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Hannah’s Turned FIVE! July 30, 2011

Posted by Emily in : Princess Hannah, Thoughts, Utah , 2comments

Oy.

I’m feeling 110% behind on life.  Not usually a great feeling to have, but that means I must be having too much fun to slow down, right?

I’m not sure how it happened, but that little peanut I delivered on Sint Maarten is no longer a little peanut!

Hannah turned five!  This milestone was met with a party that was entirely too much work to put together.  :)  (I’m writing this now, so next year I won’t get any big ideas!)

We Put up two big party tents, invited 10 of her friends plus their little siblings, and their parents, and my oh my . . . hosting 30+ people can be a bit overwhelming when they range from 1-40 years old.

We had an “Aerial” themed party, complete with plenty of “princess” themed extras.  Lots of cake (complimentary of the bakery, I had to out source something this year!) food, and warm water for swimming!

The weather forecast was scattered thundershowers (lovey for a swimming party) so we put up another tent and her outdoor party quickly became an indoor tent party!  Good thing too, it rained!

Happy fifth birthday to our little Hannah Bear!  (Your passport just expired and I have no excuse to get you a new one.  BUMMER.)

Lately. July 20, 2011

Posted by Emily in : Daily Life, Photography, Trips, Utah , 1 comment so far

It has been a bit busy around here . . .

We just celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary.

We had an early birthday party for Hannah.  (Which was entirely too much work to throw.)

David’s birthday was yesterday.  (The big 36!)

Next year, I say we go to Disneyland for a week to celebrate everything: our anniversary, David’s birthday, Hannah’s birthday, and Dallin’s birthday.

David just left for the High Adventure trip with the Scouts this morning.  I’m sure he’ll have a great time canyoneering in Zions.  (The other leaders refer to him as “Spiderman.”)  This means the kids and I will have to find our own “high adventure” without him over the next few days.

I’ve had some really beautiful shoots lately.  I have several sessions to post on my photo blog, so be sure to check out my photo blog if you’d like to see what I’ve been up to.  Be sure to look at the engagement shoot I did with the former Miss Utah 2010 and the current Student Body President at UVU!  A match made in heaven I tell you!

Golden Gate Park July 13, 2011

Posted by Emily in : Family, Parenthood, Trips , add a comment

When I was 16, I visited San Francisco with my best friend Tricia and her mom (and her mom’s friend).  Tricia’s mom, Leslie (who owns the Alpacas) flew us all out there for her 16th birthday.

Best birthday idea EVER!

I remember going to several tourist attractions, and one that I really wanted to see again was the Japanese Tea Gardens.

I hoped it would be all I remembered and more . . .

And it was!

The Japanese Tea Gardens are located at Golden Gate park (Which is like SF Central Park).  They were beautiful, quiet, and well manicured.

The only stressful part was keeping two excited kidlets QUIET.

How do you keep kids from running outside?  How do you keep them from using their outside voice when they are outside?

No idea?  Me neither.  We ended up walking like 29 miles over to another park the kids loved SO MUCH.  (Okay, it only felt like 29 miles because we didn’t have our rockin’ BOB stroller yet, and pushing a heavy stroller and kids up and down 45 degree hills makes every step feel like a mile!)

I have more to share from our time at Golden Gate Park!  Come back!  :)

Lombard Street and China Town July 12, 2011

Posted by Emily in : Trips , 2comments

When we were in SF, I insisted that we drive down Lombard Street (AKA the crookedest street in the world!) and visit China Town.  (I didn’t really take any pictures of China Town though.)

Here is part of our drive down Lombard Street:

David and I were super impressed, and they kids were mildly entertained.

It is so unique and beautiful!  The homes are fabulous (they’d have to be on such a famous street!) and tourists are everywhere walking up and down this crazy steep street.

What a view from the crooked road!

I love the architecture in this city.  The textures and lines go on and on and I could fill up several terabytes with pictures of this place.

Window Seat on the PCH July 11, 2011

Posted by Emily in : Friends, My Handsome Husband, Photography, Trips , 1 comment so far

On our drive from San Francisco to Southern California, we decided to take the scenic route.

Highway 1 . . . THE PACIFIC COAST HIGHWAY!

Saba friends, the view from my seat was like driving on Saba, minus the all the quick and crazy turns and and we were able to drive at freeway speeds.  :)

Beautiful views outside . . .

We had adorable views inside as well.

Look at this!  This was on the side of the FREEWAY!

It was SO BEAUTIFUL!

Is it any wonder so many millions of people live in California?  The whole state is BEAUTIFUL and it has DISNEYLAND!  Not to mention the great weather . . .  oh boy, we need to move there.

This is Morro Bay.  We stopped there to see a friend of David’s from when he lived in San Jose.  They hadn’t seen each other in . . .

Drum roll please . . .

20 years!  HOLY CRAP!  I remember when my dad used to say, “Oh, 20 years ago!” and I was like, “Man, you are as old as a fossil!”

20 years people.  20!

They had a little catching up to do.  :)  And want to know where I dropped the ball on my picture taking habit?

When these two were chatting. I didn’t take one picture of them together.

Lame wife-photographer skills there.

I did however, get a great picture of Morror Bay through their living room window.

See, I’m not 100% lame, just a little bit lame.

 

Nikon D90 For Sale! July 9, 2011

Posted by Emily in : Photography , add a comment

SOLD!  SOLD!  SOLD!

Well friends, the time has come for me to sell my Nikon D90.  I have LOVED this camera!  It has been a great camera!  I am posting it for sale here first to give my readers and friends a chance to buy before I list it on Ebay on Monday.  (My lens, flash, and other camera gear sold very quickly last week and I had some disappointed friends, so my camera will be listed here first!)

The camera is in excellent condition.  I just had the sensor cleaned, which included a general service, performed by Nikon, so the camera is in excellent condition!

For Sale: Nikon D90 (it has 37,683 actuations)  Asking $550

Included:

Also for sale: STO-FEN OMNI BOUNCE diffuser for the Nikon SB600.  NEVER USED! (I bought this one on accident!)

BRAND NEW!!!

Asking: $8.00

 

Happy Birthday D-Man! July 7, 2011

Posted by Emily in : Birthday, Little Man Dallin, Princess Hannah , add a comment

Happy birthday to our little Dallin boy!  He turned three today!

In true Dallin style, we had a low key celebration.  He values quality over quantity, so if we invited any kids to his birthday party he would definitely say, “TOO MANY KIDS!”  He is sort of a family kid.  :)

He had the time of his life at Kangaroo Zoo this morning with Hannah.  (It’s an indoor play place with lots of bounce toys and slides for little people.)

We had a Dallin size cake for his big day!  (Hey, a bigger cake would mean more for us to eat, and well, we don’t need that!)

Hannah coached him on how to blow out his candle and he was pretty impressed with his performance!

We bought Dallin a Lightning McQueen potty topper in hopes that he would think about going to the bathroom in the toilet.  He looks super happy about it here, but it was quickly tossed aside when he opened up a package of dinosaurs.  (Notice our Walmart shopping bag that doubled as wrapping paper?  Yeah.  We were super prepared this afternoon.)

He LOVES this dinosaur set I picked for $3.

He also got a bike that he refuses to push the petals on.

Kids.  Why are they so dang cute and unpredictable?

 

Golden Gate Bride and Other Radomness July 7, 2011

Posted by Emily in : Trips , 1 comment so far

Remember how we went to San Francisco several weeks ago?

Oh yeah.  That trip.  I never thought I’d get behind on editing pictures and posting on my blog but IT HAPPENED.

Gasp!

This is a random post of pics I took from our car.  (I know, such a great spot to photograph from.)

This is Dallin comfortably riding in style on our long trip.

A bridge in SF.  Can’t remember which one, but our kids thought SF was the greatest place ever with all the bridges, tunnels, and trains!

This is the Golden Gate Bridge!  You can walk across it!  We didn’t know that, but next time we’re there, we plan to do it!

SF from one of the bridges.

SF, and part of the Golden Gate Bridge.

There is so much to see and so much to do in this fabulous city and of course there wasn’t enough time.

We’re ready for another trip!

 

4th of July! July 6, 2011

Posted by Emily in : Friends, Holidays, Utah , 1 comment so far

Happy 4th of July everyone!

We celebrated all weekend!  We kicked off the 4th by getting up at dark-thirty to watch David and our friends, Emily and Bill, run in Freedom Festival Run 10k!

This is David right before the race.  Thanks to our friend Emily and her MacGyver skills, David was able to wear his time chip attached to his ankle.  (You see, 99% of runners don’t have this problem because they attach the chip to their shoes.)

I’m sure David is in this picture somewhere . . . there are only 5000 runners to sift through . . .

The kidlets waiting for their parents to cross the finish line!

Check out The Barefoot MD!  He placed 111th overall, and 10th in his age division.  Not too bad among 5000 racers!

BUT . . . he placed FIRST in the barefoot division!  He wasn’t the only barefoot runner and he came in first!  (This is him picking up his award!)

We watched the parade after the race . . . it was super crowded.

We ended our day with a BBQ with several of our friends and we all had a great time until it was cut short when it started raining!  Back at home we (meaning David) lit some sparklers and the kids wanted nothing to do with them.

We have several packs of sparklers left.  :)

Hope you all had a lovely 4th of July!  We love America!

Stadium of Fire 2011 July 6, 2011

Posted by Emily in : Daily Life, Friends, Holidays, Utah , 4comments

No matter where we are in the world, every 4th of July, we WISH we were at the Stadium of Fire.

The Stadium of fire is the place to be.  PERIOD.  The last time we went was 10 years ago, so this event was long overdue for us!

The Stadium of Fire is held at the BYU football stadium and they fill the stadium with 50,000 people.  Tickets sell out within hours when they go on sale in March.  David was able to buy tickets the day before they went on sale to the public and we got GREAT seats!  The kids got a babysitter (who they LOVE) and we had a fabulous date night!

Entertainment included: David Archuleta and Brad Paisley!  The fireworks at the end were incredible!  The Stadium of Fire touts the largest fireworks display in the nation!  Take that DC!

(Sitting four rows in front of us was Steve Young, and several members of the Freedom Festival Board.  I think we got great seats.)

This was our view of the stadium.  I have some great footage (great if you consider the iPhone a great video camera that is) that I want to post.  One of these days I’m going to figure out how to edit and post videos . . .

On Sunday I ran into two of my childhood best friends!  Katie and Katie!  I love holidays!  Everyone comes in from out of state and we get to play!

It was so fun seeing our kids play together.  We had big dreams when we were younger that our kids would all play together one day and every once in a while that actually happens!

Katie’s little boy, Levi, just wanted to drive my car with his big cowboy boots on.  :)  (Bossy little two year old!)