Monday, May 31, 2010

Memorial Day Weekend Recap

This weekend was FAR too busy.  We usually head out camping this weekend, as has been tradition in the past.  However, this year, the weather wasn't ideal and I had two weddings to shoot.  So camping was put on the back-burner until later this summer, until the photography biz slows down a bit.  All of my weekends are booked, so I have reserved a couple for just family stuff, so we can enjoy some smaller trips while we wait for the big trip to Tahoe this September.  (yay!!!)

Saturday, I had a wedding up in McCall.  It was ridiculously gorgeous up there - so lush and green.  I made several stops on the way to take some scenic pictures, which will be edited later this week.  The couple was super fun and their families were so good to me.  It was a fun time.  While I was there, Eric managed to find a screamer of a good deal on a king size bed.  So this is what I came home to:


And let me tell you - this bed is A-MA-ZING.  So, I am in the process of selling my log bed - or I might just donate it to the cabin.  We'll see what happens.

Sunday, I had another wedding to shoot.  This one was much different than the previous day - this couple was quite reserved and I really had to work to get some creativity out of them.  Not everyone is a camera ham!

Today, we went with Eric's mom and step-dad to go fishing.  The weather was a little iffy, but it ended up being a great day.  We went to CJ Strike and the fish were certainly biting!!  I don't even know how many we caught total....maybe 40? 50?  Plenty, that's for sure.  Here are some pics from today:



Gone Fishin'

Be back later!



(I understand the video below doesn't play - I will fix it later today)

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Tell My Ovaries to Stop SCREAMING at me!

FIRST:  Go to the bottom of my page and turn off the music....then watch this video.


Tell me this isn't the cutest thing ever!  This is from when Carter was much younger.....and that little butt dance?  Oh my, I NEED another one!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

Aren't long weekends the best?! 

Ours is very busy already. I shot a wedding in McCall yesterday - mountain weddings are my favorite.  Nothing beats sitting at the base of the mountains with a gorgeous lake as your backdrop.  And the drive up and back was amazing as well.  I stopped several times to get some great scenic shots, which will be posted later.  I have another wedding to shoot today, and then I'm free to enjoy the rest of my weekend.  We have many things planned and I plan to take George along.

I hope you all have a great weekend!!! Hopefully this is the kick-off to summer weather!  (fingers crossed)




Quote of the Day:  The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves.
~William Penn~

Thursday, May 27, 2010

One Decade

I was sitting at my computer desk this morning, going through my normal routine, when I glanced at my high school diploma and noticed the date: May 27, 2000. I graduated high school ten years ago, this very date. And so I got to thinking about how life can change in 10 years, all the things that can happen to a person to mold them and shape them into the person they are today. And let me tell you, I was molded and shaped, and torn down, and reshaped, and reshaped again.

Ten years ago, I moved out of my parents’ house, young and naïve – well beyond the definition of the word naïve. I gave up my prospective college softball career for a boy, blinded by love, thinking I could mold HIM and change HIM into the person I thought he could be. That was the first wrong step in a path of countless wrong steps centered around that boy.

It was a relationship I had no business being in – at that age, or any age. It was argumentative from day one, and the warnings rolled in from every single person who knew me. “Love” should not be this hard, they would say. Love does not trap you into four years of explosive fights, or mental, emotional, and physical abuse. But I endured; I thought I could change this boy. I dealt with the bruises, though everyone at my work saw them and expressed their concern. I dealt with the emotional beat-downs, vowing to stay strong and battle through. I lost friends, who just couldn’t watch it anymore. I saw the frustration in my parents’ faces. But I endured. I was determined to make this boy a good person.

In the end, I lost not only the battle, but the war. The war with him, the war with myself, the war I never should have waged in the first place. I lost myself. In the final days and nights of that relationship, after watching the police drag that boy off to jail, I hit bottom. I moved back to my parents’ house. I spent days in bed, in a haze, trying to comprehend how I let one single person take me from the confident, outspoken, funny, sassy girl I had been, and break me down, day by day for four years of my life, to nothing. There was nothing left of me.

I was offended by those who suggested I go to counseling. Even at the lowest point, I was still too stubborn to accept help. I wanted to build myself back up, piece by broken piece. And I can’t explain how long that took, or when I stopped flinching away from people when they would make a sudden movement. But life moved on around me, and eventually, I joined in. The guy never went to jail for what he did – he somehow managed to squirrel his way out of every last charge. And I’m sure he’s quite proud of that.

And I moved on. I got involved with another guy, who was a friend of mine from high school – we got engaged and it didn’t work out. We managed to have a somewhat amicable break-up after a couple of years together, and I can say I learned a lot from that relationship, too. It gave me the time and space I needed to truly move on from the previous guy, yet have someone to talk to and spend time with. It was, in my opinion, a great relationship to let me heal from the past, and decide what was right for me in the future. And that future was Eric…..and we all know how that story goes!

I eventually did go to counseling – for myself, for my relationship with Eric, and for Carter. I not only wanted to be a better person, I NEEDED to be a better person. And to do that, I needed to face my past. I needed to talk about it, to live it again (as extremely difficult and emotional as that was), and to find it within myself to forgive and move on. I often questioned my decision to endure that relationship. I don’t look at it and think “it happened to me, why did it happen to me?” It didn’t HAPPEN to me. No one was testing me. I made the choices, I lived through it, and I learned from it. And I’m glad that I endured the counseling as well because even though that, too, was hard, it reshaped me to the confident, outspoken, funny, sassy woman I am now. The one common denominator I find in the past 10 years is one word: endure. We live. We learn. We endure.

It’s amazing to me what can happen in a 10-year span of life. Knowing that the worst is behind me, I can’t wait to see what the next 10 years have in store.

Book Review: Fever Dream


I was thrilled to grab this book the week it came out.  This series, which includes one of my favorite characters, Special Agent Pendergast, is one of the best series I have read.  I continue to enjoy every single book, though some are far better than others, and this book was no different.  They are all gripping thrillers, usually all crime based, and the authors do an amazing job with their attention to detail and their character development.  I find myself more and more intrigued by each character with each new book.  I highly recommend this series!!

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Weekend Recap

A different style this time.....no pics, sorry!  It's been a very trying and exhausting weekend.  However, here are some highlights:

1.  We are 100% potty trained
2.  Rainy days = movies, naps and lots of painting/coloring/reading
3.  Photoshoot of fine art - pics to come soon
4.  Softball tourney (mostly today due to crappy weather yesterday - summer? Please arrive.)
5.  Back to single parenting
6.  We took a moment to wish Eric's daughter Happy Birthday - she would have been 8 this year
7.  Quote of the day:  "A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him/her."

Movie Review: It's Complicated


I was very excited to see this movie - from the very first previews I saw, it looked hilarious.  And while I didn't pee myself laughing, it was still pretty funny and had a great story.  This is definitely a movie I recommend for a good laugh and a genuine story.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Family Adventures

When the weather is nice, we like to take Carter out after dinner to explore new places.  We especially love places that are harder to get to (that way we don't have to deal with a ton of people) and beautiful to look at, all at the same time.  We discovered this place Monday night.  Carter could literally stand at the river and throw rocks all day.  (Which is a good quality to have in my family.....spend one trip with us at the cabin and you will understand.)


So we hiked around until the storm moved in. 
It was a fantastic evening and I can't wait to spend many more spring/summer nights exploring new places!

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Jackpot Recap.....continued

So we rolled into Jackpot mid-afternoon on Saturday. There were two main purposes to this trip: to spread my Aunt Taunya's father's ashes on the golf course, and to gamble. Naturally! So we met the guys at the golf course and watched a few holes.



Then we let my Aunt Taunya and her brother do their thing with the ashes. It was really sweet, even though we were technically kicked off the course by the Marshall.





And we took a moment to pour some bubbly and have a toast to Steve......he will continue to be greatly missed.



Then the night began. First we went out for a big mexican dinner. Which included big margaritas!

And late night dessert.



And late night photoshoots, lol! (there may have been alcohol involved)


And granted, we didn't win much at all, but we sure had a great time. And truly, that's what counts!!

We stopped at Shoshone Falls on the way back......the water was fairly high, though we've definitely seen it much higher.



Hope you all had a great weekend, too!!

Quote of the Day:  "Laughter is an instant vacation." - Milton Berle -

Monday, May 17, 2010

Recap, please!

Carter and I had a fun week by ourselves this week.  Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely grateful that Eric has a good paying job, and it does suck that it currently has him out of town, but Carter and I sure know how to have fun!  This is how I found Carter one morning when I went in to get him ready.....reading.  I love my smart little boy!!

And he managed to get a pretty big scrape on his arm when we were playing out front....his little legs were just taking him too fast!  However, bandaids are "cool" and he was more than happy to let me later his arm up with Neo and sport some bandaids.

He's also huge on cooking lately - as you can tell from ALL of the dishes he dragged out just to make some dirty rice.  I will ask him for the ingredients, and he will go running to the fridge or cabinets to gather them up.  So fun to have a little helper in the kitchen!!

Showing off the boo-boo.
Of course we had to have a little mommy and me photoshoot! 
One evening after work, we ventured over to feed the ducks and geese.  There were TONS of baby geese, so the mamas were hissing and charging Carter.  So we spent most of our time shooing them away.  But he did empty his bread bag, so I'm sure most of the non-rude geese/ducks were happy campers.
Here he is, trying to peek through this door.  What a character.


Friday night, I dropped Carter off at his Grammy's house.  Eric and I were taking a much-needed roadtrip.  Some of my family also made the trip and we had a fantastic time.  And no roadtrip is complete without:
a smoothie!!!

This semi cracked me up - had to have Eric snap a pic and we zoomed by.


We stopped in Twin Falls on the way down.  Eric and I are both adrenaline junkies - I want to bungee jump off of this bridge (though I think it's been outlawed), and Eric wants to go base jumping in the canyon.  Someday, we'll get there.
The Snake River Canyon is just beautiful.  And it was such a nice day outside - we hiked around a little bit before hitting the road again.
Where exactly was our destination, you ask?  Here:
Jackpot!!!! And tomorrow's post will recap the rest of the trip.  :)

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Until We Return.......

The hubby and I are road-trippin' it today. Off to a destination with some members of my family.  George is coming along (naturally) to document our adventure.  I will check in soon.  Until then, I will leave you with the latest picture of my genetic masterpiece.
Hasta luego!


Thursday, May 13, 2010

{Wedding} Kindra & Josh

This super cute couple got married at The Bishop's House, where Eric and I got married. It was so fun being back at that house, reliving all of the memories of our big day. I took so many pictures, but here is a small sample of my work. Enjoy!