One of my favorite things about going home is the amount of downtime I have to relax and do all the things I never normally allot any time for doing. Sadly, going for strolls on sunny days is one of those things.

The day after Thanksgiving I corrected this error and walked around the preservation with Chris and Lindy. It was a combination of warm and windy, which made for some great photos! On our way back I actually started to miss Redding a bit and its mountainous horizon. Thankfully all I ever need is five minutes in the sun and I’m reminded why I moved away in the first place.

More photos of the trip at Flickr, of course!

Over the break we bought Felix a chintzy leash and decided to give him his first taste of the great outdoors. It went relatively well, but he’s definitely been raised to enjoy the indoor life. I’m just glad he finally got to romp around in grass and sniff tree bark; two experiences we’re incapable of supplying him with in our meager coastal apartment.

Good grief! I’ve been editing and deleting and organizing all the photos from my 10 day vacation all night, and yet my Flickr is only up to day three of the trip! This may take longer than I thought…

Here’s a bit of what I’ve managed to get together so far:

Driving! It’s about a 3 hour drive from Arcata to Redding if you straight shoot it. We usually make a necessary pit stop in Weaverville to grab snacks at Tops.

When we finally got home it was pretty quiet. Sue and Charlie were still in Mexico, so we hung out with Larry for the weekend, played games and cooked a lot of stir fry dinners.

Tom was a jerk the entire 10 days. I wouldn’t expect anything less from him!

Ed was looking healthier than I’ve ever seen him! He usually is very stressed out and missing patches of fur on his hind legs (for this, we used to nickname him ‘Chaps’).

Being the first trip home since I purchased my 50mm lens, I had to photograph everything in sight, of course!

I wanted to write a quick note about the Sikh procession I went to yesterday. It was in celebration of Guru Nanak Dev’s birthday, who founded the Sikh religion. There was the most incredible Indian food I’ve ever had being cooked up right in the parking lot, as well as a never-ending pot of chai that reached a level of deliciousness I never knew was attainable. None of which they charged any money for.

Before everyone got into the floats and their cars for the actual procession, a helicopter flew in and hovered about 40 feet over our heads, sprinkling flower petals over the temple, the people and the flag pole. Then, they had a handful of us come forward and sing the National Anthem. I’m pretty sure we sounded awful, as I’m tone deaf and couldn’t hit a note to save my life, but it was still very touching.

I’m still home in Redding, enjoying every bit of my vacation as it winds down, but tomorrow we go back ‘home’ to finish up the semester. Hopefully I’ll be able to post all the photos from my trip sometime this week, but there’s lots to sort through (300+ !) so it may take me awhile.

The holiday season has officially begun, which means that I’ve been blessed with an entire week off school! I use the term “off” pretty loosely, though. School may not actually be in session, but I’ve sure got a lot of work to do in between stuffing my face and playing with kitties.

I had to intentionally shoot this as a .jpg so I could upload it to Flickr. I haven’t any access to my normal programs that handle NEF files, so I’m afraid I’ll be taking a bit of a blogging and Flickr break for the rest of the week. No worries, I’m still shooting like mad!