so i just got chelsey and morgan's invitation in the mail... with a picture i took! woohoo! that is neat. today i volunteered at a crisis nursery (parents can drop of their children anytime for up to 3 days- it's purpose is to prevent child abuse) and it was fun/crazy! that's it.

what a week.

so a week ago today i woke up at 8:30 and decided that i was going to go visit my friend jenn in sacramento. then i did. well, i got a late start on the road, so i pulled into roseville around midnight. the next day was jenn's graduation and graduation party, hot tubbing, then sunday we went to church, a fireside, ryan's house to yell at each other over a game of battle of the sexes... on memorial day we went shopping (got the cutest shoes from steve madden for $17) and then out to folsom bridge where we jumped, it was scary and took me half an hour to get off the bridge. not fun. then we went to somebody's bbq and then to john pinney's house to hot tub, i beat tyson at pool (of course) and just hang out... what else did we do... tuesday jenn had to work so i explored roseville/newcastle/folsom, bought a new lens- the lensbaby 3g, which is AMAZing and i love it. thennn... i can't remember what we did that night... we may have just mostly hung out the rest of the time. did some more shopping, hot tubbing, you know. it was amazing, i loved it out there and want to move out now. i made some great friends (i still have the ability, wow. ha) and i can't wait to see them all again... so there's the recap, here are the pictures...

jenn jumps 3 times before i decide to go up and jump


the walk up... yeah, check that speedo out.


after half an hour of being a baby up there, i made her hold my hand for a minute


and then i did it!


getting out of the freezing cold water


folsom bridge


so then we went out to some bridge that was in Triple X, that Vin Diesel movie... it was high


dane and jenn in the back row, jesse, me and kevin in the front


first lensbaby shot- it's a selective focus lense that looks like an slinky and you can move it all around and you focus in on one sweet spot and it blurs everything around that area


jenn's beautiful niece Marley- a lensbaby picture of a baby

oh yeah

GO SPURS!!!! i hope they can play more consistently now... i freaking hate the lakers.

ouch

so this blog is mostly only read by my parents, so i probably shouldn't be doing this post but.. oh well. tonight i went longboarding down provo canyon. neil asked if i wanted to go with him, brett, austin, and another guy, and of course i had to say yes even though i have really only been on a longboard 1.5 times- both on flat road- once in a parking lot and once for about 8 minutes down 100 west. but you have to start somewhere right? and what better place to start than a winding steep hilly trail through the canyon at 11 pm? right. and of course the boys are all pretty pro at this kind of thing, so i insisted that they go ahead and leave me to fend for myself cause i don't want to hold them back and make it miserable for everybody... as soon as they were out of sight, i ate it pretty hard. i scraped the knee that was finally getting rid of the scab from when i fell in my own driveway on the day of kami's wedding- january 18th to be exact. so now i'll have another scrape that lasts 4 months... and i'm not sure what i did to my hand, but i'm typing this with only my left... hopefully it feels ok soon. cause i don't think united believes i'm a student anymore- i haven't been a full time student for a year now, we've been, um... fabricating a little- so i technically don't have health insurance. woops. guess i probably should stay away from sports that are gonna injure me. it was great though, kinda creepy being in the mountainy woods alone at night, but at the same time, kind of ... spiritual? satisfying? being one with nature is good for the soul! anyways, i finally made it down, not too far behind them, i'm proud to say. i lived to tell the tale.

SUMMER!!!

ok, so only 80 degrees, but when you have snowish weather in may, 80 degrees is like heaven. so my 2 roomates and i headed out to the pool and stayed put for a good 2 hours. haven't gotten to get out and take many pictures lately, but we are going to color me mine tonight so maybe i can get some cool stuff there? in the meantime, i am saving my pennies for this

so that i can do this


but at over $600, looks like i'm gonna be saving a while.

The REI catalogue

... is what I'm looking through right now... i want a bazillion things. i just love summer and camping and warm weather. unfortunately we haven't had warm weather yet... today the high was only 63 and we really havent even passed 80 yet. it's pretty obnoxious. i am ready to go lay out by the pool and play outside!! i'm tired of wearing sweaters!

in other news, i'm thinking of maybe a new plan... working for a while and then grad school? right now i'm supposed to be starting in the fall to work towards a teaching license at BYU... but it'll take maybe more than a year and a half and i'll have to pay graduate student tuition and so it seems a little pointless to not just get a masters instead. so now i'm on the hunt for work experience...

in other other news.... i love my camera. the end.

first i found an awesome abandoned house in Pleasant Grove. i freaking love abandoned falling apart houses. i need a buddy to go with me next time to take cooler creepy pictures.




then i made it to the Mt Timpanogos temple, which is lovely and so is the landscaping. don't let those blue skies fool you, it was freezing.

mama mia

so today was the 2nd mother's day in a row that i haven't been home for. it's so sad. last year i spent mother's day with david and doug and charity and the girls. this year i spent it mostly alone, except my friend came over for dinner and watched a movie and just hung out. it was pretty fun and relaxed. thank you to my own mother; kristi and i are grateful for all that she did and does, and for my stepmom who gave me a brother and who always has answersto my food and refridgeration issues. and all the sweet women who influenced me growing up- marianne lloyd and tiffany hardy and michelle cook and chrissta hinze and other leaders and amazing women in my life who have always been there for me. kudos! i can't wait to be in the position to be able to be there for somebody else.

Long crazy week...

It's Saturday (though I only logged about 20 hours of work this week between assisting and nannying, so it's not like it's been miserable) finally, now I get to play! haha...

Monday was Cinco De Mayo.. Being the Mexican that I am, and adoring my culture, I celebrated by topping off a shopping trip with my sweet roomates to Costco with a trip to Los Hermanos. Not the best mexican food ever- I would have been in heaven if I'd been home and at Chuy's or some little dive of a Mexican place anywhere in Texas, really... It was good, fun, I had a tamale, horchata, fried ice cream, everything was pretty right.

The next day I worked 10 hours straight without a lunch break. That was the last time I'll work with that dentist again. Yuck! 7 boys moved in next door. Hopefully they will be as fun as the boys in the past. Word is still out.

Had J-Dawgs for lunch with Austin, Neil, Noelle, Mel, and another boy that I cant remember but who was very tall and had great red hair. I love J-Dawgs more than 98% of the restaraunts around here. Wednesday night our "Say no to Olive Garden" group went to a new pizza place in Orem. It was amazing, nice intimate classy place (our group of 18 or so was a little big for them- we had to lose 4 to another table, sad...) and their homeade ricotta cheese was to die for. The fact that there was a pool of olive oil instead of grease on top of the pizza was comforting. I left my leftovers in the boys' fridge, I'm still pretty sad about that.

Thursday my friend Danny let me tag along and watch his amazing photography skills while he took pictures for a catalogue and I just played with my camera (**** THIS WEEKS PURCHASE- NEW FLASH***). We traveled up to the Provo Castle and to the Lake where we smelled vinegar and I threw a rock at him. I attempted to run with Catherine, she is way better than me and I have no endurance... There is talk of a half marathon.... I don't know if I can do that, it's about 10 miles more than I've ever done and about 11 miles past my capabilities.

Yesterday, I took some pictures for Chelsey and Morgan, they liked a few of them, so maybe I'm not a lost cause. Thank goodness for having a good camera. and last night we went to a "beer and babes" birthday party... sans beer. plus crepes. which were excellent and mine were more like burritos, but I don't like to skimp on toppings. played a little rock band there, drew a picture of an octopus, and later Catherine and I watched Juno with those boys that were and always are at her house. fun fun fun.

So now I am going to try to go to the gym, get a yummy salad from kneaders to celebrate my first engagement shoot, and then edit some pictures, pick up a couple of mountain bikes for our excursion monday morning (which I had a dream about last night, it went well) and who knows what. Unfortunately the roomies are gone till tomorrow night. I hate being alone in this house. It's just creepy. This time though I won't watch Sweeny Todd at midnight and then end up having to go sleep at Jake's house. I'm a big girl, I can do this. Sorry this was so long, I never do the day-by-day play, but there was a lot of stuff this week and I'm gonna put in some pics too. Hi mom and dad and jake and pam!!!

So at the lake, sometimes the fish jump out of the water and they land on the docks, where the seagulls make things pretty miserable for them...


Drove down to Palmyra (all farmland) and saw lots of horses... my finger may or may not be in this picture....


Danny, doing his thing with his way cool camera at the Provo Castle


Some of the engagement shots I got... These are all out takes except for I think they liked the last one...

guns n stuff

so i mentioned earlier that we went up into the canyons to go shooting, Derek, Sean, and Travis brought out rifles, shotguns, and a handgun. i'm proud to say that i'm still a good shot at skeet shooting with clay pigeons. i love guns. here's a few pics...

a few more...

i love macro, it's a fun setting cause you can take a picture of almost anything up close and it looks so much cooler (ie, these marbles we have in a gold tray on one of the tables)..

or flowers...


or grandma's wedding set...



oh yeah, and introducing... Nova! our sweet little puppy..

some of you who read this may know my sweet friends Rich and Marianne Lloyd. they lived in texas up until about 2 years ago when Rich got his dream job and they relocated to kansas city. they have been 2 of my dearest friends for the last 7 years or so, and have helped shape me into the person i am today... back in september, Rich was diagnosed with gioblastoma multiforme- a brain tumor. 8 or so months later and countless flights between kansas city and salt lake, where he has been being treated at the Huntsman Cancer Research Facility, Rich passed away last friday after his second bout with pneumonia. Rich was an incredible inspiration to so many and even kept a blog with his thoughts, pictures, journal, etc, for everybody to keep up with his journey. his incredible optimism was constantly up;ifting, and he will be greatly missed by not only his sweet wife and 3 young boys, but all who knew him. i'm posting the link to his blog, his journal is truly touching and a great read. i'm also posting a link to an audio file of Rich's definition of "LIVE RICH", his motto throughout his cancer and the theme of fundraising efforts that have brought in over $30,000 for cancer and specifically, GBM, research. if you know rich, the audio may be hard to listen to, and there are parts that may be hard to hear. anyone who has heard Rich speak (our early morning seminary class, when he taught sunday school, giving firesides, or even personal conversations between friends) knows what an eloquent and incredible speaker Rich was, and this 15 minutes that he recorded just a couple weeks before his passing doesn't fall short of any expectations set by his prior testimonies and lessons. Rich's victory (not tragedy) over his cancer is a great reminder for all of us to LIVE RICH whether through trials or in everyday life. i love this man and his wife and kids, and i'll always keep the memories i made with them close to my heart- swimming at the stone oak pool, playing in their huge back yards, chats in the kitchen when rich would come home from work, the fun night we crammed him, mar, the three boys, and myself into a tiny hotel room with one bed and one pull out couch for the san antonio temple dedication, the beautiful night last october when we got to see Rich baptize David in slc... i know i still have many memories to make with Mar and the boys, and i only hope that a part of Rich has been passed on to me as well so that i can continue striving to be like him and be one of the many to portray the lessons he taught me on to his boys as they grow. i love you Mar, D, Jamers and Josh!

Rich's Blog:http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/richlloyd
Audio file: http://www.zshare.net/download/11383768ab0736cd/

New blog

I decided to start up this new blog to just put pictures up, I bought a Nikon D40 DSLR a couple of weeks ago and it's so amazing. I haven't been able to get out much with it because it's been snowing some, but now that I think it's finally going to start warming up now (today the high is 64) hopefully I'll get more outside stuff. Also, my new roomates have moved in, there are three of us and .... a puppy!!! Nova is so cute and we love her, even though she's not housebroken quite yet. so i'm sure i'll be putting up lots of pictures of her cute little self.
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catch up

So i have taken quite a few other pictures with my D40- which i love so much- and there will be many to come, but i wanted to post some of the others i liked... here goes nothin... oh and you can click the picture to see a bigger more detailed version...

my roomate Amy is an artist...


We have these cool yellow bushes that grow everywhere here, they are gorgeous in the spring...


my other baby: (love is everywhere)


we went shooting clay pigeons up in the canyon yesterday... i didn't take this one, obviously, but it was a cool shot and colors...


my great grandfather's rosary


Olivia, on one of the first days of spring here in Utah (though it's been snowing up until the day before yesterday)


candles at the Cathedral of the Madeleine up in Salt Lake City


tulips outside temple square in SLC

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