Another Great Christmas

Another Christmas has come and gone. It was a lot of fun to watch the kids open their gifts and to open some stuff for me as well. Chels bought me some lights for a photo studio. Now I have to figure out how to use them correctly. I set them up and took a few pictures. Here is one of Tiaree.

I am excited to get this going. I have to get a brown background so I can take some head shots of my sister. Other than that I will just figure things out.

Christmas was good all around for the family and our trip to St. George was a blast. Kind of a whirlwind trip, but it was a lot of fun. Here are some pictures.

Did Santa eat everything.

Barbie Rapunzel, exactly what she wanted.

Anyone see a pattern?

Optimus Prime...the Transformer that can't be transformed.

 

She is opening Barbie in the Three Musketeers, the ring she is wearing was out of her stocking.

This is only a few of the pictures that were taken. Christmas was a lot of fun at our house and everywhere we went. I'm glad we got to spend time and have fun everywhere with our family.

Cool Picture from the Other Night

I love taking my camera and doing quick shots, sort of like shots from the hip. Anyway, I opened the door at Sam and Cait's for Erik and Ali on our progressive dinner and this is what I got. I think it turned out pretty cool.

I just thought this turned out pretty cool.

New Idea...Possible Tradition

A little while ago Chels' mom had an idea to do what she dubbed as the progressive dinner. Basically we start at someone's house eat part of a meal and then head to the next person's house until you get to the last house and have the 'main course'. So we scheduled it and did it on Saturday, December 19th. This was a lot more fun than I had anticipated. We started at Erik and Ali's apartment for soup. Jared and Emily brought a veggie tray since we didn't go to there house because the downstairs neighbor smokes and it is seeping into their apartment something fierce. I thought it would be fun to take a family picture at all the different houses.

Erik and Ali's

After a great soup and some veggies we headed to Sam and Cait's. This was probably the longest drive of the whole trip...sarcasm doesn't come across right in text. This stop on our trek was a cheese ball. As we got there Cait had put it out on the table and we were all chatting when we noticed that about half of it was gone because the kids started chowing. After meeting Officer Watts we all got our portion of cheese ball and took this...

Sam and Cait's

Following this we headed back to my house for the main course. With dinner at Grammy's on Sundays, she was ok with us skipping her house and doing the dinner at our house. We had a yummy taco bar that was a unanimous decision between the family for the main course.

Taco Bar Dinner

And for the final family picture of the night.

My House

It was a lot of fun and I hope that we can get this going again next year.

Merry Christmas.

RIP...for the time being

So I've had a loss in my IT family. My HP laptop has decided to give up the laptop ghost, for the time being. I think that there are some hardware issues and I was dumb and didn't get the extended warranty. So for now I am without a laptop. I'm hoping that one of these days I can get it fixed or get me a new one, but it is Chels' turn for a new laptop, so I'll have to work on this old desktop machine that I have for the time being and go back to using my work laptop more often. Well I just wanted to share that sad bit of news with you. Thanks.

Pictures While Driving

So I carpool to work, which is awesome because it saves on gas. Well the other night my friend and I were driving home from work and I grabbed my camera because the sunset looked really cool and I was going to try and snap a few shots while we were driving of it. Well I didn't get any of the sunset but decided to try taking pictures while we were driving on the freeway. Here is one of the shots that I really like. I'll post others on the Whadda Photos...

 

Another Fun Sunday Dinner

Today was Sunday dinner at the in-laws. It was a lot of fun. We had an awesome time and I got the camera out and took some pictures. Usually the Sunday dinner at the in-laws is eat and hang outside and chat, but when it's snowy outside then it makes it a little cold to hang out outside. So we tend to find things inside todo. Tonight the kids worked on a gingerbread train, that I never got pictures of, and then we just hung out.

I was washing dishes...

...and saw a cool reflection in a spoon and had a great idea for some pictures. Lucky for me I have a great sis-in-law that was willing and patient with me as I tried to be creative...

Once I was done playing with that, I finished the dishes and we all sat around the TV and watched some old home videos. As we were watching them I was laying on the floor taking pictures and go this one...

All in all it was a great evening, thanks Grammy for a great dinner. I also want to give a big shout out thanks to Ems, the fluffy white sheep, for making a nightgown for Tiaree. She is awesome with a sewing machine and I'm glad becuase my wife and I would have taken all week to do what she did in a single night. And the nightgown looks awesome, pictures to come later. But here is one of her cutting out the fabric.

Thanks Ems and Ali for all you help tonight. Thanks Jared and Erik for marrying such awesome women.

Picture and a laugh

Today's picture comes from one of the longest drives in to work ever. Total 2.5 hours to go what usually takes between 30 and 45 minutes. I wasn't driving so I thought it would be cool to pull the camera out and take some shots. I thought that the water drops on the windows looked cool. Then I thought, I should take a picture out the windshield when the wipers are moving and here's how it turned out.

ISO 200 45mm f/8.0 1/125 sec

 I thought it looked pretty cool.

Now for the laugh. I have a Volkswagen Jetta and really like my car. I've had it now for two plus years. I've read in the manual that I'm supposed to have a 6-disc CD changer in the trunk. They have pictures in the book of where in the trunk it could be located, so I'd look. Where the manual says there is a box that may be like and amplifier or something, but no cd changer. I just figured I didn't have the cool version of the car.  Last night I was looking for a way to change the break lights and such on the car and found a little compartment, that I've never noticed before. I thought, 'hmmm, what's in here?'. So I opened it, alas, the CD changer. I was laughing at myself and went and got Chels so she could laugh at me, I mean with me. So now I have a cool radio system in my car, sweet. Well it was there all along, I just wasn't cool, or smart, enough to find it. Well now that I've embarrassed myself I will go.

Enjoy the picture and the laugh.

Pictures With Snow

On Saturday it started snowing at our house. It was coming down prety nicely so I told Bree to put her shoes and coat on so I could get some pictures of her with the snow coming down. I took two with my small lense and took two with the long lens. The first two didn't turn out as I wanted them too. The first one with the long lens, the auto focus wasn't on so it turned out blurry. The final picture turned out pretty good. I liked it. Judge for yourselves...

Maybe Now...

Things are getting less hectic for me and so I'm hoping that I can get back to doing the Photo of the Day. It was kind of crazy there for a bit, but now life has settled a little.

So for today, I'm going to post a new Photo of the Day. And hopefully it won't be like the last few. Today's picture was taken yesterday and then I messed around with it in Lightroom.

ISO 800 28mm f/6.3 1/80 sec.

You can see the original picture on my photos blog. It is the first picture on that entry.