Memorial Day Weekend

We got to go to St. George last weekend for a little vacation. A lady Matt knows offered us her condo to stay in which was very nice.

We went down with our friends the Pulleys. It was a good time. We went to Zions Natl. Park, Gunlock Reservoir, Sand Hollow Reservoir, and played on the red rocks by the Dixie sign.

The only bummer was that Riley got a horrible case of eczema after playing in the lake. Poor kid, her neck, face & arms were all swollen and red. Now that the swelling has gone down you can see multiple little red splits and cracks in her skin. It looks really sore.

When I got home and downloaded the pictures we took I started messing around in Photoshop and ended up tweaking them... a lot. Duh. Out there with all that beautiful rock.. and I end up doing a lot of B&W's and sepias. Hehe. Oh well. They look cool. And I'll still post some without editing.

I love what this filter did to Sammi's face and eyes. The eyes were in deep shadow before.
Cute shot of Olivia.

I liked this picture a lot. I actually came up with 14 different "looks" for it, then narrowed them down to 3.

She was trying to avoid the camera. (As usual)

I really like this picture too. Her legs crack me up, going in both directions.

Sometimes I can't decide which version I like better...

U2!!!

Last Christmas I gave Matt tickets to see U2. The concert was last night and we had such a blast! I'd forgotten what an awesome show they put on. The stage and all the lighting was so cool! And it was nice and LOUD!
This video is just part of Until The End Of The World, but the lights were too cool not to record.



And this is pretty much the full song With Or Without You when the lighting thingy basically turned into a ginormous disco ball.



And this video shows how the screen they used stretched down all the way to the stage. Unfortunately I was lame and turned the camera in the middle... soo... you have to tip your head to the side for the last half. hehe. duh.

Oh Pointy Birds

Oh pointy birds, oh pointy, pointy.
Anoint Ri's bike, anointy, nointy.

80's Day!!!!

Thank goodness I saved such an awesome shirt from my past! I always knew being a bit of a pack rat would pay off!

Yes. It is 80's day at the middle school. And that pretty little number is from Contempo Casuals circa 1987! I've been waiting for one of my girls to realize it's awesome-ness. And I must say, considering my lack of Aussie Sprunching Spray, and being a little over 20 years out of practice... that hair looks pretty darn good!

Mean Crappy Ice!!

Poor Livie has had a cough so I kept her home from school yesterday. Last night she actually slept pretty well and had a minimum of coughing so I got her up for school. And then the violent hacking commenced. Poo. So I told her I didn't think she should go to school after all. To which she cried and begged to go. ??? How do you argue with a kid who WANTS to go?

So she and Sammi head out the door, I lock it and fall back into bed since I literally, and I do mean literally did not sleep even one wink last night. 5 minutes later I hear violent banging on the door. Grumble, grumble.. stumble, stumble...tripping while I put my pants back on.. BANG BANG BANG! I skip putting my glasses on since I know who it's got to be... I grumpily open the door to find a bloody mouthed Livie crying and Sammi all teary eyed trying to console her.

Apparently she slipped on the ice and smacked her mouth. Then as Sammi was bringing her home she slipped again! Poor kid.

I knew I should have kept her home today. How is it that we can always make it our fault?

Crazy Hair Day!

Today was Crazy Hair Day at school and we had some good hair-dos planned. Sadly Livie got sick last night and couldn't go. She cried and cried this morning because she really wanted to go have crazy hair. But I promised her we could make her hair crazy on Friday, which is School Spirit Day.

So Sammi wanted a Mohawk or spikes. Thus we opted for the spiked Mohawk! I think I need more practice since some of the spikes fell. But all in all I was excited that half of them worked. Those were some pretty high spikes! She also got a kick out of trying to get in and out of the car with them. She couldn't really sit up at all, luckily the school is only a block away.

Then of course I had to mess with pre-sets a little and found a really cool one that makes it look more Punk.

Fun With Pre-sets

I never think I have anything good to blog about, but then I remembered some cool pictures I was messing with a while back.

We were at Jordanelle and the sun had gone down behind the mountain so the lighting was no bueno. I took a few pictures of Riley. (she's usually the only one willing to pose for me) They were not spectacular because of the lighting, but I started messing with them in Lightroom and ended up with some pretty cool looking photos.

Before: (she didn't pose for this one, I just snapped it.) After:
These were fun because she was flipping her hair around and we were trying to catch good shots mid-action.

Before:
After:
It's always great when I can get an awesome shot straight out of the camera, but I loved how cool I could make these so-so shots look.