Portrait step by step

Recently a friend of mine saw a picture of my daughter that I had drawn. He asked me to do some drawings of his grandchildren in the same style for a family history book he is working on. I've mentioned before that I'm not exactly a portrait artist (though thats what everyone always wants) but I decided to oblige my friend, since he asked so nicely.

He sent me a photo of two of these grandkids and told me to pick one and draw it, so he could see how they were going to turn out. (I'm not posting the photo because, well, they aren't my kids to post!)

For this project I'm using scrapbooking cardstock paper (I've decided most art papers have too much tooth for this technique, and this is just as archival), Prismacolor pencils, and one or two regular Crayola colored pencils to do the basic drawing (because they sharpen better and are easier to erase!) Colored paper is great for portraits or other colored pencil pieces, because the paper that shows through the drawing compliments the picture rather than glaring white and begging to be covered up.

First, I did a sketch of this guy (it scanned in lighter than it is) :



As I've told you, babies are hard for me to draw, and I didn't like the way this looked. So I took a stab at drawing his sister instead, on the back of the same page:



But I didn't like that one either. SO I went back to the first drawing, moved the eye on the right, and got to work! First, I always finish the eyes. I probably shouldn't because they usually have something that needs fixed, but oh well. Then I put in a few values in the hair and main facial shapes:




Hey, its starting to take shape! Next, I put in most of the hair, and started putting in colors around the edges of the face. I also add more blue. I find that using non-skin colors (blue, green, purple, etc) makes the picture more fun for me and more interesting to look at. The trick is not to use too much:



I decided the top of his head was shaped weird, so I fixed that, then added a background color. This helps so the pink paper color looks like part of the face, rather than just the paper. It adds nice contrast too. (I darkened this scan so you could see the colors better, its not really this pink!) I also started drawing in his blue vest:




At this point I felt the colors in the face were getting too 'cool' with the pinks and blues so I added some yellows and browns. You can see it mostly in the forehead. I also put some warmer colors in the blue of his clothes, so that it looked more natural with the other colors of the portrait:


By now, it looked very similar to the photograph, but portraits aren't very dependable for color accuracy. While it was a nice professional picture, the middle of his face was washed out by the photographer's lights. At this point, one has to rely on intuition and prior knowledge to fill in the blanks. For instance, foreheads usually have more yellows and greens, the middle of the face has more reds, and the jaw has more blues. For a baby, I would use more reds than usual in the bottom of the face, and not so much blue, because it looks like beard stubble!

I added blue to the hair because it was looking too yellowish compared to the face. I also added more color to the background to create a nicer contrast. There is a little more blue everywhere, just because I like it! It adds a nice transparent look to the skin.
And...voila!:



Of course this scan doesn't capture all of the exact colors, but it doesn't look too bad! Much better than the first colored pencil portrait I did in high school. But I only had a 12 color set back then:

Dad's stuff

While I was visiting my family, I took some pictures of my dad's favorite coins and other collectibles, so he could share them with his friends on email. Most of the pictures turned out pretty good, so I thought I'd share them with you. I didn't really ask about them, so I can only tell you what I already know, but here they are!




These are some of his oldest coins from Greece, Rome and other ancient civilizations. They've always been my favorite, because of their unique textures and images. Coin making wasn't such an exact process back then, as you can see.
Oh yeah, remember the 2,000-year-old Zeus coin I mentioned before? Its the red coin featured below. I used to think his flowing hair looked more like a big brain:



Here is another valuable group of coins that aren't quite so ancient:

See those oddly shaped pieces in the center, with crosses on them? Those are "pieces of eight" from sunken Spanish treasure ships, just like you hear about in pirate movies. My dad loves pirate movies. I think a bunch of the others in this group are also Spanish dollars. Except the small rectangle...it might be Chinese, I think.


Here is one more group of my dad's favorite coins:


This collection contains several Seated Liberty dollars and other coins from the United States. Sorry, I'm not sure what the gold ones are. Maybe I'll get back to you on that.

Tired of coins? How about silver rings? My dad found all of these himself:



They're strung on two chains for easier transport and viewing, I guess. Since my parents live in Utah, this whole second chain is composed of the ubiquitous CTR (choose the right) ring ...minus the dozen or so he's given away to friends and family. See?


Oh yeah, there are also these:



As I mentioned in my last post, bottles and marbles are also quite valuable. We used to go camping in ghost towns when I was a kid so my dad could go treasure hunting. The best place to find coins and bottles was, strangely enough, where the outhouses were. One finds these by plunging a long t-shaped metal pole into the ground, searching for the softest dirt. Then you shovel the dirt out onto a screen, where the dirt sifts through and the archaological finds rest on the top.

There used to be an old hotel in the empty dirt lot next to my parents' home. I recall my dad and a friend digging a huge hole (deeper than a man's hight) where they found 60-80 bottles and other knick-knacks. Unfortunately, I think my dad has sold most of those since. However, he still has plenty around the house that he has either found elsewhere or purchased from dealers:




And because I know you care so much, here is a close up of some of those marbles:



Marbles have been around since Egyptian and Roman years of power. The plain ones are clay, and that swirl on the left cost $120 at a Vegas bottle show. He says there were some marbles there being sold for at least $2,000!

So there you go, the highlights of dad's treasure trove. I hope you enjoyed it.

The Road Trip Story

As our spring break was a few weeks ago, we took the opportunity to drive south once again to visit my family. Now that they're only six hours away we've been visiting a lot more often than when they were twenty-two (understandably). I was still content from our Christmas visit, but Joseph really wanted to go somewhere, and this was the most viable option.

Sadly, our trip had a lot more low points than I would have hoped. Thus this tale will be told in highlights and low points. (sorry its a little long.)

Highlight: We got to leave our house around 4:00 PM instead of late at night, due to Joseph having a shortened work day on Fridays.

Low Point: About 35-40 miles out, we got a flat tire on the freeway. Joshua was scared to death because he could see all the traffic coming towards him from his rear-facing car seat, and he could hear it all as Joseph opened the back to get the spare out. People were honking at us instead of helping us, and I was rather offended!

Highlight: We found a Big-O tire quickly, and as the blowout happened before six were able to get the tire repaired and to go on our way.

Low Point: About half an hour later, we had another blow out! This time it was getting dark, and we were mad! Remember these are new tires, as we just bought this vehicle two weeks earlier. It was too late for anything to be open now. A highway patrolman came and helped us, and we used his phone to call my Uncle Harvey, who lived within a half hour of the accident. These kind of situations are the only times I wish we still had a cell phone.

Highlight: So we unexpectedly spent the night at my aunt and uncle's home. Only two of their six boys still live at home, so they have plenty of room. My cousin Phil was also visiting with his wife and two kids. I hadn't seen him since they got married about four years ago, so it was nice to get reacquainted and to meet his kids... too bad they had been sick with the flu all week, and were just recovering ( insert sense of foreboding here.) Elora enjoyed playing with my Uncle's dog and cat the next morning while Joseph and Harv went to get a new tire. (It turns out the person who installed our tires 'ripped the bead' whatever that means, and this caused the blowouts. Yeah, we were mad.)

Low Point: Because of this incident, we had to use Saturday to drive the rest of the way to my parent's. This was the day I was hoping to go down to St. George and see red cliffs or something similarly spring break-y and warm, but it didn't happen. Nope, just hanging out at my parents boring house. Joseph didn't mind.. my brother has a game system (and we don't, hallelujah) , and he had a great afternoon playing it.


wait a minute...is that a leprechaun back there you ask? Why yes, yes it is. Lets just say my mom and my dad's ideas of home decor don't exactly mesh, but it makes for an interesting home:





Betcha didn't know that old bottles and marbles were treasure too, did ya? Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of the swords on the wall, but I will have a later post showing some nice pics of dad's coins.

Highlight: Elora got to see grandma! And we got to play the traditional card game, plus on Sunday Elora got to see grandma lead the music at church, which is very exciting for her. Because we didn't go south, My mom and I took the kids to the park instead, and I contented myself taking pictures there. Don't let the desert-y background fool you though: we were still at a high elevation and it was still very cold!



Highlight: Monday morning we went and visited my friends Cardine and Julie at their places of work , which I had never seen. We only stopped by for a minute, but it was great to see them in person after such a long time.
Low Point:
I was very excited to go to the University and to visit the art department where I hadn't been for so long. I pictured a warm reunion, but this is the gist of the three conversations I had in the faculty offices:
Me: HI!
Them: Hello. Can I help you?
Me: Um, do you remember me? I graduated in 2000.
Them: Huh. Well, that was quite a while ago. So how have you been?
Me: Um fine. (Thinking, you still don't remember me, do you.)
Them: Well, nice seeing you again! Good luck with everything.

Very disappointing. In my mind I was a star student. Guess not so much.
The photography and the art history teachers for whom I had T.A.'d weren't there, so we couldn't chat, but maybe that was a good thing for my ego?

Highlight: However I did step into the painting class of a teacher I'd been friends with, and he knew me right away! His hair was longer and he looked more hippyish than before, but it fit him. He mentioned that he'd just shown some slides of my paintings to the class that week, and he said I was 'still famous' in the painting department. Sigh. I guess that made up for it. A little. They had a faculty art show in the local gallery too, and he invited me to go view his paintings, which I did on our way out of town Tuesday. That was nice too.

(Girl With Fantastic Hat I, Brian Hoover)

Highlight: Bowling with my brother and his girlfriend Monday night. It was nice to have a date night and to do something different for a change. My mom watched the kids. Yay!


(we're darn good, aren't' we! I got the 73 and I wasn't last place. Yippee!)

Low Point: (don't worry, I'm almost done) We left around 1:00 on Tuesday, and Joseph wasn't feeling well. He threw up before we left the house, and we stopped a few more times where he threw up in a bathroom and a gas station parking lot. (gee, I wonder where he got sick?)
When we got close to Salt Lake City, Elora started throwing up! We stopped and cleaned her up no less than four or five times, even though I gave her a bag to throw up in, it rarely made it in.


Lowest Point: The McDonalds guy. One of the times we stopped to clean up was in the industrial part of Salt Lake at a McDonalds. The bathrooms had obvious lock systems on them, but I thought I'd try it just in case it was open, as I read the notice on the door. As I was trying to open it, a man sitting nearby and reading a newspaper said, "I think you need a lock to get in there."

I realize he was just trying to be helpful, but I was stressed out and distracted ( and in my frazzled state it seemed he was insulting my intelligence) so I guess my reply came out rude...though I didn't mean it that way! I answered dryly, "Yeah, I can read that right here."
He then said in an offended voice, "Hey, I was just trying to be helpful."
I was still stressed and now felt considerably worse, so I ignored him as I walked with my filthy daughter to the front counter to get a token for the door. I came back and inserted the small coin, and of course it didn't work.
The man was apparently watching me, because in a smug tone he said, "Maybe you could read the directions on the door."
Oh burn!! I was about ready to turn around and strangle him, seriously.
I turned and said, " Look, I wasn't trying to be rude earlier, I was just saying I could read the door, okay?"
He interrupted and said, "Hey, it's just a joke, okay, I'm from the east coast."
What the heck kind of excuse was that!!! I knew a girl in college who used to say that line whenever she offended anyone , and it drove me nuts.
After we were done in the bathroom, I tried to swallow my pride as we walked past his table, and I said in the nicest voice I could muster, "Have a nice day!"
Of course he didn't look up from his paper.

I don't know why that event was such a big deal to me, but I was upset about it all the rest the way home.
Anyway, once we got home, Elora threw up in the toilet about four more times, and more the next day. They were both sick for four days or so, but Joshua and I never got it, thank goodness.

So what was supposed to be a fun relaxing weekend wasn't exactly so. It was an adventure though, that much is certain!

(sunset through tinted car windows...taken between Elora's throwing up spells.)

haircuts and jumping babies

So, I decided to trim my hair again.

It was at that point where you have to choose if you're going to go all the way and grow it out, or just cut it again. I went for the 'feel cute now' choice, as I hate that in-between feeling. It has been over a year, but hey, I think I'm wearing the same shirt as the last time I cut my hair! I'm so stylin'.

My hair seems to be getting straighter with time (or it could be the dryer climate?) but somehow I never loose my little twirly hairs right at the front. I've just become more adept at taking pictures of myself so they aren't so obvious.




Hey, are those signs of spring behind that tell-tale pile of snow? Nah, its probably just my imagination.

Hmm. I guess thats not quite enough to take up a whole post. So now I will turn the time over to Joshua and Elora.

Joshua: "Well hello there folks, and welcome to my crib! I'd like you to meet my lovely assistant, Elora."

Elora: " Um, you're my assistant."



Joshua: "Aaannywhooo.... we're glad to see you here today. You're about to witness my assistant demonstrating one of my most favorite tricks of all time! Are you ready for this great feat?"

Elora: "I am SO excited, can I start now? I mean, do you think they can handle it?!


Joshua: "Go ahead, Sis!"


Boing, boing boing boing boing!



Joshua: Isn't she great folks! Lets give her a hand. And next time she might even do this fantastic act clothed!"

Elora: "HEY! I like my belly button."


PS: no babies were harmed in the photoshopping of fake underwear in places where it was needed.

Playin' Around

Do you like to play games online? I'm not talking about World of Warcraft (I'm gonna get some google hits for that) or other role playing games that guys waste half of their lives on while their wives, children, and other associates wonder if their ever coming back to reality. And their stomachs expand and their house falls into sloth and disrepair. Not that I know people like that.

No, I mean simple games, the type you might play in the newspaper but now they have been made more interesting with moving parts and music. Joseph has introduced me to the site Popcap Games, which is full of things like that. You have the option of buying the full versions, downloading a version onto your computer, or just playing online, which is what I do.

My favorite game is Bookworm Adventures, not to be confused with just Bookworm. Its a spelling game, with a storyline to it. You have tiles and get points for making big words, then the words you spell help you kill bad guys. My favorite part is that there is no time limit, so I can get up and do something else without getting penalized.


Joseph also prefers games like Bejeweled and Chuzzle, which are even simpler games. Whats great is these games can be easily played by kids too. Okay, I don't know if its that great, but its a fact nevertheless.




Another good site to visit is the mahjong solitair place. I had never heard of this game before I played it, but its actually quite fun. Its a simple matching game involving mahjong tiles....I guess there is another game with this same name and multiple players, but its played differently.


So if you're bored sometime, I suggest you try something new to waste time. You might like it.

Doctors Appointment

Recently, I've discovered a prejudice that has been lurking in the dark corners of my psyche.

Apparently, I don't like male doctors. My family's doctor growing up was a man. My mom thinks he's great, and my sister (who had severe asthma and other chronic problems) saw him often and felt fine about him too. But the few times I saw him, I found him smarmy and unctuous ...and, well, stupid. He misdiagnosed everything for which I ever saw him .

The next time I even saw a doctor was when I was pregnant. And since I knew an ob/gyn had to do exams down there it was out of the question for me to have a male doctor. I'm not shy about being naked in a professional doctors office, but those kind of things necessitate a woman's touch, in my humble opinion.

When I actually delivered both of my babies, the delivering doctor was a man. I didn't freak out or anything, because, seriously I was in labor. But after the first delivery I felt an extreme dislike toward the doctor. It probably had to do with the unexpected c-section,but I found him to be condescending and obnoxious, both toward myself and my husband. Hmmm.

The second delivery doctor was much nicer, I admit. He wasn't so bad, but undoubtedly I would have felt more secure if my regular MD was the one attending me that day.

Our family doctor in Everett was a young woman not much older than I am, but I felt she was intelligent and respectful of my intelligence in turn. After we moved here to Logan, I didn't even think twice before picking a female doctor off of the list of providers our insurance gave us. She was great! My kids liked her, and I trusted her. Unfortunately, this particular doctor had to go to Texas recently to attend to a family crisis.

In the meantime, the clinic is hiring someone else to take her place. They also have a male doctor who practices there. I met him at our first baby check-up in town. He didn't do anything offensive that I can recall, but I remember not being too impressed by his office manner.

Which leads us to today. Joshua went in for his nine month check-up with said male doctor. First, he got weighed. Our doctors office has an electronic scale, and every time we've gone, the nurses seem to have a hard time using it. Not something that gives me a lot of confidence. This time, the nurse weighed him, then announced, "Okay, 14lbs." She smiled brightly and started to lead us to the examination room. Until I stopped her.

"Um, I don't think thats right. He weighed over 17 lbs last time we were here."
And he weighed almost 10 lbs when he was born. Yeah. I hope he's grown more than that. She obligingly reweighed him, and this time it came out as 19lbs 13 oz. Much better.

While we were waiting for the doctor in the examination room, Elora kept trying to walk out. As she had escaped all the way outside one of the last times we were there, this time the nurse helped her sit up on the table to deter her escape attempts. When the doctor finally joined us, she was still sitting on the table, babbling away about this and that.

He confirmed with me that we were there for a nine month check up, then he proceeded to read the list of stuff about nine-month-olds. See, when you do well-child check ups (for those of you not in the know) its basically to see if your kid is caught up on immunizations, and that they're developing normally. So they bring out this list of stuff that they may or may not be able to do at this age. If your kid can't do some of the stuff, they tell you its normal, and if they can then thats normal too.

I guess its reassuring for parents who aren't sure where their kids should be. Anyway, so he's reading this list, but he kept saying, "She should be able to crawl, and she should be able to eat finger food..."

After a few more of these, I interrupted and said, "He. You mean he." He looked confused for a minute, and I wondered if maybe Joshua's clothes weren't male enough....

But then the doctor said something that renewed my distrust of male doctors. He looked up at Elora, who was still on the table, and said, "Oh, we're not here for her? I thought this was her check up." Are you serious?

"Um no. She's two and a half." Because, you know the little girl who has been talking non-stop since you got in here is nine months old. And just learning to crawl.

Granted, I understand that he could be confused with her sitting on the table and all, but he knew he was reading me stuff about a nine-month old, right? And its not like he didn't know about little kids...he had repeatedly mentioned how his kids were bald just like Joshua. Yeah, do you know how old your kids are too?

So. Long story short: Joshua got his check-up, he's fine. And perhaps I have a general mistrust of all in the medical profession (like those nurses) . The doctor today was friendly enough, but all he did was reinforce my dislike and mistrust of the Doctor Man.

License to Drive

Okay, this isn't the road trip story. Yet.

Today I finally went and got myself a local drivers license. Since I'd lived here for about eight months I figured the timing was just right. Plus, I wanted to be able to get a library card and to register to vote. I could probably do those things without a license, but it sure makes it easier if you have one.

The DMV was refreshingly less crowded and unpleasant than the ones I had visited in WA. I had to get three licenses there: One when I moved there, one when I got married, and another one when the expiration date came up. I visited the DMV in Poulsbo, North Seattle, and ...oh, I think the third one was in North Seattle too.

The Poulsbo DMV was fine, and I barely remember it , really. The North Seattle DMV was on Aurora, and for anyone who's lived in the area, you know its not the nicest of roads in the state. It goes all the way north up into Canada, and it goes south into Mexico. (Its called highway 99 in most other places.)

Lets just say if you're a sailor and you want to have a good time, thats the street you want to travel. Adult stores every other block, ladies of the night, a strip club or two, and a movie theater can be found in between the car dealerships and local bars. Get the picture? (Actually, Joseph and I took the bus up and down that road for fun all the time, just because I'm weird and like seeing strange places, but thats me. There is a nice Russian chocolates store around there too. Anyway, back to the story.)

Before I went today, I made sure to scour the Utah DMV website, so I could be certain to have all the documents I needed and would not have to drive to the other side of town to go get them. Be prepared, thats my motto. Or did that come from somewhere else?

Anyway, it said I needed: my old license, my Social Security card, and two items proving I lived here. No problem, right?

Hmm. Not exactly. I knew from reading a friend's blog that if you had lived in Utah previously (which I have) that they just reassign you your old license number. What I didn't know is that, because I got married while I was living somewhere else, I would have to actually show them my marriage certificate! I found this rather ridiculous, as my current license and SS card reflect the name. Oh well, I guess its like when you change your name on your bank account after you get married. Whatever. I did mark on their customer service survey that this fact should really be listed on their website.

When I returned from retrieving that marriage document, the process went surprisingly quickly. I paid, signed a few things, got my vision test. I had to take a 25 question test on a touch screen, but because I already had been driving it was "open book". I found this rather funny, as I was sitting between to 16 year old kids who probably wished they had my manual. I reverted back to my middle/high school technique of holding the book close to myself and only opened an inch or two, to discourage any random glances. Not that they'd have the same questions I did.

After the first few questions, I stopped looking in the book for most of them, as they were mostly ridiculous common sense things. As I was quickly breezing through the screens, kind of chuckling to myself, I did notice the two boys weren't finding things so easy. Ha ha. Bet you wish you had this manual, huh?

In the end, I did miss two. One still doesn't make sense to me: don't you think you should turn your wheels toward the curb when you're parked facing uphill? The other, I just didn't know where to look in the book. Can you believe only about 44% of kids in Utah under age five ride in booster or car seats? I guessed 95%. I suppose I forgot that they're not required by law in Utah, and that some people aren't too bright when it comes to car safety.

After the test, I got my picture taken. It didn't look too bad, as I remembered to wear makeup and everything. While going about the business of smiling for my photo, I saw the blonde youth who had been sitting to my left approach the counter and announce that he'd failed the test. Good thing you're allowed two tries per day! Poor kid.

So I guess now its actually official. I live in Utah again!

Popee learns to crawl

Not to upstage Heidi, because her video was so awesome and fun to watch, but I just wanted to mention that Joshua learned to crawl last week too! I think the video is small enough to post this time , hopefully:



And coming soon....highlights from our weekend road trip! I know you're so excited.

Camera feature # 4,815,162,342: The video

Okay, the camera doesn't really have that many features, but I still like it. The feature we're exploring today is video. Perhaps some of you remember a video I posted from our other camera: pixelated, small, and not very clear. If you don't remember, I'll give you a side by side comparison, shall I?
Here is a video from our old camera, take in February. (I hope you can see this.) This is Joshua getting mad at me because I won't pick him up. He yells a lot.



Okay, now here's a video from the other camera. I hope it doesn't make it so you can't load this page! I was going to post a hilarious video of Joshua laughing at Elora, but its actually too big to load here...this one isn't as cool, but you can see the quality at least. (We don't have the software to edit and make it smaller, sorry.)


ps the only reason this video is so dark, is that i was messing with the lighting on the camera before Joseph took the video.
Thank you for your time.

Spending Money

Tax season...
2006: Car repairs, new digital camera, new tv
2007: New car, subsequent repairs
2008: Another new car, new digital camera, vcr/dvd player.

Are we seeing a trend here? I hate spending large amounts of money on 'stuff'. HATE it. I feel like people are looking at me like they think I don't know all about saving money, investing, and planning for the future.

But I do, I really do! I've been to so many meetings on financial planning- church sponsored or otherwise- that I should be an expert by now.

When I was single (I say this so often, I promise I do like being married) I saved money like nobody's business. Sure, I don't know a ton about investing, but I was able to go on a cruise and fly home twice a year without putting much of a dent into my savings. Of course, I was still on my parents insurance, I shared a house with four people (cheaper rent), and I didn't own a car or a computer.

Then I got married. And we had more expenses. We no longer had roommates so we had to get our own computer. We were moving out of the city, so we had to get a car. And insurance, both health and car kinds. Joseph wanted to go to school, so we needed to pay for that first year out of pocket. We had a baby, and while our insurance was good, a c-section still leaves you a bit to still pay for yourself.

And somehow, saving money didn't happen so easily, and my carefully saved funds slowly dwindled due to emergencies and bills. I'm very glad we had it, don't get me wrong. But according to all those money seminars, I should have thousands put away somewhere accruing interest for our exciting retirement years. Yeah right.

Eventually, I found a new dream. It seems that when you're married with kids, you can get a pretty good sized tax return. Each year we've been married, (excluding the first year when we didn't get one) our return has been progressively bigger. Maybe not large according to some standards, but enough to be excited about.

My dream though, may be a little different than reality. If we lived according to my dream, we would put away about ninety percent of our return, or figure out that investing thing. But it seems this time of year always necessitates the spending of our newly found wealth.

A great deal of it usually goes towards car stuff. (I know all about how buying a new car will save you money in the long run, blah blah blah, and I want to punch people when they tell me this. You realize a new car also requires payments, right? Nuff said.) This year we bought another vehicle, a van, and I hope its better than our last one because we spent significantly more on it! Our tabs were expiring on the WA plates our other car still carried..and since it required more repairs to even be registered in UT, we thought it more prudent to just get a new one. It seems nice so far.

Also, our vcr/dvd player was dying. This is definitely not a necessity...but we had to record LOST! We got one that will record to DVD this time too, so hopefully it will last longer.

Finally, we got a new camera. This was probably the least necessary of our purchases, but I had been planning on it for quite a while, remember? And I got a nice one, let me tell you. I couldn't justify buying an actual Digital SLR, but what I got was a Panasonic Lumix, which had all the features I could want. Check this out.

There is a tire swing one can see through the fence from where we live. With our old camera, I tried to take a picture, but you could barely tell the tire was there,as the camera couldn't zoom too far. Yesterday, I took these with my new camera:


Well look at that, there's a tire over there! Not only that, but I was able to change the lighting on the camera to make it darker, as it was too washed out normally. But wait, can I zoom in further?


My. Look at that! (This one wasn't darkened) And wait, theres more:


I am so excited! I could actually have gotten even closer, but then you couldn't tell what the picture was.
Then I used my new stealth camera to catch these paparazzi shots of Elora, from over 100 ft away:


Pretty cool, huh!
So while I hate that we've spent so much money in such a small amount of time, I am happy with the stuff we have. Someone I know once said that only poor people spend large amounts of money when they get a check in the mail. (I tried to link to it, but couldn't find the exact post, sorry.) While that may have stung a little, I guess we do qualify as poor students. I just hope we can do better next year.