Spring In Utah (March 31, 2010). Yep! It's Snowing!

Today is March 31, 2010. As I looked out my back door today, this is what graced me falling from the sky. Yep! Lots & lots of snow.

And this is what it's looking like out front. The white specs falling from the sky is indeed snow.

I don't know about the rest of you, but if this is Spring, I'm ready for Summer.

Laurie Sleeps Everywhere

Laurie is probably going to hate me when she gets older. Since she refuses to nap she ends up falling asleep at random times. I have a new hobby of getting a picture of her every time she falls alseep somewhere. I think it is so funny.

Guess What It Is 2? (More Macro Shots)

Here's the results of the first macro shots:

A watchband

A drinking glass

Here's this weeks shots....

Enjoy!
-Graydon

Guess What It Is? (Macro Shots)

Ok, since I have this fancy new lens, it's time for a game....

Let's see if you can guess what these two pictures are of...

Picture 1

Picture 2

I'll post the answer this weekend.

-Graydon

I Love Macro Lenses!

About a month ago I rented a macro lens for my camera to shoot some product photography with for my business. I fell in love with the results!

Macro lenses tend to produce incredibly "crisp, sharp" pictures and give beautiful "blur" behind the object being shot (the stuff behind what you're taking a picture of is nice & out of focus). The blur is called Bokeh. It helps to really bring out the object that you're taking a picture of.

(I shot this example with the lens today)

The one I rented is called a Canon Macro 60 mm lens. And the images it produced were so nice that I decided to buy one!

Well, the new toy showed up today and below is a sampling of some of the things I shot today.

This is a shot of Josh doing what he does quite often...running around with a camera in hand (see the blur behind him? Sweet, eh?)

Here's another shot of our budding photographer

Fun shot of Laurie (see the grass out of focus?)

I loved how this shot turned out.

Laurie having a great time in a swing.

Not only do Macro lenses make for great "blur" and close up shots, but they also do really nice for general shots as well. I shot the one below with no flash in natural light. I loved how the colors turned out!

I think I'm really going to enjoy this lens! Not only will it be exceptional for shooting my products for my business with, but looks like I'll be able to get some great shots of the kids too!

-Graydon

Family Night Fun With Maps...

We had a really great family night this week.

Val bought a map of the United States and we used smiley face stickers to show where all the temples have been built. The kids had a blast putting all the stickers on the map and learned about all the different states too.

After we were done, Josh & Emily pulled out some cars and drove all over the map playing like they were on a road trip.

It's now up on the wall in the kitchen and we're using it to teach the kids all about the states.
We also had some great no-bake cookies! Yum!

Night 's Out With Josh & Emily At Olive Garden

Emily earned two free kid meals at Olive Garden at school for great attendance and we recently used them.

Both Emily & Josh chose to go with Daddy for a night out alone on two different nights (sorry Val).

They both had a great time!

Here's the pictures from Josh's night out which was last Saturday.



1- Arrive at Olive Garden and after waiting a 1/2 hour to be seated we got to color.

The menu's come with two crayons and a really cool set of puzzles, mazes, and coloring pages. He had a great time.

2- Breadsticks & salad arrive & we order our food

Josh really loved serving out his own salad and enjoyed the great tasting bread sticks. The Rasberry Lemonade in his own cup rocked too!

3- Next came the main course. Grilled chicken, broccoli, and pasta. 

He loved the chicken & broccoli! The salt shaker got well used on the breadsticks too

4- The nice waiter took a picture of both of us

I can highly recommend the mixed grill entree. Mmmm Mmmm...man that thing was good!

5- After a great meal, good times, and fun away from everyone else, what does a 4 year old do?

Yep! You guessed it! He crashed on the way home! (and promptly woke up when we got home just in time to tell mom about all the fun)

Emily's night out wasn't as well documented as it was a week earlier and all I had was my cell phone. So, you all get to look at my really crappy cell phone pictures.

It started out just like Josh's, except we spent a lot more time walking through Tuesday Morning with Emily than Josh waiting out our 1/2 hour wait. I guess girls like to shop more than boys do, eh? Josh lasted all of about 10 minutes in the store before it was "Dad....Let's go back!" "But we're going to have to wait for a long, long time...." "So, I want to go back...."

Emily took much more time looking at all the dolls, the toys, the furniture, you know, shopping....

Once back in the restaurant, we were seated and the meal began.

Here's a shot of the coloring & salad eating (more of coloring and less of salad eating)

Emily got Chocolate Milk in her cup and loved the coloring and games on her menu.

I didn't get any pictures of her food (that she honestly didn't eat a bite of), but we had a great time none-the-less.

Something that was interesting going out to eat was how observant both of them were of their surroundings.
We got to talk about wine (because of the wine glasses and the waiter bringing a bottle of wine that we got to turn down), then Emily asked about alcohol (because the waiter was serving beer to people across from us), and then we even had a chance to talk about coffee (because someone was having coffee).

Funny quote from the night from Emily. "So why do people like to drink stuff that's not good for them?" Made for some interesting conversation and a great Word of Wisdom teaching moment.

With Josh, while we were standing in the lobby, he saw someone with a big glass of beer at the bar. "Dad, look! That's alcohol!" "Yep, sure is" "Alcohol is bad for you" (mind you, this was in his really loud 4 year old voice too). "Yep. You're right! We don't drink that do we." "Nope! Cause that's gross!" "That's right Josh, it's gross."

It was also interesting to see the difference between the two on the ride to the restaurant. While Emily talked quite a bit more than Josh did (both on the way there and on the way home), the conversation was very different. Emily's was about dolls, events, and...well...girl stuff. Josh talked about cool tractors we saw along the way, trucks, freeways, and well...boy stuff. Guess they come that way, eh?

It was a lot of fun and both of them went on & on about it once we got home. Guess we'll have to do that more often! Oh yeah, and mom got to eat some great left-over's from the meal the next day. Half the fun of going to Olive Garden is lunch the next day! Double the meals for one price!

Big Tractors At Grandma Blairs

Grandma & Grandpa Blair invited us to come & visit them this week to check out the really cool tractors that were parked near their house.

One was a huge excavator and the other was a monstrous front end loader.

Check out how massive the excavator is! Josh & Emily were dwarfed by it's massive size!

The bucket could swallow both of them right up!

This is a picture of them on the front end loader.
They had a great time playing on the tractors, seeing how big they were and Josh especially liked seeing their "smokers" (a.k.a. Exhaust Pipes).