Our Trip to the Firestation

Two weeks ago we went to the local Fire station with our playgroup. I just thought I'd share a few photos from our excursion. Kinsley was so excited about going and insisted she bring her fireman hat along. She was fascinated by all of the controls in the truck. When we first arrived they talked about fire safety and had one of the firefighters put on all of his gear. Most of the kids loved it but Kinsley was scared. No matter how hard I tried the she clung to my leg as the other kids approached him. Even though Kinsley is super out going she does have a tendency to get scared pretty easy. As you can see Grants favorite part was sitting in the Fire truck. Doesn't he look adorable with that hat on? What a stud!!!

Thank Heaven for Little Girls

Kinsley is just growing up so fast and becoming so curious about big girl things. Recently she has become obsessed with my nail polish. Every time I paint my fingers or toes she is enthralled, always touching the surface of my nails and saying things like "pretty" and "smooth." So today after I spent a lot of time on the phone with the my mom I could tell Kinsley was feeling a little neglected. So I brought down my nail polish and thought I'd give her some much needed mother daughter time. She's never had her toes painted before so this was a really big deal for her. She picked out pink for her color and waiting eagerly while I put cotton between her toes. She was so excited she kept giggling while trying to hold herself so still. The smile plastered across her face was priceless! She wouldn't let me take a pic of her face, but happily showed off her sparkling toes for some quick shots. Once I was finished she said "mommy I'm ten-and-a-half now." I've always told her that nail polish is for big girls and apparently to her ten-and-a-half is big. She's been squealing with delight since, and can't stop looking at her toes. Even mid run she'll stop, lift up her toes, stand on her heels and say "oh mommy I have nail polish."

Kinsley taught me today how easy it can be to gain big joy from the littlest things.

So You Think You Can Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance....

Many of you have been waiting for my re-cap from my long anticipated Saturday night. The evening didn't quite turn out as expected. Let me first begin by saying that the concert itself was fantastic and it was amazing to be able to see the dancers live. Now onto the not so good details. The concert was in Tacoma about and 1 and 30 minutes from here so my friend and I left in plenty of time to hit dinner and the show. I had a discount card for The Melting Pot and since neither of us had been there before, we figured we might has well have a real girls night out. The show was scheduled to start at 7:30pm and we arrived at The Melting Pot at 5:00pm just to be informed that without a reservation there was no chance in %$* that we could get a table. Being that there were no other restaurants anywhere near our location, we opted to sit in the bar. Thankfully this is a smoke-free area and after some time of waiting we actually got a little booth off in the corner to sit in. Our waitress was totally swamped and as a result pretty much ignored us. We had been there for over an hour by the time we finally got our salads. Our main dish only came out 10 minutes before we had to leave. This is very problematic at The Melting Pot, as your meats come out raw and you have to cook them yourself. The main reason we wanted to try The Melting Pot was for the chocolate fondue of course, and sadly we were left with no time to spare! I shoveled the food into my mouth as quickly as I could. I didn't feel so great afterward. It's just not natural to ingest that amount of food in just a couple of swallows, but there was no way I was going to let a $24.00 plate go to waste! It was do or die. The worst part is our waitress took almost 15 minutes to prepare our check. Had I been armed with that knowledge before, chewing would have been an option. Grrr, my extensive efforts to emulate the speed and skill of a world champion hot dog, or pie eater were in vain! Lets just say she got a really crummy tip! I waited tables for three years and even on my worst and busiest nights, my customers were still taken care of and often compensated for the inconvenience.

We got out of the restaurant at 7:25pm and ran to our vehicle. Because of our extreme tardiness we didn't have time to look for a great parking space and had to fork over $20.00 for our spot, ouch! Once we finally arrived at the Tacoma Dome we were very disappointed to see how ridiculously far from the stage our seats were. I think my nose is still bleeding! I'm totally ticked about ticket masters photo of the seating chart--quite deceptive. The good news is despite the horrible restaurant experience and the terrible seats the concert itself was fantastic. The energy was enormous, the dancing better than ever, and all of my favorite routines from the season were showcased. Chelsea and Mark stole the show with their moving performance to Leona Lewis's "Bleeding Love." It was so great to see my favorite dance of the season performed live!

Will I go again! Heck yes, but I'll have much better seats and I won't be stopping at The Melting Pot before the show. I only bought tickets two days after they were up for grabs. Next time around I'll set an alarm so I can log on the moment they're available for purchase. Here's the only photo I have from the evening. I didn't take my SLR with me, and am kicking myself for leaving it behind. I had my old point-and-shoot in my purse and got this horrible pic. Against my better judgement I'll share it anyway.

On a more positive note: my mind works in a funny way and disaster seems to spell out "vivid memories" for me. If nothing else the experience won't be forgotten!

Andree's Wedding

Just posted a few more favorites from Andree's wedding on my photoblog. You'll have to head on over there to check them out.

www.youreverycolorphotography.blogspot.com

3 Days Left

Only three days left until the "So You Think You Can Dance" concert! I am so excited I can hardly stand the wait. I bought tickets for the show and am bringing a good friend of mine to watch the fab top ten in all their glory. I have been obsessed with every season, but the choreography this time around was phenomenal. It's not very often that you get to see some of the most talented choreographers from all over the world come together for one show. The best part of it all is that it was free. Blissfully, free entertainment every Wednesday and Thursday during the summer. Though I'm paying a pretty penny for the show this weekend I'd pay more if I had too! As with every season there's always at least one Mormon on the show. Good old Benji won it for us during the second season, and others have followed at least to the top ten. This year's Chelsea was home taught by a close family friend of ours. Small world, ehh! Dance really does dominate in Utah.

I love dancing and for those of you who don't know I danced all growing up. I wasn't fantastic but I was passionate about it. I competed, danced with studios, and did musical theatre. I miss it terribly--ahh the good old days. I thought I would be dancing my whole life but alas a lame back injury during my junior year of high school forced me to quit. I was heartbroken. After that other parts of my life just took over. With Americorps, college, meeting my awesome hubby, and the kiddos I haven't been able to dance much over the last few years. One day I'll get started again. Once Shawn graduates from school I'll be enrolling in a class, yipee!

So here are pics of my two favorite contestants from this season. Wouldn't it be cool if I took these photos? Ha, only in my dreams! The first is Will who truly was the most gifted dancer I have ever watched. His technique was complete perfection and his movement was so fluid, natural, and emotionally stirring. The second photo is of Mark. He had this great corkiness about him and danced with tremendous passion, character, and humor.



Thanks for reading about one of my many obsessions :)

Finally I'm writing about our Summer trip

It's about time I got this up! Last time I gave the lame excuse about not being able to get my photos off of my laptop (which was true) but there were other reasons for my procrastination:

1. I've been busy with clients lately, yipee! So I spend most of my time working on photos of other people instead of my family.

2. "The Twilight Saga." Just like the rest of you I was sucked in the moment I picked up Twilight. I read all four books in 5 days and became terribly obsessed! Once I finished the series I found myself in mourning thinking about the characters and wishing there was another book to read. I didn't want Bella and Edwards story to end! Okay, I realize how ridiculous and melodramatic I sound, but for those of you who have gone there and loved every minute of it you know exactly what I'm talking about. I feel like I should be wearing a sign that says "open mouth, insert foot" in front of all my friends who I casually made fun of for their Twilight obsessions. Sorry, I give you all full permission to say "I told you so."

Ahh see there I go again with the Twilight thing, wasn't this supposed to be about my trip to Utah? I wish I could remember more of the details. That's what I get for waiting so long to journal about our vaca. Will I ever learn? No probably not! I actually didn't end up taking too many pictures of our activities as I spent most of my time doing photo shoots for others (which I loved!) As I mentioned earlier I had the opportunity to photograph Andree's wedding (one of my best buds from high school) and I loved that. More photos from her wedding, as well as my other photo sessions should be up on my photography blog within the next day or two, so please check it out. http://www.youreverycolorphotography.blogspot.com



*The first picture is of my sisters daughter Tailinn. Kinsley and Tailinn are only two weeks apart. They had such a great time playing together.
*The second photo is of my dad with mine and my sisters kids. He was so happy to have all his grandchildren together.
*The third picture is one of my favorites from the trip. It's off my brothers son Mason. He looks like he's gloating "NBA here I come!" I won't tell him yet that his favorite aunt Andrea (me) is taller than his own dad. Sorry Mason but you haven't got a chance! LOL, love ya Zach!

We started off our trip at Shawn's dads family reunion. They had a talent portion and Kinsley asked me if she could get up and sing. The photo is not that great, but she did a wonderful job. There must have been at least 100 people there and she sang the "Fifty Nifty United States" all by herself. My favorite part is when she sings "Texas". She draws out the note as if she were singing the last note from "Tomorrow" as Annie on Broadway. She is quite the little performer.

The rest of the photos are from our trip to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point. The kids had a blast and so did we! The museum is usually pretty expensive to get into, but we went on "Two dollar Tuesday". Once we arrived we were shocked to see that the line extend out the door and around the building. We didn't know this was the first time they had ever run the promotion and boy did it draw a crowd! Though it was a little more crowded than we would have hoped for, we had an awesome time.





Can't wait for our next trip to Utah! We miss all of you!