So much has been happening lately, and I just haven’t taken the time to sit down and post.

One of the most exciting things for our family is that we purchased an RV! Everybody is really excited about it. Before Scott and I had kids we loved to go camping. While the kids were babies, camping just seemed out of the question. But now that they are getting older we decided that we want to start doing more of it as a family. Scott has been wanting to buy a pop up trailer for a while. I went to breakfast with some friends a few months ago and one of them had an RV. She talked about how much they love it and how great it has been for their family. I talked to Scott about it and we decided to start looking around.

We found the perfect one for us at a dealership in Salt Lake: a Four Winds 5000. (I’ll post some photos of it soon.)It was slightly used, but in great condition. We decided to go for it and we purchased it a few days after we looked at it.

Since then we have been going away in it almost every weekend. Scott took the kids to Jordanelle for the night the first weekend we had it. The next weekend we went to Captiol Reef. We had a great time there! I went there with my best friend’s family a few years in a row when I was in high school. It is just a special place for me and I have many great memories there. It was fun to go back and spend time there with my own kids. We went on some great hikes and just had some great family time together. The kids were just thrilled. They loved the RV, riding bikes, and playing in the dirt.

The next week we decided to go to Moab. We invited Bryan and Mary to come with us and we all went down there for 3 days. The weather was perfect and the guys did a great job of finding us a campsite. We stayed right near Slickrock and had a really nice campsite. We all got to go biking and hiking. We hiked to Delicate Arch, which I had never done before. I also mountain biked Slickrock trail, another first for me. I have to say that I hiked with my bike quite a bit, but it was a fun experience!

A few weeks later we spent a few days at Mirror Lake. We made it a family affair and both sets of grandparents came up to spend a day with us. We had a great time fishing, and even caught enough fish to have a trout dinner for 7 people one night! The weather was perfect and we escaped to the mountains on the hottest few days of the year.

The week after next we head to North Carolina to spend a week at the beach. We are all looking forward to that!

It has been a great summer, but it has been going by much too fast. Before we know it, the kids will be back in school.

I love this song. I can’t get it out of my head lately. Even my kids have been singing it Today in the car Nora asked me to turn on the “Oh, Oh, Oh song.” How cute is that?

I don’t know what is going on with my blog. GRR! I had a post all ready for “Weekly Winners” today, but I can’t get it to publish. I don’t know what is going on with my wordpress. I can’t get any posts with photos to publish. I guess I better go do some research.

It is officially winter in Park City, and this time I think it is here to stay. I haven’t really been looking forward to it. I have been enjoying my photography business and I know that it will slow down now that winter is here. Most people just don’t want to brave the snow and cold to have their pictures taken. But, I really can’t complain. It has been a great fall. We had unseasonably warm weather almost right up to yesterday’s snowstorm.

Now that the snow is here, I am actually kind of enjoying it. I snowblowed the driveway twice in the last 24 hours.

What I didn’t enjoy about the snow was getting stuck on I-80 last night. I was on my way home from Scott’s hockey game with the kids. It was a blizzard. The roads were snowy, but not too bad. As we approached our exit off the freeway, traffic started slowing down. Then it came to a complete stop. I could see my exit up ahead, but there was no way I could get to it. All lanes of traffic were blocked and there was no shoulder. We ended up being stuck there for an hour and a half. I think that Parley’s Canyon was closed due to an accident. The traffic backed up and there was nowhere to go. The worst part was that if I had taken the frontage road, we never would have gotten stuck. Luckily I had stopped at Taco Maker on the way home. The kids ate in the car and then watched a movie. They were fine, it was mom who got impatient.

Finally, the traffic started moving and we got home. By the time we got home we had almost 10 inches of snow in our driveway. I wasn’t even expecting it to snow, and we got dumped on!

Scott and I went out on an unexpected date tonight!

I had a photo shoot earlier in the evening. My mom came over to watch the kids. Now that daylight savings has ended it gets dark so early! By 5:00pm the sun is down and the light is totally gone. I knew we would be done early and since my mom and dad had the kids I figured it was a perfect opportunity for Scott and I to get a little alone time.

We went out for sushi and then saw Couples Retreat. It started out funny, but went quickly downhill. We really didn’t mind, though, it was just fun to go out. I love those unexpected nights out!

I decided to get a little more creative with this photo. I did my normal adjustments: increased brightness with curves, adjusted the skin tones, cloned out a few hot spots on her face. Then I played around with cropping, but I couldn’t come up with anything I liked.

I liked the brightness of this image and how the sun was shining. I decided to apply a texture to enhance that look. I think it turned out pretty fun.

Go check out I ♥ Faces to see all the other Fix-it Friday participants!

I have been so bad at updating my blog lately! I have a bunch of posts swimming around in my head. I want to write about my trip to China, but I want to upload and edit all the photos first.

For now, I wanted to tell you all about a new site I joined that has been taking up way too much of my time It is an awesome community for women who are passionate about photography. There are amateurs and professionals alike. There are so many wonderful tutorials. I have learned SO MUCH since I joined.

Currently, they’re having a special: If you sign up, use the coupon code FRIEND at checkout, you will get 10% off any subscription! Hope to see you there!

The other morning Ian came in early and climbed into bed with me. I had been having a bad dream that we had lost him in a crowded place. I was so happy to see his sweet little face when I woke up. I scooped him up and cuddled him in bed. I told him that I had a bad dream about him. He looked at me and said “So, you had a nightmare? Remember that nightmare that I had?” Then he proceeded to tell me the story of when he got eaten by a giant spider.

“First, it took a bite of my legs all the way up to my knees.”

“Then it took a bite of me all the way up to my stomach.”

“If the giant spider at me up to my stomach, I would have to be in a wheelchair, sitting on my stomach. Wouldn’t that be funny mom?”

It was such a cute little moment. I just had to write it down so someday when he is all grown up I can remember all his cute little stories.

My friends over at I ♡ Faces are giving away a free Blurb photo book.

I love photography and I really love creating photo books to show off my photos I have made a bunch of books to give to people as gifts. I have used Blurb in the past and they were one of my favorite companies. I love to make square books and they are one of the only companies that has square hard cover books.

They also have a cool application where you can download your blog and publish it in a book. When I first started this blog I heard about it, and it was one of the reasons I started blogging in the first place. I thought it would be a great keepsake for my kids. It will be fun for them to go back and read and get a glimpse of what our lives were like when they were little kids.

So, if you want a chance to win a $29.95 gift card to make your own book, just head on over to I ♡ Faces and leave a comment about which book you would make if you win. Easy peasy!

Our weather has been great and I have been fully taking advantage of it. I went out for a rode bike ride the last two days. Then today I actually went for a mountain bike ride.

I saw Vicky at school at morning drop off. She was all dressed in her bike clothes and was going to go for a ride. Nora and I had music class, so I couldn’t go with Vicky. But all morning I kept looking at how beautiful it was outside and wishing I could go for a quick ride in the mountains too.

I had coffee with Yori and I convinced her to go on a ride with me. We dropped Nora off at the Ark and off we went.

It was great!

I am so glad that we went out. We just did a short little ride on the Stealth trail at Glenwild. It was still muddy and there were a few puddles in some spots, but the trail was surprisingly dry. It just felt so good to be out on my bike. My legs were a little tired and I felt winded a few times, but for my first ride I was pretty happy with my conditioning. But I was really proud of how brave I was

I have always been a timid mountain biker. I just hate falling. I wimp out and don’t try to ride things that I could because I don’t want to fall. I have had a mental block on switch backs ever since I started. My very first mountain bike ride I fell on a switch back. I don’t think I ever forgot about it. But this year I have been giving myself some pep talks and thinking positively. I keep telling myself that I am great at switch backs

Today I stopped to wait for Yori just before a mildly steep rocky and muddy section. I wasn’t going to even attempt to ride it. Yori encouraged me and we both tried it. She went first, but didn’t quite make it. I tried and I totally could have made it, but I just got scared and stopped pedaling at the top. I decided to get off my bike and walk down and try it again. That was a huge step for me! The second time I rode up it perfectly.

Later in the trail there is a really steep section with a bunch of big rocks. We practiced on that section last year when I did the Dirt Series mountain bike camp. I remember standing in line last year and I was TERRIFIED. I nearly cried before it was my turn. I didn’t even want to attempt it. I was so scared and I did make an effort to try to ride it, but I gave up pretty quickly and walked up. This year I had a whole new attitude. I tried and almost made it up. I got hung up on the last big rock. I attempted it again, and got hung up in the same spot. I didn’t try again, but next time I definitely will. Last summer I didn’t think I would ever see the day when I would ride that section, but now I know that sometime soon I will do it!