New Car!

For some reason a few weeks ago, I was looking into hybrid cars to get an idea of what my next vehicle would be.  I had to face reality that the rear differential would probably not last much longer in the Aztek.  My drive to work is a little over 20 miles, but the miles are adding up and I was not looking forward to the annual summer gas hike.  Living as far away from work as I do, I know I need to give up the SUVs and go with something that's better on gas. 

One night after work, I had to meet Mom in town to get the girls so that she could go to a doctors appointment.  I took advantage of the early out of work to go across town and go grocery shopping at one of my favorite grocery stores.  Dani feel asleep on the way over there, so to kill a little bit of time to let her sleep longer, I went over to the Honda dealer to take a look at the "hands down" winner of the car with the best gas mileage - a Toyota Prius.  I really wanted to see if this was something I was going to be interested in or if I needed to look at a different vehicle.  A huge plus was that getting a model off the dealer's lot was a few thousand cheaper than the price that I was quoted for "building" one off of Toyota's website!  While talking with a salesman, he just happened to mention that they just took an 2008 in on trade and that he' could bring it up for me. 

By this time Dani had woke up so we decided to take the '08 out for a test drive.  The girls really had no idea what to think about it!  After running the numbers with the sales man and finance guy, I decided to go ahead and get it... and so far, I'm very glad I did!  And I'm not sure if it was a stroke of luck or a sign that I was able to find a USED Prius, let alone that it had under 20k miles!   It is a little different to drive, but not by much. I must say that it is a zippy little thing too!

My main reason for writing about this is because you always hear and read the manufacturer's specs on gas mileage, and I have found that most times they are off!  My Sunfire averaged less than 20mpg and my Aztek (surprisingly) averaged 20-23mpg!  So I wondered, would a Prius really average 45mpg?  YES! 

Owners manual says that it has an 11.5 gallon tank so I figured that the first week I had it I should get 350 miles  (safely figuring that I'd get 35mpg on 10 gallons of gas).  This I would have been thrilled with because I was averaging 325 miles on a tank in the Aztek and filled it up every 6-7 days.  I drive the Prius for 9 days before filling it up for the first time!  The girls and I were on our way to Lake Erie to go camping or else I probably could have drove it a few more days.  I also could have probably drove further but then I started to wonder if it had a dummy gas light and not wanting to find out in the middle of no where, I went ahead and stopped for gas. 

My break down of the first tank:
428 miles, 9.4 gallons of gas (45.5mpg), and $25.51

Needles to say, I am *more* than *thrilled*!  So far, I am very happy with my decision to get this... hopefully it keeps up the wonderful performance!

Lightning Strikes!

I don't know why, but it's always been an aspiration of mine to capture lightning.  I think part of it is because it really is harder than it looks! 

After my brother's wedding on Saturday, the girls and I were at Mom & Dad's new house putting away the left over food.  We went out on the front porch to relax for a little while, and since the rain hadn't started yet, we watched the storm roll in.  It was too perfect of conditions - lightning without rain & right at dusk.  I still had my camera and tripod in the car, so I set it up on the porch and experimented with different exposures.  The disappointing thing was that it was very cloudy and very few bolts and more illuminations of clouds. 

Another neat aspect to this image was that we were watching a lot of campers heading home from the State Park.  I love the trail of headlights and tail lights in this image, along with the gorgeous blues in the sky!  Over all, not a bad first attempt!

Mystical Fairies

Both of my girls love to play dress up!  I did a little bartering for some adorable, really fluffy, tutus and *finally* had a chance (and nice weather) to take the girls out and let them play in them! Also learned an important lesson - always check to see if anything is broken before leaving home with costumes!  Despite a broken strap on a set of wings, we still had fun!

Debating a new project

While my photography business is winding down (except for my volunteer work with Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep), I'm really starting to think of ways to use my photography to help non-profit groups. I've had an idea floating around in my head ever since Ellee was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, and after having a fairly successful session of family portraits to raise money for Relay for Life.

I'm not sure that I want to go into too many details right now, but for any one with in a reason able traveling distance willing to spend an afternoon with me, I want to do a special portrait session for people with T1D and their families! I am in the process of contacting a family to be my "sample session", so stay tuned for the details and samples!!!

Bluffton Wrestling

The girls and I went with a friend to a wrestling tournament and had a blast!  I get a huge kick out of seeing little kids play sports, and with these tournaments, we are watching the best of the best, which just makes it even better to watch!  It was also great to see some of these dads enter in the open division to see if they've "still got it!"  You can tell that some of these kids have State Contender written all over them!

Foggy Morning

As I was headed into work the other morning I was mesmerized with the way the gorgeous colors of the sunrise mixed with the fog that floated above the ground. Then remembered that I actually had my camera with me so I made a few stops to take some pictures!

These are the actual colors of the sunrise, with the very little editing that I did, I did NOT adjust any of the colors!

Spring - So Close, yet So Far Away!

Back in late January, early February, my oldest declared that she LOVED winter because she gets to play in the snow and go sledding! It didn't take her very long to change her tune and ask when it was going to be spring out! She some how came up with the number 20 and started telling every one (every day) that it was only 20 more days till Spring!

I agree with her, I can't wait for spring either! Dani is the opposite of Ellee and does NOT like to be out in the cold weather and could care less about sledding (which I don't blame her one bit!). Both girls do, however, LOVE to ride their bikes! This summer Ellee will probably learn to ride without training wheels and Dani will learn how to pedal her tricycle - hopefully!

The good thing about Spring is that the weather is warm enough that we can take the bikes out... the bad thing is all the rain!