Taking Pictures of Taking Pictures

I don't know why, but I've always like taking pictures of people taking pictures. There are a few of us in the family with digital SLR cameras and when we go on trips, we all take our cameras with us. Here are a few of the picts I took today of others using a camera.

Jared using Papa's camera

Ems with her camera

 

 

 

 

I don't think Papa was being intent on his next shot, but it sure looks that way.

I don't know why I made two of them black and white and left the other one color, but they I like the way they turned out.

Fishing for Lightning

I love living in Utah and having these awesome thunderstorms roll through every summer. I can say that I think I am the only one in my house that likes these thunderstorms. On Saturday when the storm rolled through, I was really tired and wanted to go to sleep but my wife sat up and watched the lightning through our dining room window. She suggested that I should get my camera out and get some pictures of the lightning. I was weighing the options of getting some cool pictures and sleeping when Jarik took mom's advice and started getting my camera out for me. Reluctantly I got out of bed and got the camera all setup and got nothing as the storm decided to die out. What a waste of a good 30 minutes of sleep.

Then last night, the 28th, we heard the storm rolling in. Since the camera and tripod were still out, I decided that it was time to get some good pictures. As I set up the camera and started taking pictures I felt like I was fishing, you know, cast your line in, wait until the big one hits and reel it in. So I'd open the shutter on the camera, toss in the line, and I'd get bites like this:

This where the lightning was way far away or just behind the clouds and it would cause the sky to light up. It is cool, but it is just a bite on the end of the camera 'fishing pole'.

Then you'd get more then get a hit but it wasn't a 'keeper fish' type of picture. Loads of fun reeling it in, but it ends up being a fighter more than a keeper.

All great in their own right, but like most fishers just not the big daddy. Then you get closer and it's pretty awesome.

Then as luck would have it, you toss your line in again and something bigger strikes and you get to go home satisfied with what you have finally reeled in during your day of fishing.

I went to bed satisfied that I had a couple cool pictures to finally blog about. All in all a good night of fishing for lightning.

Psych

As a family we watch a lot of TV shows. Some of our favorites include NCIS, Wipeout, Good Luck Charlie, and Angel. One of our favorites right now is Psych. We just got season 5 from Netflix and finished watching it. Season 6 starts in October and we are excited in the McGee house.

Today I came home to my own little Juliet O'Hara...

Bree is such and cutie wearing Jarik's suit and has his badge and everything. It is just awesome. I love that my kids like to use their imagination and play like they are the characters in these shows.

Splashpad = Tons of Fun

Last Monday was the holiday for Pioneer Day. We sat around the house most of the morning, which was a nice break. Then in the afternoon we headed out to Herriman to take advantage of the splash pad there. After that we bar-b-qued us up some food, had some dinner and ended the night watching the movie Adjustment Bureau. If you haven't seen that movie, I would recommend it. Here's a picture from the splash pad...

T, J, and B at the Herriman splash pad waiting for the water to start.

Coming Back

Hello blogger world. I've decided that I want to have a reason to start taking pictures and what not again so...I'm going to pretend that I'm going to be blogging a little more. Things have been pretty hectic and I'm hoping that this will provide a little break from the world. We'll see how it goes. I'm famous for saying one thing and then doing another, haha. I was going through some pictures today and found this one that I thought was pretty cool. It was taken from the balcony of the cabin we stayed in last year in Island Park.

Laters

Blog Name Change

Everyone the address for this blog is going to change from heynerd.us to tcmfam.blogspot.com. Please make any necessary changes to favorites/bookmarks. So the four of you that read this, please make the change. The change will be effective tomorrow. I know short notice.

Tracy

Photos of the SL Temple

Yesterday I had some time to kill before Harold go off work before our BBQ and games. I decided to leave work early and head downtown and get some pictures. I want to get working with my camera again so I decided to blow the dust off and see what I could do. I didn't play with too many of the settings, just changed the camera from aperture mode to shutter speed mode and played with that a little. It was a bad time of day to get pictures but I did what I could with the light I was given. Here are a few of my favorites. These are unaltered, straight from the camera to the blog.

This was just a single flower standing tall in the Beehive House Garden

The SL Temple is so beautiful

The recirculated water fountain/stream going through the grounds of the Church Office Building

Nice reflection. I'm horrible at taking portrait format pictures.

Tried this to see if it would be cool. I like it.

More beauty...

I like this one too...

This bench is on the west side of the temple, sort of out of the way. I thought it was cool.

Last one.

I was thinking of heading up to the Capitol building but ran out of time. I also want to go get some pictures of the Cathedral of the Madeline. Stay tuned...

Quick Post for a New Picture

We had a nice lightning storm roll through tonight and so I got my camera out and took some pictures. I probably took about 20-30 pictures, only about 9 of them had any capture of lightning at all. This is my favorite.

Lighting to the south.

I took it through the kitchen window and you can see the vertical lines of the screen if you look close enough. This was cool. I waited to long to get some good ones, but next time I won't. I'll post the rest tomorrow.

A Couple More Pictures

I was looking through a few more of the pictures from our trip and thought about posting them. The first day we were in Yellowstone there were some high winds that knocked the power out at the Yellowstone Lake lodge and there was a fire somewhere that was blowing smoke in from the south. Here are a couple I took.

The Sun over Old Faithful through a slit between the smoke and the horizon.

The sun over Yellowstone Lake.

The sun over some trees on the road in Yellowstone.

I thought they were some cool pictures. I hope you enjoy them.

It's Been A While

Good evening everyone. It has been a while since I've blogged, I know, I'm a loser. Well there has been a lot of things going on in life since I wrote last. Chels has been having some stomach issues that have kept her down a lot. She has good days and bad days, but for the most part, she's doing OK. We will hopefully get to the bottom of things with her shortly.

I was released as the YM President of the ward and put on the Stake High Council. It has been a lot of fun. We I have spoken twice since my call and I will be speaking a lot more. I don't mind speaking in public so it will be fun.

We've been home for a week or so now from our family trip to Yellowstone. We had a great time. We stayed in a huge cabin in Island Park with Chels parents, Sam and Cait, and Erik and Ali. Twelve of us total. We spent some time in Yellowstone where we got to see some wildlife, but not as much as we'd hoped. We saw a lot of bison, some elk, a beaver, and an eagle. We got to see some huge waterfalls and Old Faithful. We took a hike along Henry's Fork of the Snake River in Island Park and hung around the cabin. After 4 days in Island Park, we headed down to Jackson Hole, WY for a Bar J Chuckwagon dinner. It was a lot of fun and the food was great. Other than a disappointing visit to Quake Lake, it was a lot of fun and we are going to plan another trip in a couple of years.

Here are some pictures of our trip...

Erik and I stayed up almost every night to get some night shots. This was the last one I took.

We stopped at the Idaho Falls and Rexburg temples on our way to Island Park. This is us in front of the Rexburg temple.

Once we got to Island Park we hung out at a place called Mack's Inn. KK was having a good time throwing rocks.

Jarik got a first aid kit for his birthday and carries it everywhere. Bree hurt her toe so it was Dr. Jarik to the rescue. He's a great Cub Scout.

Yes this is creepy. This is Sarah, Tiaree's doll. She ended up with being stuck in all sorts of creepy spaces.

Three men with digital SLR's. This is going to be a long trip with loads of pictures. I took over 500 myself.

This little guy, OK, he's kind of big, slowed traffic down. We passed him twice.

The family at the Upper Falls.

 

 This is a picture taken at the Lower Falls.

This was just the moon setting in the west. Taken from the cabin.

This is Chels and KK doing the 'Firepower' thing from Night at the Museum 2. It was cute.

It was a great trip and there are sooooo many more pictures. I'll have to spend some time getting some up on FB.

3-day Weekend Blur

I got into work this morning and was talking to someone about the weekend. After they got done describing the weekend they had they asked how my weekend was. I couldn't at the time think of what I did on Saturday. I sat there with that thinking look on my face and seriously couldn't remember. It was annoying. I remember now what I did, but at that moment in time, nothing.

Overall the weekend was a good one. Minus the welts I sustained while mowing the jungle, I call a backyard, down yesterday it was a great weekend. On Saturday the YM/YW did a combined service project at Oakcrest girls camp. We cleared some trails. It was actually a lot of fun and something we may look at doing in the future. We met Nester there.

Nester is a dog that was wondering the camp that was very friendly. He became a couple of the YM's best friend while we were there. It was funny.

After the service project we headed home and took naps, 3 of the 4 kids fell asleep. Then we had Rick and Nic's kids for the night as they went to Wendover. It was fun for the kids.

Sunday was our usual Sunday, church meetings etc. Chels' mom, dad, sister and sister's husband came over for a bbq on Sunday and we hung out for a while and played some SingStar. It was a cook night.

Monday was the tradition of the early morning breakfast. We headed up to Big Cottonwood Canyon, the Storm Mountain picnic area, for the yearly tradition of bacon, eggs, hash browns, sausage, and fun. We get up there cook breakfast, eat breakfast and then just chill for a bit. Pretty much everyone, minus the kids, tried to get some shut eye enjoying the beautiful atmosphere we were in. We talked about heading down the canyon and getting stuff for the rest of the day. We decided to forgo that idea in the interest of saving some gas and headed home. I decided that we were going to have a marshmallow roasting fire in our fire pit so I opted not to shower and headed into the previously mentioned jungle to get some things done. It was a lot of fun to find out that some of our backyard still has some pretty nice grass and that we may not have as big of a project coming in the backyard as we thought. Then the family that was over Sunday for another bbq and we had the fire in the fire pit on our back patio for those that wanted to roast marshmallows.

It was a great weekend. Here are some pictures that I got this weekend...

KK with a pretty flower in her hair.

 

 A bridge over the river in Big Cottonwood Canyon, Storm Mountain picnic area.

Marshmallow roasting in the backyard with the kids.

Rick, Nic and Fam

Last night I had the opportunity to take some more pictures of my sis, this time with her family. And believe it or not, my camera still works. Hahaha, just kidding Nic, I love ya! I'm getting a little more comfortable with my camera in the small area that I'm using as a 'studio'. The 50mm f/1.8 lens is helping but there is a little more blur. But without an actual studio, these pictures turned out pretty nice. I think the winning family picture was the last shot taken of the night. Here are a few of them...

Nic and Karsen

The best family shot of the night. They are so cute.

And this is how we all know them best. Silly family. 

It was fun taking pictures of these guys, even though Karsen would smile really good and look away from the camera or look at the camera with a weird smile on his face. We are going to go do some outside shots soon. Fun stuff.

Sleeping Angel

Back in February I took some family pictures for some friends and just finished processing them. Yeah, I'm a slacker. Well I was playing a little bit and processed this picture after watching a quick tutorial on Lightroom. Let me know what you think of the picture...

Great Weekend!

I'm a big fan of the weekend. However, like most people, I think it goes way, way, way too fast. Did I say way in there?

This weekend started out on Friday with our Aaronic Priesthood camp out in the west desert. It was about an hour and 20 minute drive out there, which isn't too bad. We got up there and had some dutch oven dinner of potatoes, steak, and chicken. Very tasty. The cooks at camp did an awesome job! After dinner we had 5 different stations/fires where the boys went around and we talked to them about attributes of some Book of Mormon heroes. I wasn't slated to do one of these break-out sessions, but filled in for one of the other leaders that was running a little late. I got to talk about Captain Moroni. It was pretty cool. I had to wing it, but it's not hard when you are talking about him and the Title of Liberty. We got done and finally went to bed between 1 and 2, after a joke and talking session around the campfire. I don't know for sure what time it was because my phone was going to die so I turned it off and I didn't have a watch...stupid watch batteries. Well I got up the next morning to see if I could help with breakfast but they had everything under control so I started walking around camp and taking in the peace and quiet of being so far away from the city for a little bit. Here is a picture I took...

This is a picture of the sun coming up over the Oquirrh Mountains. For me the sun usually sets over the Oquirrhs, but this time I got to watch it rise over them. Pretty cool.

Saturday after I got home Chels and I were able to do some yard work. Chels got the lawn mowed and I got the front parking strip tilled and the dirt thrown in the dumpster that the county brought. I have the side park strip to do still, but I will get to it, eventually. I worked for about 2 and a half hours on that and finally stopped when I had to get in the shower to go to Rick's birthday party. Which I was thankful for because I probably would have just kept working, starting on the other strip, and then I wouldn't have been able to move at all today. The bar-b-que was fun. I got a brat and a spicy sausage from Harmon's to cook up. They weren't kidding when they called it spicy. While we were at the party we got to step outside and watch the space station streak across the sky. That was pretty cool.

Sunday was Sunday, which for me is a great day. Church was great. KK was sick so Chels kept her and Bree home and Tiaree, Jarik, and I went to church. I think Jarik took a little nap and Tiaree just sat next to me and read scriptures that I pointed out to her. It was nice. Then Jarik and I got to go and have dinner with my grandpa. The whole family was going to go, but with KK throwing up most of the day we thought it wise to let some of them stay home. Tonight grandpa told me that he is used to his house being our house that it's tough sometimes to be alone, which I don't doubt.

Tomorrow we go back to work and school and whatever. Who knows what this week will bring, but let me just say, that I'm ready for next weekend.

Join Club Scouting...Huh?

So I was driving to work this morning and saw this truck that had a bumper sticker on it that said 'Join Cub Scouting'. Well when I first read it, kind of at a glance as I was paying close attention to the road so I didn't crash, I read 'Join Club Scouting'. I don't know where that 'L' came from in my mind but it was there when I first read it and then it was gone. For those of you that don't know, I work pretty closely with the scouts in my area. As a matter of fact, my son is a Cub Scout so I'm involved from many different angles. But when I read, or thought I read, 'Join Club Scouting' I had to chuckle a little bit because I can think of a few scouts that I'd like to club. Haha, not really, but if you work with scouts you can see where I'm coming from. I do love working with the young men in the area they are all great young men.

See You Later

Yesterday, May 4th, 2010, this world lost an angel living on it's soil. My dear Grandmother died after a battle with cancer. I got the news yesterday around lunch time from my sister who was there when Grandma slipped this mortal realm and returned to be with her family and friends on the other side of the veil.

Words can't express the feelings that I have for this woman who was more than a grandmother to me. The love she had for her family and friends was beyond that of any that I know of. She insisted on holding family functions at her house every Thanksgiving and Christmas eves, regardless of the requests to move it somewhere we could spread out a little. I think she loved the noise of the great prosperity that she leaves behind. I loved taking off from work early on those days and riding the bus down to her house to help her and Grandpa arrange the tables and getting the places set. We always had time to sit and talk on those occasions and I would selfishly call it my special time.

I will, as will most of my friends, remember the toast we would go get whenever we felt the need. It seemed she always had a loaf of bread ready just in case we came in from our running around to grab some. Her hugs were awesome and the little whispers in my ear that she loved me were always a great comfort and helped me move on during some hard times in my life.

I will ever be grateful for her and the blessing of the testimony that she held. The testimony that she ever so willingly shared with me of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. I think back often of times when I sat by her in sacrament meeting and would find little candies in her purse that I could eat during that meeting. The simple lessons of tithing and the importance of the scriptures and the temple that she would share with me just here and there. Her love of the temple was an inspiration to me and gave me a desire to enter that building. I feel that the man that I have become is due in part to this wonderful daughter of God.

Here is the lyrics to one of my favorite songs that seem to take on a new meaning with the passing of a loved one:

In the quiet misty morning

When the moon has gone to bed,

When the sparrows stop their singing

And the sky is clear and red,

When the summer's ceased its gleaming

When the corn is past its prime

When adventure's lost its meaning - 

I'll be homeward bound in time

Bind me not to the pasture

Chain me not to the plow

Set me free to find my calling

And I'll return to you somehow

If you find it's me you're missing

If you're hoping I'll return,

To your thoughts I'll soon be listening,

In the road I'll stop and turn

Then the wind will set me racing

As my journey nears its end

And the path I'll be tracing

When I'm homeward bound again

Bind me not to the pasture

Chain me not to the plow

Set me free to find my calling

And I'll return to you somehow

My daughter, Bree, said with a little hmph, on her way to school after we found out yesterday, "It's not fair.", and when my wife replied, "What's not fair?"  Bree said "Grandma gets to be with Heavenly Father now.". To that my little Bree, it is fair and well earned. Because of the things that Grandma helped me to learn I know I don't have to say "Goodbye" I get to say "See you later!".

Back on Track

Wahooo... Wait, you are all, both of you, confused as to what I'm back on track for. Well let me tell you. I had previously mentioned that I wanted to read more and set a goal to finish a book a month. With how slow I read, that is a major thing for me. Well last month I was reading Life of Joseph Smith the Prophet by George Q. Cannon. It was very good and a book that gave me a greater respect for Joseph Smith and what he did in his life. It taught me some things about not only the Prophet but for those people that were around him. He had many loyal and great friends. He struggled through many trials and persecutions all because he had seen a vision and reorganized a church. I would give it an A and tell everyone that they should take the time to read it. It took me a while to read because I'm still a pretty slow reader and I wanted to make sure that I took this book in.

When I finished with that a couple weeks ago I was walking around our house looking for something to read and picked up The Lost World by Michael Crichton and started reading that. I got a few pages into that and figured I should read Jurassic Park first so I put it down and got on the library website to see if they had Jurassic Park checked in. It wasn't but his newest book, Pirate Latitudes, was available so I picked it up and started reading it. This book started out a little slow for me as he started to build his characters but a few chapters in and the adventure starts. Charles Hunter and his crew set out from Port Royal, Jamaica to get a ship that is supposedly full of treasure and is anchored in a very well protected Spanish port. Captain Hunter plans the attack and gets those in Port Royal that have specialties that will help in this quest. Capt. Hunter is very good at what he does and has to think quickly as they encounter a few bumps along the way. It was an easy read, which are my favorite kind but it kept me turning the pages. Good enough for me to finish it in a week since I checked it out on the 22nd. (Image used from Goodreads.com)

My next book is Storm Front, which is book one in the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. I don't know what to think about it but Goodreads.com gives it a 3.9 rating and I've had to wait a week or so to get it. I'm hoping to pick that up tonight. If you've read it let me know how you like it. As far as this blog goes I do recommend both of the other books in this blog.

Way to Go Papa!!

As many of you know, Chels' parents sing with the Tabernacle Choir. Well there is a limit to the amount of time that one gets to spend in the choir, either 20 years or the age of 60. Well recently her dad reached one of the limits and it was time for him to retire from the choir. This last Sunday was his retirement meeting. He got to sit on a nice soft chair.

(This is our papa as a General Authority picture)

Then he had to stand up while Mack Wilberg said some nice things about him...

Then he got to shake hands with Mr. Mac and the Prophet and get a picture taken with them...

To get a really cool plaque...

and then be surrounded by a...can I say...crazy family...

All in all it was a great morning and a lot of fun.

Papa gets to sing a few more weeks with the choir in the broadcast and then he gets to record a men chorus CD with the choir. That has always been one of the things that he has wanted to do and was bummed to hear that he wouldn't get to sing on the CD since they were recording it after the retirement. But he was asked to stick around and sing on the CD, so he is happy.

We have a few more years with Grammy in the choir. Chels has some interest in singing with the choir as well, but we'll see how that goes. There is a lot of stuff that she'll need to do to get the opportunity to do it.