You can thank Brandon for the pictures. He always likes a walk better if he’s got something to keep him busy. And I’m happy to oblige.

Flamingos were first. But we didn’t really look at them much. Jenelle was already stopped by a woman doting on the boys and asking familiar questions. Yes, they’re twins. Fraternal. Yes, they do have beautiful eyes. Yes, they just turned 9 months.

Next were the elephants. My favorite. It was lunchtime, so they were moving around more than usual. Which seemed like a perfect timing for the boys.

But no matter how vigorously Jenelle and I pointed at the elephants, we could not draw the twin’s attention. They were much more interested in our snapping fingers than the over-sized animals 20 feet away. Our high pitched voices didn’t do much but get them to smile and giggle. Which we didn’t mind much because, come on, they were smiling and giggling. But Brandon got the shot, and that is what’s important. Aren’t they cute with their little safari hats?

Next we ventured over to the monkeys. The enclosures aren’t very big, and you can get pretty close to the animals. They were swinging around the branches, putting on a big, hairy show.

But the boys? Much, much more interested in the water. The turd-brown, murky water surrounding the enclosures. We could hardly get them to look up. There were some fish swimming around, so maybe they at least could look at something zoo related. And that’s the point, right?

We tried one more thing before giving up entirely on trying to get the boys to look where they were “supposed” to look: reptiles. Because they’re boys. And boys like lizards and frogs and things that are slimy and slithery.

We also thought they may like to see something a little closer up. Maybe they could focus better on the smaller windows. But then we realized that if we had to spend a good 30 seconds trying to locate the excellently camouflaged animal in question, there ain’t no way a baby is going to even bother. No, mama Jenelle was much more interesting with her fish faces.

At this point, the boys seemed a little hungry, so we took a break in the shade to feed them some cheerios. And wouldn’t you know it? An entire flock of random birds surrounded us. Which normally wouldn’t seem like a big deal. Except there were peacocks. And that’s a little strange.

I get the feeling these birds are fed a lot. I’d reach out to give a cheerio to Wesley, and a bird would dive bomb my hand, grab the cheerio, and flutter violently away. There may or may not have been squealing and flailing on my part. Because gross. Birds are dirty.

The afternoon went a little downhill from there. The little ones got pretty tired. And it was hot and a little noisy and a little smelly and birds kept taking their food. I’d cry, too.

So we ended up just walking around the zoo paths, trying to sooth the boys with motion and movement. It seemed to work pretty well. At least I was soothed.

Although they entirely missed the second half of the zoo. No giraffes. No orangutans. No tigers. But don’t worry, Brandon took pictures. They can catch up later.

And that was pretty much it. The first big trip to the zoo. And believe me, all that walking and looking around tuckered us out.

Maybe we’ll try again in a few months. You know, when they’re a bit older. But for now, snapping fingers, murky water, and fish faces made for quite an adventure for these little boys.

We spent the day at the pool. And I’m not sure there’s much that makes me swoon more than rugged, manly men holding chunky, lumpy babies.

Wesley Michael. And his big blues.

Kyndall William. And the drool. Rivers of drool. A single tooth is now officially poking through his itchy gums. Hence the tongue.

And who’s this? Emma Grace. The unofficial girlfriend to the twins. With her long lashes and deep brown eyes. Delicate. Sweet.

See her two teeth?

Brandon told me tonight that he thinks Jenelle has gotten more beautiful since having the twins. That there’s some glow, some underlying grace in her demeanor as a new mother. Sigh. She’s just gorgeous. Can you tell how much she loves them?

Can I just bury my face in those cheeks? Can I? Please.

But this one is perfect. A boy and his grandma. A boy and his grandma’s kisses.

And then there’s this. Please notice Brandon’s face. Then please notice Wesley’s face. Somethings up. What is it, boys?

Now do you see my point? How could I describe this? It just wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be fair to you.

I love Saturday afternoons. I really do.

But I’m trying to reconcile. Trying to make it work. Trying to balance my relationships.

Just the other day I knew I was going to be eating a heavy dessert. It is my birthday week after all. So I was trying to figure out a way to burn enough calories to dive shamelessly into a heaping mess of dessert without actually throwing off the delicate balance of my bathroom scale. And the only way I knew how to negate my eventual feelings of consumer’s guilt was to make a date with Exercise. But it’s too soon for running. Too soon for the elastic shorts. Too soon for sweat.

But there’s a problem with gradual reconciliation. My dear sweet husband hates to “sort of” exercise. And by “sort of” I mean medium grade—as in anything that doesn’t make you sweat. He likes his exercise like he likes his salvation: all the way or nothing at all. He requires running, pumping, and burning. Otherwise, thank you, no.

But he has a wife that is sneaky with her exercise.

“Darling baby bumper butt? Can we go to the zoo today?” Yes, dear reader, the zoo. Because it’s the perfect place to walk around for hours without thinking about walking around for hours. The perfect place for “sort of” exercising. Mindless calorie burning.

“And let’s take our camera to take shots of the animals. It will be very exciting and reckless and dangerous. Minus the wire fences and moats,” I added. Because I’m tricky. I know he has a weakness for danger. And photography. It was a perfect plan. He’d never miss the slow leak of evaporating calories.

With a smirk on my face and a skip in my step, we went to the zoo.

And guess what? Photography actually met us there.

Take this photo, for instance. I love the way this rhino practically blends into the background. I caught him with his eyes shut, like he’s purring or something. And I love how the sun was positively beaming afternoon light. It’s like he found perfect peace. Side note: I never realized what Seussian ears Rhinos have.

And here’s Brandon and his butterflies again. I don’t know how he gets these shots, but the detail is excellent. I love the pink of the flower in contrast to her black body. Want to know something weird? Some guy followed Brandon from the lemurs to the turtles to the crocodiles to the bougainvillas. He’d wait until Brandon walked a little ways away and then take the same shot. Even with this butterfly. On a random bush. In a zoo with obscure creatures.

I still don’t know what that was about.

This shot was taken for my mother. Because she’s been filling my young married life with everything flamingo. Plates. Bowls. Napkin holders. Socks. Towels. Take your pick. So I tried to pick up the reflection of the birds in the water, but it didn’t come out quite like I hoped. I think I need to be a bit more level with the water, and maybe a little closer to the birds. I’d like a little more color contrast as well. How do photos like this work?

But my favorite photo of the day was taken by Brandon. No surprise there. Is he good at everything? Sigh. I love the blur of the leaves, like we’re catching the elephant in a private moment. And I love her big, long snuffleupagus eyelashes.

By the time we were done, it turned into a date with Photography, although Exercise was tagging along somewhere behind. I think it was a good first step toward a rekindled relationship. I just want to take things slow. Keep my boundaries. Pray about it. You know, make sure we do this right.

And you should know, the pictures were taken from several feet away. With the camera up over his head. In the 15 seconds the butterfly rested. How is this possible? How? How did he get this shot?

I tried to get her picture too. After all, this is my hobby. I’m the one who is supposed to be taking the pictures. This is my adventure. But those butterflies were flitting and fluttering around. Showing off. Acting suspicious. Like they knew we were trying to get a good picture. And I just couldn’t get it together with all the flips and dips and turns.

Focusing on them in the finder of the camera was impossible, so Brandon told me to just chase them with the lens and snap in quick succession. I set the camera to “Sports,” so the faster shutter speed could capture the quick movements of the wings.

No go. Blurry leaves. Blank sky. Yellow smudges.

But I think I know the real reason I couldn’t get a picture. I think it could have been the ducking. And the hiding. And the squealing. And the darting behind Brandon. I don’t get along very well with butterflies. They’re sneaky. And unpredictable. Anytime they’d get close enough for a shot, I’d flail to the side and forget I was supposed to actually take the photo. I was just worried they’d flutter in my face. Or worse—they’d land on me.

Twenty years ago, my family went to the zoo and decided to stroll through one of those enclosed butterfly rooms. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I remember the bright colors. The dank smell. The clouds of butterflies on the ceiling. And then I heard my dad say, “There you go. There’s one!” I whirled around to see where he was pointing, and realized he was pointing at me. At my behind. This bright yellow butterfly had landed right on my rear. She looked up at me with those buggy eyes and furry legs and big black antennas. I think it was the first time I realized a butterfly was actually a bug. And I don’t like bugs.

So I flipped. Squealed. Panicked. Burst into tears. There I was, a butterfly stuck to my behind and my dad just kept chuckling. I didn’t want to touch her buggy body, so I just stood there looking desperately, frantically for help. What did she want from me? Why didn’t she just leave me alone? My dad made one swipe. A second swipe. She just wouldn’t budge. He didn’t want to touch her either, but mostly because he didn’t want to damage her fragile body. He eventually had to unwrap the sweatshirt from my waist before he could shake the butterfly off.

But it was too late for me. That was it. The encounter was too close. I wasn’t ready. She caught me off guard. Disrespected my 5-year-old boundaries. So that was it, no more fluttery bugs for me.

I’m not too disappointed about not getting a good picture to show you. They’re just bugs, people. Bugs. Yuck.

So I took it out for a walk today down by the water of our little peninsula. My 3rd official day as a photographer. What should I take a picture of? Boats? Boring. Ducks? Too far away. A landscape of the water? Too predictable. Plus the  water was murky. And brown. Not my kind of photo. As I plodded along, I started hearing this weird humming noise. It was the kind of hum that makes your shoulders scrunch and your pace quicken. Yep, bugs. Big ones.

They were working the flower blooming trees. Black, flying tanks, but really 2-inch carpenter bees. A ton of them. They aren’t very aggressive, but they make a horrible noise. One time one of them got stuck in our house for three days. She flew up to an upper window and kept barreling herself at the glass. I thought she’d break it. She was pretty angry at first, but then she started conserving her energy. I thought she was dead, but every couple hours she’d start-up again, flying like a maniac. We couldn’t get her out, so until she died, I avoided that side of the house. Which teaches us a valuable lesson: don’t mess with big black bees. They’re intense.

But despite our history, I decided they would be the subject of my first attempts at photography. See the one below? My first acceptable, non-blurry shot. She looks almost cartoonish. Like I photoshoped her into the photo. I didn’t. Don’t worry.

But I like it because of the big blue sky. And the big black bug. Plus, I put the flowers to the side, which is what they tell you to do in photography class. The subject shouldn’t be right in the middle. The simplicity of it appeals to me, you know, wide open spaces. Maybe if I blow it up and crop it, this picture would be better. I don’t know.

And then I shot 4,306 more shots and got this one below.

A little more jumbled, but also a little closer. I thought it was okay, except the fact that the bug is totally out of focus. So are most of the flowers. But those suckers are fast. It’s hard to get the camera to auto focus on something that is constantly moving. I tried Sports Mode, which is a little better at keeping focus on moving objects, but I had to keep it at full zoom to get quick shots. Do you know how hard it is to find a bee in an entire tree of flowers on full zoom? Believe me. It’s hard. And from where I was standing, there was no way I could do it without super-intense zoom. I read somewhere that the best way to take pictures of bees is across the street and around the corner. You know, so you don’t frighten them by getting too close. So I stayed far away. Far, far away. Not because I was scared. Or creeped out. Honest. I just didn’t want to hinder their work.

But then I shot 3,857 more and came up with this one below. You can pretty much see the legs on her, and maybe even the antenna. I think the camera focused on the flower instead of the bee, but this is probably the best picture of the day. I like the composition. The bee is in the upper right corner, which is one of the good spots, right? Doesn’t this meet the “rule of thirds”?

Now if I really wanted to get a good shot, I probably should have increased the shutter speed to pick up on the wings. But lets face it, if I do that, I’ll have to mess with the aperture. Whatever that means. That’s a whole other thing I’m not sure how to do. I’m still learning all the buttons. There’s no way I can dive into custom settings. Point and click. That’s all for right now. Point and click.

But I did learn a couple things from the experience:

1. It takes 9,943 pictures to get 1 fairly good shot.
2. Don’t take pictures for an hour looking up into a tree and expect your back to still work right.
3. Only the girl bees of this species have stingers.
4. Zoom is great, but digital zoom is nuts.
5. So far I stink at this.

But it wasn’t too bad for my 3rd day of photography with a camera I hardly know how to use. I’ll get better. I’m pretty sure.