I opened my e-mail this morning and found this COOL new product offered by my printer!
They look to be the same price as canvas gallery wraps. You can find pricing for those at http://amyhummel.com and then go to "pricing."
Also, if you were wondering a little about who our daughter, Teslyn, was named after... Visit the Google homepage (google.com) today (July 10), and click on their insane looking graphic.
I'd say that this summer has been a bit crazy.
Swimming Lessons * Cross country trip to Kentucky * Sister's Wedding * Multiple Photo shoots * Cross country trip back from Kentucky to Utah * More photo shoots * Building a house * and then THIS:
Our crazy yearly trip to the Arizona Strip for a family reunion in the dirt & sun. And this year, mud.
(campfire smoke magnified a sunset)
(my kids are NOT in the picture above. But I thought it was fun)
(Moccasins roasting on an open fire)
(the reason for roasting moccasins. Our first day there, it rained. A ton! The kids had a blast playing in the rain and mud. I didn't have fun cleaning up after it)
Calvin
Kate
Tess desperately wanting to ride this particular 4-wheeler.
Tess eating the seat of that particular 4-Wheeler.
And that's just a quick sampling. I have almost ZERO pictures of Jocelyn because she didn't stick around camp. Which was fine with me! I think I have 1 picture of her losing the foot races. But the foot races are another post entirely!
It's good to be home!
What I did in Kentucky:
(above cake photos by Jared).
Finished cake:
I had the most enjoyable experience at The ZOO. Ever.
When we got there, it was POURING (down) rain. Yes, I said "pouring down." I think it may be a southern phrase, because people here say it all the time. I say it all the time. And, Jared makes it a point to make fun of me every time it rains. He always snidely asks, "What other way would it be pouring?" But, I'm keeping my phrase DARN IT!
IT WAS POURING DOWN RAIN!
We sat in the truck for awhile, waiting for it to let up some. After deciding it may never let up, we decided to hit The ZOO wet style.
Because of the rain, the crowds were low. The temperature was enjoyable, and the rain was actually warm. All of the animals were out. Except the Lions. The Lions were out when we walked up, but they ran inside almost immediately. That's a cat for ya. Although Calvin is obsessively in love with Lions, he was in no dismay... and we moved on to see many other cool animals!
I took a ton of pics. Jared did too. I'm excited to be in some pictures!!! And yes, for anyone wondering, I did lug my big momma camera around in the rain. Because my camera bag is an M. Rock bag, it comes with a built in waterproof covering. I used that while the rain was heavy, and then just shielded with an umbrella when the rain was light.
They have a new thing at The ZOO, a high ropes course that you hook into with a harness. It's called a canopy walk, or something of the sort. I could look up the proper name for it, but I'm lazy. We were super stoked to try it out, but because of the rain it was closed. Bummer. BUT, I think the enjoyability (is that a word), of the entire day made the rain worth it. We would have been miserable without it.
If I had a dollar for every time Jared or I said, "I'm really enjoying myself!" We would have quickly made up the cost for admission... $49 for the whole fam.
Next time I make the trip for a month, I may need to splurge on an annual zoo pass.
More zoo pictures will probably be posted at a later date ;)
Tomorrow we are going to a nature conservatory across from The ZOO.
How I've missed thee...
Footings for the back porch
Here you can see the front porch and the footing s for the uprights.
Click on this picture to see a panoramic from the observation deck.
The three side windows in the master
The view out the side windows
The view from the master bed back poarch
The back wall of the master lots of natural light
Back view of the house with the observation deck
We finaly got our sign with our address and lot number I like it. My two favorite things duck tape and cheap
Front Corner view
The arch for the front courtyard thing were the rock will go
Garage views
Third car carage
Two car garage and stairs to the house
Living room
Eyebrow arches
...and working on my southern accent.
Here is a family photo I set up last night at my sis's reception:
Oops, forgot to change the color profile. Oh well...
Many
many
more pictures
coming soon!
Posted by Jared
Nuf said
Amy, you said you wanted something to look at today while you were sitting around so here's an eyeful for you.
Yesterday I went to the lake with Darryl to check out the sailing club. Darryl and I along with Darryl's son, Will got to go out on the Hobie Cat (that's the one with the big colorful sail). The had some little dingy type boats there also but I had no interest in going out on those.
I really want to get one of these. It was a blast to sail and went pretty fast even with 4 big adults on it. So all of you folk's out there that read my wife's blog need to leave her comments and convince here to let me get one of these.
Now on to the house. This is just going to be a lot of images with some explanation. On a funny side note, when you write a text or and email on a blackberry, if you double space it automatically inserts a period and assumes that it is the end of the sentence. So if I accidentally leave out some punctuation know that it is double spaced and I was expecting software to overcome my laziness.
Here is the front of the house they have sheeting up over the office, kid's room, and the kitchen and living room area.
This is the side of the house facing Pine Valley Mountain. You can see the window in the kids room. Notice also the large concrete windows well for the basement. I have been told that these let in an incredible amount of light and make the basements not so dark and gloomy. Also notice the large window for the dining area and the french doors so we can move the couch out on the porch.
This is looking at the back corner. There is going to be a lot of natural light in the living room dining area with all those windows. I didn't realize that there were going to be that many windows there but I like it. The views are all incredible so I am glad we have such large windows.
The stairs leading to the unfinished basement.
This is a picture of the large room in the basement the far recessed wall will one day have a 65" plasma hanging from it. The kid's may all be grown and moved out before we get there but one day. Notice all of the dirt I need to get that all cleaned up after there are windows to keep more out.
This is the large window well. I am taking the picture from one window and you can see were they have actually put two windows in one window well.
Ignoring the board this will be the view from the dinning area. I might have to make sure I sit on the end of the table that faces this window. It will be an incredible view of pine valley.
I'm tired of commenting so here are the rest of the pictures honey.
(Jocelyn going down the neighbors slide)
(My mom's tadpoles in her backyard)
(Jocelyn above, and Tess below, posing in front of my mom's front door)
(An abandoned birds nest on my parent's deck)
(A baby who loves to swim + pools ='s NOT FUN and fun at the same time!)
(goldfish pond, fun for kids and dogs)
yumm...
(what I do with naughty kitties (er kids)).
(Diode in Nolin Lake)
(Calvin throwing a ball to the dogs in the water.)
(Jocelyn coming down the trail from the lake house, to the lake.)
Jocelyn and Katelyn wanted to go swimming in the lake. I didn't bring their swim suits because my parent's boat isn't in the water yet. So I let them go skinny dipping. It's in their blood.
(Watching the skinny dipping fun.)
(Splashing with the dog)
(Tess wanting to get in on the action)
(I got a new flash bracket... and was figuring out how everything went together)
More later...
So since Amy has been slacking off on the photo documentation of the build process I have decided to dust off the old yearbook photographer skills and document the build. Camera's have come along way since the high school yearbook days. If you don't believe me pull out your old high school yearbook and compare some of the pictures in it to the great picture shown below.
This picture was taken the night after Amy left. I only had three boys show up to scouts and they wanted to go bowling. Since we were already in huricane we had to take a detour on the way home and see if there was any progress. They had all of the walls in the basement framed.
Then I manged to hold off going out to the site again until Friday, I know you are all amazed by that. When I got out there on Friday this is what I saw.
The floor joist were in place and they had started sheeting the floor. I am amazed that all that is on the floor is a thin little piece of wafer board. They had also started the back fill and were getting ready to frame the window wells which will be concrete.
So that was exciting to see, but not as exciting as yesterday. Yesterday around 5 in the afternoon I was headed out with a friend to play a little golf when I came around the cornor and got my first look into the subdivision I could see this.
Of course this is not the same view I was looking at but you get the idea the house has walls and that is real exciting. Below are some more great photo's curtousey of the blackberry camera phone. Seriously what did people do when the had carry camera's along with every thing else.
A friend of mine is working on starting up her business, and I am not one of those whom is stingy with their photography knowledge/skills/clients. She is giving away a photo shoot, probably to build portfolio. Go to her photography blog and comment and you may win a free photo session from her.
Link here: http://photographyalamode.blogspot.com/2009/06/photo-shoot-giveaway.html
We left at 9am from St. George. I kept a notepad and pen by my side the whole trip so that I could record some things my kids said as we drove. I thought it would be interesting to see the differences between the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd days. Some are funny things non trip related. Others are not funny... but reflect the mood. Conversation dwindled as the trip progressed. Especially after the introduction of the portable DVD players in the middle of day 2! The first 6 photos on day 1, and the first 2 of day 2 were taken with my 5D. The rest are via camera phone.
Day 1:
9:20am -
10:30am -
11:31am -
11:35am -
12:15pm -
1:39pm -
1:47pm -
2:15pm -
4:20pm - Grand Junction, Colorado
5:12pm - Rifle, Colorado
5:45pm - Rocky Mountains - Heavy Rain
Day 2:
10:38am -
Time undocumented - Shortly into Kansas
2:18pm-
2:19pm -
Day 3:
6:34am - 20 Minutes east of Independence Missouri -
8:55am
Total Miles Traveled from driveway to driveway: 1,700 miles.
Driving Travel Time: 26 hours, 23 minutes.
Cost of gas: $186.00
Hotel (2 nights): $184
Meals & snacks: $60
Total one way cost: $430
I was supposed to do a photoshoot last night, but the family and I moved the date back a few days. I guess, the husband went out and played golf, and neglected to wear sunscreen. The super awesome mother/wife of the family, Mele called me really worried that her husband would look like a lobster. So, we changed the date to tomorrow morning. Hopefully he will be a little less lobsterish by then!
So, instead of me doing a photoshoot in St. George, we drove out to Sand Hollow to see the status of our house. The wind was blowing when we were in St. George, so we knew it would be windy in Hurricane. I bet you can't guess how the town got that name! If you look at the picture above, you can totally SEE all of the sand and dirt blowing around. I could barely see because sand kept blowing in my eyes.
I told Jared that I wasn't going to get my camera out of the truck, because I REALLY didn't want it to get sandy. Expensive camera, ya know...
But then after walking around, I knew I'd be kicking myself if I didn't get some pictures since it was the last time I'd see the house until I get back from KY.
So, out came the camera anyway:
And although the sky looks really angry... we didn't get any rain. Just lots of wind, and some lightening.
(this will one day be Jocelyn and Katelyn's window)
And here is our stack of lumber... waiting for next week!
Jared and I were sitting on our driveway. Jared was putting new bike tires on the girl's bikes, when Kate ran up to us and said, "look what I caught!"
To be honest, I expected a moth, or a butterfly, or a lady bug. I was even prepared to be really impressed with a lizard.
When I turned around, I saw this:
To which I said: "HOLY COW! THAT'S A BIRD!
Jared said, "WHAT!"
I said, "STAY RIGHT THERE WHILE I GRAB MY CAMERA!"
The bird was in very poor shape. It was obviously young, and had fallen from a nest in a nearby tree. I couldn't find any external injuries, it definitely didn't look like it would make it long.
The kids (all 4) were VERY interested. They of course wanted to keep it as a pet.
In the end, it died.
Not by the hands of my children, but by the hands of natural selection. We needed to run some errands, so I placed the bird in a comfortable place, where it couldn't be eaten by cats or beaten up by some other force of nature. But when we returned, it had already died.
My kids were OK with it. It was a fun chance for them to see and touch a bird up close. They were able to learn about the importance of hand washing after handling birds. And they got a little lesson in life and death.
I should probably get some of these photo shoots posted before I leave on my trip!
I photographed this family of six last week. They are friends of my sister-in-law, and were super fun to work with. We were evicted from our original location choice, so we improvised with the "public" settings around us!
The oldest is turning 8 soon, and wanted to get some good pictures in her baptism dress. This particular picture doesn't show off her dress well... but I thought the expression on her face, and her relaxed look made for a great picture!
As we were walking around, we came upon an elderly woman whose "babies" were dogs. Man, did she love her dogs! She had them in a stroller even. The kids of course wanted to pet the dogs, and the woman was more than happy to tell us all about her babies. I thought this picture was soooo fun!
This tree was cool, because there was a perfectly level/flat area between where the tree started branching from the main trunk. It was the perfect standing place for a young child. We had a lot of fun with this tree...
He's a good 5 feet up.
This picture was darkened a bit in photoshop... but not as much as you'd assume. We didn't even start our session until around 7:40pm, and we were probably after 8:30pm when this was taken. We were definitely loosing light. She nestled down in the part of the tree I explained in the paragraph above. The light was fun how it hit her face... but not much else. So I set my camera to expose for her face, making the rest naturally go dark. I did add a vignette later.
After we were basically finished, I had my camera bag out and was discussing my different cameras with the dad. His middle daughter thought the vintage camera was cool... so I showed her how to use the viewfinder. She was pretty excited about looking at things through the viewfinder, and I couldn't pass up the chance to get one last shot. Especially with a vintage camera in play!
is what Teslyn says every time she walks into my room. That means, she wants me to open my blog. Which means, you may actually need to open my blog (instead of reading in Google Reader) to see what the heck I'm talking about. With the sound on.
And, on a subject very much related (and I'm sure my excitement is somewhat annoying by now to those close to me):
Only... it's had it's budget cut, and is only back for 13 episodes (instead of a normal 22 episode season). IMO, those NBC executives are working hard to get the show gone for good. Hopefully the budget cut doesn't mean the end of certain aspects of the show... like say... the Buy More. That would doom the show for sure.
Here is something Jared may find funny:
In other news...
Katelyn had her birthday. Jocelyn's birthday isn't for another couple of weeks... but we celebrated it at the same time as Katelyn's so that her school friends could come:
Trying to get everything done before I leave for a month.
Met with our builder today, and picked out a few things. Got the ball rolling on a few other things I need to do. Was going to do them today, but ran out of time/fell victim to exhaustion. Tomorrow I need to go check out the appliance place, go look at cabinets, and go to the stair railing place and tell them what I want. Today we at least decided on what style of door we wanted for both exterior and interior. We chose our style of lighting. We picked out our wood flooring. We looked at carpet and faucets... but haven't finalized any of that. I think I may make a trip to Home Depot soon. We also finalized what our travertine is going to look like, decided on the style to lay it, and what our sinks are going to look like. And our friend/the travertine guy made a rough sketch of what we want the design of our tile showers to look like. We also authorized a draw from our construction loan account for over $51,000... which covers excivation, and concrete. Ouch.
Currently they are working on our basement walls.
Our contractor said that they should begin the framing process before I leave for KY.
