50 years...and counting

So this is post I should have written in February, but being out of town a bunch and having my photography season pick up, I haven't gotten around to it til now. But you know what they say, better late than never right?

February 19th marked the 50th wedding anniversary for my in-laws, and Rob and his siblings wanted to do something special for them to celebrate. Rob has two sisters that live in So Cal, a sister that lives in Vegas and the rest of his siblings and parents live here, in Utah. Because everyone is so spread out, the family hasn't been ALL together for a really long time and they haven't had a family photo taken since before I met Rob. So we all decided that we'd meet in the middle and get everyone together for a weekend in Vegas.

We booked his parents a two night stay in the Trump Hotel, which was beautiful, and got dinner reservations at The Black Pepper Grill. We also planned to do a big family photo down by Lake Las Vegas. Easy right?

Even though it was mid February and freezing back home in Utah, this is Vegas, the weather's always nice in Vegas....

...Unless of course you've planned a once in a lifetime, 50th wedding anniversary family photo, outdoors. Then it decides to rain. But not only did we get rain, we got wind too. Luckily, it wasn't constant, and we managed to get the photos done. And I, being the family photographer, got the fun job of setting up the tripod and running back and forth between each shoot, battling wind and sporadic rain drops. It definitely took some patience and cooperation.

Here are some shots from that day:

After the photo fiasco, we had dinner then Rob and I presented his parents with a photo cake we had made for them with one of their wedding photos on it. Then we played a slide show I put together with a bunch of their old photos. It was great to see everyone, even if only for a weekend and his parents are still talking about their wonderful Anniversary in Vegas.

Click here to watch the slide show

50th Wedding Anniversary

My latest project

We've lived in our house for just over 6 months now and we just BARELY put curtains up in our bedroom and got our first two pieces of furniture for our front room. It's definitely been, and still is, a work in progress. But I did complete a pretty big project this last week in our living room. And by big I mean size, not so much the time and effort it took to complete.

We have pretty high vaulted ceilings in our living room that start in the south east corner of the room at about 8 or 9 feet and go up to somewhere between 12 and 15 feet at the highest point. So, needless to say, the main wall in our living room has been a bit of a challenge for me to decorate. We don't have an entertainment center but we do have a pretty big TV against that wall and because of the vault and the fact that I put up a collage of photos on the opposing wall, I really didn't want to put more photos on the main wall.

So I got this idea and our friend Darin, who does vinyl stickers, helped bring my idea to life.

Here is my "tree" project:

The finished product: