my new toy

For our anniversary (#13, in case you were wondering), I told Bill I wanted a new hood for over our stove. This was a few months ago. I was cleaning it one day and I realized it wasn't grease or dirt that I was trying to clean, it was the paint. The old hood was a creamy, butter color. And it was old. All of our appliances are black. It's an unusual gift, but it would be for both of us and then I wouldn't have to worry about buying him a present (not that it matters, he's not big on gift-receiving).

I mentioned the hood again a week or so before our anniversary.

Our anniversary was Monday (the 26th). I had a wedding that previous Saturday. When I came home, I walked through the sliding glass door. The first thing I noticed was a new, shiny, black hood over the stove!

Bill had bought it and installed it while I was at the church.

After dinner he told me he wanted me to at least have the box to open, and pointed toward the living room.

I had been in such a hurry to eat dinner once I had arrived home that I had paid little attention to anything other than the new hood and going upstairs to change. I had completely missed the large hood box that was sitting in the living room.

I thought it was a little odd that he was going to make me open the box. Then I realized he must have hidden something else in the box.

A few weeks earlier, out of the blue, he had declared, "I have a secret!"

Really? Thirteen years and you're going to taunt me with that?

Well, he held out. He didn't let it slip what this secret was.

Now I'm putting two and two together and I play along, going into the living room to open the box.

I knew something was up when I realized he was recording me with his phone.

I opened the box, and down in the bottom sat a large camera bag.

A fancy, Canon camera bag.

I pulled it out and asked, "what's this?" (That's genetic, to ask what it is when it's very obvious because it's right there.)

I opened the camera bag to find a Canon DSLR.

In other words, a really fancy camera that will let me take amazing pictures. Once I figure out how to use it.

I was given a tutorial by the man that recommended the camera to Bill (Scott rents space in the office in St. Joseph). Now I'm just playing around, figuring out what ISO I like and testing out all the different settings. The best part about a digital camera is that you can take 1500 pictures, upload them to your computer, delete the ones that are bad, and unlike the days of film, no time (money or material) was wasted developing all those pictures only to find out they weren't good.

Here is a sample of what I've done:

 The bug that is hidden on the leaf is what I'm trying to capture in this shot.

 Our neighbor's Black-Eyed Susan.

My Aster, already blooming...

I took a picture of the new camera with the old one. And, when there's good lighting in the kitchen, I'll take a picture of the new hood!

I can't wait to go to Meijer Gardens with this!

I have pictures I took from our trip to Detroit, so I'll blog about those too.

Thanks Bill! It's amazing and you totally out-did yourself.