Cry Baby...the sequel

So Clint went all sappy and did the emotional human interest story on his blog....so here's mine:
This little video pulled at my heartstrings a wee bit. But I'm an animal lover. :)

Georgia Aquarium

We went to the Georgia Aquarium last week, which I was totally stoked about because I've been waiting to go there ever since it opened. Because I like fish and animals and stuff.
So there.

So anyway, our mistake was in going around noon....they only let in 100 people an hour, but by noon, there are about 300+ people in there, and the place was PACKED. We had to wait to get up to the glass at every single exhibit.
Was it worth the money? Sure, but only if you go at the first time slot available so you don't have to fight through the rude, pushy, and non-deodorant wearing crowd just to get a glimpse.

Consequently, my pictures are less than stellar because I was trying to take photos, hold onto the stroller, keep an eye on the 3 kids among the throngs of potential kidnappers, and enjoy the animals as well. :)

Here's Steve and the boys coming out the tank/tunnel thing. The GA Aquarium boasts the largest saltwater tank in the United States, maybe even the world - I'm not sure, I'll have to check on that.


Here's a tip when taking photos at a zoo or aquarium:
Place your camera's lens directly on the glass. It eliminates the glare and will give you a great picture.
That said, I didn't do that with any of these pictures because there were too many people.
But anyway, now you know.


Here's a picture of Owen who was really transfixed by the sea lion exhibit. They were his favorite and I had a hard time getting him to leave.
This picture is also for DanO so that he can grunt and be disdainful over the length of Owen's hair.

Loved this pattern on this fish....

Not a seahorse, but a seaDRAGON. Cool, huh?

These aren't very good pictures (yes, I take crappy pictures sometimes) but I thought they were so cool I had to show them to you. They're called Garden Eels, and they live in sandy burrows, which they construct. When feeding, the Spotted Garden Eel rises out of its burrow, exposing up to two-thirds of its body. It feeds on zooplankton taken from the passing current.
I just wrote all of that from the vast knowledge in my head.

Actually, I had to look it up on the internet.


This was one of my favorite exhibits, they had this really peaceful instrumental music playing that gave the room an eerie, yet hauntingly beautiful aura.
Tyler liked 'em too.
He kept pointing his little finger in every exhibit and saying, "oh wow"


One of my favorite pics of the day....
I have other pics, but they're nothing impressive. GA Aquarium also has a whale shark, which was gorgeous, and beluga whales, and a lot of other cool stuff. Check it out if you're ever in ATL with time to kill...just make sure you get in at the first time slot of the day!

More posts tomorrow!

Go Ahead...Smack My Hand

I know, I know...I'm sorry. I've been MIA for about oh...a week now. But we've had family in town so things have been busy and I haven't had a chance to sit down and reconnect to bloggerland.

New posts coming soon.....Easter Sunday, gramma and grandpa, random thoughts (oh I KNOW how you love those!), Good Deed Tuesday....it's all coming. I just have to play a little catch up.

So, in the meantime, you can watch this little video clip. I'm a sap about animals so I'm not TOO ashamed to say that the first time I saw it I teared up. JUST A LITTLE. And it was probably just because I had something in my eye. Yeah. That's it.

Here's the background. These 2 guys bought this orphaned lion cub that they found for sale in London, and named him Christian. After a time, they decided that they wanted to reintroduce him back to the wild so he could be like all the regular lions. Come ON dad! All the other carnivores get to live outside!

Anyway, so they scrape all their money together and arrange for him to go to Africa to a wild animal compound owned by this guy George Adamson.
Upon Christian the Lion's arrival in Africa, Adamson arranged a friendship between Christian and a previously captive-then-freed lion named Boy. Boy and Christian become good friends and Boy serves as the bridge that Christian needs to connect with the wild and find a new pride or pack or whatever...new lion family.

Well, a year or so later the two guys decide to go to Africa and pay Christian a visit. They weren't sure if Christian would remember them, or if they could find him, and if they did what his reaction would be. Here's what happened when they did reconnect......

Callie Cat

Yesterday I took the boys on a bike ride. We stopped at a stop sign about 2 blocks from our house, and from across the street comes this little black kitten...trotting over to us, meowing all the while. She was quite obviously a stray but was the friendliest little kitten I'd ever seen. She ran right over to the boys (who immediately hopped off their bikes to pet her) and rubbed up against them, purring away...even letting them pick her up and hold her. She was really sweet.

Then it began. The begging, the pleading, the convincing..."Let's take her to OUR home" "She needs a family" etc. etc. I can't complain too loudly because I'm a sucker for animals myself, and even as I told them "no, no, we should leave her here where we found her" I knew in my heart that we'd be taking her home, if only for a bowl of food and some love'n. I told the boys that if she would hold still and let me hold her that we could take her home. Well, that fluffy little kitty sat in my arms for the whole walk home, purring away.
As we walked up our drive, I called ahead to AJ, "Don't open the front door AJ!" knowing full well that Cooper would come bounding out and scare the poor baby away. So what does AJ do?? Completely ignores me and opens the front door. Times like that I feel that I've done SUCH a good job raising my boys to obey.
Well...you can imagine: Cooper comes out. Kitty hisses and digs her claws into my arm (thank goodness I was wearing a sweatshirt). I tried to turn my back and shield her from the dog whilst yelling, "NO COOPER!" but this cat apparently didn't have much faith in my protective abilities because she thought she might be safer on high ground. Like, the top of my head.
So there I am, spinning in the front yard, away from Cooper, hunched over, hissing cat on my head, wondering what kind of kitty disease I'm getting and if she'll actually puncture the flesh of my skull. With rabies in mind, I think it's probably best to fling the cat off my head so I do so, and she scampers away, hissing, and runs straight up a tree.

AJ looks horrified.
"I told you NOT to open the door!" I scolded.
He looks worried. And heartbroken.
"My baby kitty is gone" he says, bottom lip quivering.
I sigh. And take the high road.
"That's why you need to obey me." Which is toddler-speak for "I told you so"

We get in the house, settle Cooper. The boys hit the toilet, so I slip back outside to see if I can find poor traumatized baby cat or if she's gone forever. No sooner do I step into the front yard and I hear a little "meow" and see some rustling in the pine tree out front. She hops down from the tree and runs over to me. So I set her on the front stoop and go inside and the boys come rejoicing (they had been watching out the window...and mercifully, NOT opening the door).
"You found her! You found the kitty baby!"

The boys hurriedly poured some of Nala's cat food into a bowl and AJ got her some milk (which I KNOW is not good for cats, but how do you tell a 3 year old that?) She narfed up that whole bowl of food AND the milk, and them some water too. Purring contentedly, rubbing up against the boys, she really IS a sweet cat. Owen named her Callie Cat. AJ wanted to name her Spongebob Poopy Pants (no, not kidding - he's really been into the doofy potty talk lately.) but Owen insisted on Callie Cat, thank goodness.

Now, before my mother and my mother in law start shaking their heads in disbelief that the Nowack clan has yet another pet, let me say that we did NOT keep her.
After she finished up her food, and the boys played with her a bit more, we put her in the car (where she curled up in the back with the boys and slept, and drove her to the Humane Society. I'm hoping that someone will pick her up for a Christmas present. She really is SUCH a nice cat. So if you're in the Albany area, and looking for a kitty to love...check out the Humane Society on Oakridge. CallieCat is there waiting...."for a fami-wy of her own" as AJ says.

Horses, Ostriches, and a Couple Zebra

I was feeling in the mood to take some horse photos, so I called upon Casey and his endless connections to hook me up with some equine subjects. Off to the Fowler farm we headed (as in Jim Fowler, owner of Parks at Chehaw, who happens to be Casey's uncle).

I love the Fowler farm. It's one of my favorite places to do senior sessions, engagement sessions, anytime anywhere sessions. There is a plethora of scenic places to photograph - including old barns, abandoned shacks, rusty cars from the 1950's, fences, bamboo forests, dirt paths, open meadows.....it's a photographer's dream property.
Anyway, they also have several horses so out we went to snap a few pictures. Unfortunately, when we arrived I had a complete creative brain fart and was feeling totally uninspired. Thus follows my rather boring pictures of some horses:

I can't remember the name of this little beauty, but they were working her when we arrived. She's the youngest of the group I think, only 2 years old, and she was fun.



This shot makes me laugh every time I look at it. She was tied to the hitching post here to get groomed after her workout and she was VERY curious about my camera. When I knelt down in front of her though, she wasn't so sure about what I was doing.




This is Casper, who was a very poor model. He had quite a knack for stepping into the perfect golden lighting, and promptly turning his back on me so that I would have a glorious shot of his massive behind. Or, he would be holding beautifully still and looking perfectly regal, and when I would kneel down to take his picture, he would saunter over to stick his velvety nose right on my lens and nudge me around looking for treats.
I even sent Casey over to have a word with him, but he was having none of it.
Note to self: Next time, bring bribes for Casper.








Feeling a little bored and quite uninspired, I was ready to leave the horses so we decided to drive over the wild animal pasture and see if we could get anything over there. Now, the zebras apparently were under the impression that I was a tiger lurking in the Serengeti about to surprise attack them at any moment, so they promptly trotted away at my approach.
Ironically enough, the freaking ostriches were rather interested in us and came right over. This gave me a few heart palpitations, seeing as I have this thing with birds. Specifically, I hate them and consider them to be evil tools of world destruction used by Satan himself.
Here you see a giant male ostrich approaching with purposeful strides on his giant dinosaur-like feet to see what we were all about. What you DON"T see, is Casey behind me whispering, "Oh sweet Mother of Mary, he's coming this way" as he scrambles back towards the car. Seems that I'm not the only one who has a bit of "thing" for fowl. In the name of photography, I took a deep breath and held my ground. You can't let them smell your fear, you know.

Or something like that.


He finds me to be rather uneventful and decides to wander off to do better things.
Like twist his snakey neck around to pick feathers off his butt, and leave a giant ostrich poop about 25 yards further on.





But his girlfriend finds us to be EXTREMELY interesting and walks right up.
Like within 2 feet of me.
Like close enough that she could have stuck her neck out and pecked my eyes out.
Or at least one eye, since the other one was behind the camera lens.
I told Casey to watch out for the male, who I was certain was planning an ambush from the side while his girlfriend distracted us and I had my face behind the camera.



Here she is pondering how tasty my flesh might be. I think she's preparing to tear the hair off my scalp as an appetizer.
Ostriches are carnivores, you know.



Here she concedes that it would be a dang shame to peck me to death because my beautiful 70-200mm lens would crash to the ground and probably break. And even this stupid bird knows THAT would be a travesty.


One more shot --- of the zebras, who have been watching the human-ostrich interaction with trepidation. I think they were just glad to have the ostriches off their backs. I think the ostrich hunt the zebras when no one is watching.



Cue Casey, who would not stop singing "The Circle of Life" as I took my last few shots.