haphazard musings

Other fun photos...

Not too much going on in the Frasier World right now.  So, I thought you might just like to see some fun photos. 
    Isn't that cute?  A couple trees in Manhattan.

  I love the palm tree at the end - Barbados.

    An interesting street shot from DC.


A sweet dragon from somewhere in China - Ryan took this. 

Another blast from the past...

And we again resume our study of Lindsay's trip to South Africa.  As you may recall, we just left the kingdom of Swaziland and traveled back into South Africa.  Next stop, St. Lucia.  We stayed at a backpacker (hostel) here and took several tours of the estuary - wetland park.  It was lovely - the park, not the backpacker - but we slept nonetheless. 
Schedule of events: car tour of the area, visit the INDIAN ocean, boat tour of estuary, leopard watching.

The Indian Ocean, it was so windy (we are talking worse than Kansas wind) we didn't even get any pictures of ourselves.  The sand hurt so bad when it hit your face.

 The boat tour of the estuary was amazing.  We saw hippos, crocodiles or alligators (no one told us which), birds and so much more.  Unfortunately, it was really cold - like 50 degrees and on the water it was much colder.   

The actual size of a hippo tooth.  Look out!  Hippos are actually one of the most dangerous animals in Africa.

Another attempt at a brilliant sunset photo.  I like this one quite a bit.  

 

Finally, the kitchen of our backpacker.  See the bananas on the far left.  Those are ours.  We left them there to go exploring.  When we came back they were gone, and we found a note in our room.  It said the monkeys were eating your bananas so we have them and the rest of your food in room 39.  Yep, that's right, monkeys ate our bananas only in Africa.

Wingnuts Baseball

So, since this week isn't busy enough, Ryan and I got some free tickets to the Wichita Wingnuts game.  So we thought why not.  :)  So we invited our friends Jon, Lori, and Makenzie.  We got to eat hot dogs, chips and ice cream.  Then enjoyed the game!  It was a perfect evening.  Seriously, it was 73 degrees at 8:00 and the stadium kept the wind out. 

Makenzie was so funny to watch.  She seemed to really enjoy all the people and watching them.  She got really into the "Charge" chant/song thing.  She was always late in yelling it, but she yelled it just the same.  Ryan took his binoculars too, and those of course, were lots of fun.

 
 
Like father, like daughter... :)

Sorry for the lack of Lindsay and Ryan photos here...apparently Makenzie is more fun to take shots of.  Oh well, she's cuter than we are.

Flashback Tuesday

Today we resume our reminiscing of the South African adventure.  As you may recall from my last flashback, I stated that much of South Africa looked like my final picture.  However, as you are about to witness for yourself, the country of Swaziland was not quite so barren.

For those not in the know (I wasn't until we started planning the trip), Swaziland is a kingdom inside of South Africa.  Its lovely.  We stayed in Rondevals - round huts.  They are round because their tradition says that evil spirits lurk in corners.  So they built homes with no corners.  We stayed inside a game reserve and met some wonderful people at the hostel and showed them all about S'mores!

We ended up making great friends with the ostrich who was totally tame.  He really, really enjoyed granola bars and my tennis shoes...
 

I was totally obsessed with these purple trees.  They were everywhere.  I don't know if its the K-Stater in me or just that they were beautiful, but wow, they were awesome.     

I also loved the sunsets there, they were remarkable.  Just so clear and uncluttered.  I, for some reason unbeknownst to me, was trying to take a picture of a perfect African sunset.  I have no idea what that means, but I was certainly looking for it.  This photo isn't it, but I loved it just the same.

The photo of the bridge turned out great.  Something about the uneven boards and the way they are held together...I don't know.  Its one of my favorite pictures.  The lake - speaks for itself.
 

And the best sign ever posted....anywhere.   Seriously, catapults...

#82 - Mother's Day

Good news!  I re-discovered my "safe" location for my camera cord.  The one that enables you to download pictures.  Yep.  So now I may continue my blog efforts!  I know you are excited.

So on to the topic at hand - Mother's Day.

I met my mother, Lori and my Grandmother, June, as well as the rest of the fam at Botanica in Wichita.  Not only did I get to spend time with some wonderful mothers (and Dads), I got to get started on #81 - Visit 4 unique Kansas attractions.  I don't know how unique Botanica is, but it is certainly a Kansas attraction!  And you should go too.  Its lovely.  See...

 

 

Here is a photo of Mom and Grandma.  Dont' they look alike?  I guess then be the laws of physics, or something, that you are looking at me in 25 years and then another 25 years....hmm...

                                               

And this is me, now.  Standing next to my namesake...the Linden tree.  Yep.  That's what my name means.  Isn't that interesting?   I have confirmed that in multiple books/internet sources.  But I had never seen one before, so there you go.

Also, you can note that I have completed #12.  Its hard to tell in the photo, but yep I got new glasses.  Hooray.

                                  

Lets do another Flashback Tuesday.

This one however, does not flash back very far.  Only about 7 months ago.  So let's see...where was I and what was I doing 7 months ago...oh yeah.  I was in AFRICA.  It was so so cool.  I would go again tomorrow if I could!

So, a little background. 

Kristen, one of my very best friends from college, now lives in South Africa and is volunteering with the Peace Corps there.  This is Kristen and I during college.  (Not my best photogenic face, but at least we match.)

So my friend Tiffany, from high school and college, and I went to visit her.  This is Tiffany and I at a K-State football game.

We were there for a little over two weeks.  I have never been more tired in my life than I was there.  The time change was ridiculous.  I didn't sleep for more than 3 hours for like 3 days.  We got on the bus to take us from town to town and we were narcaleptic.  It was infuriating.  I wanted to photograph and see everything, but the gentle rocking of the bus hurtling down the highway lured me to sleep.  None, the less, we had an absolutely fabulous time!

Now, I took like 500 pictures, which actually doesn't seem like very many.  They, (being the photographers) took like 900 pictures at our wedding and they were only there for like 5 hours.  Anyway...I could show you all my favorites right now, but I am going to space them out, so that way I have something to write about on the next few flashback tuesdays.

This was my only clue as to our location for the entire 18 hours we were on the same (yes, the same) plane.  Thank goodness for in-seat movies and maps.  Seriously, without it, I might have gone little crazier.

Our first glance of land - it was cloudy.  But this is Soweto. Probably the largest group of townships (where black people were made to live under apartheid) in the country.  Its population is mostly black and all 11 of the national languages are spoken in this city.

  

Our view went from this

                               to this.  A lot of the trip looked like this.

Flashback Tuesday?

Well, I've never heard of flashback tuesday, but that's what its going to be today.  I am working on a fun project at home.  It has to do with all my favorite photos!  So here are some from my trip to Charleston, South Carolina and Savannah, GA with my mom back in college.  Ok, so really that wasn't so long ago - 3 years.  But man a lot has changed since then.  We had a great time, I really hope we get to take some more mother daughter trips in the future.

  

On a beautiful Southern plantation...wish I could remember the name.  I just love this photo, but I can't decide which is better: sepia or color.

 

I was absolutely in love with the trees.  They are called live oaks.  Apparently they grow year around, unlike ours here that only grow in spring and summer.  Either way they are hundreds of years old.  I love old stuff.

 

And oh, the gardens.  We were there during our spring break - so March.  And everything was already blooming and beautiful.  In that last photo, that tree actually blooms in three, yes 3, colors (red, white, pink).  The tour guide said it was one in a million - well no she didn't, but it was some really fancy statistic anyway.

I hope you enjoyed our trip to Charleston.  Mom, will you pay for the next trip too, or am I on my own?