A Day at Home + Ice Skating 12/22

The boys played an epic game of Monopoly together this morning for 2+ hours. They were *so* loud. I took the opportunity to test out my new camera indoors. Love it!



Anthony took out one of his animals ("anns") and said he was his mascot. Ramsey ran into his room and brought out one of his animals. Soon there was a plethora of animals on each boy's side!



Ramsey eventually won though it was neck and neck for a long time. He took the above 3 pics on my iPhone (there are more!) documenting his win. Ha ha.



Aunty Annie arrived at 12:30! The boys were so happy to see her! She brought the boys presents!

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We went ice skating in Palo Alto with John's family at 3:30-5:00. Ramsey said he remembered this rink though I don't think we've been there for 5+ years. I think Owen had his 5th or 6th birthday party there and I don't recall going after that. I'm not sure Ant has ice skated in the recent past. We all did go roller skating together within the last 2 years though. Anyway, the boys (John, Ram and Ant) get on the ice. Ant is pretty much walking on the ice instead of "skating" on the ice. Within 2 minutes they decide to play tag. Oh my! They were not following normal counter clock wise directional skating and were just cutting through people. Geesh. I think the highlight was getting hot chocolate and watching the Zamboni mid way through resurface the ice. Ant was done by 4:30. He said his feet hurt. He had not improved that much but wasn't "walking" anymore. Ram skated until the end and he improved a lot! He wasn't choppy and was confident in stopping by skating in a circle. He figured it out. When we got back, Aunty Annie had split pea soup on the stove for us!

New Camera Nikon D750 (at Ram's 3rd NJB All Net Game)

As we were stepping out for Ramsey's 3rd NJB All-Net game on Sun afternoon, a UPS truck pulled up and delivered the camera Hendrik ordered for me on Friday. Yes, two day overnight service with delivery on Sundays. I immediately put the camera in the car and opened it on the way to Ramsey's game. I didn't know what settings to use so all the below pictures are in Scene/Sports mode with auto ISO and autofocus. I've since decided I need to set the ISO to 6400 and put it on shutter priority because there are pictures that are still blurry with ISO set to (auto select) 800.



Above two shots: Ram makes an outside (not 3 pointer though) shot! Swoosh!



These pictures are the sharpest indoor basketball pictures without flash that I have taken but there is much improvement needed. I'm happy so far but I have a lot to learn. Poor Ramsey's team got smashed by the Sequoia team. I think the final score was something like 58 to 30. There were only 6 players for Ram's team and he played the entire game except for the last 3 minutes when the coach realized he was tired. Ram had a decent game…just the other team was that much better.