an evening with Ernst

Several years ago, my mother-in-law introduced me,

via the books on her coffee table,

to nature photographer, Tim Ernst.

Knowing of her affection for his work, 

for Christmas one year, we bought her an autographed copy of Arkansas Spring.

The book now lives with us, up high, so as not to get ruined by not careful hands.

We've periodically checked out more of Tim's books from the library,

but, up 'til last night,

we'd never purchased another.

Two months ago, I happened to see on facebook that he was doing a slideshow in FSM.

I knew Jeremiah would love to go,

I'd want to go,

and probably others, too,

so I made a mental note, and forwarded the info to Tyler.

Seeing that my 'mental notes' aren't always reliable,

I checked back periodically,

to make sure we didn't miss it.

We decided on Tuesday night that everyone wanted to go (except Lily. But I'm not entirely sure she wasn't just being a toot...)

so we figured out logistics

and by 7:00 last night, we were sitting in a room full of old people waiting for the show to begin.

It was fun listening to Tim share anecdotes about certain shots

(some of which he includes in his books)

and seeing his (crisp, clear) pictures on a big screen was neat.

I'll admit the q&a session afterwards went on a bit longer than I would have preferred, though.

It's not that I wasn't interested,

but the girls were getting antsy,

it was well past 8,

I hadn't eaten since noon,

and I still wanted to pick out some books :-)

The boys, of course wanted everything, once we finally got shop.

The books were a great price (I'd already checked Amazon, so I'd know ;-)

so we settled on 5 'coffee table' books and a couple of guide books, 

and as a special treat for the boys (mostly Josiah, actually, because he has kept up with marking off days all year)

a calendar for their room.

They're going to try to take extra good care of it, so we can frame the pictures later.

After we paid for our selections, we got everything autographed :-)

Looking at nature pictures

and book shopping 

might not be everyone's idea of a good time,

but it suits our family quite nicely.