I have made fire!

A couple weekends ago, it was pretty cold (for CA) here, so we actually cleaned up in front of the fireplace (a common place for large kids toys, like tents to reside) and made ourselves a fire to help stave off the chilliness in the house.

Here is the fam hanging out in front of the fireplace

And here are a couple of Kevin with the fire behind him.  Can you see a difference in my photography yet?  I took a one day class on photography where he supposedly taught us 3 "tricks" to using a DSLR.  So far I haven't found it all that helpful, and I find myself tinkering with the camera too long to catch many good shots. *shrug*  I may stick with the "auto" setting a while longer where the kids are concerned until I get the hang of this quicker.