What's hiking?

In May our family planned a week long trip to Moab. We were going to hit Arches, Canyonlands, and of course some Jeep trails. It didn't quite turn out that way. We were sidetracked with a funeral in Price. Since my hubby has the most convenient vacation times (one week in May and one in October, gotta love being on the bottom of the to tum pole) we decided to sneak down to Moab for at least one day.

I absolutely love hiking in Arches! The Delicate arch hike (the 2 mile one) is by far my favorite. I love the long climb up the slick rock and in the past have tried to run it, which is not recommended at noon, go figure! This particular hike is not the same with a 6 yr old and especially with a 3 year old. In fact most of the hikes we did were not the same with "the Diva" 6 year old and the "I'm thirsty" 3 year old. We found, to our surprise, that kids do not move well in the heat. In fact they will inform you constantly of their uncomfortable conditions. We also discovered that a 3 year old does not stay on the somewhat marked path, and will throw rocks at everything!

Another thing I discovered is that my husband can carry a 3 year old all day long and not get tired. I, on the other hand, wouldn't have lasted more than 30 minutes carrying him. And despite my failed attempts at 'let's jump down all the rock stairs and see how much fun we can have', my sweet husband still carried him without any complaints.

Hey look a lizard!

The kids found a really interesting lizard. It had the most unusual looking feet.

See how it walks on its heals. It was really neat to watch.

We were on our way to see the Landscape Arch when a big gush of wind came. I was fortunately facing the right direction, my kids sadly were not.

This little guy can probably out drink anyone in milk, Gatorade, juice, and sometimes water. Every time I turned to take a pic of my Brents this is what he was doing...drinking all of the water from the camelpak.

Rylee has a gift, I think she inherited it from my mom, she is extremely gifted at speaking her mind. We were walking up a trail and the person in front of us stopped, and went to the side for a small rest. Rylee did a double take as she past the kid and loudly said "Holy cow! I thought that was a girl". The poor kid had shoulder length hair. And yes, we immediately hushed Ry and told her some things we just don't say out loud.

His blue lips are from drinking about $15 worth of Gatorade.

The Diva, the I'm thirsty kid and the continual 3 year old backpacker. I love my family!

One of our many drink stops, and look we found sand to build sand castles, how convenient!

Despite everything that happened we really had a fun time as a family. But due to time restraints we could only hit Arches, which is just fine because it leaves more to do next year.

Our Grandpa Jensen

My sweet Grandpa Jensen passed away in May. I had a hard time editing these pictures because he was the one who inspired me to learn photography. I would bring him some of my favorite pics and he would tell me how I could improve on them. I remember one time spending hours at his house looking at his photos and having him describe what he was aiming for, how he got the shot and so on. It was probably my favorite time with him.

My dad holding Kayleigh (the two were inseparable), Aunt Judy & Aunt Nancy.

Uncle Erroll, Uncle Steve, my dad, Aunt Judy & Aunt Nancy

The golfing/fishing buddies!

After the dedication of the gravesite, my family of course has to take pictures with everyone.

Nothing says 'I miss ya Grandpa' like taking pictures in the Orangeville Cementary.

My dad with all my brothers (I don't know if you can tell, but my dad is really photogenic)

See he LOVES the camera! (you should see the picture of them with Cinderella in Disneyworld!)

This one is much better!

Isn't Kayleigh adorable!

We were so glad to have Amanda and Kayleigh come out to be with the family.

My little guy with his flower from Grandpa's funeral.

Ry with hers

Jill & Steve's family

My Uncle Steve's entire family

My ahh-ha moment!

My mom asked me why I haven't posted anything for awhile? Honestly I don't have a really good reason. For one, I took a break from taking pictures because I have been a little upset over the fact that I can't purchase my new camera this year. We had some unexpected issues come up, and so my camera fund went towards that. Now I am extremely glad I had a little fund to help us out, but I really wanted my camera. So finally I decided to quit whinning about it and do something else like really focus on the basics of photography. I have always loved photography, I inherited that from my Grandpa Jensen who is an amazing photographer-his lighting storm pictures are incredible! I have spent hours at his house looking through his photo books while he tells me about each picture he took. He is the one who got me hooked on photography.

I started out by begging my husband to let me buy a DSLR camera and an extra lens. I choose Nikon because I could make it work, and for some odd reason I am Canon impaired-if anyone has a Canon I think they are amazing, I just can't get them to work. Anyways I started reading my manual and I quickly realized that I had no idea how to really use my camera. So now what do I do?

After asking a local photographer about how she got started and following her advise I enrolled into some classes at UVU. I seriously think my teacher was annoyed everytime I showed up to class, because I always had endless questions. I wanted to know everything I could. I also wanted to learn how to do everything manually-focus, shutter speed, aperture, ISO, everything. I refuse to ever put my camera in auto, I don't know why but I always felt like it was cheating.

Well after awhile of reading books, following forums, getting photoshop and lightroom I felt I wasn't improving. I was getting annoyed, actually I was pissed off, but mostly because I had a response to one of my photos that completely made me question if I really understood what I was doing. Now I appreciate the person's point of view, at the time I did not. Instead I shut down and stopped trying. I kept saying "when I can get my new camera then I will try up again". Sad to say, the 'when' never came, so now what?

Now I am hitting the basics...again! But this time it is starting to actually stick and I feel like I really understand the concepts and now I can really improve. So thank you AshleeT249 for your complete and total honesty (as much as I hated it). I guess I did need a good slap in the face, but next time don't be so dang blunt-once is enough for me!

below I posted my settings and also my actions in photoshop.

f/4.5 1/80 iso 200
color boost-single shot, curves

f/4.5 1/80 iso 200
moody pop minus the B&W

This is Link, he has the coolest eyes I have ever seen. Except when Issac is knocking him out to cut his leg, then they look all funky.

f/4.5, 1/80 iso 100
bright/contrast

Real Respect

Brent's Grandpa Harris passed away last week and I will always remember his funeral. I have never been to a military type funeral. I have seen one on T.V and knew what happened, but I have never attended one. And it wasn't until now that I saw what 'respect' for a veteran was like.

Grandpa Harris was set on giving every man who served in the military a proper military funeral. He personally set up a troop in Lehi that did nothing but that. He made sure the flags were always set in place at the cemetery, and would participate in each one no matter what. He saw it as his duty, and it had to be done.

At his, the troop escorted us to the cemetery on Harleys decorated with the American Flag. And when we entered the Lehi Cemetery it was literally lined with Flags all the way to his grave site. It was so awe inspiring, I still can't believe how beautiful all the flags looked. The entire grave site was surrounded with veterans holding up the flags. And as my husband and his family carried their Grandpa Harris the entire circle saluted him.

It was so amazing to see such a diverse group of men show complete respect for a fellow veteran. They didn't have to say anything at all, you could just feel it.

They played the song you always hear in the movies, and then did the gun salute, which still makes you jump even though you know it is coming. And despite their ages or the cold, these men stood at attention the entire time.

I have never seen anything like this and I don't think I ever will. And if I wasn't so awe struck I probably would have taken more pictures. But sometimes you just have to enjoy the moment and put the camera down.