Labor Day BBQ

I have been meaning to copy and paste this onto our blog from our wards "Mom and Tots" blog for a week and half now, but here it is, better late than never. I hope it isn't too late and we still see a lot of you there tomorrow!

Monday the 1st of Sep. we will be having a BBQ at the Monica Ball field. Please come and enjoy some hot dogs and hamburgers, along with some yummy sides and dessert. I have even heard of soft ball possibly going on and other fun games. I will post more info. on the Blog as I get it. So, 4pm is when the festivities will begin. The Buntings have kindly taken care of providing the hot dogs,hamburgers,and buns(THANK YOU SO MUCH!)Along with two large igloo containers that will have water and lemonade inside to drink. Please bring your own utensils( plates,forks,cups,napkins)for just your family and a side or dessert to share with everybody. If your last name begins with any letter from A-J please bring a side (ex:Bag of chips, salad, or fruit). And if your last name begins with the K-Z please bring a dessert. Thank you in advance for contributing to this fun evening!Please pass the word along to your friends and family. Hope to see you all there!

Just Hangin Out

So we decided we should use my last few days of vacation for the year to spend some time together. I guess we spend a lot of time together already but I like to be around lots of people at all times so i guess it isn't always quality time. So what did we do? we went to San Diego and stayed with Jenna and Gus. They did have to work so we only saw them at night. They live in Vista now so we went to one of my favorite places, La Jolla. I don't really want to talk it up because then it would become overcrowded. So i will just say it is nice. We hung out in the coves which have awesome snorkeling. I found out Lindsey has a fear of snorkeling which I made her overcome.



We went to Scripps Aquarium and had a look around. It overlooks the beach and has some cool stuff but it was kinda small.



We showed up at the aquarium at the perfect time. Every Tuesday and Thursday i think, they feed the fishes in the big tank and a funny old man tells jokes and answers questions that halfway retarded people ask.



Two divers went into the big tank and fed all the fish, sharks, etc. The glass was something like a foot to 18 inches thick so the picture is kind of distorted at this angle



I was gonna lie and say I was swimming through the kelp and took this picture, but you could lie to your kids and tell them that for me. if this was taken in the ocean think about how much more impressive it would be, if you find this impressive at all.



This is an ugly fish:



This is us:



The most exciting part of the trip was on 99 heading home. we saw some horses having a great time. I thought about teaching this horse a lesson, but the lesson would have involved a Honda civic not a semi so we just raced. The horses were actually running in front of our car. Racing this horse brings to mind one of my favorite movie quotes, "And rubbin, son, is racin'."




So there you have it, all the cool stuff happens to us. I actually feel good for having posted twice in a week.

Kern County Fair 2008

so I was encouraged to submit some pictures for the fair this year. They had to be entered by the end of July and I entered them with minutes to spare. I need to get everything printed and mounted right away and the prints are due on the 20th of September. I don't expect any awards at all. I personally like the pictures but I know they aren't amazing. A few of the shots required a little skill and some serious photoshop/lightroom, but nothing was complex or carefully crafted. I know it shouldn't matter but I am sure that is the sort of thing a photo judge would consider. I think the better i have gotten the more critical i have gotten of myself and the less i feel like taking mediocre stuff, but everything i want as far as equipment is soooo expensive. I guess i just need to be more creative despite the fact that I cant get my brain to work that way. I think my goal for next year will be to spend some time thinking and planning at least a few cool, original ideas. Goal Two will be to get a bunch of you other photographers to join in on the fun, maybe i will post a blog with details and a reminder so no one forgets. without further ado....

A Bride




A Couple In Love



Will You Marry Me?



Kids and Art



A Sign

Girls Camp 2008

So Lindsey and I both got to go to girls camp. I love going up to Big Meadow, no cell reception, electricity, flushing toilets (this will be highlighted later), and plenty of sloppy Joe's. As you can see in my first picture the cook shack is in great shape. This is an after shot but i could call it a before shot because it looks the same. I always learned to leave things better than you find them but nature screws this thing up worse than anybody. I am sure a few of my friends lived in places worse than this for two years.

Lindsey was the ward camp director but I was called up to go on the 4th year hike. The 4th year girls go on a hike to Manter Meadow which is unbelievable. Here is a sign.

Here is an amazing example of a hiker.

this is our group of about 25 girls hiking out of the meadow

this is me trying to keep up

this is a snow flower

This is were I kept my mouth shut. Nobody explained how in a freak accident we were supposed to take a 5 hour hike to get help from camp were all we could do is use a satellite phone to call for help which would probably be at least an hour away by helicopter. If you cant tell it would take awhile to get any sort of help for a girl that falls off a cliff. I guess i don't think doing risky sports so for from civilization is such a good idea.

more flowers in Manter Meadow

More Hiking to Manter Meadow

This is most of the girls from college heights ward

Here Lindsey directs our ward's skit on Friday night

more skit

Lindsey with Kelsie Maher

This is very funny

Freestyle Entertainment has been doing an awesome job of lighting weddings and other events. they asked me to get a few pictures of their work, so here is my work.

Check out the head table at this reception. We thought it was pretty cool.