Wishing you a Peaceful Christmas

Just Vote Informed

You may have noticed that I have stayed out of the campaigning for the next president.  And while I will say that I am not 100% behind either candidate I did make my choice, and no I'm not going to share it here.

Today's the day and I hope everyone is making an informed decision.  Yesterday, my 18 year old son asked me, "Can't I just get information about them both where I'm voting?"  It may sound like he's a little late in the game but it makes me wonder how many other people are this late.  He has said for weeks who is going to vote for and when I ask him why, it's because so-and-so is, well why are they, he doesn't know.  So I asked him to spend yesterday evening doing a little research and voting on the issues not just going with his peers.  He may still choose the same candidate, but at least it will be for the right reason.

For me personally, if I have not been paying attention - cuz to be honest politics don't interest me - I won't vote.  If I have not heard or read the issues that the candidates are standing on, proposing, I won't go to the booth.  I don't think it's fair to anyone if I did.  I only vote if I can make an informed choice and I'm hoping that's how the majority is. But is it?  Are you just voting for someone because your spouse is, your mom is, your co-workers are?

The biggest thing I'm guilty of is thinking that my one vote won't matter.  I'm afraid a huge number of us are this way, but think about it.  In the whole scheme of things it is nothing but one vote, plus one vote, plus one vote and if we stay home thinking our one vote won't matter it could change everything.

Happy 4th of July!!

I hope you all have a happy wonderful fourth!

We did a small amount of fireworks with our kids. (Haden wrote his name in the air - kinda)

I held the sweet, tired, Tristan throughout the show and we enjoyed a few sparklers of our own.

We were doing swell.

And then someone got hurt. A spark jumped off of the sparkler onto Tristan’s arm (see it hit there in the crease of his elbow? Dennis snapped the photo at just the right moment.). I brushed it away as he hollered and I ripped that sparkler out of his hand and threw it on the ground. His mom, daddy and I doctored him up and he’s fine, it didn’t blister but poor baby.

All the photos in this post were taken by my hubby as I was busy with the grandbaby.

Have a happy and safe holiday!

 

PS - Back in January I took some shots of fireworks in the sky and they are in a post along with the settings I used on the camera if you need some ideas of where you might want to be.  Of course, don't forget to play with it a bit depending on your light and such. 

 

Badlands National Park - South Dakota

Our first stop in South Dakota (other than the cute little birds you saw a couple of days ago, which were found in rest areas along I-90) was the Badlands National Park. Sidetracked - Do you know how desolate South Dakota looks for the most part?! Wow! Dennis and I went through this area 6 years ago on our first vacation together. That year we covered 14 states in 10 days and a whole slew of National Parks. We spent our honeymoon in National Parks so really, how appropriate that we spent our 5th wedding anniversary in. . . you got it, National Parks. The only difference this time was that we had our youngest child with us. Haden had never been to any of the places we traveled and I think he had a great time!

Haden helped me discover a lot of flowers and cacti along the way. I love finding cactus. And as you can see, even though it appears pretty desolate there were plenty of living things.

It’s hard to tell but this whole area was full of crevices and there were signs warning of rattlesnakes but we didn’t see any (much to Haden‘s disappointment).

And believe me, he looked. There are several “canyons” between us.

It’s really pretty amazing all the different layers of color.

Tons of prairie dogs.

And goats (That‘s a mama and two babies up there). Some of which had on radio collars, I guess so they can keep track of the herds. There were plenty of antelope too but they were not as cooperative.

Seems they can rest anywhere.