Update on Camera Purchase

Our new camera.

Camera Obscura

So I had this big plan to buy Reuben a Digital SLR camera for his birthday because our camera is getting dated and he is always trying to get the best out of it, always fiddling with the settings and tripods and lighting, etc. I did lots of reading and research. I checked people's blogs who wrote about what camera they had and whether they liked it or not. I learned more about cameras than I ever have before and hopefully, I'll retain some of that information. So, Reuben's birthday is in two weeks and I was going to wait till the last possible day to buy so we'd have the longest possible time to return it if we he didn't like it. Well, last weekend our camera broke. I pulled it out of my bag and the display screen had a crack in it and the screen was blank. I didn't say anything to him about getting a new one but on Monday he sends me an email saying "check out this camera, I think we should buy it". My whole plot was sunk! Maybe it's a good thing though because it turns out that he doesn't really want a digital SLR because they are so big and heavy. These are the cameras I had picked out.

Nikon D60

Sony A200

And this is the camera Reuben picked out.

Panasonic TX5 (this is a picture of the TX3)

Any tips, advice or thoughts??

This is my nephew . . .

I was trying to get him to smile and of course, he did it when the camera was not on! You can probably tell from the pictures that he's getting to be quite a big boy already. He was 9 lbs when he was born only 5 short weeks ago and now he is already 12 lbs. He has very broad shoulders. And the thing you should know about him is when he is fussy in the evening, he really likes his soother! Diana and the kids came on Wednesday night and Mike is coming up tonight and they are staying until Monday morning. Hopefully, tomorrow will be a nice day and we can all go to the beach. It's neat having all 3 nieces and nephew together! They all need lots of attention so there is never a dull moment.

My Winnipeg trip

You are probably wondering how the trip went since I posted last week that I was heading out to Winnipeg for Lorien's wedding. In summary, it was a good trip. I left on Wednesday afternoon with a stopover in Toronto for 2 hours. Both of my flights went well with only minor turbulence. We had individual TVs to watch with tons of selection from movies and TV shows. I decided to watch a light hearted movie called "Horton Hears a Who" based on the Dr. Seuss book of the same name. When I arrived Aunt Liz, Uncle Rick and Marjorie were there to greet me and bring me to their house.

On Thursday, Lorien dropped off some glass candle holders for me to put ribbon on and otherwise I didn't see her until the BBQ later that evening. It was a nice little job for Marjorie and I to do. Otherwise, I pretty much read my book all day which was great! That evening the Kammingas hosted a BBQ for those involved in the wedding to meet eachother. We met at a park and had some fantastic food and fellowship. And then the mosquitos came out. I had always defended Winnipeg against those who dissed it because of the mosquitos because I didn't think it could be that bad. Well, I've since changed my thinking. The swarms of mosquitos were unbelievable and eventually, I overcame my distate of bugspray and slathered myself with it. Also, interesting was the increase in dragonflys as they came to eat the mosquitos.

When we arrived home from the BBQ Karin, Josh and Elyssa were just arriving as well. They had had a good flight except for a slight delay.

On Friday morning, Karin and I picked up Anne-Marie and Lorien and went to Cora's for breakfast and then to a Spa to have manicures. Unfortunately, we were a little late getting to Cora's so that by the time we got our food, we had to leave. I also had one of my really bad headaches and couldn't eat because it was making me soooo nauseous. Thankfully, by the time we got to the manicure place my headache was getting better. I had waited too long to take an Advil because I wanted to take it with food. Our manicures were lovely and we had a nice time!

That afternoon we helped to decorate the hall a bit and then joined George and Dora van Popta at my Aunt and Uncle's place for dinner and then headed to the church for the rehearsal.

On Saturday, the Wedding Day, we woke up to stormy skies, wind and rain. We got our hair and make up done and the wedding started without too much delay. Lorien was beautiful! And the ceremony went off with out a hitch (except that they got hitched!:)). Afterwards, we went to a park/golf course to have pictures taken. It was still cool, windy and rainy but no torrential downpours so we made do.


Elyssa was a very good girl but it was a long and tiring day for her as well.

Here are Lorien and Chad at their reception. What a great time that was! Lots of stories and memories were shared. Such love filled the room. I'm so glad I could've been there!

We were in bed by midnight, which wasn't too bad and got to sleep in till nine o'clock. Although, we were quite exhausted the whole day on Sunday. It was a nice, quiet day with two wonderful sermons by Lorien's dad at Grace Canadian Reformed Church.

On Monday, Karin and I showed Josh and Elyssa the area in Winnipeg called the Forks, which has a great market place and a path along the river.
The plane ride home was fairly turbulent but I was just glad to be heading home to my Reuben.

Book List

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Mark in red the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your blog

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Bible -
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Complete Works of Shakespeare
Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Middlemarch - George Eliot
Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
Bleak House - Charles Dickens
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
Emma - Jane Austen
Persuasion - Jane Austen
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
Animal Farm - George Orwell
The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Atonement - Ian McEwan
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Dune - Frank Herbert
Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
On The Road - Jack Kerouac
Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
Dracula - Bram Stoker
The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
Ulysses - James Joyce
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
Germinal - Emile Zola
Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
Possession - AS Byatt
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
The Color Purple - Alice Walker
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
Charlotte’s Web - EB White
The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Faraway Tree Collection
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
Watership Down - Richard Adams
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
Hamlet - William Shakespeare
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Any on this list that I haven't italicized that you would recommend?