The good, the bad, and...the ugly

The Good:
This year since we now have a new home, able to accommodate a lot more people, we decided to take on the task and adventure of having everyone come over for Thanksgiving dinner. It started off just being my family (5) and my in-laws (2) plus Rob and me (2). Then Rob's middle sister, Elaine, who lives in Vegas, decided to bring her family and come up to Utah for Thanksgiving. So when she asked what our plans were, we invited her family (6) to join us. We figured, now that we have a large kitchen why not?! But Elaine had already made plans to join their brother Dave and his family (4) for dinner, but they didn't have any set plans so they decided to come over as well. Rob has another brother, Don, who lives in Utah and we didn't want him and his family to be left out, being the only people not coming (aside from his 2 sisters and brother-in-law that live in California) so we invited them as well (4). Making a grand total of 23 people that showed up at our house for Thanksgiving dinner. As crazy as it sounds, it actually wasn't that big of a deal. Having a lot of people made for a lot of side dish assignments and leaving me only really needing to provide the big things, like the turkey and the ham, for the most part. It is also nice when it comes to cleaning, many hands means quick and easy clean up :)

I have to say, Thanksgiving was a huge success and we are very happy to have a place where all of us can be together under one roof for the holidays.

I have a rule that, as much as I may want to, I will not put up the Christmas tree or any decorations until after Thanksgiving. So, Friday was reserved for our annual Black Friday shopping, leaving the Saturday after Turkey day, "put up the tree day" :) Rob reluctantly helped and we got it done. Here is a photo of our humble Christmas tree. Right now it is the only piece of furniture in our front room, but at least something is in there now.

Tomorrow, we put up our Christmas lights....I say "we" but you know what I really mean ;)

The bad:
Two years ago we had to send our Boxer, Ginger to the vet to have a tumor removed from her back. Tumors are fairly common in boxers and sure enough, just recently we found another one in her neck. So on Tuesday I had to take her in to get it removed. She was in surgery for about an hour and now she has a 2 inch incision on her neck. The last one left a big scar so we're hoping this one will heal a little better.

Every Tuesday and Thursday (well, ALMOST) for the past few months Rob has been waking up at 5:30 am to play basketball at the stake center with the elders quorum. Several weeks ago Rob came home early because he rolled his ankle coming down from a rebound, it was the same ankle he had broken a few years ago so it was already fairly weak. So he stayed off it for a few weeks then decided he was good to go again. So he thought....yesterday, after leaving the house around 5:45 he came stumbling back around 7:00 howling in pain. He had come down and landed on his ankle funny tweaking it so bad he thought for sure he broke it. It was so swollen and hurt so bad he decided we'd better go to the ER to get an Ex Ray and see for sure. 2 hours and $50 later we discovered it wasn't broken but he did have a type 3 sprain. The doctor said it was too swollen to see if the ligaments were completely torn so we have to wait a few weeks for it to heal a little to determine if he's going to have to have surgery to repair the ligaments.

The Ugly:
Here's Ginger's incision a few days after her surgery.



This is his ankle the day after he sprained it, it was even more swollen yesterday....

Two posts in one

So after I posted a blog about the cabinets and paint job in our new house, people kept asking me to post more photos. So I finally got things looking somewhat decent and got around to taking some pics. Here are some photos of our kitchen and living room.



On another and completely unrelated note, Rob and I just got back from spending 4 days in Las Vegas. We went out there because I got hired to take a couple of family portraits out in Henderson and Rob decided to come with me and make a little vacation out of it. I only had to work two of the four days we were there so we got a little play time in as well.

When we got in on Sunday it was too late to really do anything, but too early to got to bed, so we decided to catch a couple movies. First we saw The Fourth Kind which was really creepy and definitely left you thinking. Then we saw The Box, I'm still not sure how I feel about that movie. It wasn't bad, but I don't think I've concluded that it was good, it was just strange and I'm not sure it made total sense.

On Monday we went out to Red Rock Canyon. Neither of us had ever been there before but I've heard it was really beautiful and always wanted to check it out. So we drove the scenic loop and took some photos before getting dinner at, of course, In-&-out burger. Which, for the record, I am not a fan of, but Rob loves it. He's definitely stoked about the 4 new locations opening up here in Utah, one of them happens to be less than 5 minutes from our house.


Ok back on track....after In-&-Out we scored free tickets to see the Blue Man Group at the Venetian from my sister-in-law. It was our second time seeing them, we saw them a year or two ago when they came to Utah, and we had a really good time.




Tuesday I photographed my sister-in-law and her family down by Lake Las Vegas. The shoot was a lot of fun and the photos turned out really cute. After photos my sister-in-law and her husband took us to dinner at the Lux Cafe.


On Wednesday I had another family portrait session, it was a repeat client that hired me last year and wanted some updated photos. The shoot went pretty well except for the mis-matched outfit their 8 year old daughter insisted on wearing. It consisted of brown stretch pants, a t-shirt with a ginger bread man on it, a brown and pink hoodie, a cream hat with blue and hot pink stitching anddogs and cats on it. Oh and did I mention the bright blue and green socks? I finally got her to take her hat off but that didn't last very long. Either way the photos turned out pretty cute and they were fun to work with.


Wednesday night we decided to go see Criss Angel's cirque De Soliel show: Believe, at the Luxor. It wasn't bad but defintiely not as good as I was hoping. Though his tricks and illusions were pretty cool, it was hardly a cirque show with only one true cirque de soliel part in the whole thing. None the less it was fairly entertaining and I have always wanted to see a Cirque show in Vegas. (Cross that off my bucket list)

Do they serve hot dogs in heaven?

Rob and I were down in Orem a week or so ago to support my best friend Signe in her first muy thai fight at the Throwdown gym. It just so happens to be conveniently located next to a quaint little restaurant called The Hot Dog King. Now I couldn't be phased less about this place having aquired a strong dislike for hot dogs, but Rob on the other hand considers it heaven on earth. They have over 80 different kinds of hot dogs from all over the world and you can pretty much get anything on it. If you can dream it, they can make it. This was our second trip to the Hot Dog King, the first time we went Rob ordered two hot dogs, not knowing what he was getting himself into. This time, he knew better...

This particlar hot dog had refried beans, guacamloe, sour cream, jalapenos, tomoatoes, and was topped with crumbled bacon and cheese, and if that wasn't enough, it even had mayonnaise.




See...pure heaven.

My headboard project

Now that Rob and I actually have a fairly large master bedroom with vaulted ceilings, I decided that our bed looked a little unfinished, so I went on the hunt for a headboard. I was amazed at how expensive a piece of wood can be! All the decent headboards I found were upwards of $400 or more and the cheapest one I found was at Ikea and was nothing more than a rectangular piece of painted wood. Problem was it was still $100 and only came in a Queen.

After furnishing our kitchen, living room and front room I wasn't about to spend that kind of money on a hunk of wood, so I realized I needed to get creative. I was at RC Willey and happened upon the perfect find in their clearance section; shutters! At only $7 a piece, I could not pass them up! They came in a pretty haagard off white color so on my way home I purchased some Espresso spray paint and got to work. Approximately $50 and a few hours later, here is the finished product!


Sanding off the ugly paint

Painting


The finished product



I'm quite proud of myself with how they turned out and think I even like it more than any of the headboards I saw in the store!

I couldn't resist

After stumbling upon a really nice little park in Draper yesterday, I made an even cooler discovery, I found some old railroad tracks that have been completely overgrown with trees and shrubs. It's like a hidden railroad path leading through a tunnel of trees. It's gorgeous and as a photographer I can't help getting really excited when I stumbled across gems like this, especially one that is so close to my house!
Naturally, I couldn't help myself and had to take advantage of this awesome find. So today I dressed my husband in another one of his few nice sweaters, grabbed our dogs and went back to my new found haven to snap some more family photos. I'm gonna pitch the location to a client of mine that's looking for a dramatic and unique place to take her bridals. I think she'll love it!

Family Photos

After taking photos up the canyon last week with my mom, and then being abruptly hit by our first winter storm, I decided that Rob and I needed to take advantage of the fall colors before winter took over completely. Every year I like to get our dogs together and go somewhere pretty to take some family photos. Rob and I were blessed with a very rare gift this weekend, neither one of us worked! So we decided it would be the perfect time to take our annual family photos. I thought Sunday would be a good opportunity since we had a lot of yard work to do on Saturday as well as the priesthood conference session and then a wedding reception to attend. So the plan was to get ready and go in between conference sessions. I really wanted to go back up to Tanner's Flat in Little Cottonwood Canyon where my mom and I went, but this morning, after having a pretty nice Friday and Saturday, we awoke to hail, wind and rain. Hoping it would clear up, and being as determined as I am, Rob and I grabbed the dogs and my tripod and hopped in the car. The further east we got, the harder it started to rain, by the time we got to the mouth of the canyon, it was pouring. I really wanted the fall colors so needless to say, we turned around and headed home. Back at home the weather was much calmer and there was no rain, so we looked around and decided that not all was lost, and we headed up the Bonneville shoreline trail, which happens to be conveniently located in our neighbors backyard, to take photos in the scrub oak behind our house. For those of you that don't know, we just bought a home on the lower east bench of Draper city, we live on Steep Mountain drive, named after the rather steep mountain that is our backyard. It is speckled and spotted with oak trees and shrubberies that, in the fall, turn beautiful shades of orange and red. After all that trouble, the perfect spot ended up being right under our noses.

Here are some of the photos we took today.