Every Day is a Gift!
The first camellia of the season bloomed a few days after Christmas. There are several camellia bushes in my garden that are covered with buds that will soon be opening.
Many thanks to Terri for this week’s Flower Hour challenge The Flower Hour: Yellow Trumpet Flower
Terri posts a new Flower Hour Weekly challenge every Tuesday. You can find out more about this challenge here.
Every Day is a Gift
Happy New Year!
Once again the Lens-Artists team is starting the new year by asking our followers to share their favorite images of 2025. Your images can be from a previous post or ones you’ve never shared before but they must have been taken in 2025. There is no single host for this challenge. The entire team is sharing the challenge.
In 2025 we went on a Mississippi River cruise, took a few short road trips, and had fun in New Mexico at my nephew’s wedding. When we weren’t wandering we enjoyed being at home in Coastal Georgia. Here are a few of my favorite images from the year.
The year began with a rare coastal Georgia snow storm. The featured image of a cardinal in the snow is one my favorites from the year. Later in the month we made a short trip to Jekyll Island.
We flew to New Orleans to begin a Mississippi River cruise.
We celebrated my birthday with a boat trip to Daufuskie Island, South Carolina.
We celebrated our 55th anniversary in Darien, Georgia.
We had a fun trip to New Mexico for my nephew’s wedding and enjoyed seeing the beautiful Sandia Mountains.
The November morning skies were amazing.
The holiday decorations always add to the fun of the season.
I hope you will join us in the challenge by sharing your favorite photos of 2025. I’m looking forward to seeing your responses. Be sure to use the Lens-Artists tag in your post and include a link to this post or any member of the Lens-Artists team.
Be sure to check back on Saturday, January 10 at noon eastern time when Anne will be hosting our next challenge.
You can learn more about how to join the Lens-Artists challenges here.
Every Day is a Gift
All of the members of the Lens-Artists team have joined together to host this final.challenge of the year. The challenge is to feature any of our favorite images that never made it into of the Lens-Artists challenge. The images can be of any subject but they must have been created in 2025. Here are a few of my favorites from this year.
One of my favorite images of the year never fit into any of the Lens-Artists challenges. In early May I discovered a female Diamond Back Terrapin laying her eggs in my garden. I kept a close watch on the nest but sadly none of the eggs ever hatched.
I rushed out to the beach when I heard there was a marker buoy weighing around 13,900 pounds that had washed up on the beach at Tybee Island, Georgia. When I got there I found a mermaid, too!
Thanks for sharing lots of Holiday Fun last week for Ann-Christine’s challenge. I enjoyed all of the festive holiday images.
We hope you will join us in posting images from this year that never made it to a Lens-Artists challenge. Please remember to use the Lens-Artists tag and to include a link to this post or any of the Lens-Artists team member’s post.
Many thanks to everyone who participated in our Lens-Artists challenge this year. The Lens-Artists team will be taking a break until the end of the year so we can enjoy celebrating the holidays. We will return on January 3 with our annual end of the year Favorite Photos of 2025 challenge.
Wishing you a joyous holiday season and a very happy new year!
Every Day is a Gift
This week Ann-Christine is asking us to share some Holiday memories. We can choose any happy memories from any holidays we have enjoyed. The Christmas season is here and I will be sharing some of my fondest Christmas memories with you.
My favorite Christmas memories go way back to when our children and then our grandchildren were young. Those were magical times when they would get more and more excited the closer we got to Christmas. In the following gallery our grandson was 4 when we had a magical day with him at Busch Gardens in Tampa right before Christmas. I love this photo of him looking up at the giant Christmas tree. Later in December of the same year his family came to our house for Christmas. He and his little sister loved looking out our living room windows at Christmas Train lights and seeing our living room transformed into a snowy Christmas village.
Most of the ornaments on our tree have special meaning. My favorite ones are the ones our children and grandchildren made. Below on the left is a reindeer made by one of our grandchildren. On the right the two paper star Santas were made by our children almost 50 years ago.
We have lived on the Georgia coast for many years. Many of the Christmas light displays have a beach theme with lighted palm trees and even mermaids.
One summer we were in North Pole, Alaska on the Fourth of July. We visited the Santa Claus house and although we didn’t celebrate Christmas with Santa we had fun watching the North Pole Independence Day Parade which of course featured Santa Claus!
It was my pleasure to be your host for last week’s challenge of Wings. I enjoyed every one of your creative posts. Thank you everyone who responded with natural wings of birds and insects from around the world. There were even a few airplanes, angel wings, dragons, and gargoyles.
Many thanks to Ann-Christine for her challenge Holiday Fun. I hope you will join us for this fun challenge.
Be sure to check back on Saturday, December 13 at noon eastern time for our last challenge of the year.
For information on how to join the Len-Artists challenge please click here.
Every Day is a Gift
This week it’s my pleasure to host the Lens-Artists Challenge. I am challenging you to feature anything with wings. To give you a few ideas I am featuring some of my favorite things with wings.
My final examples are of military aircraft. My father was a pilot in the Army Air Corps in World War II and later flew several other types of planes including the B52. The first three planes in this gallery were taken at recent air shows I attended. The images of the B24 and B52 are from my father’s photos.
When you think of wings do you think of birds, insects, angels and airplanes? Maybe you think of art work featuring fantasy beings like dragons and fairies. Whatever you think of I hope you will join in for this week’s challenge. I can’t wait to see what you come up with. Be sure to tag your post with Lens-Artists and include a link back to this post.
Last week you showed us some creative mysterious images in your responses to Patti’s challenge Mysterious.
Be sure to check back on Saturday, December 6 at noon eastern time when Ann-Christine will be hosting the challenge.
For information on how to join the Len-Artists challenge please click here.
Every Day is a Gift
Wandering Dawgs 