My Short Colorado Trip, Part 1

I am back from Colorado while Anthony and the kids linger there for a few more days. I needed to get back to work, but since we have no idea what the next few years will hold for us, it's nice that Anthony and the kids have been able to spend a lot of time with Nana, Papa, and their uncles (Anthony's grandma was there this time, too!).

(Consider yourself warned. I am addicted to sun flare, especially in the summer. At home we are closely surrounded by mountains and trees, so I had to take advantage of the direct light source. If sun flare is not for you, neither is this post!) :)

The original plan for this trip only included Anthony and the kids, but we figured that we could manage it if I went for a few days. We went to great lengths to keep my presence a secret, and I even hopped out of the car about a quarter of a mile down the road so everyone at the house would be convinced that I wasn't coming. Nana and Papa's house is on the left of this photo, and so are about a zillion grasshoppers that jumped out of the grass and onto my legs with each step. Ew.


I let Anthony and the kids get settled before making my appearance at the front door! I surprised Ryan! Our plan wasn't a complete success, though, as Nana and Papa were at the airport picking up Grandma.


We had a couple of hours to kill before they were due back, so we spent the evening having a picnic and playing in the backyard.




This little girl has been killing me with cuteness lately. She shows her gratitude for me with her precious "Daint you, Mama!" when I buckle her into her carseat, brush her hair, change her diaper, or really any other time. Please stay like this forever, Stinks.





During the summer, Colorado is filled with these sunflowers. They line highways and areas that are otherwise ugly and make everything nicer.




Uncle Ray is so great with the kids! Except when he tells them to squirt Mommy with the hose, but that's a story for a different day.



Many more photos to come!

I feel like July has flown by but yet I haven't much to show for it. I got the remaining half of my wisdom teeth out, worked a lot, shipped the kiddos and husband off to Colorado for a week, bought out the lease on our van, then picked up where we left off. Our days are spent in varying degrees of nudity, starting with being fully dressed in the morning, then pieces of clothing are shed one by one as both kids insist on playing in water (and who can blame them?!) but won't tolerate wet clothing, including swimsuits.


Connor came back from Colorado with this squirt gun. Tsk tsk Nana and Papa. His aim is too good!


And this little girl came back with a cold. She is so clingy but I can't say that I don't like it. This photo was taken as she was glued to my lap, hence the distortion.


The kids like to work on their 'darage' full of cars by washing them with the hose and tinkering with Dada's 'dewdivers'.



I'm in a bit of a photo rut, as most of my spare time is spent working on photo books from years past. It's hard to make bad photos look good. As one of my favorite current photographers so eloquently put it, "Pushing poo through a grate just makes grated poo, so why would pushing a bad image through [Photoshop]make it a better image? It doesn't..."

It's my birthday! 24 has been a good year to me. We've spent all of my 24th year chugging along with Anthony's school and watching our kiddies grow and develop into little people, intermixed with little vacations and personal victories. You really can't ask for much more.

I've spent the day catching up on adult (aka boring) things since the kids and Anthony are out of town for the week. I've received lots of love-filled phone calls (thanks for those!) and splurged to buy a new pair of shoes and get my nails done. Just typing those words make me cringe with the need to justify those purchases: I had a great promo text for the shoes so they ended up being cheaper than WalMart shoes and when I say 'got my nails done' what I really mean is I bought some press-ons and did them myself. Ah, the little things.

Birthday pictures are kind of a big deal to me. They're a tradition carried on from when I was little. Come on, who DOESN'T have their picture taken on their birthday? However, I ran into a little roadblock this year: I am all alone! My little family is a state away, my parents are up at a family reunion, and I took the day off from work! I had the genius idea of taking pictures with my tripod and remote. How hard could it be?

HARD. How do you get the camera to focus on a person when you have to preset your settings then run into the frame? I tried setting props into the frame to mark where my face would be. I tried taking a photo, then manually adjusting the focus tiny bit by tiny bit, and eventually gave up after about 50 exposures. I had to bring the Myspace out in me and try to just hold the camera as far away from my body as I could.

They're not perfect, and I won't be attempting any more self-portraits for a loooong time, but here is me, at exactly a quarter of a century old.




Here's to being 25!

I thought it was too early in the season for raspberries, but I was proved wrong when Connor yelled, "Raspberdies!" and headed straight for Grandpa's bushes. He must have remembered picking them last year, because he dove right into the prickly bushes, searching for his sweet treasures!



Alaina quickly followed suit once she realized that there was food to be found in the bramble. I have such fond memories of carrying my little green strawberry basket through my grandparents' backyard, hunting through the tall bushes and feeling like I was in the middle of the jungle. It was so fun.



Found some!

Alaina lacked the self restraint necessary to carry her raspberries out of the garden and have them washed, as evidenced by the seeds all over her face.

Last week

After this post I will be completely caught up on our recent happenings! Last week was quite busy, even before the fourth, and since there were a lot of "firsts", I can't just NOT blog about them!

We'll start with the least fun of them all: Connor and Alaina's first visit to the dentist. I am haunted by my first visits to the dentist. I remember the ivy covered brick building with a tarnished bronze plaque reading, "- - - Brockbank, D.D.S.". I remember the bead toy in the waiting room, and his bad breath and shaky hands pulling that lamp thing down close to my mouth. Yeesh. Anyway, I was so pleased when we walked into this pediatric dental office - there was a huge fishtank with the characters from Finding Nemo swimming around, the whole office was modeled to feel like you were underwater, flat screens were hanging on the wall playing Ferngully, all the office assistants were nice and cute, and the dentist himself was SO good with them. Of course, neither child cooperated for long, and for a split second, I wanted them to see the dentist offices I went to as a child! Then maybe they wouldn't complain! :) To make a long story short, Connor has four cavities in his back molars due to deep anatomical grooves that brushing won't clear, and we have an appointment to put him under general anesthesia to get them filled on Friday. I kind of wish that I had been sedated as a kid! Alaina's inherited her daddy's teeth and they are fine.


The next day, we took the kids to their first movie in the theater. We saw Toy Story 3 and we all loved it! Alaina was ready to go after the digital short before the movie even began, so it was a bit of a struggle keeping her entertained, but I guess that's to be expected with a two-year-old. Lesson learned: get two popcorns and TWO drinks. Lots of fighting over who got to hold the cup.





It was so cool to see my cousin's name in the credits! Way to go, John!


A few days after that, we went with my sister and her kids to play in the Olympic water fountain at the Gateway. Connor was the only one that braved it, and thus suffered a head-hitting fall while running. I guess that's why they so not to run near pools, huh?




Yay! Caught up until...tomorrow.

I took so many pictures yesterday that it's hard to narrow them down! Most of Utah celebrated Independence Day on the 3rd, and my parents hosted the annual Broadhead barbeque. Me, Anthony, the kids, Grandma, Chris and Wes walked down to the Kaysville parade. On our way out the door, my sister Janet told me that she wasn't coming because once you find a spot where you can see, twenty rows of people come and stand in front of you. She was SO righ, and I have NEVER seen so many people come out for a local parade!






Chris was our resident candy-catcher and he was nice enough to share his loot with all of us!


Everyone but me and my mom headed home to get things ready for the barbeque. We wanted to hang around for another twenty minutes or so and see the waterfight begin. Firetrucks and construction trucks drive down the street and spray people with water and most people at the parade had come prepared with water guns and huge buckets of water to reload. We waited another HOUR for the water fun to begin, then finally gave up and went home.


Who doesn't love a big bowl of Doritos?


Marinda and Mike brought their huge blowup water toy for the little ones. Connor was already soaked and shivering when I got home from the parade and when I asked him if he was cold, he replied between blue lips and chattering teeth, "No, Mama. Me warm."


Alaina tried to figure out how to play Zim Zam by herself for a few minutes, then yelled out, "Help, Dampas!" (She calls Grandpa 'Dampa' but has taken to putting an 's' on the end of people's names.)




Zim Zam brings out some rarely seen competitive sides around here.


Grandpa then laid out his signature waterslide. Most of the kids loved it, especially Ava, the youngest in attendance! Dave would shoot her down the slide like a bullet and she would grin the whole way down - at one year old! Connor, or course, was in heaven. That kid loooooves water! Anthony had to join in the fun, too! The only person that absolutely hated it was Alaina. She wouldn't go down the slide by herself, so what does a loving, protective mother do? Ask Aunt Janet to push her down!




Alaina recovering from her trauamatic experience with Grandma and a cookie


The Eyrings brougth up their shaved ice machine with lots of different flavors! Anthony had never had shaved ice, just the nasty hard snowcones from the ice cream man. It was a hit!






Mike being patriotic


After some quiet time inside to wind the kids down, we went back outside to attempt huge bubbles. Chris had a knack for it, and Connor loved popping the bubbles with his bubble want. I don't know that I've ever heard him laugh so hard for so long.








Sparklers at dusk


We only live about a block away from where the city launched their fireworks, so we put some chairs out on the front lawn and enjoyed the show.


It was a wonderful day, and the only thing that could have made it better would have been to have the Carliles with us!

I coworker of mine asked me to take some pictures of her newborn baby. It's so interesting to get these experiences under my belt and I learned so much. I'm glad I had this opportunity so that when I take newborn pictures in the future, I will have some better ideas and techniques. It really showed me that if I want to actually pursue photography as a profession, I need some more/better equipment and waaaay more real world experience. This experience also helped me in my editing workflow. It was fun!