Wonderful day

Another wonderful day in the house of Mooney, we're feeling very lucky nowadays. Not sure what it was like where you call home, but for us it was in the low 80's, crystal clear sky, no humidity - a remarkable day for suburban DC. We got off to an "early"departure (if you call just after 10 early) out to Brookside Gardens and Wheaton Regional Park. The plan was to go walk on the trails, see the butterflies at Brookside, walk back to the playground, have a picnic lunch, then home for nap. Yup, whirlwind tour and still on nap schedule. Did it get done???

Oh yeah baby! And a really good time was had by all.

Witness...

I also took a bunch of pictures to add to my Panoramio account. What's Panoramio you ask? I'm sure you've heard of Flickr, and other photo sharing sites. This is just another version, but with one cooler additive. When you geolocate your picture (you have the option of letting the site know where you took the picture) it gets synched up with Google Earth, and if its deemed worthy, your pic becomes a little blue dot in Earth for everyone to see. Like this...

The image above is a screen shot from Earth of my first picture accepted to be included. It is a pic of the trail that runs along the Youghiogheny River in Swallow Falls State Park, close to Deep Creak Lake where we had been visiting with our friends the DaB's. Back when I was teaching that one grad class I created an assignment for my students where I had them practice uploading an original pic, geolocate it, then they were eventually all posted into Earth. Pretty cool I thought. Anyhow, I've played more and more with this, and now I've gotten a bunch into Earth already and pretty much everywhere I go I take more to add. I like thinking that I'm adding to the world-wide knowledge base that floats around out there. Maybe it helps someone someday, who knows. A lot of my pics are pretty well viewed, so that's cool to see too. You can see my whole list, including a few I hadn't tagged for inclusion into Earth (they don't take pics where the primary subject is a person) at http://www.panoramio.com/user/1599791 if you're so inclined. Some pics from today, that I'm hoping to be added, are up already and more will be soon (what do you want from me - it's already 12:15am!).

After we left the butterfly exhibit (way too crowded for real enjoyment - even after shelling out some good money to get in), and while on our way back to the playground, JAM and Red had fun walking through the Labyrinth. I bought Red a new butterfly net earlier and she wouldn't let it out of her grasp for the rest of the walk - that is my attempt at explaining what you're about to see...

The kids had a blast on the huge climbing structure at the playground, and as usual, Wifey and I were there to capture some of the fun. And, as I've said before, and I'm likely to say again - we make some pretty good looking kids...

After nap, we were lucky enough to have the DaB's and BCJ join us for an impromptu cookout. D was home earning some cash so missed the festivities, but after a fantastic day with the fam we ended it with a great time with good friends. D was able to join me later to watch the Lakers close out the NBA finals, so it was great to be able to see him today too, even if it was a bit later than everyone else. :)

Yup, a wonderful day.