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Lake Powell!

Look Ma, I'm bloggin!

I thought I would post a few pictures from our fun vacation to Lake Powell. We met our good friends the Husteads at the Wahweap Marina at 9:00 Friday morning. That was after we were all up all night packing and driving. Once we got there, we weighed down the boats to the maximum capacity and headed out to look for somewhere to camp. We drove around trying to find the perfect campsite that was sheltered from the wind and was away from the open water. We found an awesome spot that had a houseboat right around the corner so we thought we would look some more. 3 hours later we realized that the original spot was the perfect spot and we went back there. Thankfully no one had set up camp there yet. The moms got dropped off with the "stuff" and the guys headed back to the marina to pick up more of our stuff. It is amazing how much you think you need when you are camping with no water, no toilets, no nothing in the middle of nowhere. We enjoyed every minute of it though and I surprised my self by being able to stand not having any sort of bathrooms or water.

Things we learned:

1. Red ant bites hurt!
2. The best way to kill red ants is to pour gasoline on the sand and burn them.
3. Gasoline burns for a really long time.
4. If you light a lantern at night, every gnat in the whole state will come to check it out.
5. It stinks when gnats touch the lantern and burn.
6. The docks at Dangling Rope Marina half-way up the lake will burn your feet and leave blisters if you don't wear shoes.
7. The ice cream at the previously mentioned marina was delicious and perfect to cool everyone off.
8. Every boat will break at least one thing when you are 50 lake miles away from help.
9. It is a very good idea to have someone that knows everything about boats camping with you (thanks again Jason!)
   
10. You won't have enough time to do everything.
11. You will want to go back the second you leave. That place is amazing.

After we left Lake Powell we decided to drive through Zion National Park to get back to the freeway. We just didn't realize that it would cost so much to do so. It costs $25 to enter the park. We also didn't realize that if you pull a boat trailer through the park they charge you an extra $15 because they have to completely shut down the tunnel to allow you to go through one-way. Despite that, it was beautiful. We hope to go back and actually take the tour up Zion canyon. All we did was drive by.... We bought the National Parks Pass after seeing those two charges so look for a lot of traveling in the next year to our national parks!

Here are some pictures:

At Zion... waiting for the rangers to close the tunnel so we can go through
The boys tubing
I love this picture... finding a crack in the sheer walls to back a boat into
Rainbow Bridge... we boated all the way up there to find out the docks were farther away from the bridge than we thought.
The only family pic we took... on the docks at Rainbow Bridge
I'm going to miss this view!

Long time no blog

I have been a blog slacker! I don't really have much news to post though... Abby celebrated her 2nd birthday a few weeks ago and we had a little party for her. Anna is busy with preschool and dance still and loves all of the friends she is making. Alli is busy with dance as we are entering the performing season. Justin has been busy with Scouts and recently passed off his Wolf badge. Now it is on to the Bear den. Chris and I are eagerly awaiting the return of summer so we can get back out on the water. Here are a few pictures from the other day of the girls playing in the warm weather we had this week. Justin was off biking around the neighborhood with friends so I didn't get him...
Also I wanted to remind anyone who is interested, I am doing spring mini-sessions right now... Check out the details on my photography blog ...And, just because I'm happy for the warmer weather, I'll also include 5 full-res files for any readers of my family blog...

Not too shabby at the School Spelling Bee!

Justin competed in the school spelling bee today and walked away with 3rd place! Not too shabby considering he is in 3rd grade and competed against 4th and 5th graders also. He ended up getting out after the 2nd round after mispelling "diatribe". Then there were only 2 kids left who took first and second place. Then they called back up the 7 that were left before that to duel it out for 3rd place. After one more round, it was down to him and a fifth grade girl. They spelled back and forth for almost 20 minutes before she missed "achievement". Justin correctly spelled it and then spelled "lettuce" to win that round. Some other words that I remember he correctly spelled were: safari, excise, hawkeye, femininity, prescription, and exuberate. We have decided that he definitely has a gift for spelling and are glad that he loves it so much!

Some pictures: (Sorry, taken with my cell phone... I forgot the camera!!)
Before the bee... pretty nervous!


Fighting for 3rd place...

New Photography Blog!

Well, I have worked super hard on getting a new blog installed to my website and it is finally up and running...

Visit http://www.meansalot.com/blog

And update your bookmarks. I just posted some newborn pictures I was able to take over the weekend... I love newborns!

As promised... Blake and Miranda

I had the opportunity to shoot the Country Superstars Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert at the trade show I photographed... Here are a few of the hundreds of photos I took. All of these were shot with my new camera and available light (no flash).

Long time no blog

It has been a very long time since I have blogged last. I think this past month has been the busiest month of my life. We had friends come and stay over new years, I went out of town for 5 days for business, and I had surgery yesterday. I have a ton of pictures to post and hope to get caught up while I recover and am stuck in bed. For now though, here are a few pics of Anna and Abby that I took on Monday with the lens I rented for the trade show I attended. I love this lens and hope to own it before the end of the year! The coats were Christmas gifts from grandma...






By the way, I really shouldn't be blogging while on pain meds... Excuse any and all typos and anything that doesn't make sense!