Danica's Sleepover

Now that I have written of Jonathan's sleepover, it is Danica's turn, and it goes differently.

As I have written previously, Danica is not a gamer (and she's not a tv person either) although she willingly joins in when both she and JJ are here.

So ... what to do with the girl?

Well, one of my Christmas gifts was a renewal of my Ancestry subscription, but when I had first logged in, I had noticed that Danica's information was a little screwgie (as my Dad might have said). Her father wasn't listed on the chart at all, and her mother was listed as her father. I couldn't fix it in the short time that I had before her visit, so I gave her control of the computer and let her go to it. 

Genealogy interests Danica more than anyone else in the family and always has.

I was able to get up while she fiddled with this and that, including updating genealogical data on her own site, and I wandered downstairs for a few moments. I told Sue that Danica was so much quicker than I. She quickly grasped what needed to be done and did it in lickety-split time. Her mind is sharper than mine for sure . . . but I can still help her with her math on occasion.  :)

(Speaking of kids being sharper than adults, I am reminded of the time when I was waiting for my fiddle lesson as a beginner around the age of 60 and could hear a young girl's earlier lesson through the door. She sounded good, so when I got it, I observed to the teacher that the kid sounded better than I. She just shrugged and said, "But she's a kid," as it it was the most natural thing in the world.)

Danica had received clip-on lenses for her phone, so we played around with those. The fisheye was fun.

And the macro lens got her really close. This bird was just a small part of a Christmas card, and I didn't have to crop it.

But as much as she likes her phone camera, she also likes to use her (my old) DSLR, so when we went for a late afternoon stroll, that's what she brought. This was the walk where we shot the Cold Moon that I previously posted.

The water by the footbridge was frozen, so she descended with the camera.

After supper, we went out, along with Sue, to photograph lights downtown and elsewhere. Here we are on main street discussing camera settings.

We went to the river to photograph lights and reflections across the way. In the photo, she had walked down the ramp, almost to the water's edge.

While there, she posed with the estimable, Roy Brown.

Both Sue and I experienced some emotions when it was time to part ways with Danica on the next day. Having the kids at the end of the pandemic year was such a treat and the very best Christmas gift. They were so caring to isolate for us and make the visits possible, but now we are back to pandemic rules with more distanced visits when they can be arranged at all.