Bad bedtime routine

Below is the one of many possible bad bedtime routines. While we were finishing supper, people stopped by to buy a few items that Christine had listed online. I stepped outside to be with her and found a tree frog, which I quickly called for the girls to come see. Danielle immediately held it and within a few seconds she walked across the yard to put the frog in the small Korean maple tree. How Danielle thought of this I have no clue, but what an amazing idea.The girls take after us a bit and ran inside to get their cameras to take pictures of the tree-frog.

 

Generally we have Danielle as hands-on and Michaela as hands-off with nature.

While taking pictures the frog jumped off Danielle's hand and somehow miraculously disappeared into the night. Bedtime should have been next, but instead the amped up girls asked for sparklers.

What would a responsible parent do at 9 o'clock, already thirty minutes past the kids' bedtime?

Who knows, we grabbed sparklers and decided to stay up even later. Luckily fell asleep everyone as soon as we were in bed!

Independence Day

The past couple of years the girls have intentionally stayed up late to watch fireworks on July 4th. Last year went to Lake Peppin but this year we were in Monroe Wisconsin with friends and their family. The Wisconsin visit felt like going home and included good golf, food, bike rides, and great hospitality.  

We spent a couple of days in Wisconsin, with more photos to come later, but on the 4th the girls started the night out with sparklers before it got too dark.

Notice how they reacted when I asked for movement in front of the camera. 

The fireworks show was great, easily beating last years and while single shells did not seem as big the overall presentation trumped the Marshfield fireworks from two years ago. {Here is a short video with synchronized music.} Danielle mad it through half of the show before she snuggled up and fell asleep on a friend's lap. Michaela stayed awake throughout and spent most of it on top of Christine as you can see below.

Fireworks offer a chance to try rear-sync flash photography. This is a technique I needed to practice with manual settings, but during a half hour show it is fun to experiment.    

When the settings and timing are right you get a photo like this.

When you forget the 2-second shutter is open you could get this.

Photoshop and a bit of time on the computer gets this.