Easy Breezy

There was a pleasant breeze wending its way throughout the house for most of the day, which made it a pretty comfortable one.  I spent much of it relaxing and recuperating from the days before.  We didn't get out to the beach at all today, though Abby had a good hour of fun in the late morning out in the yard.  Nana and Uncle James set up a Slip n' Slide under the porch for her to run back-and-forth across through jets of water.  They also filled up a little kiddie pool for her.  She thoroughly enjoyed both water adventures, as well as the chance to wear her new, pink swimsuit.

Midway through the day on Sunday, the SD card in my Nikon decided to give me a random error that I've yet to be able to fix, so I've been relying on the Panasonic Lumix since then.  I was initially a bit disappointed to not have my "fancy" camera available, especially with all of the photo opportunities that pop up around here, but I've been having a good time reacquainting myself with the Panasonic, which was a fairly new gift at the time the Nikon was passed down to me, that I've barely had time to really get the hang of using.  I'm still very impressed with its capabilities and responsiveness, and have recently learned that it's actually classified as a "bridge" camera, so, actually, a bit of a step up from the usual point-and-shoot.  And it's definitely infinitely better than any point-and-shoots that I've owned in the past, though I'd always assumed that a large part of that was due to the ever-improving technology of digital cameras.

I finally got around to trying out the manual settings today, however, and was very impressed with the variety of settings that I have access to (if only I really knew how to use them).  And I agonized, once again, that the hot-flash attachment for this camera costs nearly as much as the camera itself, because I feel that I could greatly improve the quality of many of the pictures I take with it (especially indoors) if I had one.  I definitely love the small size and lightness of it, especially compared to the Nikon- a huge plus when on the go, and out at not-so-camera-friendly places like the beach.

Here are some of the high points that I captured on Monday.

Playtime on the porch.

"The itsy-bitsy spider..."

The ride to the beach.

Point Lookout at Dusk.

The quiet beach.

The sunset.

Wave-watching with Aunt Ali.