A Few Things.

I've been doing a lot of shoots and when I'm not shooting, photo editing lately, mostly for a lot of September weddings. Also we moved from Logan to Brigham where we will be house sitting for my in-laws as they get ready and leave for the Czech Republic! The move isn't totally traumatic as we've long since had most of our stuff in storage... which in many ways still made it completely insane how much stuff we still have! Fortunately there wasn't any furniture involved, which is good, since lifting is frowned upon in my current state. Still, as a consequence for all these things, I haven't updated my 'doings' on my blog.

So I'm going to do an update, starting with the MOST recent:

Last weekend I had 2 shoots that both happened to be in Bear Lake. One Friday and one Saturday. So I decided that it would be dumb to come and go and come and go. So with our friends the Hansen's we took off on Friday, they dropped me off at my first shoot and I met them up by Bloomington Lake for some camping. The next morning we got up and went to the lake, and I went to shoot my wedding for a couple hours, then met back up at the beach.

I think everyone else had fun... it was a bit hectic for me all in all!

(Lovely self portraits taken in Bear Lake - never very flattering to do
the one handed photo. Oh, and PS, i'm in my glasses because
evidently my eyes are inflamed and i've been ordered out
of my contacts for two weeks while I put in a myriad of drops.
Glasses and beaches are a stupid combo.)

My parents left on their mission! They left about two weeks ago on a Monday morning to officially fly to Budapest, Hungary... There's been a few updates so far, but you can find their blog from mine for a few details...

(This is their ACTUAL departure to the airport... They were generously
donating this car to a couple from my dad's old married
student ward who now live in Bountiful, so they were driving
off on their own.)

Because of my parents busy retiree schedule, they had to do some unconventional things during their departure for their mission... They left for the MTC on Monday, August 3rd, and were there through friday evening. They were not able to find a Sunday to speak before they left, so they got scheduled to speak on August 9th, after the MTC, and then would fly out on August 10th. My mom was saying that we'd have to figure something out for like food for the family and friends who came to see them talk, but let's face it, she had no time. So I told her to not worry and I'd handle it. HA! I have never planned food for 35-40 people... I told people who asked not to bother bringing things because I worried it would be too hard for the relatives coming from a distance the morning of, and also I worried that I wouldn't know WHAT to plan on as far as what people would make and how much food I'd end up with or not end up with. And I'm a worrier! I had my sister-in-law who lives in a town, and a friend bake cookies like mad women for me, and the night before I had all my siblings and my cousin in my mom's kitchen, chopping, washing, and bagging all sorts of things like my little minnions. All this leads me to believe... mormons be crazy.

(Those sugar cookies are stars decorated like the Hungarian flags!
Cute, huh? My sister Emily and I made them the day before.)

My mom turned 60! This also happend to happen the day before my parents spoke in church, so much of her birthday was spent in the kitchen baking muffins and overseeing my aforementioned minnions. However, my brother Andrew tried out his domestic side and he and his roomate/our cousin David made a strawberry rhubarb pie which we used as a birthday cake. We were all duly impressed with their pie making abilities! Go boys!


John had to take some pictures of a new product for Camp Chef, so with the Chef picking up the tab for some food suitable to go on the product, we headed up Green Canyon to take the pics and asked our friends the Hansen's if they didn't want to come along and help us eat the food once it came off the grill from the photos. We picked a spot based on the optimal level of cloud cover, however, didn't take into account how dusty it was! Their son is just 2, and was the funniest thing ever after a few hours up there!!!

(This seriously doesn't even do justice to how dirty this kid got!!! HA!!!)

AND, I think we're caught up now, haha. For all those that stayed tuned in to this massive post, congrats... I would give you a cookie, but I'm all baked out.

Ah Oh!

So Holly and Brent are moving in to my parents house during their absence, and while we were all gathered around this last weekend at the house, Caden learned a trick!!!

Holly, in the future eighteen months if you're looking for Caden and can't find him, I have a suggestion for where to look.

Sad.

While discussing health care, which I just admittedly should not do, because people get too combative, and then it scares me, haha, I used an example from my life of having middle of the road insurance that would not pay for a suggested amnio for my last pregnancy. The bill I paid in cash was astronomical at best. I was told point blank after that, 'that was because amnios are completely unnecessary'. It made me cry. Honestly cry.

Sometimes people act like the worst thing an amnio can tell you is that your child has Down's Syndrome. That people who get an amnio just want to know the sex of their baby for sure, or get 'screened positive' for Downs and freak out and go endangering the life of a child (the risk is actually much smaller than most people realize) who will just have 'some special needs' and nothing immediately life threatening for their own selfish reasons. Or that only bad people who are considering termination get them because they don't want babies who are in any way unhealthy.

When people say that, I think what my three hours with Leland would have been like had we not known - had he been rushed off to the NICU to try to figure out what was wrong with him after his birth. What if I had not held him in my arms, or he was in the arms of my family for every minute of his too short life? What if he was being tested and prodded away from me and I didn't get to hear every one of his cute birdlike cries? What if he died while I wasn't there? The very thought hurts my heart so much that the statement made me fully cry just thinking about that agony.

I'm not trying to start anything, I just had to say this and think about my son a minute, and say maybe to someone else who finds out the hard way that Down's isn't the worst genetic condition out there, that you're not a bad person for wanting to KNOW what to do for your child - don't let people condemn your decision as unessesary or selfish. Hopefully they will get the blissful unaware of a life never having to understand.