Happy Halloween!

October is gone, baby, gone...can you believe it?  Today is Halloween here, but I don't expect much action on the Trick or Treat front as it's not a huge deal.  We might get the three little neighbor girls but I wouldn't expect many more than that...a good thing, since we have no candy!

I put the holiday collars on the Girls the other day as we headed out to the beach and pretty much that's as festive as we are getting. Not that you can actually see the collars in these shots, but trust me, they're there!



MatildaLily was doing the "I'm so tired but I'm cute" thing back at the ranch

Not cute enough for us to overlook new destruction

What would Halloween be without a fun time wasting game? Try some Bowling for Cats Or maybe you prefer to look at some great party treats?

So many ways to celebrate!

Where did the week go?

I've been back a week and I can't believe how fast it's gone!  I still don't have the trip report for Wakatobi finished, but I have high hopes for having it done before the weekend.  I do have most of the photos posted in my ScubaBoard gallery with only a few left to process and upload.  I know the gallery can be a little slow, so you might need a little free time and some extra patience!

It's gone from being super hot to super windy over the weekend.  Today is crazy windy again, but it looks like it will drop a little bit each day as we head to the weekend.  I'm not sure if we will get out for diving at all for fun, but I think we are at least going to try - one of my dive buddies just got a new camera and is itching to get out and play!

It's time for my annual bitch session about stupid, stupid daylight savings time. We switched over on Sunday so now it's dark again until almost 7am...which means it's too dark to get out of bed and take the girls to the beach for a walk before work. It's daylight until after 8pm...which means it's too dang hot most days to even think about cooking dinner until it's so late you're really not hungry and if you do eat, you kinda feel all bloated when you go to bed. I hate daylight savings time here so much that I figured out how to join a Facebook group dedicated to hating daylight savings time...actually I joined two, I think, because I don't really have a clue how to work Facebook so when I went to find the link I couldn't, but did find another group. That'll show 'em!

I've been a little slack with pet photos lately - I just never seem to have the little camera kickin' around when the pets are doing something cute.  Or I've just been too lazy to deal with it.  One or the other!  But every day they do entertain us...

You know it's hot out when the cat lays under the drain valve thingie of the air-conditioner. When I first saw Boof sleeping I had no idea what was wrong with him, but it was just water and he told me off for waking him up

but then he did his cute, "scratch my belly" pose

before getting up to do a little posing



Lobo just stared off into the distance

MatlidaLily is still in brainless puppy mode most days. She's on a shoe rampage and has incredible powers when it comes to locating them. My sandal as it should look

and when I found it

Although, I guess I shouldn't blame poor misunderstood Tilly since evidence pointed to a different perpetrator

but I doubt Boof could have carried these around!


Til's good at being elsewhere...usually in our bed, on my pillow

Dave and I took the Girls down to the beach for a quick romp the other afternoon. It's the first time we've all gone together for a while and Dora and MatildaLily had a good time playing and kicking sand all over everything

Til took off with another couple of dogs going for a big run with their owner and we couldn't get her to get back into the car. When she finally did, she didn't get her whole butt in and part of her tail got caught in the car door. She was not happy, poor baby. As soon as we got home she bolted to the backyard to her comfort hole and sooked for 15 minutes or so.

Seems she just needs a little self-imposed time out when she's been startled

I sat on the back stoop and waited patiently for her to come to me for some lovin' then she was fine. Nothing wrong with her tail at all, it wasn't even tender when I tried to see if anything was wrong. She's just a little high strung, I think.
A set of pet photos wouldn't be complete without some "awwww, aren't they cute together" snoozing shots...



Dora is almost always the least thrilled about the sleeping arrangements...

Last Friday was set to be a glorious day so I rang my friend Mary to see if she would like to hop on the boat with me and head out for a couple of dives. I'm so glad we did. Not only were conditions beautiful for the last time all weekend, but we saw some very cool things including a mutant nudibranch and a new type of sea snake! Of course, I don't have photos of either of those things to show you...haven't uploaded the nudibranch ones yet and didn't take any of the sea snakes, d'oh! You'll just have to enjoy some of these instead
yellow boxfish

honeycomb cod watching me watch him

wobbegong shark face

a pesky angelfish insisting on getting between me and the creature I was really trying to take a photo of

The cleaning action was fabulous, too
batfish with cleaner wrasse


rankin cod

Fusiliers


This turtle was just the funniest guy to watch. He would swim forward and rest his chin on this sea fan for a little rest. Then he would push himself backwards, hover for a few seconds, then throw his flipper into the fan before backing out again and doing another snooze. He even looked like he was taking some time to stop and smell the roses...errr...sea fan!



Reminded me of Dora when she rests her chin on the car seat


and of Tilly when she lays her head on her dad's chair

Reality strikes

I am back from my fabulous diving trip to Wakatobi in Sulawesi.  I was only there for a week but I had a great time diving and just relaxing not doing much of anything at all.  I am currently working on a full trip report and will put a link in here once it is finished, but in the meantime, here are a couple of photos...

Looking back onto the resort

Mary and I arriving via the taxi boat

My bungalow from the beach side

Inside

The reefs were pretty stunning with an amazing variety of pristine corals, fans and sponges in all shapes, sizes and colours


A guy I really wanted to find - an orangatan crab

And of course, pygmy seahorses

There are lots more photos from the trip up in my ScubaBoard gallery, just click the link.

Exmouth is HOT already.  We have been mid to high 30s lately and last week even went over 40!  That's maybe a little much for this early in the year, even for me.  I do hope this means we are going to have lovely warm water and a long summer. 

Right now the shop is busy then quiet then busy, so pretty hard to predict.  We are still seeing lots of humpback whales and our sunset tour seems pretty popular.  I am spending more time in the dive shop itself over the next few months and am looking forward to working with people more days of the week. The divers yesterday had a fabulous day and the weather today is glorious.  Of course, the weekend is predicted to have a big swell, but hopefully it will still be nice!

Dave is off to Perth in November again for yet another doctor's appointment as well as some more courses.  He is doing much better and hasn't had to complain about his feet nearly as much - it's about time, it sucks so much when he's hurting every day!

We are heading for lots of changes in our life here over the next few months so stay tuned for the latest and greatest news!

Hectic week...but now on holidays!

This has been a hectic week for me as I prepared for my diving vacation to Wakatobi, off Bali in Indonesia.

Tuesday  I was contacted by NewsLtd to see if I would supply some photos relating to the emergency landing of a Qantas jet.  I dashed out to cover the hospital and the airport activity.  The photos were used in several Australian newspapers, online for the ABC News and PerthNow and Australian Associated Press also picked them up.

There are a couple more images at Kristin Anderson Photography Blog and in the PerthNow link above.

I'm in a bit of a rush this morning as Skywest changed my flight to leave a few hours earlier than the original plan and of course I leave everything until the last minute! I don't think I will have net access while I am away, but I will have lots to talk about and show you once I return on the 19th!

A great variety of shooting this week

I found the emu dad and his kids again the other day, so zoomed home to grab a camera. As I was trying to get close to him, he was freaking out. He was so mellow the last time I saw them, that I was a little surprised...until I saw the babies. It's a new family with even smaller babies! Very cool. This dad was having none of me getting close so I wasn't too successful in taking a lot of photos, but I did walk with them for quite a ways. Here's the trio:

Our walk took us across the golf course where there were about 100 roos hanging out. I kept hearing the thump thump of roos jumping...but turns out someone was really playing golf! Lucky I didn't get smacked in the head with a golf ball! He had quite the audience




Friday I had a family shoot with an excellent extended family. They were super sweet and had a lot of fun, despite bright and windy conditions! The three little girls were adorable.

More images from the shoot are on my Kristin Anderson Photography blog and you can see the whole shoot in the client gallery at Kristin Anderson Photography.

Saturday night took me to the Novotel for the Breast Cancer Foundation's Pink Ribbon night.  I was shooting for Straits Salts as they are a major sponsor of this event. 

It was extremely windy and pretty chilly, but there was a good turnout and I think a nice amount was raised for breast cancer research.  The Novotel had dressed up with pink uplights on the palm trees and pink balloons.


Part of the event was the lighting of the new pink lights on the marina bridge. 


The bridge will be lighted each night this month.

Tilly had been up to her usual mischief while I was out. She found a roll of scotch tape somewhere and gleefully destroyed it. As I was cleaning it up, she trotted over, stole a big piece and kept munching.

The heating pad had to die, too

Harry and Boof did what they do best, ignored her

Dave left for Perth Saturday morning so I'm bach'ing it this week. I'm not sure if he'll be home before I head out for Wakatobi on Thursday or not. He's looking at doing some courses while he is down there if the schedule works out right. He also has a check-up with his doctors, so hopefully we will have good news on that front.