Emelie's Birthday Party

 Happy Birthday to my dear sweet Emelie. 

We were able to go to Michigan to celebrate her birthday.

My drawing skills got put to the test. Yikes!

Emelie wanted to play pin the wings on Tinker Bell. 

I think it turned out half way decent. 

At least Emelie and I had fun coloring it.

Stromboli

I think I might be hungry. The other day Boyd and I made some stromboli. Hello Yumm! It was crazy good. The best part is we totally didn't know what we were doing. Boyd had a thought one day that went a little bit like this "what if we made bagel pizzas, what if instead of bagel pizzas we made stromboli instead" So we did.

Practice makes perfect

Before taking my family's family picture I needed to position people according to height and sweater color. This is such a complicated process. I stressed for MONTHS thinking about what colors to do. I went through so many ideas and it would drive Boyd nuts. When it came down to the actual picture taking process Megan and I spent about an hour picking colors to see what would match and what color would look good where. Then we had to figure our positions and where people would stand/sit. After all this, we were supposed to take the picture in less than 10 minutes, which we did! (congratulations to me!) We had to take it Sunday morning, before church, before Megan and Tom left, after the sun had risen just enough, but before it got too bright outside. To save my self from craziness I made everybody pose the night before to get it just right so when we ran outside, in the freezing cold the next morning we would be prepared. Just like a fire drill. My other conflict was how to get the dog to look at the camera without actually being behind the camera. It was a simple solution, just don't have her in the picture, but then after much protest we decided to have Lily, the dog, in the picture. After all she is part of our family. Turns out, that Lily was the best behaved little doggy in the world. She LOVE getting her picture taken and actually looks at the camera (no offense to some people, but she is better behaved the some of the children I have taken pictures of) With that worry set aside we began to take our practice pictures.

Don't tell my mom. She isn't in this picture because she fell asleep on the couch and looked like this HA HA! Nging Nging thinks it's funny.

After all that stress and worry I think our picture turned out great!

I only had to photoshop Megan's head, Tom's head, Dad's head, and Lily's head.

 Megan came up with the fun idea to have a silly picture using the balloon animals Boyd and I made. I think it was such an awesome idea! I might just have to do this for future shoots!

Christmas Over View

 Ok, it has been forever since I have posted.  I could say that I have been super busy, or that I have a lack of motivation since my picture a day year is up, or that I would rather be doing something else, but lets just say I have been too busy. On that note, here is a recap of what happen over Christmas break, mostly Christmas Eve.

Isn't Nging Nging so cute! She just loves Lily.

Nging Nging got a new coat. Cute!

 

We have  been waiting to give these to Nathan for the longest time. 

 Dad just loves his new golf clubs!

 Lily could not keep her paws off her new bears

My mom makes us play this game where we have to close our eyes and she hands us our present. Always a surprise to see what ornament we get. 

 This year Boyd got an ornament called mistletoad.

 Loved the matching shirts

Merry Christmas Eve!

I don't have a picture but Boyd and I got a PS3 and fun toys to go with it.

Day 365: The End

I can't believe I am coming to an end of my goal to do a picture a day. It has been a fantastic experience. I think it has opened my eyes to seeing the good in everything. Posting daily has made me feel like I'm accomplishing something even when I felt like I hadn't done anything that day. Having to post made us go out and do things, rather than sitting around, so I would actually have something to write about. It has made me appreciate living in Ohio. I went from hating everything about Ohio to loving everything about Ohio. I'm pretty sure that the next time, or anytime for that matter, we move I will have to start a daily blog again, just to appreciate my new surroundings.  I have seen myself change, hopefully for the better. I am proud of myself for setting such a lofty goal and sticking to my goal and actually getting it done. Looking back I think my photography has improved by leaps and bounds from taking so many pictures (also with the help of some photographer friends). I started this blog hardly photoshopping my pictures. In the middle I actually took the time to edit all my picture I posted. Towards the end I got lazy again and now they are back to square one, straight out of the camera, although much improved since I have now learned to use my camera.  I am grateful for a husband who has helped me reach my goal on those days that I just couldn't post. Part of me is sad I won't be posting daily next year, part of me is relieved. I will still try to post regularly because I love looking back and seeing all the fun thing we have done. Who knows what the future has in store, all I know is that I will be writing about it.

 

Last year I made a list of goals I wanted to accomplish.

 

Goals:

• Post a picture a day for one whole year - Check
• Finish my independent study class  - Check
• Loose weight - Check (Lost 20 lbs this year)
• Have a baby - Maybe next year
• Get out more  - Check
• Go and do fun things - Check
• Go to:
• The Melt - Chec
• A polish restaurant - Maybe one day we'll find on
• Find a Romanian store  - Check (Boyd talked to the lady who owned the store for 45 minutes
• Thurman’s café - Next temple tri
• A show -Check, saw Les Miserables, it was incredible.
• Air Force Museum - Someday. Maybe in 201
• D.C. - We'll get ther
• New York - Before we leave this is a mus
• Chicago - Almost. Our friends did.
•  Disney World - We will this coming March! (I'm so stoked
• Camping  - Chec
•  Amish Country - Chec
•  Find the covered bridges - Ran out of tim
• Indian’s Game  - Chec
• Columbus Crew Game - Check (Thanks for joining us Carrie and Kelly
• What about Bob’s - Sandwiches, someday I will taste you
• The Cleveland Zoo  - Chec
• The Columbus Zoo - One da
• The Cincinnati Zoo - Still have to go see those penguin
• The Akron Zoo - We're so lame, it is so close
• The Toledo Zoo - Maybe our next road trip will take us there.
• Buy the Nikon 18-200 Lens  - Check (LOVE IT!)
• Buy a piano - Meh, the piano goal turned into a keyboard, which I will purchase in the near future to finish my upcoming piano class.
• Buy a sewing machine  - Check (did a bunch of awesome/fun projects this year)
• Buy a new TV -  - Check (Thanks Santa! We got a 46" LED 3D TV for Christmas)
• Get a new job - Check

I took this picture while I was at my parents house. This sunset was stunning. (minus the haze) Do not mind the cheese factor, but I felt like this was an excellent parallel to by blog. After a long day (for the sun) and a long year (for me) it ended beautifully.  

 

Day 364: Holiday Lights

The other night Megan and Tom came down and we went to Holiday Lights. It was a lot of fun. You stay in your car and drive around Thanksgiving point looking at all the sweet light displays. Thanks for being our chauffeur Dad. 

Ok. I apologize this  picture is blurry, but I just had to post it. The reindeer was getting a bath and the bucket of bubbles was behind the reindeer. At first all of us thought that the reindeer was p___ing into the bucket. We sure had a good laugh out of this one until Tom said, why are the drops of p__p going upward. That was when we realized they were bubbles coming out of the bucket.

Holiday lights has to be one of the best activities you can do during the holiday season. It was dog friendly too, which meant that Lily could come.

She had SO much fun looking at the light. She went nuts every time we drove by a new set of lights. I'm pretty sure that she had the most fun.

When we first arrived at Holiday Lights we saw this Santa backwards. At first I couldn't figure out why Tom kept saying "OH Oh OH Oh" then I realized he was saying Ho Ho Ho backwards. Ha Ha

As an added bonus we got to see live reindeer! We were pulling away from Thanksgiving point when I spied these reindeer! It was a quick drive by with me whipping out my camera at the last second but I caught them!

Day 363: St. George House

My dad has always wanted a house in St. George. A few months ago he bought in on one. He and my mom went down with their friends and they were looking for another partner for the house. My dad said he wanted in and now we have a nice warm place to go. 

Doesn't Nging Nging look awesome with her shades?

What do we do for the 4 1/2 hour drive?

Play family feud on mom's ipod. 

Until we all fell asleep.

 We had so much fun playing mahjong all night with Nging Nging. The first night I won almost every round. The second night Nathan won almost every round. We found out the secret is to sit on the right side of Boyd. Who ever does apparently wins.

p.s. we didn't plan our white outfits. 

Aren't my parents cute?

Day 362: Las Vegas Trip

My Nging Nging (grandma) has always wanted to go to Las Vegas.

So we went. Nging Nging is so cute. She brought her gambling money in a little plastic sandwich sack. She had a little over $2 that she was going to gamble away.

My family doesn't gamble. Period. We all felt like a bunch of idiots when we couldn't figure out how to work those dang blinking machines. It doesn't make sense! You put the money in, then suddenly a bunch of buttons lite up, but how are you supposed to know which ones to push? The next thing you know, the buttons aren't all lit up anymore and suddenly the $1 you put in is gone. Gambling is stupid. I'm pretty sure my dad and Boyd are trying to figure out what is going on in this picture.

So why does my family always go to Vegas? 

That is a silly question. 

To eat.

We sure do love our food

 All I could think about were crab legs on our drive down.

 Of course we had to stop by Belagio and see the water show.

 Do you see the cool arch? Well, it is actually a stream of water. 

Nathan couldn't resist. You can tell that he had already done this a few times based on the drops of water on his jacket.

You give that bear a high five!

If you want to know if that gigantic, gorgeous tree is real, it was.

I'm always so impressed with their displays. This bear was made out of 5,000 carnations. 

I'm not sure why Boyd took this picture.

Nging Nging decided to try her luck one more time on a different machine. 

 She spent a grand total of $3 and won a whole 10 cents!

She told us that she was done gambling. 

p.s. The lever really didn't work. She just wanted to pull on it.

I was thinking about it and I have come full circle. My blog started with Las Vegas and it is ending with Las Vegas.