It was sure a busy day today; we were invited to two BBQs and the Hillsboro Airshow was going on today, which we like to sit out on our patio and watch every year.  We love how the jets come flying low over the apartment complex we live in and set off all the car alarms in the parking lot.  We watched a bit of that before going to our first BBQ, which we were invited to by Julie’s co-worker, Amy, who she met through their charity committee.  Amy and her husband, Frank, live just north of the Hillsboro airport on some farmland and are situated nicely to watch the airshow while enjoying company and entertainment.  We enjoying the delicious BBQ hamburgers and side dishes, while sipping on beer and pina colada slushies.  For more entertainment (besides the airshow), Frank and his buddies built a trebuchet and launched cabbage, tomatoes, oranges, grapefruit, cantalope, and a basketball!!  It was quite entertaining to watch while planes were flying overhead.

I, of course, wanted to get some good photos of the planes doing their moves and I had to be quick at the camera movement in order to catch them.  I have to say that one of my best photos of the day came with a a price.  I was following the planes through the viewfinder of my camera, I clicked the shutter as the sun was in view and it was quite bright and, from what I hear not the best for the camera (or my eyes for that matter).  When we got home, I downloaded the photo onto the computer and, using Lightroom 2, adusted some of the color and exposure of the photo.  It’s amazing what you can catch in the camera within milliseconds.

After the airshow and trebuchet bbq, we went to another bbq held by Julie’s work.  We were way too stuffed to eat anything, but we promised we would go and enjoy the activities.  When we arrived, it seemed as though a lot of people bailed out on the event; there was hardly anybody there.  We ended chatting with a very few people and then walked down to the Tualitan River, watched to ducks, and of course, took some pictures.  It was a great day to be out and about.  When we got home, we relaxed the rest of the evening and watched a movie.

View the Hillsboro Airshow and BBQs Gallery

Last night, Julie and I wanted to go to SE Portland to check out a glass shop.  We’ve had the idea of getting into glasswork and jewelry for quite some time now, and, once we get into a house, we plan to purchase a kiln and some other tools to transform our idea into reality.  For now, we just wanted to check out the glass just for fun and get our creative juices running for when we actually do get the tools.  Unfortunately, the shop closed minutes before we arrived, so I took Julie to a scrapbooking store, ate dinner, and started back for home.  On our way back, the light was perfect for photography.  It was that “Golden Hour” that all photographers talk about, so Julie and I parked in downtown Portland and started walking with camera in hand.  I started taking photos like crazy.  It was a perfect evening, not just for photography, but for the atmosphere as a whole.  Many people were out walking around and eatting dinner outside and there was live music outside at Pioneer Square that flowed in and around buildings.  Below are some of the best photos of the evening. 

Be sure to take a look at the rest in the Photo Outings Gallery. I’ll be adding more photos to this gallery in the future when I go out just for the purpose of taking photos.

Today, I added a Wordpress plugin that writes a mini-feed post to my Facebook account. I don’t use Facebook much, but I have some friends (mostly college friends) on there who I haven’t kept in touch with for a long time. For those of you coming to my blog for the first time, welcome!! I just started blogging again after about a year hiatus, but you can read what I’ve been up to for the past month and can read about the road trip Julie and I took back in April of 2007. I hope to keep the blog up and running.