I keep talking about this cheer leading gig I’ve got and all this time that I’ve spent lugging kids back and forth to practices (both cheer leading and football) and I’ve yet to share any pictures.

There’s a really good reason for that.

I promise.

My camera has seen better days.

On our Williamsburg trip, we lost the zoom button on the camera. It’s somewhere back in history… and so I’ve had to deal.

Dealing means that I have to have a pencil or pen handy… or a twig or toothpick so that I can stick it in the little hole to zoom in and our. It works. People laugh. I don’t really care. The alternative is buying a new camera, and as previously stated, it’s been dry here in SW Virginia and that money tree in the back yard just isn’t producing much.

So I deal. And when I have my camera, I have something on hand to assist me in zooming in and out so I can capture those all important moments.

I managed to capture a few shots of my new office furniture with the camera. I had very little battery power and no new batteries on hand, so I would take a picture, turn the camera off, turn it back on and take another picture. Without the flash, I can typically get at least 5 more pictures in this way.

You can stop laughing at any given moment…

So, no new batteries. And I kept forgetting to pick them up when I was out. I thought I had found a fresh pair when I raided the kids’ rooms and found toys that they haven’t played with in eons, but apparently, batteries, even if unused in a toy, go dead too. So when I fired up the camera at Cheerlympics, it wouldn’t work. And I have no proof that I aided these girls into performing the best that I’ve seen them all year long… or share with you their pom pom routine… in which we didn’t use pom poms. (Hey, I’m not the one that make up the names for this stuff.)

I also have no pictures of Rec night at the high school football game. The one where my children spray painted their old shoes gold and I painted Samara’s face with the school spirit.

Actually, I should’ve had pictures of that because two days prior, I bought rechargeable batteries and a charger. But when I put them in the camera, it wouldn’t fire up. I just assumed that the camera left us for camera heaven. And I wasn’t surprised. It’s on it’s last leg. It’s been with us for four years and it’s been beaten, dropped, and well used in that time. I shoved it in the yunk basket on the end table in the living room and headed to the football game and decided I would figure out what to do later…

later meaning when I had time to breathe and time to deal with the little things in life… like my maimed and now dead camera.

I don’t know what made me try again Tuesday night. I really don’t. We were running late to the game and I really didn’t have time to play with it. But I picked it up and put the batteries in it and nothing. And then I noticed. The battery door wasn’t staying shut. The connection wasn’t being made.

DUH!!!!!

So, we scrambled to find the packing tape, I taped her little bottom and off we went…

My problem? I forgot to bring the zooming aide. Because when I’m coaching, I have my cell phone in my back pocket, my keys in my front pocket and that’s it. I can’t handle anything else when trying to corral and make 11 eight-year-olds pay attention.

Imagine that!

So for awhile I just would get up close to take the pictures and at one point in time, I looked down and there was a twig. Funny… there are no trees around here, but I didn’t complain. I grabbed it and attempted to zoom. It was too fat to fit in the hole.

Figures.

I then asked a parent to borrow a pen. How sad is that? I had to ask a parent… for a pen… so that I could zoom.

But I did it… and I have not only pictures, but videos too!!!!!!!!

Wow… all that to share some not great pictures….

But here are the videos…

Sam is in the back row on the left… and in the football one… I can only tell you that Matthew is in the mass of boys… he’s wearing blue and gold and he’s number 55… more power to you if you can find him… (I feel like I’m playing where’s waldo everytime I watch him play!)

In case you’re wondering what she keeps looking over at, it would be Ryan… she likes him. I think he thinks she’s annoying.

Until next time…

Heather

Filed under According to Samara, Manly Man Matthew, Pics |