New view

One of my birthday presents (from Ryan, my parents, and Nanna & Pawpaw) was a new-to-me camera lens. Its faster and the focus is really crisp compared to my other lenses. Another plus is that will will go from this far away... (Kelli, Jonathan, Steve, Kimmy, Ryan, and Kristy playing the new frisbee golf course)

to macro... this close up... I can literally hold my hand in front of the lens and focus on it. The one complication is that the depth of field in macro is so shallow I have to be very steady!

Carrie, this is that little fuzzy bug I was telling you about all over the tree in my backyard. Apparently they like other parts of Collgedale too. With some internet assistance, I think its a wooly aphid - what do you think? Apparently they feed on sap from trees and when there isn't enough they grow wings and fly to others. We found yesterday that we could wipe the fuzz off of them.

How much did your name change this summer?

Thanks to Carrie, I now have my own framed diploma.

Mrs. Jaclyn Yvonne Knight, RN, MSN (nevermore to change this drastically again)

And I must say that I'm enjoying the fact that I am NOT in school for the first time in 20 years!

Into the blue

Mom and Dad helped Stephanie bring all of her stuff back to Southern this weekend. We're glad to have her back and closer than ever before in Southern Village. On Sunday we took a trip down to the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta - the largest aquarium in the world supposedly. The largest tank is the size of a football field and has thousands of fish, rays, and sharks including 4 whale sharks flown by UPS over from Asia.

Mom talking to a guide in the tunnel.

This grouper is right next to Ryan in the big tank - see how big it is? I think they can get up to 700 lbs but this one is only 400. You can use this size to compare the grouper's size to the whale shark in the big tank picture below.

Big ray

This isn't a very good picture but I include it because 3 of the 4 whale sharks are in it. These are young ones and will get much bigger!

The whale sharks almost always stay up on the top but this one came down for a look. See the big grouper next to it?

Ryan and Dad watch the tropical reef. There are lots of bright blue "Dori" fish in there if you look closely.

Ryan meets a jelly fish.

The camera doesn't do justice to the color of its body.

Stephanie touches a sea anemone

Divers went down to clean the beluga's tank glass while we were there and the whales kept playfully nipping at their kicking flippers. It was quite funny - almost like a dog.

Homemakers

Some friends of the Knights gave us some furniture their children had been using while here in school. Kelli, Jonathan, and Ryan sit on our new couch while trying to put together our new chairs (our first wedding furniture fund purchase!). We bought a couch cover to put over it.

I think Kelli and Jonathan had a good time watching us fight to tighten the screws on the chairs... To my right you'll see a glimpse of another acquisition - a blue arm chair.

The finished product!
This table fits into our kitchen much better than the other one - its greatest feature is that both sides can collapse! And thankfully, the chairs we bought match it pretty well! We used some wedding money to frame the paintings Ryan hung above it - one is from Stephanie's trip to Bermuda, the one on the right is a sailing picture we bought at the Atlantis hotel in Nassau, Bahamas. There's another wedding present hung above the window - a plaque that says "PRAYER - when life gets too hard to stand... kneel"

Hello from Highland Lake

Ryan, Ross, Katie (Ross' girlfriend), and I left Collegedale on Thursday night to drive down to Alabama for the weekend. Thanks to us getting internet installed this week - I can post and check e-mail! Ryan's parents have been here all week celebrating their 30th anniversary. Here are a few pictures of the fun we've been having.

Ryan's second run since knee surgery a year ago.

I think they look a little too comfortable.

This was a short run - Ryan fell off and his shoulder got pulled backwards by the water so he was done.

More ball-games

Our summer softball games are now into tournament time starting Monday. Here are a few more pictures that Ryan took when he got back from Minnesota.

Here's me behind bars at second base. I've played lots of positions this summer. Second is one I had never played before and I had a learning curve during the game.

Having Dean Magers umpire always makes for some interesting conversation. The night before when Ryan wasn't there I was greeted with "So where's Hot Lips?"

Hollie winding up with me at second

The best hit of my season so far - right down the left field line. My tongue is NOT out in this picture Stephanie! Ryan got me some batting gloves for my birthday so I'll get to try those out next week. My hands are so small they are a Youth Medium!

Running to second on the next play - Robin (Hollie's aunt) is going to third where Laurie Minner (the orchestra conductor) is playing. That team is made up of lots of Collegedaleites of different ages and boy can they hit! Hollie has taken Mrs. Minner to a full count at least 3 times though!

Ryan and I went golfing (my first time playing on a course!) for my birthday yesterday and no, it wasn't Ryan's idea. We went to Brown Acres.

Ryan wearing his American Cancer Society shirt from the Minnesota tournament with his birthday present - a new Adams hybrid.

Time for putting

I didn't make it - Ryan's turn - I think he made it

My turn again.
The grass really was this green thanks to all of the rain we've gotten recently. Its really beautiful out there and the weather was PERFECT, not hot and there was a nice breeze. The grass is amazing too on the greens, its so soft and squishy like a carpet!

Teeing up - and about to lose two balls to the pond. Apparently I just couldn't hit it as though the water wasn't there.

The ball is about to skip three times across the pond and hit the other side.

And.... in the drink...

I didn't keep score - I thought it would be too depressing - but I must admit my first 9 holes of golf did go better than I had expected! Now maybe I'll get better and better! Maybe there will be a Knight parents vs Knight youngsters beach tournament in the future.

Summer ballgames

Since we apparently can't have an entire week without doing something extraordinary - Ryan got some free tickets secondhand from a member at the golfcourse where he works to go to a Braves game on Monday night. So after Ryan finished his last Praxis exam (YIPPEE!) we jumped in the car and headed for Atlanta, arriving just in time to get to our seats for the national anthem... except that the security people refused to let me bring my bigger zoom lens inside. Apparently they thought I could take good pictures with it or something. ;-) So we had to walk the entire way back to the car to put it away and THEN back to the park. This must be a new policy since both Carrie and I have had our lenses inside before.

We knew we had better than usual seats but we were shocked when we were checked through some security doors into a private section of the ballpark with air conditioning, carpeting, historical pictures and paintings, and lots of eateries selling pasta and other fancy food as well as the usual stadium fare. There were also leather chairs and big screen TVs for watching the game - why wouldn't you just go outside and watch it in real time???

Then we got to our seats and found that we were right next to the press and announcers!

What a great view! Just high enough and right on the first base line.

Ryan's wearing the white hat with the navy blue shirt and sunglasses on his head.

Bobby Cox sends the pitcher out... the Braves were playing like they were hot, tired, and losing, all of which were true. Nobody made much effort except Jeff Francoeur who caught a nice diving ball in right field. They lost 12-3 to the Cardinals.

The next night it was time for me to play. I've been on Hollie's Grace Healthcare team in the Collegedale city league this summer. We had a doubleheader this night.

Lining up for prayer

I played left field the entire first game next to Jordan. This was much more fun than playing in the mud hole around first base or playing catcher in the second game - it had downpoured earlier in the day and the field was so goopy you had to be a ballerina to run the bases without a wipeout.

You can't tell but the shortstop Annette had a mud pit to contend with too.

Batting with Lisa on deck

This may give you some indication of the conditions we were playing in... MUCK and GLUE!