...Is it really Sheila's Birthday???

Happy Birthday, Mom - love you tons!

We had a wonderful visit with our nephew Brian and his wife, Amanda - how lucky I am to have gotten such a great niece and nephew when I married the hubs 12 years ago. (He thinks he married me, but really, I married him...) And, not only did I get a great niece and nephew, but they both married wonderful partners! I know that there are lots of people in the world who don't get along with their in-laws or even their own families, but I do feel incredibly fortunate with both my family through blood and my family through marriage. The hubs and I don't have any kids, and I don't have any siblings, so our niece and nephew and their spouses are pretty special to us both.

After "the kids" left today, we did a few errands then came back home to settle in. I took a bunch of photos through the window because it was just too darned cold and windy to be outside for more than a nano-second. We've got about 3 or 4 inches of snow, topped by crusty ice so the walking conditions aren't great either. With that much snow and ice, the bird bistro was very, very popular today. At one point, there were 8 cardinals out there - what a sight! And lots of winter sparrows, titmice, chickadees, jays and doves. A quick visit this morning by one of the squirrels before they decided it was too cold for and retreated to their trees.

Hubs is off this week and next which is great - lots of "us time" which we don't seem to get enough of. I've got to work in the morning tomorrow, but then we are both free to play. Yippee!

I'm slowly trying to catch up with comments - forgive me for being a bit of a slacker!

And for those of you who wondered how I did the motion blur yesterday --- I set the shutter at 1/20 and focused on the other side of the intersection. Then, when people walked into the frame, the background stayed focused while the people blurred. It is something I've seen here and read about and had been wanting to try. When I have more time, I'd like to try it with a bit more finesse ... and maybe a tripod. Yesterday's shot was taken through the car windshield!

Happy Birthday to my mom today!