walking on water...i mean ice

The lakes are frozen!

So we went out to walk on (frozen) water today.

We saw ice gophers,

and dinosaur bones,

and an ice fishing shack!

Look at this crazy crack in the ice near the shore!

See ya later, gophers!

winter wonderland Wisconsin walk

Took a little walk around the neighborhood yesterday.

We had about a foot of snow on the ground all over the city before we left for Christmas. When we came back, a lot of it had melted and it wasn't pretty anymore. It's been lightly snowing since last night, so now we've got a pristine white covering over everything again. Ahhh...so much prettier.

This is Westmorland Park, the park by our place.

For winter, the neighborhood association builds and maintains a skate rink. Now that I have a camera, I'll need to come back on the weekend to catch the the kids playing hockey.

And in closing, a slush picture. Why not?

big blog news!

I got the most exciting thing for Christmas...a camera!!!

Here she is in all her glory.


I lived without a camera for a little less than a year when my beloved little Canon Elph was stolen out of my checked luggage in February 2010 (thanks LaGuardia TSA and/or baggage handlers!). Since then, the iPhone camera has done a darn fine job. I think these first two pictures of the new G12 look great. It's as if the iPhone is proving herself one last time since she's knows she's being replaced.

This new beauty is exciting, though, because I can be lazy and keep her in auto mode, or I can be brave and try to learn how to use all these knobs and dials in manual mode.

Luckily, my two favorite photographers (Dad and Brother) are Canon pros, so they can teach me everything I need to know, right guys?

flashback 2010 post

I didn't get to post about this before we left for NC for Christmas, so I'l do it as a flashback!

The final concert of the year for the Madison Community Orchestra was a holiday concert in the rotunda of the state Capitol!



We played about a 45-minute set of holiday tunes twice through. People could come and go as they pleased.


There was a pretty good crowd!



And Dave got some nice shots considering he was using his iPhone. Can you find me in this one?

It was a fun afternoon and definitely got us in the holiday mood!

merry christmas

from Dead Fred!

not much, you?

Dave and I are NPR junkies. So when we learned that there's an NPR show that tapes regularly in Madison, we were excited to go to a live recording! The Madison show is Michael Feldman's Whad'Ya Know and it's syndicated nationally. No, it's not the same as Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. That one tapes in Chicago and would be fun to go to. This one is a little less well known, but still pretty good.

They record Saturday mornings at 9:30 at the Monona Terrace. We went down early to enjoy free coffee and doughnuts and also to roam the farmer's market which has moved indoors for the winter.

The taping was fun, although I wasn't always good at clapping when the "applause" sign lit up - Dave had to elbow me several times and give me a look!

Here's the set!
Apologies for the terrible pictures. Iphones prefer natural light!

catch up

I've been slacking on the blog posts. I guess my excuse is too much travel for work. The big update is that it's definitely winter and we've learned new definitions for the word "cold". It's amazing how quickly the body adjusts! (A good winter coat and boots don't hurt either.)

Check out the parking lot at the mall:
That snow's not going anywhere for a while!

And here's Lake Monona:

Not totally frozen, but almost there!