On On U of K

I took these pictures on a beautiful day last summer when we were in Lexington for a wedding. I hadn't been back onto campus in years, and really enjoyed walking around an empty campus. I enjoyed taking pictures and just came across them, so I thought I'd share them.  

These 3 are my favorites.... 

I spent many hours in these 2 buildings. 

I love the University of Kentucky, and will forever bleed blue. I am so thankful for the 4 wonderful years I spent there. I'm glad I had the chance to enjoy this place I love on a beautiful day! 

Let's Go Fly a Kite

Several weeks ago....like in April, we had days of WONDERFUL weather. Over the last month we have had THREE, yes 3 days with NO RAIN. Looking at these pictures reminds me of how stinkin beautiful this place really is.... regardless of the seemingly BLAH weather lately.  

This park at the foot of the mountains, that opened less than a year ago is right across the street from our neighborhood, and we have so loved enjoying it this year. 

This is the view of the park entrance from our neighborhood....

The view of our neighborhood from the park entrance. So close! 

Hannah and I have enjoyed almost weekly walks & talks through it over the last couple of months. 

This particular day, fields of these flowers were in full bloom and all was well here. 

So, what better day to go fly a kite? 

So we met a bunch of friends who happened to have new kites in the park, and sent them soaring... up in the atmosphere...

Up where the air is clear. 

We had a variety of fancy kites from squids...

To smiley faces...

To Hello Kitty...

And even some complicated trick ones that got tangled in the trees. 

There were also lots of super cute littles hanging out like this darling guy...

This sweet girl with her buggy crocs...

And this little tushie bearing split pants wearing doll.  

This cotton candy man was out, making cotton candy with his bike. He stands there and spins the pedal, which in turn makes the drum spin and makes tasty cotton candy. 

This is the "100 Steps Bridge" across the river {that actually is 100 steps}

It is currently impassable as the water is flowing over it after all of the rain we have had. 

But if the rain is what it takes to create this, it's worth enduring. 

I could make so many spiritual connections to that metaphor right now that are quite pertinent to my life, but I'll let you ponder on it yourself. 

I can't get over how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful, unique place. My friend who came to visit from another {extremely large, heavily polluted} city in the fall calls where we live "Pleasantville". 

When I instagramed this picture from our day:

She commented, "Plesantville showing off again."

And I'd have to wholeheartedly agree. 

AND one more reason why leaving this place in less than 3 weeks is going to be so.stinking.hard.

Joyfully soaking it all up,

The "Da PuBu"

A couple of weeks ago we went with some friends to famous tourist spot a couple of hours away from where we live. We might be biased, but we think that we live in one of the more beautiful parts of the country. 

"Haley, DaPuPu is waterfall, PuPu is poopoo." Insightful words from a 3 year old as he stared off into space pondering his newly acquired {yet slightly off} vocabulary. My friend's son Grady speaks the language here exceptionally well, especially for a 3 year old, so he adds to his Asian vocabulary pretty quickly. He was a little off on this one though- PuBU (pronounced PooBoo) is how you say waterfall, BUT when you say it fast with the correct tones it really does sound like PooPoo. "Da" means big, and we had been differentiating between different waterfalls this way, which led him to understand that DaPuPu was waterfall, while in fact PuPu was, well poopoo. Makes sense.

So here are some highlights from our trip to see the "PuBu"...... 

There was a little bonsai garden that we walked through to get to the hundreds of stairs that we walked down. 

As we walked down, the waterfall came closer into view so I switched lenses to my 70 mm lens and got some close up shots. 

This little guy was such a trooper all day. 

He endured lots of curious AiYi's attention with lots of smiles. At times I think he was a bigger attraction than the waterfall itself. 

The people here dress according to season and not temperature, so for a child to wear short sleeves in April is unheard of.... regardless of how hot it is outside. At this point, local babies were still dressed for a blizzard. I think Ash had to tell 100 people that "No, he wasn't wearing too little clothing and he in fact was hot, not cold."

One really amazing thing about this huge waterfall is that there is a cave & path that stretches all the way behind it.

I took advantage of being at a waterfall to practice my novice photography skills, using all 3 lenses. 

Here are some pictures I took, taking the same shot at different shutter speeds, aperture & iso. I am enjoying learning to shoot in manual but have a long way to go! 

This was a great time to get more practice. Now I've just got to learn to use photoshop. Everyone says the learning curve is high, but no stinking kidding. I have watched tutorials and feel like I understand less now than I started. Sheesh. 

After we went to see the "Da PuBu" we went to see the "Xiao{small}PuBu"

It was fun to get out of town for the weekend and enjoy nature with friends. 

Joyfully Refreshed,