Thanksgiving ~ Going Backwards

I want to post about our Thanksgiving in Pensacola with Gary’s family, but have had a hard time deciding how to go about it.  I have probably 3 (perhaps 4) posts of material and photos, and way more to say than I think I can capture, but I want to try.  After a lot of thought, I decided to tell our story in reverse chronological order.  I will start with Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and work my way back.   

Friday morning we all woke up, showered, and headed to our hotel’s buffet breakfast.  We all ate, then headed out to the beach to let the kids play (and me take photos).  It was a little late when we got out there, so the sun was pretty bright.  Last year I took beach photos with my 55-200 zoom lens.  I though they were great last year, but when I looked back at them this year in preparation for this trip, I didn’t think they were as great as I remembered (I’m told it’s normal to become less satisfied with photos as time goes on and skills progress, so either that is happening or I am getting worse).  I had used my 55-200 zoom lens on Thanksgiving Day for some photos on the beach (which I will post later), so on Friday I decided to switch it up and try my 35mm f/1.8 prime lens.  Next time I’m on the beach I will only use my zoom.  The photos are fine, and I love my prime lens, especially indoors, but it just doesn’t work for me for these photos as much as my zoom lens.  Oh well, live and learn.  Here are some photos from Friday:

I hate that Penelope just cannot be in many of the photos.  She can’t sit up on her own and the kids aren’t great at holding her.  Add to that she spends a lot of time sleeping, and I just don’t take as many photos of her as I’d like.  I will definitely be making up for that some day!

After our time on the beach, we packed up and headed to Gary’s parent’s house for one last visit before we made our way home.

Thanks to Gary’s purchase of a couple Dora the Explorer DVDs, the drive home was as pleasant as could be expected.  That didn’t work out so well for Gary, though.  He really wanted to listen to the Alabama-Auburn game on the radio, but we can’t listen to the radio and play a DVD at the same time.  Every once in a while Gary would think that it was a good time to catch up with the game and would turn on the radio, but Rosemary and Piper would yell at Gary for “Doree” until he finally gave in and turned the DVD back on. 

More later. . . .