147:365 WEM

Anna: My elder daughter was able to arrange meeting some friends she hasn't seen in over a year at the WEM, so we spent the afternoon there, even though she was pretty sick with a cold. :-(

While they were busy reminiscing, I took quite a few photos, making a point of going into the amusement park to see what the new roller coaster was like. You can see the set I uploaded here.

This photo is of some people on the Mindbender roller coaster. The coaster loops around the walkway. I'm about 2 meters away from then while taking this shot. Very cool. Loud, but cool. :-D

146:365 Pattern repeat

Anna: Not too inspired today - spent most of it hanging around the kitchen, tending a ham I was slow cooking, among other things - and I've got a lovely burn visible in the picture to show for it. I was stirring a pan when some grease suddenly spattered and got me up to my elbow. Just little spots. It doesn't hurt, but the one spot that got it the worst sure started puffing up later on.

I've started working on a crocheted sweater for myself and have found that going to the upstairs lounge to sit and crochet while watching the Food Network is very productive for me. I like keeping it on FN because it's interesting, but not interesting enough to distract me from what I'm working on. *L* Commercials are a good time to check my count. :-D During the week, I find I've got the place to myself most of the time, too.

In the photo, I'm stretching out what will be the bottom of a tunic style sweater. There's the hem and, as high as my first knuckle, the pattern repeat. It's 12 rows wide, and I have to do it 3 times. I'm now on the 3rd repeat. When I first started working it, it would take about 2 1/2 hours to do 4 rows. By the time I got the pattern down in my head, it was under 2 hours. Assuming I don't make a mistake and have to undo anything. This evening, I got only 3 rows done in the 2 1/2 hours or so I was up there. (Well, minus the time I spent chatting with the security guard. *L*) I did my first row with the bobbles and it just didn't seem to be lining up with the last row of bobbles under it. I couldn't find a mistake no matter how I looked, so I started the next row. I was near the end when I found the mistake in the previous row and had to undo almost everything I'd done since I was up there. Joy! ;-)

The good thing is, once this part is done, the body of the sweater is just one simple stitch. Since it's a drop shoulder design, I won't even have to worry about arm hole shaping, nor do I have to count rows. Once I reach the length I need for the size I'm making, then I need to pay attention for the neck shaping. That's it.

The ends of the sleeves will have the same pattern repeat.

Oh, and the photo was taken using my younger daughter's Canon A75, as I didn't feel like bringing a big DSLR when I wasn't sure I'd even manage to get a picture in.

145:365 Sunset

Anna: We were out this evening and returning to our car when I noticed the sunset, so off we headed to see if I could get any decent photos. Of all the ones I took, these two, taken out my window as we were turning to go back home, captured it best.










It's almost hard to believe they were taken one right after the other, the light looks so different.

144:365 Orange beauty

Anna: We were on the way home from seeing The Dark Knight (great movie, by the way - I definitely recommend it!) and I was just amazed at the gorgeous clouds. There was one towering cumulus that was growing right before my eyes. Now, I know that means we've got another storm on the way (which I can now hear thundering and lightning it's way towards us as I write this), but gosh darn it, they're gorgeous.

Of course, I didn't have the camera with me. :-P So when we got home, I grabbed it and headed for the 4th floor patio to see if I could get some good pictures. Unfortunately, the dramatic shapes I was seeing earlier were already gone.

So I took some pictures of the flowers in planters scattered about the patio instead. I'm rather pleased that I was able to get any, since the wind was picking up pretty swiftly just in the few minutes I was up there.

I really like the colours.

Now... I wonder if we'll be needed to shut the computer down because of the storm coming in. From the thunder I'm hearing, I think it's a good thing I'm posting now!

143:365 - Glowsticks

*everybody* likes glowsticks.. :D



Anna: Posting on Philippe's behalf - he and the girls have gone out for ice cream. I'm not feeling too well, so I stayed home.

Earlier this afternoon, my younger daughter came and asked if she could take a bath.

In the dark, with glow sticks.

Why the heck not? LOL

After she was done, Philippe took this picture after I'd swirled the water around to get them moving.

I think this was actually the first picture he took. It ended up being a 17 second exposure.


Hmm... I wonder if I'll feel better if I take a bath?
:-D

142:365 Too cute for words

Anna: I'm cheating today. I took this picture yesterday evening, after I'd already posted from our photo walk. My daughter's cat started getting all adorable in a sun spot and I ended up taking way too many pictures of her. LOL She was very co-operative.

Unfortunately, when I converted this one from RAW to jpg, I completely forgot to resize it. I didn't catch that until I uploaded the photo, so I just left it. If you click on the image, you will get the original size. I usually resize to 50%. *L*

141:365 Take a walk

Philippe: Anna stole my lens..

..So I stole my daughter's 18-70 for this shot.





























Then I swiped Anna's entire camera for this shot.














..And for this shot :D





























Anna: Philippe and I went for a photo walk today, and I stole the macro lens. I think I managed a few good shots. ;-)

140:365 Breath

Anna: A few years back, my husband was diagnosed as having Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea. He was prescribed a CPAP machine (like this one) to keep him breathing at night. The next 6 months or so was spent trying out different masks that actually worked. At the time, the only masks available were large, plastic "cups" that covered the entire nose. The pressure he needed was so high, they all ended up leaking. After going through several different ones, a new nasal device came available and he was given one to try.

It made all the difference in the world.

Just before we moved, this sleeker version came available. When he needed the old one replaced, they gave him this new version.

Thankfully, we were living in Manitoba when all this happened. Manitoba's medicare covered all the costs. The machine, humidifier, hose and hose extension, and all the different masks he tried before finding one that worked, was paid for courtesy of our tax dollars. Even when the machine started making a weird noise, they simply gave him another one - repair by replacement.

Alberta's medicare doesn't cover CPAP's or related supplies. Most medical insurances cover them, but only up to 80%. I don't know if they cover replacement parts at all. So now, as the hoses stiffen with time and the nasal piece eventually begins to crack, we need to special order the parts (they aren't available separately) and pay for them out of pocket. I picked up his new one today, and he's testing it out as I write this. ;-D

What you're seeing in the photo is the nasal piece, the hoses that attach to each end then lead to the main hose to the machine, and in the baggie is a chin strap. It keeps the air pressure from blowing his mouth open when he sleeps.

I love technology.

139:365 Food festival

Anna: The girls and I headed downtown to take in the Taste of Edmonton food festival. Unfortunately, Philippe wasn't able to join us for lunch, so it was just the three of us - and 60 food tickets. So we got to try out quite a lot of different things. I've got a set, complete with commentary on the different dishes, on a flickr set here.

Today's pictures were taking with my old Canon A75, which is now my youngest daughter's camera. Because we'd be standing in lines and handling lots of little food plates, I didn't want to take the Nikon D70. I'd used the Canon S3 last year and found it tended to get in the way, too. The A75 can just hang off my wrist, or even go in a pocket if I really needed to.

Today was one of those days where "good enough" was all I wanted.

This photo was of the food we got to finish off our tickets before going home. Most of it came home with us, as we were all so full by then!

138:365 Bumble-ing along - Updated

Philippe: The cat likes sunspots, and I'm an opportunist.. it's a good combination

















Anna: Today the girls and I went to the museum for a most excellent presentation (Dragons and Cryptozoology by Loren Coleman). As we were crossing the grounds back to the car, I stopped under a blooming linden tree to see what sort of incests I might be able to photograph. The tree was planted in a large raised bed surrounded by a low concrete wall. Low enough that, even with my knees, I could step onto it without much assistance. As I was climbing onto the wall to get a closer look at the linden tree, I noticed a bumble bee placidly walking along. I promptly got back down and tried getting some photos of the bee as it kept ambling towards me.

It was moving a bit too fast for me to get good photos, but I noticed another rather lethargic bumble bee in a flowering bush. So I tucked in behind a bench, with my knees braced on the concrete and my butt braced on the bench, maneuvering to get a good angle of this second bee. The girls promptly started telling me that the first bee had turned around and was heading back towards me, and that I might want to move.

I acknowledged them kept clicking away.

Next, they were telling me it was heading for my knee.

Sure thing, I said, still clicking away.

Then they were telling me it was *on* my knee and climbing.

Okay, so now I finally move. The bee was heading up at a good clip and was soon climbing my shirt. My elder daughter tried to persuade it to head downwards again, or even fly off, but no such luck. In trying to move it (without me getting stung, though there didn't seem to be much danger of that), the bee ended up on my camera strap.

Off went the camera, and we spent the next while trying to convince the bee that the flowering bush was a really nice place to go. Still no luck.

At which point I figured, what the heck. Since it was there anyways, I started taking pictures.

I liked this one the best.

We did eventually get the bee off the strap. It never did try to fly.

137:365 - Back at the Devonian gardens

Philippe: So we went back to the Devonian Garden today. Turns out they've got a butterfly house :)


Suntanning on a rock



















Kinda prickly looking, but still pretty













Just plain pretty.














Um, still pretty, kinda :D












Anna: I've uploaded a whole bunch of photos from today onto my flickr account. I was really envying the macro lens today - the one that was on Philippe's camera. ;-) This trip, we went through the Japanese garden, then the greenhouse. We'll have to make another trip to see more.

I wanted to post this photo, not because it's particularly good, but because it shows what a totally geeky family we are. *L* If you click on the photo for the larger image, you should be able to see that black beetle my elder daughter is trying to get a photo of.

It's black, about 1 1/2 inches long with antennae about the same length, and with huge mandibles. I don't know what they're actually called, but when I was a kid, we called them wood bugs because we always found them in our log pile and on trees. They bore through wood with those powerful mandibles. We used to tease our barn cats with them by holding them firmly (and carefully!) by the body and holding them out for the cat to investigate. When the cat leaned forward to sniff the beetle, it wasn't unusual for the cat to end up with the beetle firmly attached to its nose. After shaking the beetle off, the cat then usually ate it.

It was on me.

I had been taking photos off to the side and, as I returned to my family, my younger daughter spotted it. With a rather shocked look on her face, said "hey, there's bug on you!" I couldn't see it myself, as it was quickly climbing up my shoulder. Philippe promptly started chasing it with his camera (none of the photos turned out - it was moving too fast) as I felt it go around the back of my neck, turn around, go back around the side of my neck and up my jaw. That's when Philippe finally flicked it off of me and onto the path, which is when my daughter took over with her camera.

It's a good thing I'm not bothered by bugs.

136:365 Fuzzy bee and the kindness of others.

Anna: The family and I headed out to lunch downtown today, and found some flowering "weeds" next to where we parked the car. As I was taking photos, I got visited by this fuzzy bee. No idea what type it is, but it's got a neat, pointy sort of face.

The cool thing is why we ended up going out for lunch today. Philippe actually wasn't feeling well and was home from work, but he felt he needed to get back to this place. It's a place that sells donairs that he goes to fairly regularly. He and some of his former co-workers would meet there weekly, and he kept meeting them every now and then, even after he changed offices. So the people that run the place know him well.

Two days ago, he decided to treat himself to donairs for lunch. After he got his order and was going to pay for it using his debit card, he found out that their machine was down. There had been a lightning strike in the area and the power surge had fried their debit machine! He didn't have enough cash to pay for the whole order, but the owner told him it was ok - he could come back and pay for it another time. How cool is that? You just don't get a lot of places that are willing to do that.

Not being able to get back yesterday, we really wanted to take care of it today - and the 4 of us had lunch, too. Mmmm.... they made the best donairs. They had a sign on the door saying their debit machine was still down, so we made sure to bring cash. While giving our order, we made sure to tell the guy at the till to add on the extra order that we owed. The owner saw my husband and came over to talk. Chatting with him, he told us that they were just waiting for the company to send a replacement machine, but it was taking a while. Meanwhile, he's been loosing a lot of business for lack of a debit machine. People just don't carry cash much anymore, so they just leave and go someplace else.

We were more than happy to bring in a little extra business as thanks.

Not that I need any excuse to have a donair at this place.

135:365 Sweeeettt.....

Anna: I have no idea what this vehicle is. It's got 2 front wheels and one rear wheel. I'm assuming it was part of the parade that had just ended, which we skipped. Judging from the crowds leaving the area while we took the train to the library, that was a good choice. *L*

134:365 Je suis gaucher

Anna: Another one for the Love My Parts group.

For most things, I'm ambidextrous. For some things, like embroidery and other crafting, I'm right handed. With others, like writing and drawing, I'm left handed.

Writing left handed is apparently all it takes to make me a left handed person.

My hands, like most of me, are pretty rough around the edges. When my kids were younger, they would sometimes entertain themselves by counting my scars. I've got a few doozies on this hand! Some, I even remember how they got there. ;-)

There's one on my middle finger from a hatchet I was using to trim branches off a log and there was less resistance than I expected (I'm right handed with a hatchet). I've got scars across 3 fingers from when I was playing "swords" with one of my brothers. He's completely left bodied. *L* We were both holding our "swords" in our left hands (a stick for me, a long piece of tin for him), when he caught me across the fingers. He cleaned up the blood and patched me up - something we did for each other rather frequently, as I remember things. Several others are from when he and I were in the attic, melting plastic over a candle. We discovered that the yarn my mother used to knit slippers melted quite dramatically, and that if you swung the yarn, you'd get a glowing circle in the air. Which is when we also discovered that globs of plastic can go flying, and that they really like to stick to skin.

Somehow, that didn't stop me from getting more scars the same way on my other hand.

If I ever find myself with cancer or something, I could probably safely blame it on the fumes of melted plastic I breathed in my younger days. Or the lead we used to melt down in the furnace and play with.

Sometimes I wonder how my siblings and I ever made it through childhood without killing ourselves, each other, or burning the farm down.

133:365 - Cats are so thoughtful - updated: baking day

Philippe: So it's Midnight, and my daughter can't sleep. Of course, she grabs the cat on the way by to the couch.. :D























Anna: Baking day today - I've got 2 loaves of oatmeal and honey cooled down, 2 loaves of eggs and milk fresh out of the oven, and a batch of Red River Cereal buns in the oven right now.

Garlic and tarragon butter is ready and waiting for those first slices.

The apartment smells heavenly.

132:365 And then I ate it...

Anna: I went for a walk this evening and ended up talking well over 100 photos. I've uploaded the ones I liked the most to my flickr account.

This is a Saskatoon berry. When I was a kid, I used to walk along the roads and in the bush in our farm, indulging in these delicious berries. So I was really happy so see lots of Saskatoon bushes along the top of the river valley. I got a picture of this one ripe berry.

Then I ate it.

Because that's what you do with Saskatoons.

Yum.






I got so many photos of these butterflies. They loved the vetch growing along the pathways. I don't know what kind of butterfly they are, but I was just amazed at how long their proboscis were!

131:365 Forty

Anna: One for the Love My Parts group.
Note: This photo was taken by Philippe for me, so it's not really a selfie. ;-)

I turn forty today, so I thought a photo of my silver hair might be appropriate. ;-)

I distinctly remember finding my first grey hair, though I don't remember how long ago it was. A fair few years. Actually, Philippe found it. He's a fair bit taller than I am, and can look down at the top of my head. When he suddenly said "you've got grey hair!" I went pulling at my hair, trying to bring it down to where I could see it. It was in a spot I couldn't see, however, so I got him to pull it out so I could look at it. I was so proud of that one shimmering hair! LOL

I've never been bothered by greying hair, and actually looked forward to getting some. I loved how my grandmother, who's hair was such a dark brown it was almost black, had these bright, glittering strands running through her hair. My mother, who's hair was as dark as her mother, now as sparkling bright streaks as well. My father, also dark haired, went grey all over. Being of the dirty blond persuasion, I wondered which way my own hair would go. Would I go grey all over, like my dad? Or get silver streaks like my mother and grandmother? That wouldn't be quite as dramatic as on my mother's dark hair.

From the looks of it, I'm going to be doing both - slowly going silver all over. I love how they shine. :-D

130:365 - Tozies..

Baby pictures today.. Though I obviously can't post actual baby shots, or mom shots, I *can* put these two up :D
P.

129:365 Poof! - Updated, Leg grounds

Anna: My elder daughter was kind enough to let me post this photo of her. I couldn't resist!

She likes to keep the sides of her head shaved, with only a "fishtail" of long hair down the middle. She never spikes it, so it's not a Mohawk, but it's the same idea. She likes it because it keeps her head cool, but she still has hair she can play with. A few days back, she asked me to do lots of little braids in the strip of hair. She undid them this morning, and this is how much it poofed out after brushing. Looking straight from the back, you'd never know the sides of her head are shaved! *L*

She's fun. :-D







Philippe: I hit the Leg grounds today to work with a buddy on photo concepts (aperture, ISO, exposure, etc.). Of course, you can't talk concepts without demonstrating :P

128:365 It's a miracle!

Anna: As the girls and I were leaving the library today, I got a picture of "Moses" parting the waters and guiding his people safely across the street. :-D

I got only a few photos of the street festival today - the first day back in a while, with all the storms we've been having. I'd hoped to get more, but it didn't quite work out. I kept waiting for the performers to actually *do* something. I understand that patter is a vital part of the show, but there's only so much spectators can handle before they get bored and walk away. We actually hung around longer than others.

127:365 More flowers...

Anna: First of all, I want to say thanks to everyone for leaving such encouraging comments with my post yesterday. They made me feel a lot better about the pictures. Thanks. :-D

Today, the girls and I had plans to take in another dragon themed movie at the museum. I had originally planned for us to have a picnic on the grounds, first - maybe get some pictures - then head in for the movie. Unfortunately, it was raining. So, we still stopped to pick up our picnic fixings and had our picnic - in the car! LOL It was fun.

We were rather stunned by how many vehicles were in the parking lot when we got there. Who'd have thought a Wednesday afternoon at the museum would be so busy? We went in early enough that I had time to try a few shots, none of which worked. Without tripod or monopod in such low light, even the ones I thought worked turned out to be quite blurry. Ah, well.

The movie turned out to be a "documentary" from Animal Planet, Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real, narrated by Patrick Stewart. On the one hand, it was really interesting. On the other, it really sucked. Sort of a Walking with Dinosaurs meets CSI. Blech. On the plus side, the movie uses a lot of work from a guy named Peter Hogarth, who's going to be giving a lecture at the end of August. I think he'll be more interesting than the movie itself.

After it was done, we had no desire to brave the crowds in the museum, so we wandered the grounds a bit. By now, the rain was gone and the sun was shining. I set the camera on auto and went nuts.

Most of the photos I took ended up being flowers. There were a lot of new ones blooming, including a whole bunch of these. I love the spiky, rolled up petals. I almost didn't take this photo. The idea of getting down on one knee to take it just didn't appeal to me. The girls told me I needed to suffer for my art, so I told them sure, I'd get down and take the picture - but I'd need their help getting back up again!

They thought I was joking and walked on while I was taking the shot. Nice try, Ladies! Not gonna happen. ;-)

I've taken so many flower and plant photos that I've uploaded to flickr, I finally made a new "Flora" set. I hope you like them. :-)

126:365 Flowers

Anna: My darling husband came home with a bouquet of flowers for me today. So of course, I had to take pictures. ;-)

I have to admit, it was pretty frustrating. I'm still not used to all the settings that need to be played with on a DSLR. This first shot was taken on auto, and is the only one I did nothing but resize.







I borrowed Philippe's macro lens. The light in our apartment is pretty bad, and auto kept wanting to use the flash, popping it up automatically. You can't shut the flash off on auto on this camera, so I set it to multi-program, but goofed with my f-stop. I kept making it worse instead of better. :-/ Once they were uploaded, I was able to lighten them up with PSP X2 (we've got Capture NX, too, but I don't know it very well yet). With this one, I just used the auto-fix on the software. It doesn't always work out, but I think it did all right this time.





This one needed lightening up, too. I played with the curves to get this result. It looks a lot better than the original, but I just don't like fiddling too much with pictures on the computer. Some fiddling, a bit of cropping, sure, but to me, a photo that needs to be fixed this much is a crappy photo. I expect my photos to be better coming out of the camera, and that's a matter of skill and knowledge of the camera. I'm finding it confusing, and keep getting details backwards when I muck with the settings.

I'm going to have to re-set the camera to both jpg and RAW again. That's how Philippe had it before. If I'm going to have to do fixes like this, I'm going to need RAW.

125:365 part 2 - Public Spectacle

My Eldest daughter loves her cat; The cat loves her back and every once in a while will reach a paw out to 'pet' her human.. Take a look at what she grabbed off. :D

125:365 Love My Parts

Anna: Today, I joined my first flickr photo group. It's called Love My Parts, and is a particular self-portrait group. While I don't expect to be doing anything as fantastically creative as some talented people, I have been interested in the concept, and I think this group fits the bill.

The purpose of the group is to take pictures of those parts of your body you might not be comfortable with, and to learn learn to accept our bodies as they are. Personally, I really don't have any parts that bother me. Living in a culture that constantly bombards us with images of what we "should" look like, or what beauty is suppose to be, I think it's a great idea to show what real, non airbrushed bodies look like.

This is my first Love My Parts photo. My broken up, battered feet.


Some 15 years ago, I was a little more active than I should've been (ha! Now that's an understatement!) and hurt them pretty badly. I did mention them to the doctor during one of my regular visits, but it seemed downright silly to complain about sore feet. After all, everyone gets sore feet, right? I also come from a family that, if it isn't broken or bleeding profusely, we just patch ourselves up and keep on going. Sometimes, we keep on going even when things *are* broken, which I seem to have done all those years ago. I now believe I had developed a whole bunch of stress fractures. I should've stayed off my feet to let them heal, but that just wasn't an option.

It was about 3 years before I was able to walk without constant pain, though the bones did sometimes dislocate unexpectedly.

About 6 years later, the pain came back - and then some. Not only did my feet hurt as badly as when I'd first injured them, but I began to have shooting pains in my lower legs. It got to the point that just getting out of bed was almost more than I could bear, and walking from one end of the house to the other was a major accomplishment. I've never lived with such pain before in my life - and that's saying a lot with me!

I finally dragged myself to a doctor; someone I'd never seen before, as we were in a new province. When I told her why I was there, she looked me up and down and gently suggested that it "might be because you're a bit large." Which is a polite way of saying, your feet hurt because your fat. *eyeroll* I pointed out to her that she had it backwards. I was gaining weight because I could barely friggin' walk. So she sent me for blood tests to make sure my thyroid wasn't screwy, and that I wasn't diabetic. *sigh* I figured it would be faster to just go for the blood tests, which I was due for anyways, than argue with her. My blood tests came back, in her word, "perfect." When I reminded her of why I was there, she sent me for X-rays.

Which is when I found out that I had developed severe osteoarthritis in both feet and both knees. I also had bunions. And bones spurs in both knees. And a bone spur in one heel (I now have them in both heels).

Getting that diagnosis was the best thing ever. It didn't help my feet any - nothing helped until we moved away from the "wet coast" and back to the dry prairies - but knowing that I wasn't actually a wuss complaining about my 'poor widdle tootsies' changed my thinking.

Today, my feet still hurt sometimes, though nothing like they did while we were living on the coast. The bones still dislocate, and sometimes my knees like to "sing" to me, letting me know it's time to slow things down.

But - I can walk. Not very fast and sometimes not very far, but that's ok. I can walk. And that's something I've learned to appreciate a great deal.

Take a moment...

Anna: I just wanted to take a moment to mention I've added some new links to the column on the side. There are a lot of talented photographers out there, and these are some of the ones I enjoy visiting regularly. The new ones on the list are labeled, creatively enough, (new). :-D

124:365 Stormy weather

Anna: I really feel for the performers scheduled for today at the Street Performers Festival - it was probably a total loss for all of them. Not only did it rain for most of the day, we had a series of thunderstorms sweep through as well. It's the time of year for it, and I guess a street performer gets stuff like this happening fairly often, but it must still hurt the pocket book a fair bit, since this is how they make a living.

This was the view off our balcony, facing downtown, this evening. It was pouring rain at the time, though nothing like it had been earlier (I'm pretty sure I heard hail, at one point), and with no where near as much wind. I wouldn't have gone out on the balcony with the camera, otherwise! *L*

This is good news for the folks in Saskatchewan, though. Every little bit helps with the fires they've been having lately, and some of the evacuees were actually able to return home, thanks to the rain.

Now if only some of this rain will make it's way to California, too, I'm sure it would be appreciated!

123:365 - Up close and Personal - updated: Street Performers Festival

Philippe: Headed out to the street performer's festival today; we got there early so I looked around for other photo ops :)














































Anna: More photos of the Street Performers Festival here.

We headed out to the square a bit too early. The booths were still being set up and the square was mostly empty. There was this one early bird performer already entertaining the crowd, though.


























As well as the scheduled performers at specific stations, there are always roving performers, such as these stilt walkers.


























This performer started up while we were wandering around, so we were able to find places to sit or stand and actually see him! *L*




























After the show, we'd had enough of the heat and were looking to go indoors for a nice cold drink at the Three Bananas Cafe on the square. I couldn't resist taking some shots of the beautiful cloud formations.

By the time we finished our drinks, the white fluffies were starting to give way to dark and forbidding. Shortly after, as we were going through one of the pedway overpasses to get back to our car, we saw it was pouring rain! It was a fairly quick storm that passed through, but harsh enough to actually interrupt power, as we came home to find both computers had shut down. It's starting all ready! *L* Last year, the festival was frequently interrupted by sudden rainfalls.