Merry Christmas to All! Well I took a few pictures of the turkey, but they just weren't cutting it, so I had to move into my family shots. As you can see, I'm actually in this picture, but technically I did still take it as I set the timer and clicked the button! This was the Bauman clan (and their significant others) that were able to make it to Arizona for Christmas and to celebrate my grandma's 80th birthday!
It's Christmas Eve and believe it or not, I did not get a picture in today! So I'll use one from yesterday. On our ATV tour we stopped at an old mining area and hiked around a bit. Laying there in the gravel was an old mattress spring. It looked pretty cool - so I took a few shots of it! I didn't do any post processing to this shot.
Day two of our trip at Christmas was to visit the Grand Canyon. We drove over 5 hours the night before to get there and I had big plans to get up early to get to the best viewing area for sunrise photos. Unfortunately Mother Nature had different plans for us. When we got up - it was snowing like mad and already had 3-4 inches on the ground. We still made our way to the viewing area (not easily - the roads were horrible) but you couldn't even get down to it because they had closed it off due to the snow! At that point we decided to go get breakfast at a hotel restaurant in the park. After we finished eating it had nearly stopped snowing so we were able to see a little of the canyon (as seen here). Overall it was a little disappointing as there was so much haze and clouds that you couldn't see down into the canyon at all - which I'm guessing is were you get the hugely immense sense of beauty and grandness of it. But I did see the Grand Canyon in a snow storm - so there!
We were out visiting my mom for Christmas and we spent a day hiking in Red Rock Canyon just outside of Las Vegas. It was a beautiful day for hiking - just a little brisk. We were walking back on one of the trails and I saw this guy just sitting and looking out at the beautiful view. He looked so peaceful - reflecting, contemplating.
Come on Julie, that is not a real word... on the contrary it is! Well at least it's being used at Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, Wisconsin! This would be the area at the end of the security checkpoint with a table and a handful of chairs where you get to re-dress and re-pack everything you had discombobulated to go through! It just screamed for a picture - albeit a pretty lame one!
Ray bought me a personal session with a local chef for a cooking class and today was the big day! I told them the type of things I was looking to learn and they chose a dish that fit. We ended up making shrimp and scallop ravioli with saffron cream sauce - it was SOOO freggin good! I had a great time making it, learned a lot, and LOVED eating the end product! As a side note, I tried to make them at home but had an unfortunate turn of events on the pasta dough and ended up trying to make my own (never done before) with just a rolling pin. Needless to say I they were WAY too think - but such an adventure we had trying!
One more cheater day for a bit (I hope!). This was one of the top pics from my shots at this cemetery but I didn't use it for that day's post. So this is a perfect opportunity to incorporate it in! You see, the one drawback to posting only one picture each day is that sometimes you get that great day where you have more than one that you might want to use! The sky is my favorite part of this pic!
A few missed days coming up - so I went back in my (quite large) archive of photos for one today. I just had to get some shots of this car when I saw it on the side of the road. We were up in Door County and came across this gem! I just screamed out for an antique color wash!
Mmmmmm one of my favorite things to make around the holidays - peanut brittle! I believe this was a batch I whipped up for some Christmas goodie boxes!
Not a very creative day for a picture but still a little fun. This is a magnet set that you put on the refrigerator (presuming its white) to make a fridge frosty! 
Another day I apparently forgot to take a pic. This one is from our trip to Door County earlier in the month. We were in Peninsula State Park and climbed up the tower. The original was ok - I liked the curves of the road and the sparse look of the bare trees, but the color was pretty drab. So I tried to give it a boost with high contrast black and white. I really like how it turned out!
So a little warning as we get further into December - I seemed to have my forgetful hat on a lot and had my share of missed days! But 230 days into this crazy project and I refuse to give up! This was one of those days - so I pulled up this pic from our Christmas light viewing in Cathedral Square. I love the light on the church an that most of the Christmas lights in the shot were blue or white!
We made our way out to the Santa Rampage (our 2nd annual) this morning. This is an awesome Milwaukee event (kind of an underground idea that went viral) where a couple hundred people dress up like Santa (or elves or the like) and ride their bikes across town stopping at 5 or so bars along the way! Todd and Mark and I heard about it last year and had to check it out. It was so much fun to watch that it has now become an annual event. Maybe next year we will even ride in it! After the fun, we grab lunch at El Ray. That night we join up with Ray and head out to see the Miller Valley Christmas lights then down to Cathedral Square for more lights! 
We had the annual O'Leary-O'Neil Holiday Party tonight! It was, of course, a fantastic time. I picked up some fantastic new jokes (and I still remember them!) and had a wonderful time chatting with all the "regulars"! I also had an opportunity to get a few shot in - loved this one of their "Charlie Brown Christmas Tree". If you look close, you can see their entire living room!
Put up my Christmas tree tonight! Not sure what I was doing exactly, but this pic is crooked as heck! But I thought it was kinda fun so I left it as is. I did an antique filter on this one as well.
It's a sad sad day for the little birdies in my yard. In the snow/rain/ice storm last night I had a limb snap off my tree. It was unfortunately the one that held the bird feeder. On an up note, the damn squirrels can't steal from me any more! I did have to risk my life for this picture as the branch had pulled down an electrical wire as well! Good times in Julie's backyard!
I was driving from my house to Ray's and really wanted to get a picture on the way. We only live a mile apart, so the options are somewhat limited. This was taken down his block. I have to say it was a pretty horrible picture straight out of the camera. I took it from my car with the window rolled down. I was really dreading posting it, so I thought I would try a few filters on it. I have to say I don't hate this pic as much! 
Another lunch time adventure to find a picture for the day. I liked the look of the smoke billowing out, but getting a perspective that worked well was a challenge. I like the end look of the smoke - but the composition of the smoke stack just shooting out of the bottom of the picture doesn't work that well.
I decided that I wanted to upgrade my camera strap from the boring Canon branded black version that came with my camera. I found a company that takes recycled seat belts and sews funky ribbon on them for some really cool combinations. You get to mix and match all of their options, in addition to the type of hardware it comes with. They were so cool I just had to order one for my BFF too!! This is a pic of mine!
Do you even know how excited I was to learn that there was going to be LIVE reindeer at a Christmas celebration while we were in Door County??!! Of course I'm the odd adult there with a camera but no children! Oh well - it was still fun. There were two adult females and one baby reindeer! The challenge was that they were inside a green fence and I was trying not to get that in the pictures.
We were driving up to Gills Rock in Door County and found this awesome road! I just had to stop and take some pictures. Luckily it was December in Door County and there were not many people on the roads, as I was standing in the middle of it to get the shots! I did a little adjustment to the colors to get the yellow lines to pop a bit more.
During our annual December trip up to Door County I was taking some pictures in the lobby and realized that I had been capturing myself in the ornaments! I liked how they turned out so much that I used one as my Christmas card this year!
Going through my huge backlog of pictures I'm finding that this must have been a cheater day as I skipped a day in my dates. This is one from my trip to the Domes, and ironically it kind of looks like the domes! I was pleased with how the green in the cactus stayed pretty true against the white of the prickers.
I finally finished my birthday present to myself - a refinished laundry room! Wild and crazy - I know! I had to have some plumbing work done in order to put my washer and dryer next to each other - don't they look so happy??!! The walls and floor are a shade of blue/gray. I thought I'd play with some color filters on this photo.
While it was still warm enough outside, I was able to take my camera to work and leave it in my car so I could go out at lunch and take some pictures. This one is right across the street from my favorite soup spot! I edited it with a high contrast black and white preset. I have to say this was a pretty boring pic as shot, but I'm really loving the B&W application!
For all intents and purposes, I've lived in the Milwaukee area my whole life. And until today, I have never been to the Mitchell Park Domes. For those of you not in the area, these are 3 huge greenhouses - for lack of a better word. One is tropical jungle, one is a desert oasis and the third is a seasonal flower garden. I spent a few hours wondering around an snapping some pictures. This was one of my favorites - I just loved the contrast of the background to the flower.
As odd as it might sound, I had been wanting to take photos in a cemetery at dusk. It's really amazing how many beautiful things you can find, even in a cemetery. The diffused light and pink sky of dusk enhances everything.
Ya, ya, ya... you all thought I fell off the face of the earth - or at least gave up on this crazy project. I didn't do either, and I have been keeping up (mostly) with getting my daily photos taken, just not posted. So here's to doing some catch-up! This pic was taken the day after Thanksgiving at Greenfield Park. I loved the reflections in the pond.
