Costa Rica!

Sorry for the delay between posts (again!). We didn't feel like broadcasting online that we were going to be on vacation for two weeks, but that's where we were. In early November Ruth told me she was desiring a warm vacation, I told her I wanted to see the jungle, she asked if I wanted to go to Costa Rica, and it was a slippery slope from there on.



So this is just a tease as I finish sorting through 5 gigs of photos. Right now we're just overcoming our jet lag and our post vacation blues as we try to get plugged into our old schedules.

I'll be posting again soon.

Keeping aliens

Well, if you haven't figured it out, a 'bug blog' is likely going to be a reoccurring theme here. I cannot refrain from taking pictures of the little creepy crawlies I find in the bathroom sink, or in the basement crawlspace, or the outside storage shed, or the the garden... or the small terrarium on my desk where I breed and feed them.

Something occurred to me a year or two ago; I don't live with my Mother and I don't need to be ashamed of my boyhood curiosities that I carried into adulthood. I can keep spiders in a jar if i want to! To me the world seems as new to me today, as it was when I was a kid. Just tonight I was drawing in the office while the TV was on, and I learned about a cockatoo in Australia that hollows out a tree with it's beak, fashions a drumstick out of a branch, and beats the tree like a drum to attract a mate. The deeper the beat, the larger house he's offering.

That's the kind of stuff that brings this response from me; How have I never heard of this bird before?

And so, when I find a similar creature online that amazes me, and is also available as an 'exotic pet'... I order it. I'm currently keeping a pair of ghost praying mantis's. They're called 'ghosts' because of their unbelievable ability to appear like a dead leaf blowing in the wind. The male of the pair recently molted into an adult, revealing beautiful wings.

Not only do they look like a dead leaf, but they only move when they feel wind blow on them. And when they walk, they sway this way and that way to look as much like a twig as possible. They're simply amazing. Madagascar, and South Africa is where they originate.

Yes, question in the back of the class...

What's that? Are there any amazing creatures that don't live on the other side of the world? Yes there are! take this species of garden spider I found last summer on the rose bush. You can't see it here, but this little guy is resting his legs on a chord that attaches to a freshly woven web that he created. He's patiently waiting for the dinner bell - literally. Once he feels vibrations on the single strand of web, he'll be running upstairs to see what's for dinner.



What gorgeous patterns.

Okay, onto the Mom spooker - I trapped this guy under a bucket after I spotted him run across the garden shed floor. When I first saw him out of the corner of my eye, I thought he was a mouse. He is by far the single largest spider I've ever seen out here.




He is in the family of funnel web spiders, normally building a web in a funnel shape that goes into the ground. According to the Internet, his bite is actually rather painful.

And from hairy and ugly, like a monster, to hairy and cute like a stuffed animal...


Look at those eyes. You could have fit three or four of these guys on a penny. I found him in the bathroom. He's a jumping spider, and while trying to catch him, I watched him crawl at top speed - backwards - away from me.



This guy conveniently built a gorgeous web last summer between my garbage bin outside, and the house. It was a beautiful web that I had to photograph before carrying on with my chores and emptying the garbage (unfortunately destroying his web).

I was making my breakfast one early fall morning recently, when I spotted this beautiful blue bottle fly on the barbecue outside. It was very cold out, and I was willing to bet that the fly would pose for a picture because of the cold temps. He posed for several.



Well there's my little bug blog for the winter. I'm sure I'll be photographing the female ghost as soon as she hits full size. She's gonna be gorgeous.

I'm really feeling like the crocodile hunter right now. whatever..

If it helps you to read this post with an Australian accent, be my guest.


Crikey! What a beauty!

Ode to my wife...

She does all my laundry.

All of it.

I often have to wrestle my gym bag out of her hands for her own safety. I know I'm not the worst husband in the world, but laundry is just one thing I cannot keep cycling in my head as something that needs attention. I aim to grow in this, but that's about what it amounts to. Ruth keeps cycling in her head the things that get kicked of my head by comic books plots and reptile dreams.


Without Ruth, I wouldn't smell fresh all the time.







She likes vacations.


Little vacations and big ones. When Ruth is at the end of her rope we'll often end up in a bed and breakfast on one of the islands. Her job offers more stress then mine and I try to be sensitive to that. But at the end of the day, she just likes to sleep in a comfortable bed with a great view and then get up and find the best latte in the village. It's a reminder of heaven for her I think. And I'm happy to help remind her. We've had a lot of really great adventures together, and there are only more to come.

Without Ruth, I'd be a boring workaholic.








She likes to talk.



Ruth and I are pretty busy. We work long days during the week that require us to go to bed early. But no matter how tired she is, no matter late it is, we'll talk for hours after the lights have gone out. She clearly has more things to negotiate in her mind through conversation. I understand that and I try to be helpful. She doesn't just want to talk either. She wants advice, she wants opinion, and sometimes as I'm just drifting away on the edge of sleep, her words will wake me, "Tell me a story!" Sometimes she's just not ready for sleep yet.



Without Ruth, I would get a full night's sleep every night.








She won't leave me alone.


For those of you who have read the book of The Five Love Languages, Ruth and I have a joke in our relationship regarding that book. The gist of the book is that everyone has a different language in which they prefer to receive and give love. There's quality time, quantity time, gifts, acts of service, and... I can't remember the last one. The joke is that Ruth refuses to choose between quality and quantity time. She needs both. And because of this, no matter what I do, she's right there beside me. And no matter what she does, she wants me next to her. We do late night runs to the grocery store for milk...together. We ride along for each others weekend errands.

I thought I had her this fall when I told her I was going to the reptile expo in pyuwallup. Nope. She wanted to come. Please don't mistake this for complaining.


Without Ruth, I would be alone, and lonely.










She cooks for me.


All the time. Amazing food! Better then anything I've had a restaurant. (Except that Canadian Pacific Hotel we went to in Whistler on our honeymoon. We both remember every bite of that meal.)


Without Ruth I'd make a lot of sandwiches.









Motivation.

The number one thing she brings to my life is motivation to be the kind of man that God needs me to be.

Happy Birthday Babe!

Catch up

Okay.

I haven't posted since October, that's pretty sad. I had many things to blog about and no time to blog. I have a real knack for turning my free time hobbies like drawing and photography into jobs that generate income. The result is that opportunities to make money while having fun, take priority over merely having fun. More on that later I suppose.

Christmas has come and gone. The fall has come and gone, and I don't even no where to begin.

I know, I'll start with a picture like this...



Photos like this always require some explanation. Our good friends, the Pattersons, threw an ugly sweater party this season. The idea is to wear the worst Christmas sweater you own, eat good food, and drink good drinks. Ruth and I don't even own those sweaters, we borrowed them from the Pattersons.

Funny story: I was at Value Village looking for a pair of ugly sweaters in the mens sweater section. I came across a guy about my age dresses similarly to me, flipping through sweaters in much the same manner as I. When I later ran into him in the ladies sweater department I asked if he too was going to an ugly sweater party. He was. Must be the 'in' thing this year.



In other news, Ruth's parents were by for a visit this fall. In case you don't know what it looks like when the Nelson's all congregate in one one room, I took a picture...



I'm left to watching tv, going online in the office, taking pictures, or asking one of three to shop for a laptop for me. The purpose of the visit wasn't only to ride digital waves together but also renovate the remaining part of the basement. We are the luckiest married people on the planet to have them come do that for us. I'll take more pictures as things progress, but a lot was accomplished. Follow up visit is forthcoming this month I believe.



Besides that, all I have are pictures from are trip home last week. It was a full on white Christmas. I'm not sure it stopped snowing the whole time we were home. It was crazy.



It's refreshing going home sometimes. I don't know anyone else that's get to step outside of the crazy consumerist, material driven environment that this country provides. How pleasant it is listening to CTV news, where they never bait me to watch the 11pm news by telling me that something I'm doing at this very moment could be killing me "tonight at 11 !". There's no coverage of what Britney did for Christmas or what, or how Hillary just dropped 2 points in the popularity contest we call an election.





Peaceful. That's how the Canadian news feels. I know it's so cliche it makes me sick. But that's how it is, they cover international events, they talk about the dollar, they talk about the states a bit, they spend a lot more time on the weather. And none of the anchors seemed to be getting paid by the frequency of their head-cocking, fear-mongering, eyebrow raising. I swear. Everything south of the border is fox news compared to CTV.



And why am I interspersing this rant with random photos of the snow in Salmon Arm? I have no idea. I think it calms me down a little. It really was pretty there.

Here's a few more to calm you all down. I went up to the cemetery to shoot some photos. It got pretty dark though.






Oh look, the symbol of freedom!

Alright, on to the actual day of Christmas. There was a strange abundance of scratch tickets this year. I don't know why? They even made their way into my family.





Nobody won. Well...nobody won big. And then there were the very practical gifts like scarfs and such.





Right. And headslick. Can't complain.

Much of the holidays were a blur, running back and forth between our families. But helps that they're only 2 minutes apart, and it's kinda fun sometimes. It's liking hitting multiple parties all week, and then hitting them all again for leftovers.




I was also helping undertake a project to photograph Lepp families. They were supposed to be put into a booklet for Grandpa at the home to help jog his memory.




Joanne was missing that night so I'm going to photoshop her in later. Dad already took a picture of her standing to right behind the couch. This was a nice picture of Mom and Dad.




Well, that's that I suppose. I can't blog anymore today. I got other stuff to do. This is one of the ventures I've started this month - http://www.roydenspetportraits.com/ That's pretty much what kept me from blogging this fall. This country and it's stupid news and incredible opportunities. I know, I know, Ruth and I are here for a reason.

I'm also cranking trying to get book 2 of my series wrapped up for the publisher. It's been a long year. 2 more books to go!

That's all I got for now. I'll try to update more regularly in 2008. That's my resolution. Blessings to everyone who reads this. Happy New Year!