New Braunfels: Day 1

Last Friday, my family and I (all but my older sister) headed down to New Braunfels. This was our third trip down there in 13 months, but my favorite trip yet. Our purpose: to see our "youngest" cousin, who is one of the drum majors of the band, on his senior night. (I put youngest in quotations because he's 18 - only nine days younger than me.)

We left The Colony around noon, and were in Waco in time to still consider a stop at George's lunch. A little bit of person history: before they had us kiddos, my parents lived in Waco. My mom apparently used to love George's, but for whatever reason my dad had never been. We went. We enjoyed.

Note to future Rachel: you did not like the chicken. Should have gone with the cheese fries!

After Waco, I drove. Oh, yes. It wasn't so bad. My first time on an interstate/highway/whatever, so that was different. We decided to take whatever the tollway it is that avoids Austin, aka I went 80mph. Eventually we got to New Braunfels, checked into our hotel, dropped our stuff in the room, and headed to the game. 

We got there early enough to see my aunt, uncle, and cousins do the whole senior night thing. Brought back memories from when my parents and I walked across the football field last fall for my senior night! 

Then they were defeated by Judson High School. One of our cousins informed us that the coach for Judson coached Johnny Manziel at his last school, which probably explains why they beat NBHS by 40something points. 

Then the seniors did something pretty cool and unique - they all got together at one endzone, and walked those 100 yards together. You can kind of tell in the pictures that they didn't necessarily all stay linked together, though. 

After the game, we were ready to eat again, so we stopped by Buc-ee's and noticed that they are opening up a second row of pumps! I don't know how many they have in the first row, but it's a lot, and now they have double?! That place is crazy. 

Tomorrow: Day 2!

- rl

I Bought A Laptop

That's right. If you know me, this is shocking. Not the part about me buying a laptop, but it's a PC. I know, I know. Let me explain though!

As I hinted, I'm an Apple girl. I've got the phone and tablet. I sigh dreamily when I enter the store. I go to apple.com just for fun. Team iPhone right here! So, obviously, I want a Mac laptop. For the longest time I was set on a MacBook Pro, then decided over the summer I wanted a MacBook Air, and then last week my sister (who got a MacBook when she graduated four years ago) told me to consider the lifetime of a Mac, so that's what I was looking into (all the tech stuff I only half understand) when my mom came to me Tuesday night about this laptop. She had seen it in a WalMart flyer listed for only $249. Smart woman she is, she told me to keep my mind open as she continued explaining. She said that if I bought it now, then when I'm ready to spend the money on a Mac, my parents can buy it from me for a little less as a laptop for my little sister. Well, hot dog, sounds like a deal to me. I WAS shooting for January/February for my Mac Purchase, but now I'm thinking more like June or even July. So then Wednesday morning, before work, we stopped by WalMart and guess how many of these were left? That's right: one. Crazy, right?

Now, how do I like it? Meh. I don't think I'll be too attached to this to switch. I can't say I love Windows 8. I do have it a little more figured out than when I first opened it up and kept switching between apps. I can't figure out how to personalize certain things. I think they're listed in the manual that came with it about Windows 8, so I'll have to play around with it a little bit more. It's working well so far, though. So far I've mainly focused on getting all my pictures onto one place...and I've used somewhere around 70GBs. And there is still 40something left on my dad's laptop. So this will be a fun process when it comes time to switching it all to my Mac. I'll definitely have to get an external hard drive soon, though.

So there you have it. I, an Apple girl, bought a PC for the price. I think it was the right decision, but only time will tell.

- rl

Playing with Long Exposure

One of the things I've wanted to try out on my DSLR is long exposure. I finally looked up how to set it up on Sunday, and I've been playing with it a little bit throughout the week. 

The first picture is my first attempt. I'm finding that it's really hard to set the camera on the shelf, press the shutter, run in front of the camera, try to draw/write whatever I can think of (BACKWARDS), in less than 30 seconds. 

Then I realized long exposure has other purposes too, so I made myself a ghost. Pretty simple: the shutter stays open for 30 seconds, and in the last shot shown here I was in it for about 20 of those seconds. Pretty cool/creepy, huh? 

I'm looking forward to figuring out what other cool things I can do with this soon. 

- rl 

2 Months with Sam

How has it only been two months since I got this little guy? It feels like three months - at least. I don't think he's looking too good. So far I had only watered him by spraying him with a spray bottle, so maybe he needs more water than that? Maybe it's just a plant and I shouldn't dedicate a whole blog post each month on him? Nah, I think I'll stick with that. 

Sam, I need to water you more this month. I'm sorry. I don't know how plants - much less succulents - work. 

Also, it's been really gloomy lately, which makes for grainy pictures. I mean, I could just take the ISO to down from 3200, but the shutter speed has to be fast because it's hard to take this photos without shaking. *sigh* Shooting manual is a tad difficult sometimes.

- rl

(p.s. You can view last month's YouTube playlist here. Looking back on October, I guess you could say I didn't listen to a lot of music. I did, of course save the video where Benedict Cumberbatch uses my name as part of how he remembered how to spell his last name. BRB I'm squealing. Aside from my fangirling, I am looking for new music to listen to, so suggestions are greatly appreciated.)

I Love You, Mom

Taken last week while she worked on the final insanely creative and thoughtful gift for our church secretary.

Happy Birthday,
to the woman who rocks my socks off.
I won't even begin to try to explain how much I love you.
Thanks for loving us, even when we give you no reason to.

- rl