Part 2:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=81590&id=502659080&l=1bb8730b6c

Part 3:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=81660&id=502659080&l=7e1a1668d0

Back at the end of June, my sisters Cheryl and Karen flew out to BC to visit Shannon and I. After touring around Vancouver a bit, we drove to Kelowna, then on to Banff National Park where we met up with Chad and Mel. After transferring Cheryl and Karen to them, Shannon and I continued our trek, camping our way through south-eastern BC and northern Washington. To check out the pictures, look at the Picasa web album here.

We finally got a Christmas tree! We were a little late getting one, and it just didn’t feel like Christmas yet. After setting it up, I thought I’d play with my new camera and see how well it did taking pictures in REALLY low light, with the main lights off and just the Christmas lights on. And, it worked really well!

When I was a kid, there was one birthday where I got a new remote control truck. That stands out as one of the times I was most excited about a present. Well, this past birthday rivals that one. Shannon secretly talked to a bunch of friends and family, and asked them to contibute towards a gift that was too expensive for us to buy on our own – a new digital SLR camera!

We first bought the Canon Rebel XT from FutureShop. After talking to a guy at an actual camera store and doing some more research, though, we decided to return that and get the Nikon D40X instead. It was newer, was 10 Megapixels instead of 8, had a better warranty, a larger LCD screen, a better quality kit lens, a smaller, harder-to-damage memory card format, and was only $50 more. That seemed like a good deal to us!

On the Saturday of my birthday weekend Shannon and I went to Cresent Beach to go for a walk, and to try out the new camera. We ended up taking over 200 pictures! Here are a few of the better ones.