NGHubby pulled off a very successful surprise this Christmas and gave me my first DSLR camera.  He secretly worked with my mom to research and pick out the perfect one, and then surprised me with it Christmas morning.  I’ve been dreaming of one for quite some time so I am very excited about it.  “Santa” gave me a book all about photography and the specifics of my camera, so I’m excited to get into that.  For Christmas week, though, I used mostly Auto settings and played only with light and focus options.  Most of the photos from the previous post were using the new camera.  Here are some more I took while playing.

Can you tell I like Christmas cookies?

And here are some New Year’s Eve trials

I was playing with the focus which is all new to me coming from point and shoot.  The first one, above, I focused on the back glass — it looks horrible, but is a fun contrast to the second one, below, where I focused on the front glass instead.

Ahh, better.  Here are some nice evening scenes that helped me play with the ISO, even though I’m not completely sure what that is yet.  Pretty, though, right?

And now you have experienced the beginning of my journey of learning to use my new camera!  But first, I need a camera bag — any suggestions?

- Clarissa

It’s a new year and a new day for the Next Generation Housewife.  After getting busy with other endeavors and falling a bit off the blogging wagon last year, I’m starting up new again for 2011.  I have all kinds of exciting plans and ideas in store for this year and am excited to keep you updated on them all.  But first, let’s take a look back at the beautiful ending of 2010.

We ended 2010 with a nice 1 ½ week “Christmas break,” reminiscent of our school days.  We enjoyed spending lots of time with family, seeing old friends, celebrating special events, and not having to be anywhere at any specific time (well, unless food was being served we wouldn’t miss that).

We started the trip a little earlier than planned in order to beat a storm, but it gave us a nice chance to spend extra time with my Grandma, make cookies with NGHubby’s family, and finish our Christmas present wrapping.  The “official” holiday celebrations began with church, music, and oyster stew on Christmas Eve.  NGHubby, who some people call Adam, has an amazing way of putting babies to sleep – I like to tease him that he’s just boring, but it’s probably his loving, caring blah blah blah

Soon after, we were all tucked in for the night to prepare to start early Christmas morning with stockings and presents with my family…

and then headed over for a day of festivities with NGHubby’s family.

We enjoyed Christmas dinner, Christmas presents, Christmas reading time…

and Christmas tormenting the nephew.

Don’t worry, he’s still happy.

The large-scale family fun spilled over into Sunday as we celebrated the baptism of our newest niece.

Again, babies just love Adam.

I appreciated our personal time, but clearly she is just looking for Uncle Adam

Meanwhile, he was having fun in the sing-a-long.

The fun continued all week with reunions with friends, fun with family, and more scrabble games for NGHubby than one can count without taking off shoes.

Luckily, just before it was time for us to head home, the temperatures took a downward turn so we didn’t feel bad getting in the car to head south.  Thanks to all for a  fun-filled week, and sorry to any we were not able to catch during our Christmas marathon.

- Clarissa