A fake snow day just days before a possible real snow day

Winterfest 2014 gave us a chance to experience some snowfall. It was manufactured, of course. Supposedly, 50 tons of the white stuff were pumped onto the grounds of Patriots Point along Charleston Harbor in Mount Pleasant.

Julia first enjoyed tossing snowballs at Carrie and me in a freestyle play area. With temperatures above 50 degrees, though, the snow turned quickly into slush.

Julia got her fill of playtime -- here, she's pegging her mother with a snowball -- before the workers made everyone clear out so they could refill the area.

Two fake hills consisting of hydraulic lifts on the back of two large trailers gave Julia a chance to go sledding -- something she hadn't done in a few years. Of course, we waited in line much longer than the two seconds it took for her to slide from the top to the bottom.

Ironically, after we attended this event Saturday, we got a clearer picture of the forecast for the coming week. A winter storm watch is in effect, and we could see a few inches of ice or snow here in Charleston on Wednesday morning. Winter 2007 was the last time I saw snow accumulate in a place I call home.

My new life over the past five months or so

This is the photo that ended up on our Christmas card. It's just us sitting on the living room couch.

Much has happened since I last updated this blog.

I got an illness with a 104-degree fever. I got a puppy. I got married.

On my wedding day, I got to welcome not one but two beautiful girls into my life. Julia (the smallest human in the picture above) was one of the reasons I grew to love Carrie so much.

Those two make me incredibly happy, and I'm so proud that they've allowed me into their lives.

As many of you already know, I write for a living. A small part of my job is photography.

This blog always has showcased the photos I shoot, mainly the ones I snap after looking upward at the sky. The writing has come and gone. It returns only occasionally.

Regardless, it's sometimes hard to muster the willpower to simply post pictures on this blog

But with this post, I'm playing catch-up. This is a sampling of some of the images I took over the past several months.


It's a ... puppy

Winston is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel born in late July 2013. He's an awesome little dog.

Lightning in the 'hood

We had two nights of sustained cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground lighting starting Sept. 2. It was raining for most of it as the storm paused overhead. But I snapped a few shots of lightning and the townhouses in my Mount Pleasant community.

It had been a while since I last saw such sustained lightning crawlers.

The second thunderstorm on consecutive nights came with dime-size hail. It started coming down as I finished up an evening run. That was fun!

The second night wasn't as spectacular as the first, but it was fun to watch regardless.

Other wondrous weather

Astronomically high tides on May 25 made for good conditions for a reflection under the Ravenel Bridge, and I snapped this shot.

Mammatus clouds after a storm June 26.

A strike captured by my dashboard camera July 1 on James Island.

Rain core from a severe and tornado-warned thunderstorm July 1 in West Ashley.

A cloud-to-cloud bolt atop a tornado-warned supercell thunderstorm above Berkeley County on June 3.

Rainbow that I snapped July 5 during my run over the Ravenel Bridge.

Partial rainbow over the ocean off Wild Dunes Resort on Oct. 6 during a brief honeymoon.

 
Clouds on the way to Oklahoma

I flew Aug. 12 to Oklahoma, where I stayed for a week to write about the contested adoption of Veronica Rose Capobianco (or Veronica Rose Brown, if you're a supporter of the birth dad). I saw towering thunderstorms during the flight, like the one above with an anvil cloud.

Towering clouds dropping rain.

And a partial rainbow to boot.

Celebrity sighting in Charleston

Carrie, Julia and I were walking Sept. 8 on King Street in downtown Charleston during a Second Sunday on King shopping promotion, in which the street is closed. This couple featuring actress Blake Lively and actor Ryan Reynolds walked by. I ran back and snapped a discreet photo of the duo celebrating their anniversary. They got married at Mount Pleasant's Boone Hall exactly a year before this photo's date.

The moon and Venus

My new family and I celebrated a former co-worker's birthday Sept. 7 at Bowen's Island Restaurant. We sat on the outside deck, which overlooks the marsh near Folly Beach. I snapped a quick shot of Venus and the moon.

Seeking a Christmas card

We had planned to shoot a photo for our Christmas card under the Ravenel Bridge at sunset. But some sea fog set in, shrouding the view.

Pets weren't allowed on the pier under the bridge, though, so this shot wasn't working for us anyway. But it made for an interesting sunset.

Cold ... relatively

The morning of Jan. 7 was the coldest one since I moved to South Carolina. It hit 18 degrees. Yet, it wasn't cold enough to stop me from going on a morning jog. Someone left a sprinkler on overnight, and I stopped during my run and used my iPhone to snap a shot of the resulting ice.

If tin whistles are made of tin...

We took a walk on the beach in Sullivan's Island just before a thunderstorm and a cold front were due in town Jan. 11. In the early afternoon, unusually thick sea fog was still clinging to the coastline.

It was total pea soup, but with the cold ocean and a stiff breeze, the air also was cold. So it was a short walk. But at least the puppy got his first taste of ocean water.