Downtown Frederick

Well the weather warmed up this weekend and made it bearable to go outside and shoot my town of Frederick. I just went downtown and walked around a bit. I mostly had my fisheye with me so I took mostly the churches. Frederick has many many churches, all with beautiful steeples. I have a few to show but I think Im going to try and blog in categories. But for now here is just a few of the buildings from my short walk the other day.
One of my favorite buildings, it is a modern restaurant on the inside where I accidentally ordered sheep brain. Not kidding. But I love to drive by and admire it from the outside.


Our river walk, with the overlooking condos. During the summer it is really nice to walk along the canal with some amazing homemade ice cream from the local cafe.
This is our City Hall, I will take better pictures of everything later, just wanted to post something for you to look at.

Merry Christmas!

I told you earlier, that this year I found a Frasier Fir for our Christmas tree... Here it is all decorated. It turned out pretty nice, the only thing was hanging heavy ornaments. Thats what a Noble Fir is good for. I know its hard to see but my favorite decorations are my red wood beads, wood candycanes, and the childhood ones I remember getting excited about hanging as a kid. I also decorated the back porch since there wasn't any room to put up my primative trees in teh house. I love my primative trees, with all the old ornaments to go with them. I have a tree covered all in old cookie cutters and tin chocolate molds. This year I also bought another little tree. I just couldnt pass it by, it was too cute. I love how I finally found a use for my old red wagon.

All Gizzy wanted from Santa was a empty box to play in....

The kitties loved the tree of course. Gizzy would sleep all day underneath it. But its really amazing how i got both dogs to stay and somewhat look at me for these pictures. Moose is camera shy and hates touching Maya. Its really like a brother and sister who have cooties. But I guess he humored his mama, and smiled pretty for all of you to see.

Home Shots

All right I have finally taken pictures of the before and after.... I know that I have been making a bunch of you wait. Sorry but I could only paint so fast. The trim is a deep red and and the walls a light sandy shade of cream. It took 4 to 5 coats of paint to do the trim! Ive only accomplished the living room and dinning room.... everything eles is still incomplete. One of these days soon I hope I will be done fixing and painting this darn house. I might think twice the next time about a fixer upper or at least not paint the trim red. But in the end I love it and it was so worth the work. Hope you like it also.



Before..... living room.





Dinning Room.





Entryway.












After Living Room.... Dinning Room.....

Entryway...

Twilight Nut Jobs

Gotta tell Sarah thanks so much for everything. She is the one who ventured out into the freezing weather to humor me with my lumberjack adventure.... She took the pictures and did a great job. I took a few of her all bundled up cuz we were crackin eachother up. But in the end it was tooooo cold to play much.

Sarah lives across the street and has become a fast friend. Other than our common interest in photography, we laugh about just how much we do have in common. She has made the last couple months go by so quick. I have really been lucky with the great neighbors I have, except for one that hates our dogs and has called the police on us this summer..... will bring you up to date on that event later. But most of all Sarah and I have the same sad obsession with the Twilight series. They are great books for the hopeless romantic and isn't just for the younger girls. Actually all my friends and read it and loved them.... the movie in my opinion... not so great. But I recommend the books to anyone. LOVE THEM! So thanks again Sarah for everything, your a great bud.

Dad, this is for you.....

I decided this year to go cut down my Christmas Tree.... so I had to wear the appropriate lumberjack wear.... I think it really helped having suspenders on out there. I searched high and low for the perfect tree... A Noble Fir of course. But no luck.

So I ended up settling for a Frasier Fir this year out here in Maryland. It looked like a beautiful day with the bright blue sky but actually it had snowed the night before and froze. And today I awoke to wiping winds that took our breath away. I wanted so badly to do this for my Dad, I braved the 28 degree weather with a terrible windchill, to get these for him. Its not the same as WA, that is for sure! I just couldnt stop smiling because we were having so much fun. A little different from the grumpy old lumberjacks back home huh Dad?

Poor Molly

My little girl broke her entire paw receintly. She dislocated her first finger at the knuckle and it sticks out weird and then broke all the other 3 fingers across her paw. I have no idea how she did it and now she just wants the cast off. That seems to be the only issue she has because she jumps around the house like normal. At first it was too funny cuz she would walk or run with it dragging behind her. Doc says she just gonna be the gimp like her mom now. My poor deformed kitty.

More of Sarah's Visit

So I had so many more good pictures from Sarah's visit. Some she wouldn't let me post and some were just more of the sites. Im curious to see how long before she yells at me to take these pics of her down... so enjoy while you can.

I liked this one of her.... one of Sarah's many smiles.

Gettysburg Cemetary HillMore outside the Lincoln Monument...

These were from our first day exploring the hillsides with historic monuments randomly placed... I thought the next image of Sarah hiding was funny, she was cracking me up because the images i took before this one, which i didnt post, were her doing her "senior poses" then she hid behind a rock.

Antietam Battlefield & Cemetary, its said that Antietam was the bloodiest battle of the Civil War.

Washington DC

Yesterday Sarah and I jumped on the Metro-Subway and rode the stinky thing into DC. It was a new experience for both of us and we felt very good about ourselves that we were able to get on and off on the right trains and never got lost. This was the day of Memorials! We had a great time seeing everything we could before we pooped out and went home. It was a ton to take in and a lot of walking. It was a ok weather day good for walking around. Plus there weren't too many people there, which was really nice. We had a great day. It was also nice to remember all the lives that have been lost for our freedom. It felt good to be able to show my respect to the many men and women who served and now serving our country.

World War II Memorial.... this was a huge memorial with all the indivual states named on the columns....not sure why. And gold stars at the end of the memorial... again not sure what they stood for.... guess I need to do some research.

It reads.... HERE WE MARK THE PRICE OF FREEDOM. the gold stars behind.

The Vietnam Memorial Wall.... we couldn't help but be speechless while walking by.

The Lincoln Memorial... It was amazing in its grand size.

I was standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial looking behind me to the reflecting pool and the Washington Monument sticking out at the end...if u squint

One of the newest memorial for the Nurses of all our wars...

This was a along side or the Korean War Memorial.... beautiful trees surrounded this wall.

The Korean War Memorial.... This was probably my most favorite memorial...

This is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier... these images are of when they change the guard... sorry they aren't in order. This was what Sarah looked most forward to seeing....

John F Kennedy & Jackie O grave site.... there was a flame lite on top

Head stones of Arlington National Cemetery