Photoshop is fun

I love photoshop and all the funny things that you can do with it.

Camera Practice

It is very hard to practice taking pictures and learn how to use my camera when no one will pose for me. So this weekend I used Sean's family dog, Lucy, as my subject. She was way more cooperative than Sean, but it is hard to make a dog go and sit in different backgrounds and do what you want without the use of treats, and I just didn't feel like smelling like dog treats, so most of these are candids. I also took some pictures of the pretty flowers and some from a bridal shower I went to. It was fun being able to use my new camera, it is awesome! Let me know how I am doing and if you have any photography tips.

Sad

I have had a glorious weekend taking pictures and having fun with Sean's family, and then I decided to get on the computer to check up on people's blogs and see what was new in everyone's life. I am sad, I miss everyone and wish that they hadn't left our little ward at BYU. It is going to be so sad next year when everyone else I have made friends with leaves our apartments to move on to the real world. I am excited for everyone that they are having new adventures like getting their husbands to have real jobs and looking to buy a new house or fridge or washer/dryer. But I will miss everyone. I just got released from nursery and am really sad. I loved my calling in the nursery teaching the toddlers, they entertained me and made me laugh. It was hard to see all the kids move out and to no longer get to spend time with them, they have brought so much fun and joy to our lives,so thanks for letting us get to know your kids to those of you who had them in our nursery. I miss you guys that moved out and am so glad that you all were my friends, I wish you good luck and I hope we will be able to stay in touch. Love you all! (To those still in the ward, I love you too and am so glad you are still around.)

Weightloss

I guess no one reads this, but I will just write for myself then. I hate trying to lose weight because I am eating healthy, exercising, and even trying to make sure that I walk a lot during the day and use a pedometer to count the steps. Well I have been doing this for two weeks now and the scale still won't budge, I just want to lose 10 lbs. I am working hard, you'd think I would lose at least 1 lb by now, but no. I hate that about trying to lose weight, I am cutting out all the junk, well most of it. I am having high fiber snacks like fruit and combining that with some sort of small protein serving. I have veggies with my sandwich for lunch and I'm trying to drink more than my normal one bottle of water a day. I know I am soooo bad at drinking water. I go to the gym and I do cardio on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, and I lift weights on Mondays and Wednesdays. I know all of the keys to a healthy lifestyle and I try to follow them. I allow myself to eat some sort of treat if I really want it, but only once a day and I try to keep it low-cal or small portion size. What am I doing wrong? Why haven't I lost at least one pound in these two weeks? Or at least why don't my clothes fit any better. I am so frustrated, I hate when I am trying to lose weight, but I need to because it is the weight that I gained this semester being lazy and not working out because of the stress of working 20 hours and taking 18 credits and I just was too tired to go to the gym, but now I have time and I am going and I am trying, so what is my problem?

One of my dreams came true

These last two days have been glorious, Sean got into the MAcc and was awarded this amazing scholarship which allowed me to buy the camera that I have been eyeing. I have been playing with it all night and plan on taking some amazing pictures, so just you wait, there will soon be a million picutres of my practice.

Costa Rica-- I wish I could live there

We had sooooooo much fun in Costa Rica. I am so lucky to have such amazing parents that would take us on such a fun trip. We went up a couple of days before them and spent some time visiting people from Sean's mission. The families there are fantastic, I have never met so many people so eager to offer me food or a place to stay or absolutely anything you could think of. The people there are very kind and generous and I have fallen in love with them. Here is a picture of one of the families that we visited with, they are Pedro and Xinia and their kids.

On Monday my parents arrived and we took a long drive to a hotel called Tabacon. It has hot springs and a volcano and a beautiful jungle where we did ziplining. When we got there we got in our swim suits and went to the hot springs right away, I know what you are thinking, hot springs are gross they stain your swimsuit and they smell like sulfur. Well that was not the case, these are crystal clear beautiful water with lava rock lining the bottom and they don't smell. The water runs down the volcano and is heated up that way, we were actually on the base of the volcano. Then we had some amazing food at a soda, that is what they call their local little places. I love the food in Costa Rica, and we totally hit the hay early. It gets bright there at 5 in the morning and gets dark a lot earlier so my time was totally thrown off. This picture is of my parents enjoying one of the falls in the hot springs water. The next day we hiked all through the jungle doing the zipline tour, let me tell you at first I was terrified and really did not want to do it, but it ended up being amazing. I think I held my breath every time the guide would let me go on the line though.

Even my mom did it, and like she would like to remind us the entire trip, she is 50!

After the long day of playing in the jungle we went back and relaxed in the hot springs again and the next morning as well. Then at about 11 on Wednesday we took off for Tamarindo. It was a long winding drive around the lake and then across the country and we finally got there. The beach is my favorite place in the world so I was really excited. Sean and I decided to take surf lessons and we had a blast. Believe it or not that was not the only time we were standing on the boards. My dad has videos of us, if only he would send them our way, I'm sure they are comical. Then we went on a little boat cruise through the estuary in order to see wild animals. Our poor guide worked so hard to find us some caymens and some monkeys, it was just not the right time of day, they prefer the morning. But after hiking into the dry jungle for thirty minutes we found some monkeys, and on the way back to the beach we found some caymens.
There were also some little funny crabs that we saw along the edge of the water, but they were too hard to take pictures of. The hotel in Tamarindo was fantastic and we found some really cool shells on the beach. I really loved the area but it was way hotter than the other places we visited. Our hotel even had some funny food seeking creatures, the Iguana that lived on the roof outside our porch and the bird that would steal people's food at breakfast were both quite entertaining.


Overall this was probably one of the most amazing trips ever and I have a million more pictures to prove it. I just can't post all of them and it was very hard to choose which ones to put up. I just hope you all believe me about how beautiful it was there. We were all planning our return trip while we were there. I can't wait and I hope that we can save up some dough so that we can go back next year. I would live there if I could, I love Costa Rica. Pura Vida!!!

My new obsession

This baby is my new obsession. I have really wanted to get into photography lately. I want to learn to take amazing pictures so that when I have kids I can capture all of the fun moments perfectly and put them all over my house. I don't want to buy a professional camera, but I do have my eyes set on this one. We have one here at work to use with our microscopes and sometimes I like to take it down and just use it for fun with things around the office. I would absolutely love to own one of these cameras, it has all of the features that I like, except for the batteries. It is 8MP and 12X optical zoom which I really like. It has lighting changes and a bunch of other really fun features. I hope that I can save some money and get one, it is my dream for now.

I did it!

I made it!!!! I somehow survived this crazy semester of 18 credits and working 20 hours and I passed all of my classes and am getting a college diploma. I can't believe it. It went by so fast. It was so fun to celebrate with my family, my parents, Sean's parents, Mike and Marci, and Quinn and Marianne. I was actually nervous about walking, I have no idea why, but I was. I had my cute new dress on from the Gap and I was there on time and I think I looked alright. I'm so glad I'm done. We went to Costa Rica Last week to celebrate, it was the best trip ever. I will post my thoughts and pictures from that soon. Hoorah for Graduation!!!!!!