The Georgia Aquarium

On Wednesday, all the Burdetts--Chris, Anna, Jessica, Elyse, Granny, Pa, and Jeff--went to the Georgia Aquarium. Here are some pictures of fish and people looking at, and even petting, the fish.

There are several tanks where you are allowed to touch various forms of aquatic life, as this girl is doing:

These are the kinds of fish--I didn't make a note of the exact name, but they are a kind of ray or skate--that she is touching:

Jessica and two boys watching fish in one of the smaller tanks:

Tiger sharks are pretty big!

Lots of people, lots of fish:

The view of Atlanta from the parking deck, just as we were about to leave:

July Jessica Portraits

I made several portraits of Jessica in the last week. Here are five of my favorites:

Once More to Stone Mountain

We go to Stone Mountain Park a lot. It's one of our favorite places--Elyse frequently says, "Love Stone-uh Mountain"--and, since we buy annual parking permits for our cars and Mountain Memberships for us, we can get in and do a lot of stuff without having to pay.

We went today, and had a great time, despite the sunburn I got. Here are some pictures of the girls, first riding the skyride to the top of the mountain, then walking around and generally hanging out at the top of the mountain, and finally one of Jessica at the bottom, in the Crossroads area.

Three Saturday Pictures

Here are three more or less random pictures from a more or less random Saturday:

Elyse meets her shadow while visiting the Snellville Farmers Market:

Elyse crashed out on Mommy and Daddy's bed after an exhausting morning at the Snellville Farmer's Market--and then Hobby Lobby, Stevie B's, and Target:

The Traffic Jam of Shoes Jessica created at the entrance to our hall while everyone else was napping following our exhausting morning out:

Portrait of the Artist as a Five-Year-Old

A couple of months ago I read Chaim Potok's great novel, My Name is Asher Lev, which I found to be beautiful and inspirational. Maybe it inspired Jessica, too...or maybe she just wanted to paint this afternoon. Anyway, here are some pictures of her artistic efforts:

New Self Portrait

I've been doing self portraits for about ten years now. Someday I'll get around to posting a series of them, 2002 through 2012, but for now, here's one I did tonight:

Beardless

For the first time in fourteen years--and only about the third time in twenty--I shaved my beard off:

Stone Mountain!

This week I went to Stone Mountain with the girls--separately, not together: I took Elyse on Wednesday, while Mommy was at training and Jessica was at Granny and Pa's house, and then Jessica and I went Friday, while Mommy and Elyse were out doing various errands.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the outings:

Jessica and I stopped at Krispy Kreme on our way:

The Girls Watching Horseland

Thursday morning the girls shared our living room easy chair to watch "Horseland" on Netflix:

Our Anniversary

Eleven years ago today Anna and I got married!

Elyse Napping

Here's Elyse napping on Mommy and Daddy's bed this afternoon:

Gramma and Grampa's Photo Shoot

Anna's parents have been here visiting for a few days. This morning, right after breakfast and just before they left so Anna could drive them to Aunt Carol's house for a couple of days, I had a little time to make a few pictures. (However, most of the pictures were really just Jessica and Elyse. I don't think Gramma and Grampa minded.) Here are some of the best from that pre-departure photo shoot:

(This may be my new favorite picture of Elyse.)

(They were being cats in this picture; Elyse is in mid-meow.)

(Elyse has been wearing this Cinderella swimsuit almost constantly for about a week now. She will concede to take it off to put on one of her Dora nighties for bedtime, and she'll exchange it with her pink swimsuit so I can wash this one. You can't tell, but she's wearing the Cinderella swimsuit under her blue dress in the pictures above.)

Wooden Block Abstracts

This afternoon while the girls were making Cinderella's castle with their colorful wooden blocks, I used my 50mm f/1.8 lens and a Vivitar close-up filter to make some colorful abstracts. Here are four of my favorites.

Bunny Cake

After hours of watching how-to baking segments on Howdini (which is one of Elyse's favorite Web sites; she used to call it "Ding-ding," but now she can actually say Howdini), Anna made a bunny cake:

He tasted very good.