Sunday, April 5, 2015

An Eclipse, a Birthday and Easter make for a busy weekend!


It was an action packed weekend with lots of family time! It all started Saturday morning with the Lunar Eclipse. Over the past couple days, I had been noticing the moon the last couple evenings and how beautiful, bright and full rising over the Timpanogo range and setting over the hills across Utah Lake.  Then, my brother Bob and I were talking about the lunar eclipse Friday evening and I decided that I was going to get some pictures of it. When he told me it was starting at ~5:30 CST, I was like…wait, what? That is 4:30 my time! But he was nice enough to volunteer to call me and wake me.

That night I spent some time reading up on how to take pictures of the moon during an eclipse. There are many options on how to take pictures of the eclipse. Not only that, there are different settings for pre-eclipse, during and for the total eclipse itself. Battery charged, camera on tripod, memory card empty, I was ready! True to his word Bob called about 4:30 and woke me up (and Barb too!). Barb did not seem quite as excited as I was and opted to stay in bed and look at the pictures later.

It was a heck of a lot colder than anticipated but I stuck it out and took about 300 pictures using different ISO’s fstop’s and shutter speeds. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while and I figured if I took enough pictures at various settings I would get at least one good picture! In the end I ended up with about 6 that I thought were really cool.
 
I took this one the night before while practicing

Partial Eclipse

These two were during the full eclipse or Blood Moon


Post eclipse just before dawn
Later that afternoon we headed to Jessica’s for Kendall’s first birthday! Kendall wanted all the attention on her so she only invited Dylan and Lily to her party. We had brats, potato salad and her specifically requested Dairy Queen cake. According to her dad her first words were “I want a Dairy Queen cake for my birthday” No one else was around to hear it and sadly he did not record it as they would have made millions on commercial endorsements had he recorded it! In addition to that cake, Jessica made Kendall her very own cake to play with which made for some great pictures.
I think Lily and Dylan opened most of the presents

Kendall showing off her new book....

....and her new cell phone!

Sunday morning broke with the sun shining and the promise of another glorious day. Until Barb said….”Time to search for your Easter basket!” Oh, crap Easter! I replied with a smile….”Time for you to look for yours too honey” There are not too many places to hid a basket in a 400 sf trailer and I found mine in short order. Barb on the other hand is having a little more trouble finding hers. I think when this blog is posted and she reads this she might figure it out and stop looking. Hey, I guess we are now even for Valentine’s Day!

My basket!

The kids coloring eggs on Saturday morning
That afternoon it was off to Jessica's again for more Easter fun! We had a Easter egg hunt then went out to dinner at a local barbeque place named The Sugar House BBQ Company it is probably the best place in town. Then back to Jess' for a little post dinner dessert. By the end of the day we were all whooped from the eating, drinking and kid activity.
Lily filling her basket

There's one!

Dylan in action!

Kendall even found a couple!

 
Happy Easter Everyone!
 
We heard from our new employers the other day. It looks like we start on the 13th about an hour and a half outside of Salt Lake. In the meantime we are going to take a few days to get the rig fix (more on that next time), rotate and change the oil on the vehicles and get a new belt on the Ranger. We won't have time after that as we will be back to the daily grind working 40 hours a week!!!!!!


16 comments:

  1. Wonderful photos. We are looking forward to finding the best place to see the night sky.

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    1. Night time photography has always been a challenge to me but I think I am making some headway!

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  2. Great job on the moon shots Jim! Looks like lots of fun with the little ones. We can hardly wait to see ours next month.

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    1. Thanks, are your kids coming to see you or are you heading towards them?

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  3. Nice job on the moon shots, great detail of the surface shading. The family looks happy after such a great weekend!

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    1. Thanks Scott! It is good to see the kids again if only for a week or so.

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  4. Great moon shots! Looks like you had a great time with the family. We are at the OK Rv park in Moab till Thursday. We're planning to stop in Castle Dale for a couple of days. See y'all Sunday.

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    1. Stop and say hi to our friends Dino and Lisa in site #11! As long as you are there you may as well run Poison Spider, Hells Revenge and Metal Masher.

      Looking forward to seeing you guys!

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  5. Thanks, Jim for getting up and taking the best photos I've seen of the eclipse...just beautiful!! Sounds like a fun Easter with family. Kendall is a real cutie:) How nice you were there for her first birthday. Good luck with your new job! Where are you going to be? You mentioned about an hour and half outside Salt Lake City.

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    1. Thanks, that is a huge compliment! We really don't know for sure yet but it looks like we are going to be somewhere southwest of here near the Sheeprock mountain range.

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  6. Looks like you had a good Easter. We worked yesterday and know we have our six day weekend to get through. :-) Nice moon shots Too.

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    1. It is a rough life the two of you lead! Lisa checked in one of the couples we will be working with this summer yesterday. I told them to stop by and say hi.

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  7. Great moon shots! I have tried to photograph the moon a few times with little success - you did a great job!

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    1. Thanks Jen! This is the first time I had success. I took a lot of pictures at different settings and only a couple turned out.

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  8. Those are AMAZING pictures of the moon Jim! Just gorgeous! What a beautiful family you have. Fun, fun Easter times. Did Barb ever find her basket?

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    1. Thanks Deb, she is still looking but not having any luck. She keeps asking me if she is getting warmer but no matter where she goes it is only cold....go figure!

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