Senior Pictures

 Last year I took senior pictures for a cute girl in my ward, but wimped out at the thought of her being left with whatever pictures I managed to get that were somewhat in focus and not too badly snapshotish, so I begged Kimbrey to come down and help me.  And she did.  And we had a blast!  And they turned out SO very nice.  This year, I bit the bullet and went it alone.

 This cute girl is Morgan.  She is athletic and fun and she LOVES to laugh.  It took us HOURS to get a serious picture.  Here is her basketball picture . . .

 And here is her soccer picture.  I tried to focus on her cleats and make her slightly out of focus.  I'm not sure the idea came across . .

 I've always wanted to try pictures on Mulberry lane, a quaint country road right in the middle of town with trees lining both sides.  This year, we finally did it!!  And these girls hammed it up :)  Pay no attention to that tree growing out of Morgan's head.  I'm not. 

 I think this is darling!!  If I were Morgan, this is the picture I would choose for the year book.

 Another cute one.  I took Morgan and Nikysha's pictures at the same time, which made it so much fun!  But a little challenging to make sure they didn't end up in the same places and the same poses! 

 This is Nikysha on Mulberry lane.  She is just gorgeous!  It sure made my job easier to have such beautiful girls to shoot!

 Nikysha looking modelesk.  That was a hard pose to hold . . she kept tipping over.  I had to hurry and get the shot while she was balanced.  But what a cute shot it is : )

 This is just SO Nikysha.  Cute and sweet and absolutely darling.  Don't be seniors you guys, OK.

 Nikysha - SMOKIN'  What more can I say?

 Here is Nikysha's soccer picture.  Cute, cute cute. 

 Another squatting one.  I love these, but I'm afraid her Mom is going to say her dress is TOO short . .

 We found this split tree by accident and I told Nikysha to go jump in between the two trunks.  It looked so good against her dark brown dress.  I think this is my pick for Nikysha's yearbook photo. 

Or this one.  Believe it or not, this was taken behind Wendy's.  Who knew there was such a nice, rustic looking fence back there.  I loved taking pictures of these two.  We had a great cloud cover all morning, so we kept at it for FIVE HOURS!  Can't think of a better way could I spend a Saturday morning. 

Cabin Weekend

It's beautiful in the mountains this time of year, but then, it's beautiful any time of year.  This is just a different kind of beautiful.  A yellow and orange kind of beautiful.  You really have to be there . . .

I love that in any given picture, there are colorful fall leaves in the background.  Kids running and playing and having so much fun.  This is what makes a Gramma happy.

Capri chased this ball all over the place, laughing and running, falling down and jumping right back up again.  See how dirty the front of her coat is?  It 's from all the falling down :)

We backed the trailer up to one of the huge piles of wood the forest service fire crews so kindly left when they saved our cabin from becoming another burning pile of ash, and we piled the wood high, and then took it on over to the fire pit.

And then, with everyone's help,  we built the biggest camp fire in the world!

The cows were gone, so these corrals became the BEST playground.

I tried to get these cute boys to turn around for a rustic western picture, but they were WAY to into the yucky water in the watering trough.

The mountains are good therapy.  Rest, relaxation, forgetting about life, breathing in the fresh air.  Colorful leaves everywhere you look.  Ahhhhh!

 

Not to mention the making of many happy memories :)

The Road That Dave Built . .

This is the road that Dave built

This is the equipment that graded the road that Dave built

This is the culvert that's under the road that was graded by equipment that Dave built

This is the spillway that was built by Carri who was thinking she was just there to read her book, but now has the smashed finger to prove her work that is next to the culvert that is under the road that was graded by equipment that Dave built

This is Dave giving Carri instructions on how to build the spillway that is near the culvert that is under the road that was graded by equipment that Dave built

This is the pretty place Carri went to rest her finger and watch the leaves change and read her book and to get away from the spillway that was near the culvert that was under the road that was graded by equipment that Dave built.

This is the work that was continued by  Drew as he finished the spillway that was near the culvert that went under the road that was graded by equipment that Dave built.

Finally Free!

 This is how my Sunday went.  I led the music in Sacrament meeting, then taught the Gospel Doctrine class in Sunday School.  When that I over I heaved a BIG sigh of relief because it was my LAST turn to teach THAT class, and I hurried to Relief Society because it was the first Sunday of the month and the Young Women go to Relief Society opening exercises on the first Sunday of the month - and I had to give the opening prayer.  Then I hurried to the library to get copies I needed, and then hurried to the Young Women's room so I could take roll before I gave the lesson to our combined Young Women and all three members of the Bishopric who decided to attend this week.  After that, I needed a break!!  So we went to the mountains where I worked on photography :)   Yay!

I worked on depth of field, because I am taking senior pictures for three girls in my Young Women's group and I needed depth of field practice.  Since I had no people to practice with, I had to use pretty, pretty flowers.

 And I worked on shooting in manual, and shooting a scene without the sky blowing out.  Something I have a really hard time with.  The picture below was a hike - or rather, a mountain goat climb - we went on.  The photography book I was using was Bryan Peterson's "Understanding Photography Field Guide".

 The leaves are starting to change on the mountain.  A sad sign that summer is really over.

 Look at that!!  A beautiful scene and the sky is blue, not an awful looking blown out white like my scenery pictures usually turn out.  It's a beautiful spot in the LaSals.

 This is on Cliff's property.  Dave is working here and he is in heaven!!  Again, a somewhat blue sky . .

 My friends, the Daltons, have property right next to Cliff's property.  I told Sue I was trying to work on shooting scenery, and she asked me to get some pictures of her view.  Isn't it pretty?  The technique I was working on here was shooting scenery in focus front to back.  I was supposed to set my camera's aperture at 18 or 22, then set the shutter speed I needed, and then manually focus on something about 5 feet in front of me, which in the picture below was the tree limbs you can see in the foreground, and he PROMISED the rest of the picture would be sharply in focus.  Only on this one, I forgot to manually focus, but it worked pretty good anyway.  

 This time I focused on the grass in the foreground, but again, auto focused.  It takes me a while to get the concept when there are so many things to remember to do!!

 One more of Sue's view . . .

 Here we are again on our hike.  If you look closely you will see Dave hiking among those slide rocks.  And  pretty view behind him.

 NOW I finally get it all together.  Aperture set at 22, shutter speed set, manually focusing on the tree limbs on the side foreground, and poof!  A pretty scene, all in focus, and a blue sky with white clouds.  Pretty good for a sunny day. 

 

 Now my focus in on the twisted tree in the foreground.  This was where we ended up on our hike.  A pretty forest oasis in a bowl surrounded by rocky cliff that I was SO tired of climbing. 

The last two are just fun shots, one of a squirrel trying to peel a pinecone to get the pine nuts inside.  And the other is an old abandoned cabin at the entrance to the property Dave is working at.  

 It was fun to get away, fun to get my camera out again, and fun to hang out and do anything I wanted to do.  I'm going to do it again soon. 

First Day of School

The excitement is in the air.  It started last night at mutual.  Tomorrow was the first day of school.  UGH.  No one was ready to go back.  But really, they were. The summer was SO short, but the idea of being back to a routine, friends, learning and NEW CLOTHES was a hard excitement to ignore.  And so today, here we are, back to school.  Including me.  I wish I had taken a back to school picture because I really look cute in my red and white skirt, red lace top over a white cami, white eyelet jacket and red flats on my semi tanned feet.  Sitting here listening to 3rd hour singing "We Thank Thee Oh God For A Prophet".   How lucky am I, I work at the seminary.  And we are back to school :)

The Best Advice . .

Due to the perfect storm or something in our ward, I got roped into teaching the adult Sunday School class once a month for the summer.  It's been terrifying on one hand, but a great learning experience on the other.  This week our lesson was "Give Ear To My Words" - Alma's advice to his sons Helaman, Shiblon and Corianton.  The fun part of this lesson was that I got to teach the Chiasmus in chapter 36 - and that I knew the Chiasmus in chapter 36 to teach it :)  But, this post is not about Chiasmus.  The question at the beginning of the lesson made me think of these two people pictured above.  "What was the best advice your parents ever gave you?"  Wow!!  Why does that question bring tears to my eyes?  When I asked it in our Sunday School class, we laughed at a lot of the advice these grown (and mostly pretty old) people were coming up with.  Joyce Adair told about babysitting for 25 cents per hour and her parents told her that when she babysat for 25 cents per hour, she also had to clean their house, fold any laundry that was out, do the dishes, and anything else she could see to do.  And then, when they paid her 1.25 for five hours of work, she was supposed to say, "Oh, no.  This is too much."  and offer to give part of it back.  We laughed pretty hard about that!!  But then she went on to tell all she had learned from that advice, about giving more than was expected, about giving a full day's work for a full day's pay.  Turned out it was good advice after all : )

Another younger married girl , her name is Jillaine - like our Jillayne, only spelled different - and she goes by Jill.  There's another one in the world!!! Her Dad was the Bishop of their ward when she was growing up.  She told us about playing Monopoly with her Dad, and how they hated when he played because the game went on FOREVER!!  Whenever he collected 200 dollars for passing go, he would pay tithing on it (LOL) and then whenever someone was short on cash and was going to have to drop out of the game, he would say, "Just come and see the Bishop and let's see what we can do"  And then he would give them his tithing money to keep them in the game.  WHAT A GREAT LESSON!!  Without saying a word, he taught his children to always pay tithing.  I still laugh when I think of that story.

I can't even tell you the best advice my Dad ever gave me because it was very personal and it came a few years ago when I was going through a pretty rough time, but it has saved me over and over again.  Just a simple sentence that has made all the difference in the world.  But that is just the most recent advice.  All I am and ever hope to be has come because of the example and advice of these two people.  Simple things like, "Look it up in the dictionary" when I wanted to know how to spell a word or what a word meant.  Now I GOOGLE everything!!  When Brother Jackman needs a certain quote for his lesson, I google it.  When I need to know how to substitute regular flour for cake flour, I google it.  When my computer savey kids ask me a question I don't know the answer to, I say "GOOGLE IT" The modern day answer to "look it up in the dictionary"

But the most important way my parents taught me was by example.  I watched my Dad put 110 percent of himself into everything he did, and no matter how busy he was, he never said no when asked to help.And I have followed that example to the point that Dave has threatened to put a message on our answering machine saying, "If you are calling to ask Carri to do something, the answer is NO"    I watched my Mom make her family her first priority, many times at the expense of  her own freedom and always giving up things she wanted to do for herself, and I have tried to follow that.  I have watched them as, in their marriage they struggled to learn and grow together, and then succeed in that struggle, and, through good times and bad, I have followed that example.  They are so wonderful and I marvel at what I did right in the preexistence to  warrant the blessing of being sent to them for my earthly experience and, because of their great righteousness, being sealed as part of them for the rest of eternity.  What a lucky, lucky girl I am : )  Thanks, Mom and Dad, for the Best Advice you ever gave - and still continue to give - me.