Happy Monday!

Hope everyone is having a great Monday! We had a nice weekend full of stuff to do. Stephs shower went great, there were a lot of people there! Just call her Miss Popular! :) I got there early to get some maternity pictures, I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. I still need more focus practice with my 50mm, but I'll get it down one of these days. I'll post a sneak peak for Steph in another post of some I have done. First, how about some cheesecake! Yum Yum!

JR took Natalie swimming Saturday while I was at the shower which was a good thing because we didn't get to go Sunday. For once we had a break in the hot weather and it was cool, cloudy, windy and slightly rainy. So we decided it would be a great day for the fair!

Like it? You know you do!

How's the new banner treating ya? I need to tweak the size a little as it's a little stretched out but it'll do for now. I've had some "photo shoots" in my mind for little miss Natalie so once I get to those I'll change it. At least I know how to add it to the blog, a little bit of a process for sure, but not too bad.

Hope everyone has got some good plans for the weekend. I'm cutting out of work a little early. I need to run to Target for a friend's baby shower gift, then stop off at the grocery store to get stuff to make a killer cheesecake for the shower(of course I'll post pictures of it...you don't even have to ask)! Then I'll whip that up while Natalie is yelling at me from 3 feet below because she wants to see. It'll take me twice as long as before Natalie could walk because I'll have to play "scary monster who's going to eat me" and chase her around the house every 5 minutes. This is by far her most favorite game EVER...just above "It's funny to stick my finger in mommy and daddy's nose".

Tomorrow is Steph's baby shower and I'm doing my first maternity shoot with her. Hope it goes well, it's mainly just for practice. She was so kind through my begging and pleading to give up her pregnant self to my camera. Thanks for being a trooper Steph! After the shower I'll head home for a little tackle the dog. What is this you ask? It's the once in awhile event at our house of bathing our 80lb labs...should be a good time for all...kinda like slamming your head into a wall. Not sure but I think Sunday we will try to make it to the pool so the tyrant can swim her little heart out. I promise to actually take my camera this time.

Oh and just so you know, I'm magic and know that people do visit this blog every once in awhile so leave me some comment love! I found this great little setting that I changed so that anyone should be able to comment not just logged in blogger users. So let me hear from you...stalkers! :)

In went Natalie, out came a water lovin fish!

Saturday we took Natalie to our friends, sons 2nd birthday. She had a good time, ate a lot of pizza. Then we took her to go swimming. She has never been in a big pool and is currently afraid of the bathtub so we weren't sure how it was going to go. They had a kiddie pool that was only 2 ft deep at the deepest end. Natalie's arms stayed glued to JR's neck for the first half hour. Natalie is a timid girl and always needs to warm up to things and I tell you, once she warmed up to being in the water we couldn't keep her out of it! She even got to the point where she wouldn't let us hold a hand at all, which of course caused a loss of balance a couple times. But even dunking under the water, it still didn't scare her enough to keep her out. We finally had to pry her away due to severe, no fat on her body, shivering. I'm horrible and forgot to grab the camera, so not like me! However I think we'll try to hit the pool up again this weekend.

Oh and word to the wise, drinking too many red bull & vodka drinks will keep you up really late, JR and I found that one out Saturday night! lol.

Camping

This last weekend JR and I and some friends were supposed to go to the Harmonica Festival (read drunkin festival) in Yellow Pine. No such luck. There are so many damn fires burning in Idaho that one of them made it too close to the road to Yellow Pine so they closed it down thus cancelling the festival. Bummer, but JR and I were still determined to go camping. So we decide to go east to the Trinity lakes area. I wasn't sure how it was going to pan out because of all of the smoke covering Idaho and you can't have campfires. So we get up there and first, it's absolutely beautiful. Second, the air is clear and fresh. Third, we spent most of the time in jeans, sweat shirts or tee shirts and tennis shoes. Such a nice change from the 100 degree heat we've had here ALL SUMMER. We didn't even miss the campfire because it stayed pretty warm all through the night and morning. We had a good time and it was nice to get out of town. JR told me this morning that the fire up by Yellow Pine has gotten way worse and it's threatening Yellow Pine now, hope it doesn't burn down. :( JR and I did really well being away from Natalie for the first time overnight and 2 nights at that. We started missing her a little Saturday but not bad. We were very excited to see her Sunday though. Now she melts into histarics whenever I leave the room though, that parts not fun. She learned a few new things while at the Grandparents. She says "Sadie" clear as day, which is my parents dog. She says "Papa" and makes a monkey sound. lol. It's pretty cute stuff. Now on to some pictures.

The view from our campsite, we were right on Big Roaring River Lake (I think that was the name. lol)

Sara and ErickaKeegan and Stashia Myself and Sara
Ericka and Monty
Bo!

The next day fishing

View from the lookout. 9,541 feet up. The road up was freaky!!!!
How crazy is this. This outhouse at the lookout was right on the cliffs edge, no way I could have used that thing!!

Such a helper!

I got a whim on Saturday morning and decided to do some much needed yardwork to the front of our house. I couldn't believe the piles of weeds I pulled and how long it took me. I also had just recieved my new 50 mm lens and speedlight so I was dying to try them out. I brought Natalie out front to "help" me and snap some pictures of her. She has got to be one of the hardest toddlers to photography, no matter what I do, she will not look at the camera anymore! I got maybe one or two where she would actually look at me. Such a stinker! I love my new lens but man does it take some getting used to. I'm so used to my wide angle zoom lens, with the 50mm, it's all about foot work.

Anyone interested? Portfolio Building.

I really want to do a trash the dress session www.trashthedress.com but I don't know anyone who a) can still fit into their wedding dress b) wants to potentially harm their wedding dress c) is getting married/has gotten married recently. However, trash the dress photographers also do sessions with prom dresses. So if anyone is interested (Treasure Valley (Idaho) area) please let me know if you have a formal dress that you want to get dirty! The degree of dirt/water depends on your preference!

Dark pictures...eeerrrrrr.

Sorry the pics are so dark. My computer screen at home sucks big time...we had to get it fixed a while back and now it's too bright (not something you can change with the contrast either). So, if I edit photos at home they are always too dark. Maybe this year is the year to get a Mac at home. I just upgraded at work to CS3, very nice! I'm loving it so far. I need to get my graphic design stuff while I'm still in school...huge Mac & Adobe student discounts!!!