sunday adventures.

Yesterday was a good day.  

We played a little hooky from church. (Judgement not accepted or welcomed, thank you!)  The hour drive to Gettysburg for stake conference, just so we could babysit our kids for two hours in the lobby, was sounding less than appealing.  So instead we decided to do a little service project.  Our apartments are up on a hill overlooking the back of a grocery store.  Don't be jealous...it's a beautiful view! There's a little path down that hill and some trees that we like to play in but it is seriously littered in garbage.  I don't know who the heck is in charge of cleaning it up but it is never done.  I drew the line the other day when Nixon walked over to me with a handful of cigarette butts.  DISGUSTING!!  People are vile creatures.  So we had a little 'sunday school' about doing service and taking care of this beautiful earth God created for us...then we headed out with some trash bags and cleaned up some garbage.  It was a good experience and Bostyn was very receptive.  We even had a lady come over and thank us.  She said I see this garbage everyday and think I really should do something about this but never do, so thank you!  I was proud of our Sunday activity. :)  

We took a few drives and ended up at this awesome bridge again.  I LOVE bridges.  They are kind of an obsession for me.  This one crosses the Susquehanna River which is a very slow, shallow river.  It's romantic and I love it.

 Bostyn had fun playing in the dirt and throwing sticks into the water.

Funny story with this picture:  

I was crouching down low because I wanted to get those flowers in there and the bridge.  Things weren't really going great and Eric was getting impatient so I stood up and I was standing on my skirt so I basically de-pants-ed myself and the lady behind me got a big huge g-butt in her face...haha!!  So embarrassing I pulled up my skirt and ran over to Eric so he could hide me.

We followed up our bridge adventure with a little BBQ.  Nothing says awesome spring day like a couple pairs of dirty feet, am I right?

We have a nose picker!!! 

 The End.

a 'lil green.

We woke up at the crack of 8am yesterday, which has been happening since daylight savings.  Can I get a hallelujah!  We started out the morning with some rainbow pancakes to celebrate St. Paddy's.  

There were quite a few rainbows for breakfast.  And I actually got Bostyn to eat the fruit!  Can I get another hallelujah! I told her that Rainbow Dash ate blueberries, that's why she's so blue and can fly, after that she downed those suckers!  Here's what the stack of pancakes turned into...

Lot's of mess for about 5 minutes of fun...

We then went and found this glorious magnolia tree.  I LOVE SPRING!

We spent the next few hours playing outside, looking for four-leaved clovers and searching for rainbows...no luck this year!  Maybe next year we'll find that pot 'o gold, but for now I'm happy with what I have. :) 

a day in the armpit of the world.

 Oh what a day. 

Today, Bostyn was testing every nerve fiber I tell ya.  I put her to bed early and since we're still getting used to the time change it was about two hours earlier than usual...  I can hear her feet scurrying around above my head but just am done with that.  If she wants to run around all night, so be it. 

  Exhaustion.  

Why is it so exhausting to sit outside at a park all day?  Shouldn't that be fun and relaxing?  I guess from trying to keep Nixon out of a neighbors house constantly and tying to mediate the overly dramatic Bostyn, that makes for one tired mommy.  Anywho.  

Yesterday was a real treat.  

We headed up to Wilkes-Barre in Northern PA.  It's a possible residency location.  Great hospital, the city on the other hand...well to sum it up into two words: freaking hideous.   Maybe it was an unfair assessment.  It is winter after all.  Is it pretty anywhere besides Utah with those huge glorious mountains covered in pine trees?  I'm a little bias but it was not beautiful yesterday in Northern PA.  The skies were gloomy.  Everything was dead.  All the houses looked run-down.  Industrial heaven with a slight smell of coal dust in the air.  It made me a little nauseous thinking about spending the next 5 years there.  Great hospital though...but is it worth it??

We did, however, find a fun park to frolic in.  

my world: shifted.

I rented THE sweetest lens in the whole wide world.  It's called a tilt-shift lens and it creates some of the coolest effects I've ever seen.  Eric is not a huge fan. (He's such a nay sayer!!)  He thinks it can be easily manufactured in photoshop, which is true, but I'm all about less editing and more photography.  So here's some pics I've captured with it so far.  It's a MONSTER and weighs about 5X what my camera weighs so it's a little awkward and a wee bit tricky to figure out all these little knobs and such but ANYWAY details schmetails...here's the pics.  

Some HDR's....there's that dang watermark again...grrr.

Photography is all about the lenses!  Invest in some!

a 'lil sun does a body good.

I'm happy to announce that we've had our first sunburns of the season!  Wahoo! I'm a wee bit sad knowing this weather is most likely not going to last, but the last two days have been scrum-diddle-dumptious, my friends! We headed to the park to enjoy that big round yellow ball (the sun) and it was GLORIOUS!

Eric has a four day weekend starting today!! We're trying to figure out what we're going to do, well I am.  He'd be happy lying on the couch all day...which in fact is what he's doing right now!  I'm too adventurous a soul for things like that...blah.  Maybe I'll catch up on some running, head to DC to visit our friends, heck the sky is the limit!

Eric is doing Psych for this months rotation.  I'm not going to lie, I have seriously LOVED it. Not only does he get home at a decent hour, but his stories are amazing.  Should I feel bad about enjoying stories about crazy people?  A little part of my heart feels guilty but the other, more large part enjoys it.  Now I feel guilty that I just wrote that.

How about a few pics...well okay then!

Awww.  A moment of peace and quiet. :)  

This weekend has been crazy-style.  I am crazy-style and I feel like I belong among the members of the Psych ward that Eric is rotating through this month.  I need some fresh air, sun, a car and some social interaction besides facebook...ugh I'm so lame. 

Anyways...I thought it was picture update day.  So here's a few favorites over the last week.  I'm trying to get more creative with taking pix of the kids.  It seems they all look the same old same old, blah, flat and life-less.  So here's the results.  I'm not saying they're great but it's fun to at least try to think outside the box. 

 Yes, he did touch the lens with his nasty food covered finger. :(

Here's some HDR. :)  Haven't done it for awhile.  Don't mind the watermark..it's just the software I use and I'm too cheap to actually buy it instead of just using the trial over and over.   But along with the trial comes the watermark, maybe it's time to just buy it and get it over with!

why hello!

Wow. My blog is LAME.  Sorry for not posting for so long.  I know there's a lot of tears out there.  Life's been busy full of lifey-types of things.  Trying to balance a business and a family (and single parenthood at times) can be a wee bit tricky.  I found a GREAT girl in our ward though that has been coming over to help me a couple days a week so I can get some work done.  She has a little sister who is about Bostyn's age so she comes over to play too.  It's been so great for Bostyn to have a little play-mate and some social interaction.  These winter months can be tough on a three year old...heck on a 29 year old too. :)  I don't have any desire to post any pictures but I'll probably sneak in a few.  And p.s. thanks to all you peeps who 'liked' my facebook page, thanks for believing in me! :)  It's totally embarrassing putting myself out there, hoping people are going to like what they see and if they don't, trying to not to take it personal.  Maybe the world just isn't ready for this jelly.  I don't know.  I miss my family a lot right now, I need a good girls night and sister's giggle session.  I called my parents tonight and caught myself thinking that my grandpa would probably answer since it's Friday and it's their date night...then I got really sad...I miss my grandpa more than ever.  Well I guess it's time for some pictures now.  Here's a little Nixon snack session.