the bushes!

episode 430: in which barbara bush tells gus to get a haircut

barbara bush kindly trying to cajole sophie into speaking (without success) at the houston ballet

we're just back from our most beloved texas; we all had a fabulous time that was capped off by a tremendous visit to the houston ballet. we bought tickets to "the nutcracker" months ago and totally splurged for the most-central, front-row, founder's box seats we could get. i had already bought sophie a snow princess dress, which she looked absolutely adorable in, and even gus was excited to see the ballet and the orchestra. rich and i always love the houston ballet...it is just absolutely the best in the world. anyway, our seats turned out to be almost as good as a former u.s. president's and his wife's--george and barbara bush were two boxes away from us. it was announced before the start of the ballet that they were in the audience and we were shocked to see how close they were.

after the intermission, we were headed back to our seats when the secret service approached us in the narrow hallway before our box. the guy barked "nice dress" at sophie then a more forceful "move aside" to us all. we did. george bush came around the corner with a few people, and before he got to his box he slowed down, looked at sophie, and said, "are you one of the ballerinas? what a beautiful dress!" sophie smiled a little and then, of course, hid behind me. we were thrilled--a former president spoke to our family! then, a few moments later, barbara bush rounded the corner and stopped, made a big surprised face, and said, "what a lovely little girl!"...and walked over to us! she gushed about sophie (who was still trying to hide behind me) and kept trying her best to get her to talk to her...but then she diverted her attention to gus.

"who is this even more lovely girl standing behind you?"

oh no. she didn't. she didn't just mistake gus for a girl.

i looked at rich who appeared to be frozen in shock and obviously incapable of speech (he likes his social interactions one hundred percent in his control, after all, usually with the assistance of anesthesia), sophie was still hiding behind my skirt, gus was standing there completely non-affected by the comment (as this is probably the 100th time he has heard it), and mrs. bush was still patiently waiting for an answer...so it became painfully obvious that i was going to have to be the one to speak to this. after momentarily considering introducing gus as my eldest daughter, julia, i very calmly told her that, "this is sophie's older brother, gus."

"well OF COURSE it is! if i had looked closer i could have seen that! gus, gus, GUS are you listening to me? gus, we need to talk about that hair...you could be one of my grandsons! hair down to here! and CURLY! ugh. you could be one of mine. i try to tell them to cut it, but they won't. they don't understand what it does to a grandmother!" i tried to explain that gus had been living in new mexico for a time (i was so rattled that i momentarily forgot what state i lived in) so he was a bit rougher than usual...but all was well. all was more than well--all was glorious. thank god for houston social graces.

the ballet itself was absolutely note-perfect, spot-on, excellence-embodied...and every other extreme positive comparison imaginable. all in all a completely phenomenal evening. sophie fell asleep during the last five minutes of the performance; george bush acknowledged her again ("oh, sleepy girl.") before he left. it was quite an experience!

more thanksgiving pictures to come later...

bamboozle

gus titled this post. these images are of gus with a souvenir from the bamboo forest at los poblanos. it might be kind of repetitive, but i think i like all four of them together. maybe just three. not sure.

a few pictures from los poblanos

juliet, sophie and gus after a wonderful dinner at valerie and doug's house

these are just a few images from our trip back to albuquerque--i shot maybe a tenth of both what i normally shoot and what i should have shot; i'm regretting it very much now. i was using a different camera part of the time and hoping to get some good stuff from it...sadly, i don't think i did. anyway, these are the point-and-shoot pictures. the fall along the rio grande is so much more colorful than most people realize--i think there was better fall color in los ranchos than there was here in iowa. enjoy!

danger girl

safety gus

rich flew alone (of course)

los poblanos inn and peacocks

i love this decoration on the front door--i wanted to recreate it here in iowa, but we're already having a bit of a rodent problem...

detail of the indian corn--i adore these colors

the front courtyard

sophie's room (gus spent the night with with cole and randy)

this is what our bed faced--dozens of little mexican folk art figurines

i think they are fabulous

my favorite breakfast companion--rich missed all but one breakfast at los poblanos because he had to work...and he has absolutely no idea how unbelievably delicious everything they made for us was!

peacock

turkeys (thanksgiving is just around the corner)

duck landing in the lotus pond

the purple plums were at their purpliest

rich is totally keeping an eye on that peacock

even in the fall when nothing is in bloom, even on a cloudy day when you can't see the sandia mountains, even though it snowed a tiny, tiny bit on this morning, i still think this is one of the most beautiful places on earth