July 30th

July 30th, 2014
Not to be too complainy or anything, but packing is hard work! Especially unpacking for a trip and then packing for two separate trips that are back to back. And we don't even have kids yet! oh boy.

July 29th

July 29th, 2014
I really wish that all of our adventures would stop making me spend so much time in this room. Way back when I was a participant of the dreaded "chore chart" [each kid had a big chore for a week] I used to love getting laundry. I think having to deal with laundry only 1 out of 10 weeks sounds wonderful right now.

July 28th

July 28th, 2014
Pool Day! Mom had to drop off Julie and Abbi off for EFY, so I got to play with everyone. We went to Costco and ate hot dogs and gilatos. Everyone came back to my place to party in the pool! We swam until it started thundering. The kids brought lots of fins and flippers and we swam for hours! I invented a new game called "viking" where you have a kick board and fins on and swim/ram into people and yell "viking!!" 

July 27th

July 27th, 2014
Sunday walks with the family! We managed to get everybody to come! [which never happens - probably because there wasn't a game on haha] It was so nice to take it easy after my crazy busy week. We walked to Hawthorne Elementary and let the kids go crazy on the playground. This little cutie makes the silliest faces!

July 26th

July 26th, 2014
Goodbye Capital Reef Field Station! It's been such an amazing week and I got to know some awesome people and have fantastic adventures together! We rolled out around noon and drove home! I was so excited to get home and see Danny!

[Eventually I'll get around to posting some of my fav pictures from the trip]

** Edit - you can view my top 20 here **

July 25th

July 25th, 2014
Calf Creek Falls today! After breakfast was eaten and cleaned up we headed out the door for our next adventure! All but two in our class made the 6 mile round trip hike up to the waterfall! Alyssa and I wore our swimsuits underneath clothes so that we could get in the [freezing] water! Only four of us actually got our whole body in! [Me, Alyssa, Sean and Kelly!] We took photos, swam around, took photos some more and ate lunch in the shade. When we finally made it back to the cars it had started storming and raining again. We lost one of the cars in our caravan and pulled into a gas station/mini mart to wait for them. Alyssa and I ended up buying $15 Mexican Ponchos! haha super random! But we were freezing and they only had two smalls left! Then some of us split up. My car, [Richard, Sarah, Alyssa and I] were hungry from all of the days adventures and wanted to try out this super awesome local burger joint down the road. The rest of the class wanted to off road and try to catch some more lightning. We went our separate ways. [I liked our way better] The burger place in boulder was SO good! If I had more room in my stomach I think I would have licked my plate clean! After dinner we piled in the car and I played DJ. We had a terrifying moment when we were literally feet away from hitting a black cow crossing the road. Lucky all of us girls screamed so loud Richard was able to swerve and miss it! Crazy! We were wide away for the rest of the ride back to the station. We ended up beating the other cars back to the station - turns out they were chasing the sun and got to the cliff about 10 minutes too late and they missed the last lighting strike and one of the cars was completely lost! Everyone ended up finding their way back to base thankfully. Those who hadn't eaten had dinner waiting for them. It was another late night again. Some people still had critiques to do! I ended up clonking out around 12:30/1 ish. Weird to think tomorrow I get to go back home and be back in civilization! 

July 24th

July 24th, 2014
What a day! After last night's crazy weather I woke up just in time to hitch a ride back to the temples to photograph the sunrise! Once we finished snapping we went back to camp to help take down tents and eat breakfast! We all loaded up and took the scenic 2 hour trip back to the station. Along the way we stopped at a dried up riverbed where you can actually see and pick up the cracked clay! Crazy! We also stopped at a place that was littered with fossilized shells and sweet looking rocks. We spent a good half an hour on the side of the road looking for treasures! Once we got back to the station we ate and everyone showered! It was wonderful! I was just getting dressed when I heard that a group was planning on going on a strenuous slot canyon hike and was seeing who wanted to go! There ended up being eight of us: Me, Alyssa, Sarah, Kelly, Jeremy, Richard, Sean and Dusty. It was way cool! We had to off road for about a mile worth of wash to get to the "trail" and the first half of the hike consisted of hoisting ourselves and gear over boulders, climbing up walls and down rocky slopes. We started getting into some mud and standing water due to a flash flood a few weeks ago. The first impassable puddle was about mid calf on me. That's where Alyssa and Dusty drew the line and we left them behind while we trudged on. Richard and Sean had climbed up on top of the ridge and were scouting out routes for us to take and i guess they saw the water and didn't want to go on either. We then passed through a second puddle thing that went about mid thigh high, Only to reach another very deep body of water. It ended up being armpit deep on me and ended with a giant bolder blocking the way through. Sarah said "no way" and we left her there along with most of our gear. Jeremy had his camera in a zip lock back and waded across with it. Kelly and I left everything on the bank. Once across the water, the only way to get up was to stick one foot on either side of the slot and kinda shimmy up. Jeremy was able to get up without assistance [he had height aiding him]. Luckily for Kelly and I he had brought this lanyard thing used in rock climbing. With one of our hands looped up in it we were able to push off of one side of the cliff and use our momentum to carry us/climb up the side and over the rock. It was down to us three and we finally started reaching the really narrow slots when we thought we should probably turn around since we had left so many people behind. With only a camera, no tripod or remote we were able to [after many, many attempts] take a passable selfie with Jeremy's camera. Then we hiked back and met up with our group. The sun was setting after we made it back to the road so we stopped to photograph for a bit. Then we drove back to the station in the dark, all of us [Kelly, Jeremy and I] covered in red mud! We got there just in time for dinner and a little lesson. Way fun! So glad I went the whole way! 

July 23rd

July 23rd, 2014
After breakfast our crew packed up gear for an overnighter just outside of the North part of the Park. [literally. we pitched our tents right next to the fence] We took the six hour scenic route up to Temple of the Sun and Moon, stopping along the way for lunch and photo ops. It was crazy beautiful! You almost didn't know where to look! Since apparently I can't go camping outside of Oregon without a little rain, we got POURED ON. Like monsoon style, complete with thunder and lightning. Not to mention we somehow left our food for breakfast back at the station. However, rain in the dessert is weird and comes down like Noah's prepping the ark right now and we need to start gathering two of every animal, and then it just stops. When it stopped raining we ate our dinners we had packed and were happy to see the arrival of our chef/TA Randy and Jason, the dude in charge of the field station with tomorrow's breakfast packed safely in their trunk! Unfortunately, Jason's Subaru had other plans in mind and as soon as both guys got out and shut their doors, we heard a honk and the car was locked. With the keys sticking out of the ignition. Awesome. The boys spent the next half hour or so trying to break into the car. They ended up prying open the door an inch or so, bending the crap out of some s'more stick roasters and having Jason climb on the roof of his car to help maneuver their Macgyver contraption into unlocking the door. Success! By that point the sun had started peeking though the clouds and it was near sunset. So we grabbed our gear and drove back to the temples for some sunset shots. When the sun had set we were graced with a thunder/lightning storm on the horizon - with which I got some pretty awesome lightning shots! The storm eventually moved and was dying down when we headed back to camp to pitch our tents. I shared my two person tent with my new BFF Alyssa since she had brought a 6 person tent and we were operating in the dark. With camp more or less set up we headed back to the temples to do star shots since they had come out and the clouds were relatively gone. We were out for a few hours and then we finally crawled into our [wet] sleeping bags around midnight. [That's what happens when your gear is loaded into the back of the truck and it pours!] Not many of us slept very well thanks to the random spurts of pouring rain, crazy loud thunder, lighting that made everything momentarily visible and the howling and yipping of pissed off coyotes on the neighboring hill. I was so glad when morning finally came!

July 22nd

July 22nd, 2014

Our day started bright and early at 4:30 am – yuck. We were supposed to meet in the main hall so we could leave at 5 for a sunrise hike to Hickman Bridge. The majority of the girls were waiting for 15 minutes past 5 before any of the boys showed up, including our instructor, Kevin. We ended up leaving around 5:30 and made it to the trailhead. At this point our flashlights we brought were useless. I was in the lead for the majority of the hike [despite the steep incline/huge stones to climb up] At the end I was the 4^th person overall to make it to the bridge and 1^st girl to reach it! Yay! We had a lot of time to kill before the sun rose fully so we explored and climbed everywhere! We ended up staying until the sun had covered most of the arch [the last little bit wasn’t going to happen until later in the day] By the time everyone made it back to the cars it was about 9:30. We loaded up and headed back to the station for a late breakfast of fruit filled pancakes and sausage. [Did I mention our aid is also a pro chef? Yumm – He makes carb loading wonderful!] Everyone kinda clonked out after we ate – I even took nap for a couple of hours! It was great! We ate and then tried to go out shooting at sunset, but this crew has a hard time moving! We were chasing the light the whole way down the plateau, but we missed it! However we did happen to stop to take pictures of a family of deer! We ended our night with some star shooting! So beautiful and so many stars! I could see the milky way and even a few planets with just my eyes! We didn’t end up getting to bed until after 12:30! Such a busy, fun day! 

July 21st

July 21st, 2014

            Today was the first day of my Capital Reef Adventure! Danny dropped me off this morning around eight and soon after the cars were loaded and we were on our way down to the field station! We got in around 2 and unloaded/settled in. Super nice! Plus it’s self sufficient too! Solar panel power and we purify our own water from the creek. We are waaaay off the grid out here! No reception/internet. Plus, at night we have to keep all blinds shut to avoid light pollution. Crazy. Once we were settled in we went on a little hike to see some unpublished to the people pictographs! Plus graffiti from the 1920’s. [I’m not allowed to say the location!] After that we cooled off inside for a while since it’s like a giant oven out here! We ate dinner and went to take some sunset long exposure shots of the creek and then it was off to bed! Day one: Success! 

July 20th

July 20th, 2014
Sundays are for drawing.
Look at my cute little artists :)

July 19th

July 19th, 2014
Fishing Day two!
Our pass up to Tibble was good for three days, so we decided "why not?"
We didn't go until evening because Danny picked up a morning shift at work and Robert also had work until four [Plus, Danny needed a nap after yesterday's busy day and then waking up early to go into work!]
Danny and I took Robert and Tommy with us.
We were able to get our same spot again as yesterday, but we didn't catch a single fish!
I think between the four of us we got like 2 bites!
the fish just weren't hungry!
[We blame Tommy]
Tommy was bummed because his pole broke so he had to use a barbie fishing pole - He tried for like 15 minutes to peel off all of the Barbie stickers, despite us telling him that no one can see the stickers. They'll notice the pink pole first! Haha

On a side note - This is my 200th post!!! Wooo!! 
Happy 200th day of the year everyone!

July 18th

July 18th, 2014
On today's episode of "Scouting" we check out Tibble Fork Res!
I am in LOVE with this place. My little home away from Oregon :)
I've got a few shoots coming up that are going to be at this location so I wanted to check it out first and scope out some good spots.
I brought my two main men with me to do some fishin' as well :)
[since we have to pay to go up, might as well get some dinner out of it]
We ended up going on an unexpected hike trying to get to a certain spot and had to turn around since it was going in the complete opposite direction!
So we wandered around and found a good place to start fishing.
At first we weren't getting anything [we were using powerbait, flies and worms] while the people next to us couldn't get their hooks baited fast enough!
We asked what they were using and the guy gave us some of his pink powerbait.
As soon as our hooks were baited and in the water we started catching fish like crazy.
Our neighbors left us the rest of their powerbait since he, his wife and their two daughters had all caught their limit. [4 fish per person]
After that we were catching fish on every cast, a couple of times I was mid sitting down when I got a bite and reeled in another trout!
We fished until the bait was gone.
In total we caught 10 fish, but kept 9 of them since there was a really little guy.
After fishing I dropped the boys off at Kidney pond behind Walmart since it has a fish cleaning station there and mom hates fish, especially the guts, stinking up her kitchen.
I drove over to Walmart and bought stuff to cook the fish with as well as make fish tacos! Yumm
It took a long time to prep, cook, debone, and make the tacos, but it was worth it!
So good and yummy!
That was dinner for whoever likes fish at the Jones house [which is about half]
Julie and Mak had some friends over and somehow ended up in a water fight!
Danny and I got roped in with the rest of the kids!
So much fun! [Luckily I could borrow a swimsuit from the girls, Danny wasn't so lucky]
We were drenched by the time we were done!
And Robert also had the pleasure of being held down by Danny and I while I shoved the running hose down his pants!
Once we all got cleaned up and dried off, Dad, Mom, Danny and I all went out to see the new Planet of the Apes movie!
But first we went to In-n-out and got milkshakes!
It was awesome! and we were the only ones in the theater!
It was literally just us four!
The movie got out super late and by the time Danny and I got home it was 2 in the morning. We were exhausted!
Today was filled with so much fun and adventures!
I loved it!

July 17th

July 17th, 2014
Baby Kimberly!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!
Danny and I drove down and back to Cedar today to see this little munchkin!
Kimberly is so adorable and tiny and cute and I just love her!
We hung out with Manny and Josh and ate lunch and then it was time for a photoshoot!
Except this little stinker does NOT like her photo taken!
Doesn't she know who her aunt is?[Although you can't tell from this picture]
It took a couple of hours, but we managed to get some super cute pictures!
I can't wait to edit them!

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speaking of which, if you want to see more previews of this little angel, I'll be posting some "sneak peaks" on my photography facebook page and there will be a blog post of my favs on my website blog once the session is finished and edited :)

July 16th

July 16th, 2014
Today I photographed Julie and Abbi!
We had so much fun at our shoot!
These beautiful girls were all giggles and smiles!
I'm so excited to finish editing the rest of them!
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[I'll be posting previews on my facebook page and there will be a blog post containing my favorites on my website blog]

July 15th

July 15th, 2014
It's been a quite productive summer so far
[considering that it didn't start for me until the 1st of July]
Neon toes, cut offs, and tan lines.
That's what I like to see :)

July 14th

July 14th, 2014
It was so hot today!
[I'm writing this at 7:10 and it's still 97 degrees!]
This evening there was a nice blanket of clouds that shaded the sun and made it more appealing to walk to get the mail.
There's been a lot of construction lately [with no end in sight] around our complex.
However, today I noticed a few new lavender plants by the mail boxes!
I LOVE Lavender plants so much! 

July 13th

July 13th, 2014
We're real good at group shots ;)
Last night of us all together for 3 years!
Amy and the girls move to Germany tomorrow to join Karl on base!
We're so excited for this awesome new chapter of life, but sad that we won't be seeing the Kelsons in "a few months" like we have been.
Good luck! We all love you!

July 12th

July 12th, 2014
Rob, Ti and I went to the Scottish Festival in Payson
We had so much fun listening to the bag pipes, seeing kilts and booths everywhere, and meeting Santa! He asked us if we've been good this year, and Rob was nice enough to take our picture!
Later that night after Danny got off of work we went out to eat with Amy, Rich and Sarah to Red Rock and Ed and Steph met up with us for dessert!

July 11th

July 11th, 2014
On top of being "Free Slurpie Day" it's also "Cow Appreciation Day" at Chick-fil-a!
If you dress up like a cow you get a free meal.
So I loaded the kids up in the van after helping make there little cow outfits and a mini photoshoot and drove down to the most crowded restaurant I have ever been in!
[The kids are lucky I'm a good sport]
We got our food and had to eat at three separate 2-person tables, and I let the kids even play on the slides for a bit until it was getting time to head back.
Whenever I would ask them a question while they were in their cow getups I made them respond with, "MOOOOOOOOO!" 

July 10th

July 10th, 2014
I'm such a mean big sister because I make him eat all of his Lasagna - despite him mushing it down and moving around his plate.
[2nd full day of mom being at trek]

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*Happy 20th Birthday Aust!*

July 9th

July 9th, 2014
Mom is at trek with the older kids - So i've been coming up while Danny's at work to check on them and make sure Tommy doesn't kill them or something.
It was crazy windy today and Tyler was so worried about his tent blowing away!
So he decided to go out and sit in it to keep it grounded!
Crazy kid!

July 8th

July 8th, 2014
Danny went with me "scouting" for new locations to photograph at.
I love scouting with Danny because it's essentially a nice drive, exploring the area and checking out all these cool places with my best friend! 

July 7th

July 7th, 2014
Cousin Nerf + Pie Day!!
In the morning most of the Robbins' went up the canyon to ride the alpine slides!
So much fun and SO Hot!
After all 24 of us made our way down we headed over to the church building to party!
So many cousins came and brought pie and nerf!
We had a few epic battles and waaaay to much pie!
I love my family! and I love that we were able to fit everybody in this photo! [55+!]

July 6th

July 6th, 2014
Making Milkshakes - Tyler has a hard time sharing mom.
He must be the caboose or something.

July 5th

July 5th, 2014
Today I got to photograph the Smiths! [Steph's family]
They've all grown up so much since I last saw them!
Despite a few uncooperative kids, we got some awesome shots!
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That morning Danny and I had to wake up early [after getting to bed late] to make it up to Salt Lake in time to watch the new Transformers movie for Scott's birthday.
I was planning on importing my pictures before we left so I'd have a clean, empty memory card for the shoot. While on our way up, I formatted my memory card because I had forgotten to and didn't want to forget before I got to my shoot.
I didn't realize until we were walking into the theater that I HAD NOT IMPORTED MY PHOTOS
and instead of being efficient, I ended up DELETING ALL MY PHOTOS FROM THE PAST TWO DAYS! 

I was heartbroken.

For the first time in 4 years I didn't have a picture for my "Picture of the Day"
Luckily we were a tad late for the movie so we had to rush right in and sit down.
I'm pretty proud of myself, considering there was a lot of choice words flying through my head that did not make it past my lips.
However, I did spend the first 15 minutes or so silently crying during the movie theater.
But then I gave myself a little pep talk and in the words of my wise photography professor, rule number one is "Don't freak out" -
I remembered my lame selfie I took on my phone from our hike so I had that day covered. But I had nothing to show for the 4th. Danny was so sweet and was trying to help me and comfort me and suggested that we recreate our 4th of July photo.
And that's just what we did.

I am proud at how well I handled the situation. When it boils down to it, yes it sucks, but it happened and there's nothing that I can do about that except try to make the best of the situation. This is my picture of the day, there are no rules, if something like this happens I don't "fail" my photo project, I just figure out what I need to do next.
I guess this is what growing up feels like ;)

July 4th

July 4th, 2014
Happy Fourth of July!
We drove up that morning to the family ranch and had so much fun with family and hiking around the ranch it was so beautiful!
Afterwards we had a Robbins/Jones BBQ fireworks party!
We lit off tons of fireworks in our circle with neighbors and friends and family.
[Danny and I had to recreate this image due to a mishap that I'll talk about on the 5th of July blog post]

July 3rd

July 3rd, 2014
Today Danny, Me, Robert, Rob, Christina, Amy, Ti, Tasia, Talia, Sarah, Lindsay and Sam went on a hike up donut falls. I took tons of pictures and we got a super sweet group photo, but I lost the pictures - which is partly why it's taken me so long to update my blog [I'll talk about it on July 5th's picture of the day since that's when it happened]
When we were done with our hike we were all talking around the cars and on the hike back down I had gathered wild flowers and wove a crown while we talked.
Luckily I snapped this picture of myself while trying to see how it looked on my head. 

July 2nd

July 2nd, 2014
Yesterday Sarah, [my sis in law] text me and told me that a lot of the flowers were in bloom out in front of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple and she'd love a shot for her wall since they live just down the street.
I drove up after dropping Danny off this morning [shot around 9ish] and had a mini photoshoot with the temple. :)
The shots turned out great! Plus I got to have breakfast with Sar, Lynds and Sam!

July 1st

July 1st, 2014
Makayla and her friends hired me to take some Best Friends pictures of them.
I drove them up the canyon and we shot some awesome pictures!
It was so much fun and full of laughs!
These crazy girls are so much fun.
We ended our sesh with a pit stop to 7-11 and got some slurpies!

. . .

[I'll post previews on my photography facebook page and there'll be a complete blog post on my website when I'm all done editing the pictures]

June 30th

June 30th, 2014
I had mom and the kids come over today to go swimming.
We all swam for a few hours and had lots of fun with my underwater camera.
Towards the end when we were all drying off and laying out Hailey had the whole pool to herself and was just floating like this. for ever. haha.

June 29th

June 29th, 2014
Getting ready for Sunday walks with the little kiddies!
I love it!

June 28th

June 28th, 2014
After Danny got off work today we went up to Salt Lake for a little date night to check out the Utah Arts Festival and grab some sushi afterwards.
It was so fun to walk around the booths and check out everyone else's art - inspiring!
I can't wait to make more of our art together!
I love little art dates with Danny, he is so much fun and I love him!
I totally lucked out with getting such an artistic husband!