Festival of lights

I am not happy with my pictures tonight.  I really need to work on my night shots.  It was dark, so it was hard to look at my settings, and then when I had it on auto to see what the settings should be, I noticed my lens had some serious spots.

Our growing little city put on a festival of lights.  The first event was a fun lantern lighting.  We met up with Amber and Ashley and had the kids all bundled up.

 We checked out the mules before the lanterns were lit.

 Soph and the pre-lit lantern.

 Up, up and away they went.  It was so pretty.  I really didn't do a great job of capturing them, but it was really fun.

 Once it was lit, you had to hold on to it until the lantern filled up and would float by itself. 

 Sophia and Soph

 I started to play a little bit with the lens and the settings.  Now we have UFO's!

 Next, we went inside Lee & Dad's, a local grocery store for cookie decorating.  There was a man selling his nut wares!

 Wow, this pink coat gets dirty. Our last event of the night was Santa pictures in a local studio and I hope the dirty coat doesn't show up.

 The kids rolled down the frost bitten hill while we waited for a wagon ride.