Photo Finish Friday - Year's End!

The tree the city put up, in green and gold for our football team colours. We hosted the Grey cup this year, sadly we were not playing in it though.

 

A not very great shot of the Legislature grounds and the Province's tree.

Another shot, different angle, better focus ;)

I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year!

Holiday Lights

As politically incorrect as it is these days to flaunt your Christmas Spirit, there are several places around the city that do just that. There is one street in the city that has been doing it for almost 40 years, we call it Candy Cane Lane and on their web page is a link to Flickr photos of the street.

The video below is Maisie's Christmas House on the north end of the city that we went and visited a few nights ago. (and there is a much better video of the decorations)

If you follow this link, there are a few other wildly decorated homes through out the city and the bedroom communities that we are going to try to get to eventually. We may not get there 'til next year though as some are pretty far away.

The great thing about all these places is that they all have bins to collect food for the food banks of the area.

I hope every one has a Happy and Prosperous New Year!

Photo Finish Friday: Merry Lunatic

This was last month's Hunter's Moon. Taken with my friends film Nikon with a telephoto lens. I think it came out (after some adjusting) quite well. This gives me hope for the eclipse photos I took with the same camera the other night. And makes me yearn for a DSLR so I can play with lenses and get immediate results. This waiting is for the birds ;)  This last batch will be ready tomorrow, but I am not going near any shops until the 29th if I can help it!

I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!


Take care all!

PFF is the brain child of my cousin Leah over at The Goat's Lunch Pail.

Solstice Eclipse

What an event last night was! The first lunar eclipse on the solstice in 372 years! In spite of the cold (-25 C wind chill) I dashed out and took some photos. This is from my digital and amazingly enough, hand held! My friends film camera with the big telephoto lens was on the tripod. I really hope I did as well with the film, but, I won't know for a few days.

Those were the best three shots. I even managed to get a few stars with the last one, so if you click to enlarge, the white spots aren't dust on your screen ;) I didn't stay to see the other side, I was frozen and tired. I also didn't manage to see any shooting stars. I imagine if I had been able to get out to the country where it is darker, I might have seen a few. Oh well, there will be more meteor showers in warmer temperatures long before we have another eclipse like this :)

Happy Solstice all!

My Town Monday - Christmas Windows on Whyte

Back to Old Strathcona we go. Not to see the architecture or the murals this time, but, to see the Christmas displays that they have put up in a few of the windows. They call it The Return of the Magic and I was quite impressed, never having seen this as a child.

The last large scale animatronic display in Edmonton was sometime in the '60's, according to the history on the site. Even if my parents had manage to take us kids down town to have a look, I would have been but a babe in arms. Sorry for the poor quality photos, but please click to enlarge.

The Nativity Scene

Santa's Workshop

Winter Wonderland Romance

The Honeytones Bear Band

 

The Candy Land Kids

 

Gnome Family Christmas

Snowman Stan & The Magnificent Monkey Band

The Christmas Eve Adventure

 The Nutcracker

This last one was my favourite. I have linked each title to it's own page on the website, each page has a link to a story on the making of the display and a soundtrack to go with the scenes. Quite a lot of effort went into making these displays and I am proud to have them in my city. 

The only thing I think would have made them better would have been music outside each store. There were a number of people that just walked by without even a glance, in spite of the three of us oohing and snapping photos. Yes, they provided more than one method to get the MP3 files, but I know myself, I didn't have enough room to download all of them for one night and several people I know do not even own them. That is minor though and we quite enjoyed ourselves.

To enjoy more MTM posts from around the globe, drop by the MTM blog.

Have a good day all.

Photo Finish Friday - Lights

Whyte all all dressed up for Christmas.

PFF is the brain child of my cousin Leah over at The Goat's Lunch Pail.

Have a good weekend.

Photo Finish Friday

So, this is what happens when you get up at the crack of dawn!

 

Have a good weekend all!

PFF is the brainchild of my cousin Leah over at The Goat's Lunch Pail.

Photo Finish Friday

Keeping an eye on the trail!

From back in October when we went for a walk in the dog park.

PFF is the brainchild of my cousin Leah over at The Goat's Lunch Pail.

Have a good weekend all.