Roughing it

When I first saw "computer" on Mom's packing list, right alongside "marshmallows" and "sleeping bags", I laughed. That is so not camping. Now, here I am, sitting outside in our fold-out camping chair, trying to tune out conversations about firewood, enjoying the fresh air, and blogging.

Adam says that using a computer while camping is "lame" and "defeats the purpose of going camping." He also objects to my Mom's electric frying pan. His humungous expensive camera, along with multiple lenses and tripod, is okay because it is vacation technology.

To come: A full entry on the trip, along with a 30-40 second video of my Dad and husband talking about their toys.

Belly shot

Now that I have a cool camera, I can take my own preggers belly shots. This is how my son's house looks when I'm looking down on it. Luckily, all my stretchmarks are on the underside of my belly so I can pretend they aren't there (until they start itching). They ominous shadows of my breasts, however, are always clearly visable.

In other news, I've almost got the 600 hours I need to apply for maternity benefits. I've been scraping together hours by working at a temp agency and at my mom's friends business. I have 33.5 hours to go and only 4 weeks left of pregnancy. Now it's a race.

And I know some of you care, so here's what kind of camera I have (based on what's printed on the outside of the thing). Let's see. It's a Lumix, made by Panasonic, DMC-FZ7. It's got a 12x optical zoom (to get super close-up goat pictures). It also says that it's 35mm equivalent, but it's digital (obviously). It takes rechargeable fancy batteries (instead of AAs). It's not an SLR but it sort of looks like a cute miniature version of one. Well, actually it's quite large compared to other cameras I've had.

Most Photogenic Animal

The winner of most photogenic animal at the Toronto Zoo, Boxing Day, 2006 goes to...
(drum roll)...

This Baby Mountain Goat!!!

Runners up: other mountain goats, a camel, turtles, foxes, a hippo's foot. Rather than bore you with endless zoo shots, I thought I'd just post the best. As you probably guessed, I got a new camera for Christmas. It's got a wicked zoom, so you no longer have to use a magnifying glass, or any "Where's Waldo" skills to find the animals in my snapshots. So now I'm on my way to becoming a professional goatographer.