Ever Been To Hoover Dam? Wanna Go?

On Tuesday I had to drive clear across town as I found a less expensive place to take Cooper and Egg in to have some "elective" surgery done and I didn't want to have to drive back home and then turn around and go back again later soooo, I went traveling. I drove into Boulder City and found the most amazing creepy Fortune Teller Zoltar. I paid my money and got my fortune:
"Round and round the ball will spin
Til it draws your good luck in
Ah, I can foretell for you
Good luck in a month or two
"The crystal gazer has wonderful things in store for you. A dear one will return from a long trip and your whole life will be different. You have a very patient disposition and your patience is about to be rewarded. Despair not I say for your days of despair will soon be over. Your calm spirit and your good sense will see you through all emergencies. You have many friends particularly in the armed forces. They are loyal to you and are glad of an opportunity to be of "service" to you."

*My lucky numbers: 47, 41, 25, 35, 43, 33*

Then off to check out the park where the annual Boulder City Arts Festival called "Art in the Park" is held. It is amazing how small this park is when the event isn't taking place. I've never really been here unless the festival was going on. Such a pretty little park.

Then as I was driving out of Boulder City towards the dam I stopped and took this pretty picture overlooking Lake Mead.

Next stop is at the Dam itself.

In this shot you can see the beginnings of the new by pass bridge they are building. This thing is enormous. It will make a very difficult commute over the dam to Arizona much easier for traffic without having to deal with all that dam (hehe) traffic.
This is the Arizona side of the bridge.

And this is the Nevada side of the bridge.

My own daring out the drivers side window shot of the under side of the Nevada side of the bridge. I was only going about 8 miles per hour as I wasn't the only one gawking.

Mostly because of this sight. These guys are nothing short of amazing. If you go look at this next shot of the Nevada side of the bridge and look for the beginnings of the arch underneath the bridge itself you will see "this". Right there in front of the motorhome.

I had to take most of these pictures on the fly as there really is no way or place to stop to take them. I lucked out and traffic wasn't really all that bad. Well, except for that pesky motorhome.

Shot of Lake Mead from the top of the dam. Unfortunately, that white line is how far the water level has receeded.

I couldn't get these little guys to hold still for a proper shot as some German tourists kept scaring them away and they were busy themselves trying to keep all the birds away.

ATC's you say?!

I almost forgot what it feels like to even do ATC's. That's how long it's been since I've done any and I feel bad about it, almost like I've been neglecting a friend.


These ATC's were for a personal swap on the Illustrated ATC's site and I took an age to get these out to my partner. I have to admit being a little overwhelmed with my partners' awesomeness and was worried I wouldn't be good enough. Don't you just love having that perception of yourself...

I love this little rattie and Ralphie has such an incredulous look on his face. He knows that the rats are to be respected but for heavens sake, isn't having "the dog" around enough for one cat to bear?

Louie is tired of all the shenanigans around here and has decided to go have a nap.

The Big Eyed Birds Have a Photo Shoot

They've been itching to get out there and get in front of a camera as they aren't the least bit camera shy and quite the hams.


I thought I would start this off with a "before" pic. This is before all that makeup is applied. I took this shortly after they were removed from the tanning bed (oven) and you can see here that a small amount of concealer (gesso) has been applied before I remembered to grab my camera. We were already in the heat of the moment here.


Here are all of the models together before the bickering started. They all thought that they were prima donnas at this point and I had to seperate them before any "cat" fights were started. We all know how ugly THAT can get.

My little blue man Maurice.

This is Howard.

And Chester.

And Louie.

Ralphie is keeping a close "eye" on things.

The End.

More New Art and another Ralphie

I've been finding small random pieces of wood at the construction site lately and I decided that I needed to paint them up. This one has a cherry tree on it. Well, at least a cherry tree in my mind as how I remember it from the house I grew up in.

My Dad built a house for us to live in on a small cherry tree orchard in Brigham City Utah and some of my fondest memories are of those trees. I adored spring time when those four trees came into bloom and my sister and I would climb them endlessly and eat green cherries because we could never wait for them to ripen. My Mom would can them. I never really cared for cherries that way. They always felt so humiliated to me. Somewhat like grapes.


This is painted on a fairly chunky little piece of wood. I'll have to take a side shot as I painted the sides also. It's a happy little piece o' wood.


"Photos of the Soul"
My cherry trees will always be a part of me as this little girl carries her idea of cherry trees with her.


This little Ralphie came about because I had made an online purchase of an optometrist lens and it came wrapped up in this piece of pattern paper and as I was unwrapping it Ralphie decided he wanted to play with it and this is the same exact look he gave me when I tried to play with him and the piece of pattern paper.

Little buggar.