The weather out side is not great at the moment – well I do live in Seattle so what do you expect?  Anyway we are getting a lot of rain right now so I’m having to be “creative” finding new pictures to post.  Tonight is no exception so we are going back to warmer/dryer evenings in Bellevue Downtown Park.

This picture was taken in the park after sunset.  They have this large expanse of grass in the middle of the park and all around the grass is this long curved walking path.  Next to the path is a collection of small ponds (really it’s a water feature) that also goes around the park.  Well I found that if I stood in a specific place I could capture the path, some of the water and reflections of the larger buildings in downtown in the water.

As the sky had this great blue color (remember this is after the sunset) and the lights around the park were on and the buildings were lit up I got a great composition and I think a nice picture.  Hopefully you like it too.

I’d start hoping for nice or at least dry weather or you are going to get some pretty poor pics for the remainder of December.

I spoke to Carter tonight and he said he felt on top of the world!  No idea why.

So I know I take a lot of landscapes, in fact I post more landscapes than anything else, and I’ve stated in the past that I like to shoot vista’s more than portraits as you don’t have to talk to a sunset or interesting view.  I think (not sure) I’ve also stated that Abi is very into gymnastics, in fact she’s in a “Rec-Opt” (which I’m told stands for Recreational Optionals) program at her local gym.  She’s been learning all her routines for the last 6 months in preparation for the competition meets she’s now attending.  As a girl gymnast she obviously does her obligatory four events Beam, Uneven Bars, Vault and Floor.

Well today was her second meet.  This one was at her own gym too so we didn’t have to travel too far to see her in action.  This is a tough sport though, not only for the participants but also for the spectators.  Abi works out 3 times a week putting in many hours in the gym to get better, and today I had to sit through 6 hours of gymnastics to see my daughter for less than 3 minutes.  It was brutal!  But I have to say worth it as my little girl was amazing.

This is now dad bragging time so you are going to have to just put up with this (nope I’m not apologizing).  111 kids turned up today in her event, and 18 were in her age category and skill level.  Abi got 8.9 on the beam and came 6th, she got 9.25 on the floor and came 2nd, she got 8.8 in the vault and came 5th and 8.8 on the bars and came 3rd.  Overall she came 4th, and her team came 3rd.

She works really hard at this and I have to say I was very proud of her.  I like watching all the events but my favorites are the beam and floor.  They last the longest and to me look the hardest to do.  The trouble with taking pictures at these events is that the lighting is terrible and there are always people in the way.  Also the kids move very fast so that with low light means that getting focus and no motion blur is really hard.

For tonight’s picture I decided to post this one of her about to start her floor routine.  You can see the concentration in her face and she did REALLY well.  When I see her tumbling across the floor doing her cartwheels and round off back hand spring I’m just amazed and again very proud.

Tonight the guys found some “Glassy Baby” candle holders to play with.  Apparently these are very popular – I’ve never heard of them.

Tonight Lisa, Abi and I went to Redmond to see the “Redmond Lights” event when the city officially turned on its holiday decorations.  The event started at City Hall where they had a number of pretty big trees decorated.  They had loads of kids events too and a carousel (with the longest line of people you have ever seen).  Once you’d seen everything around City Hall, there was a well lit walking trail covering around a mile or so with musicians and entertainers on the way.  They also had a load of christmas decorations on route too.

The city had planned everything out, you were encouraged to leave your car by City Hall and then walk the trail.  Then the City had a number of Microsoft connector coaches at the other end to bring you back to your car.  So off we went.  It was pretty cool, very pretty with loads of things to see on the way.  The problem was the trail wasn’t very wide and it was full of people.  And of course there were those idiots you always get with strollers who were trying to walk in the wrong direction, so it was a little nuts.

We didn’t walk the whole trail as Abi was getting tired, so when we got to Redmond Town Center we cut across town to get back to the start.

Before we started on the walking trail I stopped by the carousel to grab a picture.  Obviously it was full of people when I got there so I waited until the carousel stopped and everyone got off and then got some shots.  Of course as soon as everyone was off the carousel people started getting on again so I had to be quick.  This shot was captured with a wide aperture so I had a narrow depth of field throwing everything in the background out of focus.

Master Chief tonight decided to play a game of Table Tennis.  He lost!

A couple of weeks ago I went to Alki Beach over in west Seattle to see a sunrise.  I had to get up at the crack of dawn (that’s 6am) on a Saturday morning to get the pictures.  While I was there I walked down to the beach and got this shot.  I really wanted to get an image lower down with the sun on the horizon and the waves lapping against the beach.  So I’m down there snapping away and after a few shots I check out the images on the back of the camera.

Looking at the pictures I saw something on the beach lying on the sand.  So I looked up and there was a small seal pup.  Now you aren’t suposed to get to close to these guys, in fact there are people who patrol the beaches making sure you don’t.  But this one didn’t seem to mind and as I was down there already I took a few more pictures.  I found out after I left that some women turned up, screaming at the other photographers there that they were too close, and they were miles further away from me.  So it’s probably good I had already got my shots.

Anyway the picture below came out well.  Sky colors were really nice, I happened to catch a seagull flying over the water directly in the middle of the picture and got the waves and beach and a cute seal too. That has to be a success.

Today the guys decided to climb something interesting, so they found a double bass.  They nearly made it to the top too!

I’ve been to Gas Works Park before and photographed and posted pictures of the kids play barn full of painted machinery.  It’s a pretty cool place to visit, it’s right on the edge of Lake Union over looking Seattle’s skyline.  They even have this huge kite flying hill (yes that’s what I said) and you can climb to the top and catch some pretty impressive wind (that sounds a lot worse than I intended).

Anyway, they also have the old gas works plant still there, all the old gas containers and pipes etc.  These days it’s fenced off as people kept adding graffiti, but it looks great.  All the pipes are copper colored and on top of the green hill under a blue sky (ok a cloudy sky) is impressive.

So I had to capture a shot.  When I took this image it was quite cloudy but there is a little blue poking through.  Fortunately nobody was there when I took the picture, but they must have been there recently as someone had added a little graffiti.  Didn’t spoil the picture fortunately.

Carter wanted a coffee today, so Master Chief helped him get one.