A retail-free Black Friday

While other moms were duking it out over the latest PlaystationXBoxWIIGadgetoftheYear, I avoided anything resembling a retail establishment, since I'm really bad at hand-to-hand combat. Instead, I donated platelets at the Red Cross this morning, then took the family to a couple county parks in Washington for the afternoon. It was f-f-f-freezing (literally--there was frost on the ground and ice in the puddles). But it was still nice to climb around outside after spending all day yesterday in the kitchen.

Besides clambering around on rocks, I used the time to experiment with taking long-exposure pictures of flowing water. I wanted to try out the great instructions I found on Flickr. The lighting really wasn't right, my camera doesn't have quite the right settings, and I don't have a tripod, so my results were less than perfect. But it was fun to mess around, and some of the pictures turned out OK. These were all taken at Moulton Falls County Park just outside Yacolt, WA.











And one of the boys:


While on the subject of Black Friday, I've been thinking I'd like to start a new tradition. We're supposed to spend Thanksgiving thinking about everything we have to be thankful for. So, instead of full-contact shopping on Friday, how about dedicating that day to giving something back? The natural response to gratitude should be generosity, right? Wouldn't it be great if, instead of news stories about fistfights and tramplings at the local Wal-Mart, we had stories about people helping their neighbors, making a meal for a sick friend, or donating time to a worthy cause? Yeah, I know--dream on. But if you think it's a good idea, let me know. Maybe we can think up some great stuff to do on Black Friday 2008.