My little brother, Eli, is GOOD at dodging the camera.  My camera is quite conspicuous and every time I picked it up he suddenly couldn’t be found, or at least had his hands in front of his face.  So, suffice it to say, we compromised, and here’s what we came up with.  I’m determined to get his whole face next time (Eli, you have been warned!!) but honestly, I like how this turned out.

Zoe the dog, she’s adorable.  I had to rub her belly while she was sitting there to get her to hold still long enough.

One day during my visit, we got to watch little Morgan.  Morgan is the daughter of one of my mom’s friends, and she is as cute as can be.  When it started snowing, she insisted that it was actually just rain, so we ventured out to see how she liked it.  She wasn’t sure at first, but then was okay with it, and even let me snap a few photos.

And finally, on Saturday we baked, baked, and baked some more.  First, we started with the sugar cookies.  Then, with the help of my mom’s best bud JoAnne (Morgan’s grandma) we made some delicious pumpkin rolls.  After that, we whipped out a couple batches of fudge, and moved on to sugar cookie decorating.  No one else was interested in this part, so MiKela and I were left with several dozen bare sugar cookie cutouts.  While we were very creative at first with our snowmen, stars, and gingerbread guys and gals, I have to admit we got a bit hasty after, oh, THREE HOURS of cookie decorating.  Can you blame us??  All in all, it was tons of fun, and we gave away much of our goods to friends and family.
I snapped a lot of photos during this week with my family, so instead of posting only a few here, I created a slideshow of them.  Click HERE to view it!  Rather than editing each one individually, I gave in and batch processed.  The slideshow was so simple to create and I love being able to show more photos, so you may see more slideshows included with my posts in the future.  Let me know how you like it!

Christmas Slideshow

I spent the week before Christmas in Prescott, Arizona with my family.  After being away for almost 1 1/2 years, it was soooooo good to be back.  I’ll be sharing a slideshow of the many images from our time together, but first, here are a few shots of my gorgeous sister, MiKela.  I can’t believe that she is a freshman and is going to be 15 in March–time goes by so quickly!  She was always a perfect subject when I was learning photography in high school, and still lets me turn my camera on her, even when it is freezing outside.  And for that, I am truly grateful.  Thanks, favorite sister

Last weekend we went on a bike trip to Rüdesheim, which Jason so kindly informed me is to the west of us…needless to say, I am not the geographically savvy one…  It rained all day Friday, through the night, and we woke up to a continuous drizzle Saturday morning.  We were feeling a bit bummed, thinking that we might have to reschedule our trip.  Nonetheless, Tyler came over to our place for some breakfast and coffee, and we waited a bit to see what the weather would do.  To our surprise the rain let up at around noon, and even though it was looking pretty dreary and wet out there we decided to give it a go.
The path that goes along the Rhine to Rüdesheim and beyond is beautiful and serene.  Because of the weather not many people were out that Saturday.  Here are a few photos I took along the way…all taken with our handy point and shoot camera.

The ride there is about 15 miles long, and we arrived a little after three.  Here’s Jason and Tyler walking up the road to the cute hotel we stayed in.  The last shot is a view from around the hotel building.  I still have a few more photos to go through from our ride, so stay tuned!!!

Anya and Ben were married May 30th at Goldwater Lake in Prescott. The day was lovely…full of sunny skies and calm breezes. Jason and I really enjoyed spending this happy day with Anya and Ben, our friends. We were able to capture some great moments of this beautiful couple and the love that they have for each other. And as a sidenote, the little flower girl was absolutely adorable!