We just got back from our fist trip to Yellowstone. Our good friends go every year and invited us to come along this time. We all had a lot of fun and some excitement too. At one point an elk tried to charge our kids and that same evening someone thought it would be cool to spray bear spray in the hotel we were staying at, so we all had to wait in the lobby while the paramedics aired out the building.
Yellowstone was beautiful and interesting with its colors, geysers, and wildlife. I took a ton of photos and decided to start by posting some of the ones that showed off the amazing colors we saw.
The Provo River Parkway is close to our house but we’ve never checked it out. This past weekend we decided to take a family walk to explore some of the trail. We only covered about a mile but we enjoyed what we saw. There was a lot of beautiful trees and plants, and of course the river, but I always seem to be drawn to old junk, so even though there wasn’t a ton of that kind of stuff that’s what I tended to photograph. Here are some of our findings:
This past weekend we took our kids letterboxing, which is a kind of treasure hunting activity similar to geocaching. Our destination was Flight Park in Draper, Utah. As we were finishing up the letterboxing, people started showing up to paraglide, so we decided to sit back and observe. It was fun to watch them setup, take off, and then float around in the sky. Maybe someday I’ll get the nerve (and the permission from my wife) to give it a try.
Thanksgiving Point recently had their annual Tulip Festival. We went again this year along with some close friends and had fun and took a lot of pictures. Here are a few of my favorites:
A group of us from work recently decided that we wanted to give sushi-making a try, so we had some sushi-grade fish overnighted from California and we gave it a go. We got salmon, tuna, unagi (eel), and tobiko (fish eggs), along with a variety of fruits and vegetables. We had so much fish it took us two nights to go through it. Each night we cooked up two big pots of rice and went through a few packages of nori (seaweed). We had as much fun making the rolls as we did eating them. It was fun getting creative with various combinations of fillings and toppings. Everyone enjoyed themselves and no one got sick, so I’d say it was a success.
If you want to give it a try yourself, a good source of recipes is the Sushi Day Blog, and the place we ordered our fish from was Catalina Offshore Products.
Here are some snapshots from the festivities:
For dinner on Mother’s Day I tried a new recipe. I made chipotle lime chicken on the grill. I was happy with how it turned out and everyone seemed to like it. Here’s the recipe if you’re interested:
Grilled Chipotle-Lime Chicken Breasts
This is our idea of a fun family outing. On Saturday my wife dressed our oldest daughter up a little more funky than normal and put some makeup on her. Then the six of us all went and found an abandoned house to go photograph in.
The kids all thought it was pretty cool. There was some neat vintage wallpaper and old wood and brick walls that, as you can see, made great backdrops for photos.
From the outside of the house we could see a beautiful old window upstairs with actual working shutters, unlike the non-functional ones today that are just nailed on the outsides of houses for decoration. We wanted to go up there, but we played it safe and didn’t test the structural integrity of the staircase.
I hope you enjoy these two shots from our little adventure.
Rock Canyon is only about 15 minutes away from where I live in Provo, Utah and it’s a place that I frequent when wanting to do some nature and landscape shooting. Here are some new shots that I decided to convert to black and white to give them a bit more of a dramatic feel.
My sister, Ashley, is in a culinary program so I asked her to come to the studio in her uniform and to bring some knives. Here are a few photos from the shoot:
I decided to do a series of photos all taken on Geneva Road which runs through Provo and Orem, Utah. Geneva is a road that I travel on daily. It has a lot of character with it’s farms and old structures, which is the kind of stuff I love.
Here are five of my favorites from the series. I’m not sure if I can call the project done yet or not. We’ll see…
