12 years!

Mike and I celebrated our 12th anniversary yesterday! Well, we have really been celebrating all month since we knew our anniversary fell on a Sunday this year. I'm SO grateful I found an awesome guy! Love you!

Trixie

When I was in high school my orchestra teacher would periodically put on a music appreciation video. All the guys thought the host of these videos was pretty hot stuff. So they started calling her Trixie Bubbles. When it was music appreciation day my orchestra teacher would say, "today we get to watch Trixie Bubbles". For some reason my friend here likes to call me Trixie also. I like to call her Stacy, which is NOT her name but is very close. I love to bug her. We have lots of inside jokes. She asked me if I would take their family pictures last weekend. It was fun to get together after a long time and hang out! Okay, so their little girl is the cutest thing! She is SOOO her mom! And that's a good thing! Thanks for letting me enjoy my hobby guys!

joy...and cold hands

I love these guys! This family has had so many trials to deal with in their lives and they are still just the sweetest, funnest family! And I LOVE the colors that she put together for them to wear! Totally my style. I took Aidan again as my "assistant" which can be a great thing or a nightmare. This time it was great because he kept trying to make them laugh and it made their faces so fun! But leave it to Aidan to ask them if we could come over to their house after for hot chocolate. Of course they said SURE! We had a great time talking about how great and wonderful life can be and how we need to be grateful for every day that we have! I left their house feeling so good and wanting to be better!

Baby Blue...

A good friend asked me to take her kids' pictures this week. It was an absolutely perfect day! Couldn't have asked for a more beautiful fall day! The whole time I was working on these pictures I had the song Baby Blue by George Strait running through my head. I love George Strait! The two of you reading this will see why when you look at the pictures! Look at those EYES! WOW! Enjoy! Then download Goerge Strait's Greatest Hits from itunes. It is a great album! I get teary-eyed when I listen to Love Without End Amen. Amen...

so urban...

A have a friend who is a kindred spirit (if you love Anne of Green Gables you'll understand). She asked me to take her son's senior pictures. He is such a sweet guy and is one of the most polite young men I have ever met! After we stopped to get big drinks at the gas station we headed off. Since I was with a kindred spirit I made her come with me to a place that I have passed a lot while driving. I always wanted to take pictures there but just hadn't gotten to it yet. So we stopped and did it! We had lots of fun! I'm grateful for good friends who will go on adventures with me because I don't like going on them alone!

my home...

We went to my favorite place on earth a few weeks ago- Logan, Utah. I miss it! Though I absolutely love where I live now! A friend of mine asked me if I would take some pictures of the Logan Temple for her. So my mom and I went to the temple and walked around. It was a gorgeous day! There were actually a lot of people taking pictures of the temple that day. And the east side of the temple grounds were all ripped apart because they are remodeling I think. I should have taken some pictures of that too just for fun but I didn't think of it! So here are some pics of our trip to the temple! And thanks Tami for asking me so I would get up and outside to take these! You guys have been such great friends to us!

It's a good thing he's cute

I love that we are now off track from school but that means entertaining a seven-year-old for four weeks! We went to Logan for Labor Day weekend and found some really fun places to take photos. We had to bribe the kid, especially to put on a vest, but I got some shots. He's a stinker...

Bokeh

I was excited to learn a new photography term recently! I am always excited to learn new things about photography. My amazing photo hero, Carin, gave a photography challenge for the month of August. The challenge is to capture bokeh. You can click on the link to learn what it is. The two of you who read my blog probably know that I haven't been feeling great the last couple of months and that is why I haven't blogged very much. I also haven't picked up my camera for a while since my hands have been really shaky. That has made me very sad. But last night a very close friend of mine asked me to take pictures of her gorgeous daughter because she is going to enter a beauty pageant. I took my trusty tripod to help me! And took my seven-year-old son who wanted to be my "assistant"! It was so cute! So I got to try out what I had learned! I want to thank Carin for the monthly challenges because it got me out of my house into the sunshine, doing what I love to do and learning something new about photography! Thank you!

I tried to capture the bokeh in these two pictures!




These next pictures were my favorites so I am sharing these too! Isn't she absolutely gorgeous! She better win!!

My temple

Yep, I'm still alive! Anyway, if anyone is even following my blog anymore here is a new post. Brace yourselves. My family went to the new Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House on Saturday. I, of course, had to take my camera! This new temple is especially exciting to me because we are in this temple district now. So this is our temple! I am just amazed that we are fortunate enough to have a temple even closer to my house now! It just blows my mind! I am so grateful for our temples and the blessings we can receive there.

home

This month Carin's photography challenge was to capture pictures of your home. I was excited to do this because we just moved into a new home. As the month went on I realized that my house is still a big mess and the grand pictures I was going to take weren't going to happen. So I chose to do some closeup pictures of some of my favorite things about my house. I had a lot of fun painting cabinets and fixing things up but I still have a long way to go! I still have many grand projects in my head that I am excited to do but they are going to take a little while. I am so blessed to have such a nice home and wonderful neighbors. My family is so blessed!

Kara-bo-bera

My good friend Kara and I had a lot of fun the other day! I got to take her senior pictures. Kara is one of my favorite people. She is so beautiful too. I can't believe she is going to college next year. Too bad she is going to BYU...ahem...Thanks for the fun afternoon! Hope you like how they turned out!

My mother's day "flowers"

My hubby spoils me so much! So I thought I would share with you my early Mother's Day gift. It's an ipod touch. I love it! I love a hubby who loves technology (now I have the song Kip sings in Napoleon Dynamite in my head). He's so good to me! Thanks Mikey!

Last attempt

My friend Tara and I found a fun photography idea while shopping the other day and I thought I would try it. This person used architecture and did some fun things with letters of the alphabet. So I thought I would try it out using the first letter of my last name. The picture is from the Capitol Theater sign when we were going to see Wicked. Did I mention I got to see Wicked yet? Sorry, I'm done. I also found a cool effect that I thought I would try. It's called ttv (through the viewfinder). It means taking a picture of any subject through the viewfinder of any camera with another camera. So this picture of mine is actually a texture that I found that makes it look like I did that but I really didn't. So, since April is almost over, here is my last attempt at being creative photographing architecture. Have a great day!

That was Wicked!

Finally after a year of waiting we got to see Wicked! It was amazing! I loved every minute of it! We had a great time with good friends too! I am also sharing my sad sad attempts at Carin's photo challenge for the month of April which is architecture. Oh well, I tried. We were in a hurry to get to our seats and I didn't really have the time I wanted to get some better pictures. Ya, that's it! But hey, I got to go see Wicked! I'm happy! We had an awesome day!

He's a sentimental man...and popular

Aidan has been sick the last couple of days so we have been trying to find ways to entertain ourselves. Last night he wanted to listen to my ipod. He also said he was cold and that means he puts a hat on. He is getting pretty good at the reading thing which means he can find what he wants to on the ipod SO I find him in his bedroom rockin' out to...get ready for it...the Wicked Musical soundtrack. He LOVES that soundtrack. I can't blame him either. It is awesome. This is where I get to get excited because Mike and I are going to see Wicked next Saturday! I am SOOOO excited! We have had the tickets for about a year! More to come on that evening. Aidan has been begging us to let him come with us. We told him maybe another time because you are still too young. Actually, when I took him to the pediatrician yesterday his doctor told me that he had just gone to see it. We spent a few minutes being excited about it. Aidan just wants to get in on all the action, as always.

Happy Birthday Mikey!

Today is Mike's birthday. And this weekend he went to ref lacrosse in Montana with his dad. I just wanted to wish him a happy birthday and tell him I love him and thank him for everything he does for me! You are awesome! Here is a picture I found of him and his dad reffing a game at Utah State. They sure love the game. It is really fun watching them ref also, especially together because they are so funny to watch and I think they do a great job. Happy Birthday Mikey! I sure love you!

Catching up

Hello my blog, how I have missed you! All two of you I'm sure know that we just bought a new house! We are SO excited and LOVE it!!!!!! So, because of that, and the fact that it took us a while to get everything set up with our internet at the new house, I haven't been on the computer for a while! We spent the whole time Aidan was off track painting, cleaning and moving but we still tried to get in some fun activities too! Some friends and I took the kids to Wheeler Farm while it was about 60 degrees outside. We had tons of fun! So, Aidan is back in school after being off track (hallelujah shout right here) and I thought I would post some pictures. Pictures of the house will be coming soon whether you want them or not. Have a great stupid snowy day.

Off track: week one

Aidan is off track from school for three weeks. This is both a relief and a nightmare at the same time. We have lots and lots of fun but Aidan gets bored really really fast! So, week one off track we have now been to Jumping Jacks, the Draper Temple open house, and the Sportsman's Expo. Here are some pics from the expo:

Face Painting



Archery







CUTE black bears! I want one!







Fishing



FLY fishing



Four Wheeling



Needless to say we all went home exhausted! But we had a lot of fun!

We also went to the Draper Temple Open House with some friends Saturday night. We had a great time and the kids got to see a new temple. Then we went out to dinner at one of my most favorite restaurants: The Training Table. Mmmmm....



What will this week have in store?