Merry Christmas

I have to admit I have been remiss in my dedication to the blog.  Partly that is due to the fact that we have not been taking many pictures lately and I am still trying to move photos from one computer to the other.  So bear with me, my fellow photo friends.

With that said, I want to wish everyone a Happy and Blessed Holiday season and Peace and Prosperity in the new year.  As a special treat, Alvin and I went to see The Dave Koz and Friends Smooth Jazz Christmas Concert when it was here on the 16th.  It set the tone for a wonderful Christmas and if you enjoy Jazz, I would highly recommend it in the future.  We went with our neighbor Harry and had a wonderful time.  Dave Koz is a Saxophonist and in addition to his band, he had Candy Dulfer, an Alto Saxophonist, Jonathan Butler, a Guitarist and Brian Culbertson, a Keyboardist and Trombonist.  It was amazing.

So until I post again, happy photography!

Las Vegas

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Sunflowers

We have always loved Sunflowers, and our neighbor would throw a few seeds in the ground by his house.  It was amazing to see how quickly they grew and how large they grew with so little care and attention.  It would make me smile to pass them on my way to work every morning.

Several of these shots were taken at night.  Hope they bring a smile to your face and brighten up your day.

Happy photography!!!

Trinidad, WI

So I promised pictures of Trinidad and here they are.  Trinidad, is the southern most Caribbean island before Venezuela and about the size of Delaware.  Port of Spain is the capital, and that is where the airport is.  Alvin's mother lives 69 miles outside of Port of Spain in Palo Seco.

This is the statue that was built to welcome President Obama, when he visited Trinidad for the World Summit.  It is in a "round about" or rotary, just outside of the airport.

 

                                    The "Red House" Government building.





 This is a Concert Hall fashioned after the Opera House in Syndey Australia.

This is another view of the "Red House" the seat of Parliament

 This is a gazebo in Queen's Park Savannah

This is in the Wright Nature center in Arima, this is a Bird of Paradise

An interesting seed pod, this was  about 8ft long and 6-8 inches wide

This is a huge termite nest 

 Part of the path through the rain forest, on the trails

 I love what this says!

My favorite view from the trail

There were lots of birds and different plant life, it was a really fun day.

This is Pitch lake, aka "LaBrea Tar pits"  Part of the lake is solid enough to walk on, other parts are so liquid, you can scoop up the tar. 

It was about 100 degrees out and very humid when we were there, and we had walked about a mile in the hot sun with our guide George.  I thought I was going to faint in the heat!

On the edge of the lake, there were Lotus flowers blooming where water had collected on the tar.  It was strange to see these beautiful flowers blooming on a lake of tar.

Most of the asphault mined from the lake in exported to various countries.

Figs

Cocoa pods, you can crack the shell opened and there is a white filmy sweet covering on the cocoa beans.  Kids have this as a treat. Then the beans get dried for cocoa.

Cashews and the Cashew fruit.  The fruit is very sweet!

Two of the beaches, out by Ruby's

We kept trying to get sunset pictures at the beach, but the weather would not cooperate.  It was always too overcast.

Hope you enjoyed the brief views of Trinidad.  Hopefully we will have another trip there soon and be able to add to this collection.......until next blog, happy picture taking! :-)

Tropical Connection

Early this year, we were fortunate enough to take a long awaited trip to Trinidad.  It was Alvin's first trip back in 25 years and his first trip as a U.S. Citizen.  I finally got to meet my wonderful Mother in law, Ruby, her husband Hilton and many other family members and friends.  It was a great trip, and we hope to visit again.

We stayed overnight in Miami on both legs of the trip, so this week, I will share some of the Miami pictures and get to the Trinidad pictures next week.

We stayed at the Embassy Suites near the airport and since we wanted to experience the flavor of Miami, we ate at this great Cuban restaurant.

The food was great, and it was really quaint.  The staff was wonderful, and we asked lots of questions about the different dishes we saw go by.  We liked it so much that we told the owner we would be back on our return trip, and they remembered us.  They even sang Happy Birthday to Alvin, as they had a piano player in the room.

Since we wanted to see as much as we could, but had limited time, we took a tour bus of the Coral Gables, Miami, Little Havana, and the South Beach area, and here is what we saw.

That's the owner of the Cigar shop sitting out front, meeting his public. It was quite a site.

Inside, he was rolling cigars as you wait, talk about fresh!!!  He didn't want to look up at the camera, because he wanted people to buy the picture of him, rolling cigars in his traditional cuban fedora.

This is the Domino Club.  A social gathering.  The tile work was beautiful, and it was fun to watch them play.

This is the Love Hate Tattoo Studio, owned by Ami James and Chris Nunez.  It is where the show Miami Ink is filmed.

This is DASH, the boutique owned by the Kardashian sisters.  Kourtney and Khloe opened and run it, and Kourtney and Khloe take Miami, is based on the opening of this shop.

Here are some examples of the typical Art Deco architecture of Miami.

South Beach

and, finally the Miami skyline.

We hope you enjoy this little taste of Miami, not bad considering we were really only there for a few hours.

Next stop Trinidad.  The home of Carnival, steel drums and La Brea tar pit!