Nick & Ryan

Ryan came home from school today and declared that he needed his picture taken with his brother (this happens about every-other day). This is what came of the pictures...Ryan decided that he didn't want to be in most of them because he want to play with the quacking duck that makes Nick smile. I haven't Photoshop-ed them, so I'm sure I'll re-post after I've played with colors and such. I love this serious picture of Nick.

My good friend, Amber, and I have been taking a Photoshop class on Tuesday and Thursdays...lots of fun and learning! I'm learning a lot and I'm hoping that I'll be able to take some decent enough pictures to be able to use all of the fun Photoshop tricks.

Chili Cook-Off

My mom has been up for the past few days...yippee for Gram Time! We had a great time shopping, getting the boys stuff for winter (snowsuits, boots, etc), and spending time together. Ryan especially liked being able to earn a dollar for every book he read to Gram. I think she stopped at about 20 and went for other forms of motivation.

On Saturday night we went to our ward's annual Chili Cook-Off that the local hot-spot...the Shaw's Barn (okay, it's just a regular old barn, but a few times a year it becomes the ward hot spot because we use it for our activities). There were a few buffalo in the pen with the cows and you would've thought they were wild buffalo the way the kids oogled over them. We ate chili (plenty of it), salads, yummy desserts, and frozen bananas. Ryan spent most of his time roping the cow until the head fell off the bail of hay and he couldn't get it back on. We even went for a sunset hayride behind the tractor and say all the the leaf colors, they were amazing. The picture of the four of us on the hayride isn't great, but we do thank Nicole for taking it as she is just 12 years old:) We truly live in the most beautiful area where we get to see deer, elk, buffalo (in a corral), leaves changing colors, fruit on trees, and we get to feel the crisp air before most of the rest of the state.

Rainbow

We had a big storm the other evening and I couldn't help but take this picture as the sun was going down. Never mind the quality of the picture..I'm going to have to learn how to take better nighttime pictures during my next "photography 101" with my Dad. There were actually two rainbows, but my camera (couldn't be the user) wouldn't catch the other one because it was fairly pale. This one was so bright and vibrant and I instantly thought of Natalie and my Grandpa. Don't you love when something reminds you of someone and it puts a smile on your face?

Waterfall

It's been a work in progress, but the finishing touch has finally been completed on our beautiful yard. We've worked and worked in our yard and this morning we were finally able to turn the pump on to get the waterfall working. I LOVE it!!! Can't believe how great it looks. Just sort of completes the looks we were going for...very mountainous.