iHeartTheseFaces!

I found this really neat photography blog that sponsors weekly photo challenges as well as provides all kinds of resources and tips.

Here are my three favorite faces!

I can't wait to see what the new challenge is tomorrow! I'm really excited to join this online community, to be inspired, to learn more about photography and to take tons of pictures of these great faces!

Ahhhh... Balloons!

It won't be too long before the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta is once again upon us. This year the festival will run from October 3rd thru the 11th and we will be there! I can't wait to take my new camera and get some great shots. We attended the 5 years we lived there and I know I took oodles of pictures but between computers crashing and misplacing stuff during moves I'm left with very few.

If you want to get the full fiesta experience, waking up at an ungodly hour is key. Dawn patrol starts before the sun comes up and it's so cool to see the balloons up in the night sky when they light their burners. Looks like candles in the air.

One of the really neat things about this festival is that it all takes place on a large grassy field and spectators are free to roam around and see the entire process of laying the balloons out, filling them with air and take off! The pilots and crew are very interactive and will often ask for assistance from the crowd. My girls once helped with getting a balloon packed up after a flight, they loved it. The Mass Ascensions are an amazing sight to behold. Done in two "waves" 750 balloons take flight. I can't wait to sit with my hot chocolate and green chili breakfast burrito and take it all in!

Another great part of the fiesta is the balloon glows... our favorite is the special shapes Glodeo. All of the balloons are tethered and right around dusk it's magical to walk around when they're all light up. Can't forget the great fireworks show afterwards!

It's no wonder that this is considered the most photographed event in the world... impossible to take a bad picture!

On a side note... I cannot wait to go get me some Wecks! There's one here but I'm telling ya, the green chili is just not the same!

Here in Texas & I'm missing the mountains!

One of my biggest complaints about living here in Texas is the lack of scenery. I grew up around mountains my entire life and I miss them so much! I haven't seen a great sunset in a year now because it's so darn flat here. Not to mention the fact that my sense of direction without that visual help really stinks! Now I've heard that the hill country and around San Antonio & Austin is nice. Unfortunatly that's not where I live but will be venturing down there to check it out at some point.

Here's one of the kids jumping off that rock at some lake in New Mexico... not sure which one it is. Wish I could remember what lake that was. North of Albuquerque, it'll probably come to me in the middle of the night.

St. Alban's Chapel in the Snowy Range mountains of Wyoming, southwest of Laramie. How's that for getting close to God?

Marie Lake, Wyoming

Secret fishing hole, Wyoming. Seriously, it's secret! I don't know if the rule still stands but growing up my mom forbid me from sharing it's location with anyone! I went back there 2 years ago with her and the fishing was still fantastic! We caught 18 fish in 3 hours! At one point my mom set her camera on a stump behind us and set it on the record function. It captured me snagging 3 fish in under 10 minutes. I have another picture somewhere that shows how the beetles have ravaged the trees in recent years, it looks very sad and brown... a fire just waiting to happen.

I found the pictures of that same lake, stitched together to form a panoramic shot of the beetles' destruction. Go ahead, click on it!

Two of my sweeties in the mountains north of Durango, Colorado.

I can't seem to find any pictures of one of my favorite mountains... the Sandia's of New Mexico, immediatly east of Albuquerque. I truely loved seeing them every day for the 5 years I was there. The way the sun would peek out behind them in the early morning hours, the way they would turn pink when the sun was going down, the way the clouds would gather above when it got stormy. Ahhh, I miss it so...