It's Christmas Time!

A few weeks ago my sister in law posted a blog entry about a promotion going on through the company Shutterfly, where anyone with a blog can receive 50 free Christmas cards just for blogging about these great cards! That’s pretty easy for me. I’ve used Shutterfly before, and they were great to work with, so seeing as last year's card was a total flop (I designed one, even took a picture for it, but that's about as far as it got) I decided that this would help motivate me to get some holiday cards out to our friends and family. I should be working on my big research paper that is due next week (at least I have an outline I guess), but I can't stop looking at how cute the Shutterfly Christmas cards are! If anyone is interested you should definitely check their website out: http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-cards

Hope you all have a great Christmas season! Yay for the holidays!

Here's a Funny Story

So sometimes I like to drive down to Orem for work/school instead of taking the bus. I think the parking passes are ridiculously overpriced, so whenever I do drive to the school I generally always park in the paid visitor's lot located conveniently outside my office. Well today I forgot to ask my boss for a validation, and was therefore in a bit of a predicament when it came time to leave and realized I would actually have to pay to get out. I could either 1) Pay a whole $20 (plus another $2.50 for the atm fee to even get the cash) and leave at 5 pm when I finished my class, or 2) wait it out until the parking attendant goes home at 10:30 pm and try to get out of the lot when the bar is up. So what did I decide to do? Yep...wait. I was actually able to get a lot of homework done that I probably would have put off all weekend, so I guess it could be looked at as a good thing. I've been periodically taking sneaky looks out the doors to see if the gate has been up and it finally is, but I'm still nervous that the booth attendant is still in there and will try to make me pay if I leave, so I came back to my office and decided to kill a few minutes by writing this blog post. Wish me luck, and let's hope the last 5 hours have not been wasted in vain. I did listen to the Dave Ramsey show online and watched Serendipity, so it's been quite an enjoyable and educational evening. 

A Little of What I've Been Working On

Well, seeing as this is my last semester of school (yay!) I have been busy working an various projects for my classes. Here are a couple images from those projects. The first is for my senior project- I'm printing images from the film I shot in Europe- so far it's all been done in the darkroom- no computer, no photoshop. It's been an adjustment after working with photoshop so much to have to go back to the darkroom, but it has been great. Once I get the other images I've done scanned, I'll post them too. The second image is done with a process called cyanotype. I've been learning a lot about the old photo processes (before photoshop and photo paper you can go buy at the store :-)) I've loved this class this semester, and will also put the other images I've been working on up once I get them scanned.

The Henrie Family

Here are a few other pictures from a few weeks ago. I'm so proud that I'm catching up and finally posting all of these!

Some Family Portraits

Over the summer I had the opportunity to work with these great families and take their pictures for them. It was a lot of fun, and gave me a good opportunity to work more with large groups. Thanks everyone!

 

Spencer & Dani- Wedding Day

Little Preview

Here is a picture from Dani and Spencer's wedding. These two are the cutest couple ever, and I loved working with them. I'll put more up when I can get them to upload without errors... ha ha

Updates from the Little Guy

So I decided it was time to finally download the pictures from my small camera because it hasn't been done in forever, and thought I'd give a little post about what I found on there. Disclaimer: if you don't believe in eating chicken, don't read any further...

This is our cat Potato. We got him because we were having a little mouse problem in the house. This is the first mouse he's caught in about nine months. Todd was so proud. 

 

This was our garden when we planted it. We managed to kill everything but the mutant tomatoes

 Todd and my cousin Austin having a very fresh chicken dinner for my cousin Alex who was leaving on his mission. 

 Enjoying the chicken dinner

 

Next February a big group of our friends will be going on a cruise. My bestie, Ape, and I thought it would be a good idea to decorate our planning party to get everyone excited. I think we were the only ones that got excited about the decorations. Ha ha

Healthy homemade pancakes for Sunday breakfast, nothing better.  

It seems like every time we go to a movie we get a picture in front of this movie poster, or something similar. I still haven't seen this movie.

The 4th of July parade in West Jordan. 

Todd drinking a whole bottle of Pepsi from this giant bowl. 

This is how Potato sleeps every night- right on top of my head

Todd's first day of school picture!

Todd, Kelli, and I thought it would be fun to drive to Wellesville and go to the 'Highland Games' Scottish Festival being held there. It was rainy, and about 20 people came, but it was so much fun, and the kettle corn was delicious! Plus it was so much fun to get to hang out with Kelli!

We got to sit behind this cute man at the festival

Notice Todd's bag of popcorn is almost gone. So good. 

And last but not least! We got to go to the Utah game last night (my first one of the season) with Kelli and Kaylee. It was so much fun to hang out with them and watch the game.

The convict story...revisited

Once upon a time my mom used to live in the very same house I do now. She grew up in this house and has shared a lot of stories from her childhood about it. Most of them are pretty spooky, which is why when we were in high school we'd love to bring our friends around and have her scare them by going on 'the tour'. Very dramatic, I know. Well, one such story is about the time an escaped convict hid on the property after running away from the prison (we had quite a bit of land with A LOT of prime hiding places: chinchilla buildings, barns, stables, groves of trees, you name it). Well on this occasion my mom had to leave the house for the evening, and as a precaution my grandpa told her that when she came back to wait in the car and honk the horn until he came out to walk her into the house. Well she said that she and her ride sat and honked for a while until they both got the most creepy feeling that they were being watched... It is at this point in the story that my mom leads a group of scared high school students to the log pile next to the driveway and scares us all half to death by making us believe someone is hiding back there ready to get us. Why do I share this story? Well I just received a call from my aunt who is also my next door neighbor informing me that there has been a man breaking into cars in the neighborhood adjacent to our property, and that he has just made a run for it through our fields! And yep, I'm at the house all by myself looking out all the windows for the reincarnated convict of my mom's past. In 5 minutes I have to make a break for my car so I can get to work on time- most definitely with my phone dialed for 911. Gotta love living on a creepy old farm, right?

I love you Italy

The film. I love it so much. Why do I ever shoot digital?

Great Still Photography Video

Here is a video that is made up completely of still image photography. I love this one so much, I listen to it non stop whenever my pandora hours run out. Sad that I'm on a computer that much...

Summer!

Here is a quick pic I snapped during a family portrait session I was doing a few weeks ago. I just love the way light looks during summer!

Pesto Recipe

Hey Friends,
Here is the recipe for the Pesto I made and talked about in this post. Enjoy!

Pesto Ingredients

• 1 T. pine nuts
• ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1-2 cups firmly packed fresh basil leaves washed and dried
• 2 T. Romano cheese
• 2 T olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced

Sauce Ingredients

• ¾ cup heavy whipping cream
• ¼ cup water
• 2 tbs. butter
• ¼ cup prepared pesto sauce
• ¼ tsp. salt
• ½ cup Parmesan cheese shredded

Process

Blend basil, pine nuts, and garlic, while blending add in cheeses and continue blending until it turns slightly gritty in texture. Set Aside.

Take a heavy saucepan, pour water in it and add whipping cream. Heat it heavy over medium heat, only till it turns hot, do not boil. Add pesto sauce, butter, and salt. Now reduce the heat and continuing cooking for another 5 minutes. After the sauce is made, sprinkle in some Parmesan cheese, and stir until it melts. Serve it immediately or refrigerate for storage. Before serving, bring it to room temperature. Do not serve cold. Enjoy!

Spencer & Dani

These two were so fun to shoot with! They also have a big Utah/BYU rivalry going, so I post some more pics of that too. Thanks guys for letting me do these for you!