Random Acts of Living


Wednesday, July 9, 2008

4th of July 2008

What a week it has been! This is usually my busiest time of the year and this year was no exception. We had a wonderful day all around for the 4th of July. The weather was perfect! Family started arriving in the afternoon and we all gathered in my yard for a barbecue.
In the hustle to get everything going we forgot to get the potatoes on the fire, so they were a little late getting prepared.
After dinner everyone got busy with relaxing, visiting and shooting off fireworks.
The kids also got busy with having fun and keeping cool in the pool.
We had enough food to cover two long tables.
We also celebrated KP1's birthday, though it's really a few days off. This year, for reasons unknown, she decided she wanted a Hawaiian birthday. So her mom and aunt made her a Hawaii birthday cake.
While the birthday girl opened presents, the boys went back to doing what boys do best, blow things up.
My son had friends from his previous job come out and help us celebrate. They brought with them a couple of large containers of fireworks to add to our display. Everyone had a GRAND time.
Here is my first attempt at shooting fireworks with my new camera...
Bob and Bec, tell me what you think happened...
...these first three seem to be what I would say are "in focus"....
...but this next one appears blurred to me (click on them to see what I'm talking about).
...all the ones following are not as crisp as the first three.
I was right underneath ALL of them, really close. I hadn't moved for any of them and they were all being shot from the same location. I didn't intentionally change any settings.
Do you think that maybe I or someone else might have turned the focus ring on the lens? Would this have caused these to be out of focus like this?
Or do you suspect some other problem? They're still pretty, even if they're out of focus. I hope everyone had a VERY HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY! as we did.

8 comments:

Alice said...

Two tables of food and I'll bet everything was delicious! What is it with boys (and grown men) and fireworks. My husband still loves shooting them off.

Anita said...

Always love pictures of your family get togethers... :)

Moonshadow said...

Alice & Anita - Not all the family was able to make it out this year, but we had a good size gathering and plenty of food to go around, we were still eating it days later. My big boys take over the blowing up of things later in the evening.

RecycleCindy said...

You and your family always have so much fun and good food. The fireworks pictures are wonderful!

Bob Johnson said...

Hey great shots, I can'really notice any difference all look great.

Moonshadow said...

I had trouble posting this, blogger didn't want to upload my pictures. It says it was posted at 12:31am, but that was just the first group of pictures. I didn't get it all up loaded and posted till around 4am and I forgot to mention a couple of things. To see the difference between the firework shots you really need to click on them and look at the larger picture. Also, after the fireworks we all kicked back and watched a movie then the boys played HALO till 4am.

Cindy & Bob - Thanks for stopping by!

Peter said...

Hi! Great shots of the fireworks by the way! I miss my old fireworks days. Bungers the size of dynamite sticks came in very handy although my parents didn't appreciate what I did with them.

The only way to get fireworks now is via a permit.

Too much trouble for me, so I wait for the fireworks to be shown over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, on New Years Eve.

Take Care,
Peter

Moonshadow said...

Well, Peter, next July 4th you and your wife could just fly over (I'm sure the price of gas will be down by then) and you could help my boys blow things up and camp out in my back yard. : )