In each photo the noise to me is of no consequence, but in the first shot the bright hair and light competes to much with the youngsters eyes andlessons the impact. Second shot for me is perfect as my eyes are drawn only to the youngsters eyes and it is a very compelling photo. Technically you nailed them both.
I used a card reader on my ipad and due to limited memory (16 gig, I think) I had to use 4 & 8 gig sd cards to download at anything other than a snails pace. Ck before you go. Also I got no raw files this way so endd up keeping all my images on the sd cards until I got back home. Have a great trip!
Nice work Bob, caption is perfect as well. I like how you broke a bunch of rules and it works just fine, it takes some experience and know how to get there.