Eyeing the situation.......

At first I thought Grant had a reaction when he saw this year's Christmas bill.......but it turns out he caught a box with his eyeball while at work.

He was very lucky and the doctor said he should fully recover in about four to six weeks.

That should give him enough time to write a best selling novel about a dysfunctional family and their holiday celebrations, eh?

Massive Bailout

Another kind of a Massive Bailout dumped by The Bluebird of Happiness is my guess.

Seriously this bird had to be scary HUGE given it's dump capacity.

National Photo Exposure

Last May we were in the midst of a hectic end of school year schedule. Jillian was graduating High School and turning 18, Janeva was graduating Middle School and turning 14, and Grant's daughter Angela flew in from Australia and was turning 19. All three girls have birthdays in a three week span. Grant planned a birthday bash which would be a kick off for his daughter's visit with us. A lot of our Geocaching friends came to Peter Piper Pizza to celebrate Angela's arrival and all the girl's birthdays.

I was taking pictures throughout the evening. Among the pictures were random shots of all the girls individually, together, and coupled at random. They were just your normal snapshots of time. I have always been a prolific photographer at family events so this was no different.

I think it last July or August that I was viewing some of my favorite websites. One of my clicks took me to the Family Circle Magazine website and I saw a photo contest link. The photo contest was themed "Family Time Photo Contest". I read the rules and thought it looked interesting and I thought it would be fun to submit a few of my photos.

I went through my files and piles of photos and decided on four or five photos that would fit the theme beautifully and were some of my personal favorites.

On the 17th of November I received an email from the editor of Family Circle Magazine notification that I had won third prize and requesting more information....address, full name etc. Out of some 5900 entries, one of my photos won third prize!! I was in total shock and some what disbelieving. Two days before Thanksgiving, I received a very official package asking me to sign a release so the photo can be published in an upcoming issue and to sign off the tax papers in order to receive my prizes. One prize arrived yesterday and THAT is when all of this became real to me. OMGosh!! I WON THIRD PRIZE IN A NATIONAL CONTEST FOR A MAJOR PUBLICATION!!!

The problem is, I don't know WHICH photo won so now I'm dying of curiosity now to find out which one of the photos will be published!