Merry Christmas

We had us a whole mess of Christmas this year. First, we moved to another city a couple of weeks before the big day. Then for the big day loaded up and went to Branson to see Mimi and PawPaw. That’s where I gave Abby the jack-in-the-box that has apparently been giving her nightmares ever since.

Abby took it to the house on the toy getting part of the holiday. (Mom, that’s some street lingo for you.) Mimi and Gina put together a big ol’ turkey dinner.

Strobist info: I wanted to do the Christmas morning setup, but that was just too much junk to haul all the way to Branson. Besides, we didn’t have enough room in the car, what with all the presents and luggage and whatnot. And we sure wouldn’t have had enough room to bring it home. We didn’t even have room to bring all of Abby’s loot home. I just put my SB-600 on the camera and bounced the flash off the walls and ceiling. All these photos are the jpgs straight out of the camera. I only resized and sharpened them.

A couple days later, we gathered in Little Rock with my side of the family. Abby once again raked it in.

Strobist: I lugged over a light stand and a couple flashes and used the Christmas morning setup and it worked quite well, I think. I put the SB-600 on the light stand on one end of the room. I propped my SB-26 in bowl of potpourri on the other end. I used CLS to fire the 600 with TTL and the 26 fired via optical slave. I think the power on it was 1/2. Somewhere in there the batteries in the SB-26 gave out and I didn’t notice for awhile, but it wasn’t a big deal. The camera was on 400 ISO. Though the pics turned out fine to me, it seemed mixing TTL and manual wasn’t the best idea.

Abby helped me adjust the air pressure in the bouncy thing her Aunts Katie and Amy gave her.

Grandma Dailey, who couldn’t be with us, gave Abby a Raggedy Ann that has become her new sleeping companion.

Aunts Jodie and Laney put on a super feast. Abby got in on the serving act with Gramps. The cheese grits, despite the fact that Kraft has discontinued the garlic cheese roll, rocked, among some of the best I’ve ever had.

Family, food and fun. Abby, Gina and I are incredibly fortunate folks. Thanks everybody.