Pics taken with my NEW camera! :)

Steve & I took a ride around the lake today, hoping to get Aiden to stay asleep for a nap. It didn't work, BUT, I got some great pics with my NEW camera! :)

Okay, before the pics, I'll tell you "the hunt" story behind buying my new camera. (if you want to skip the story, you can look at the bigger-sized pics here):

One Friday night, Steve & I were in Walmart shopping, and I asked him if he wanted to go by and visit "my" camera. Now, I have been watching this camera for a couple of years. Walmart had the lowest price I'd seen anywhere, so I had decided that as soon as I saved up my money, it was MINE.

We went over to the Electronics Department, pushed the cart on over to the cameras, stopped in front of the DSLRs and .... it was GONE!

My heart dropped, and I raced right over to the photo lab to find out what in the world happened to MY camera.

I talked to the woman and found out that... Walmart has discontinued selling the Canon Rebel XS.

After picking my jaw up off of the floor and commanding myself that I would not cry right in the middle of Walmart, I asked if she could check and see if any other Walmart nearby had any left.

She called one Walmart: none.

Next: ONE! The display model. They will sell it to me for 20% off. $399 for a $499 (and usually more like $599 at any other store. I know. I've looked.) I asked them to put it away for me until 4:00 the next afternoon.

By this time, Steve is looking at me like I've lost my mind! He knows that we do not have the money for the camera. But, he also pities me because he knows that I've saved up my money several times just to end up paying for this or that that the kids have needed.

Now, I have to tell you, in case you don't rememeber, that Steve & I do not believe in going into debt if we don't have to. If it isn't absolutely necessary, we save up our money instead of looking to the credit card.

But this was different, wasn't it?!

We stopped at Customer Service and asked about the Walmart credit card. I had figured out in my head where at least $300 was coming from, and we knew we were getting a tax refund... it would be fine, right?

We decided that we'd go home and sleep on it.

I woke up at 4:00 a.m. and could not go back to sleep. I got up, but what is there to do at 4 in the morning? I definitely did *not* want to wake up my kids. So I farmed on farmville.

At 6, I took a shower and got ready to go. At 7 I woke Steve up and asked him to go with me, so he showered and got ready.

Did I mention I had a funeral to go to at 10? My uncle died, and I knew that we needed to be there on time. So at 7:30, we left the house to go pick up my camera in a town about 40 minutes away.

We got there, I rushed back to the photo lab and told the woman who I was. She got out the camera and walked me up to the customer service to fill out the application for a Walmart credit card.

The guy at customer service punched in my information. The information wouldn't go through. He tried another register. Still nothing. He said that their connection must be down and told me to come back later. Seriously?

I asked Steve to call and see if the next town over had any cameras left; I was a little concerned about the quality of a display camera, and since this store's connection was down, maybe we could go to the next store anyway.

The electronics guy said that he had a Canon Rebel XS bundle left over from Christmas for $50 more than the display model, which comes with the same lens, but had a camera case too. The guy said that he had two of them, he thought, so I figured, "What is the chance of both of them selling today, after they haven't sold since Christmas?"

Well, so much time had passed that I was worried that we were going to be late, so we went to the funeral, figuring that it would give us a while to mull everything over.

After the funeral and a trip home to change clothes, we decided to go to get the bundle, but to first sign up for the credit card online.

I got on the website, filled out the application, watched for the form to print out for the cashier... it wasn't there. We decided that the customer service person will know what to do.

So we drove to the store with the camera bundle and found that ... it (they? who knows if there was one or two??) was GONE.

We went back to the other store to get the display model. I explained what had happened to the customer service woman and she called the credit card customer service. The woman on the phone apologized and told me that I would have to wait for 7-10 days. Seriously? By this time I was nearly in tears. I had Steve sign up for the card. They punched in his info... the system was still down. The customer service lady apologized profusely and said that they would call the credit cared customer service and see what they could do.

The credit card customer service lady filled out the form on the phone, Steve got approved for the credit card, and we bought the camera. FINALLY! AND the customer service lady took pity on us for trying to buy the camera and gave us $10 off. Finally it was over!

Then I went home and kept the camera in the box, thinking of returning it because of the money. I finally decided to keep it since I'd never find such a great camera for such a great price.

Then, I was talking to Maren yesterday, telling her that my confidence was low with this new camera and that since I know my old camera inside out, upside down, and backward that I've just been using it. She commanded me in her best older sister/mother (/super-great-friend :) voice to "Get out that camera and start taking pictures!" So, today I did. (Thanks for the stern talking to, Maren. I needed it! :)

Okay, such a long introduction for these picures:












And this was Aiden pre-chocolate-chip-cookie:



And post-chocolate chip cookie:



The first pictures are good, IMO, but those last two have KNOCKED MY SOCKS OFF! Look at Aiden's blue, blue eyes! My old camera did *not* do that. I have been given the confidence that I need to keep going. Thanks Maren! :)

I had one of my pictures printed out as a wrapped 8" x 8" canvas and it turned out beautifully, so I am thinking of selling 8" x 8" wrapped canvas pictures of my photography over at etsy. What do you think??

Now, the pictures above are small because of bloggers 400 pixel max, so I am going to upload them to a website so that you can see them better, okay? So, click on over if you'd like. :)

I hope that you have a great rest-of-your-weekend!