A while ago I posted about a new camera strap I ordered from My Funky Camera. Gabi, who owns the store, is so nice and has fantastic customer service. I got it and thought it was adorable. The only problem was that it was a bit scratchy on my neck.

I ordered a different style from an Etsy store, but I didn’t like it as much. It was more of a sleeve to go over your existing camera strap. It moved around a lot and got bunched up on my neck.

I wanted to get a birthday present for my friend Vicky. She just got a new DSLR, so I thought I’d get her a new strap for it. (Thanks for the good idea Vicky ) Again, Gabi was awesome. I had the strap within 2 days and it was adorable! I noticed that the new ones had this super soft fleece lining sewn to the inside. It looked like just what my sensitive neck needed.

I emailed Gabi to see if she could sew some onto mine. Again, she went out of her way to be nice and helpful. I mailed it off to her to add the fleece. She sewed it within one day of receiving it, FOR FREE, and then sent it back to me.

I just wanted to tell all my photog friends to go check out the adorable prints on her site. Order something from her. You won’t be disapointed!

One of the other presents that Scott got me for my birthday was a Gorillapod. It is basically a mini tripod that you can carry with you in a purse or backpack or camera bag. You can set it on a table or wrap it around a pole.

I have been wanting one for a while, and just haven’t ever ordered one. I am excited to try it out and see what it can do for my photography. Maybe now I can work on setting it up with my timer and actually getting some photos of myself. I was working on my scrapbook photos yesterday and I was reminded that I need to do better at that. There are almost no pictures of me in the scrapbooks or anywhere else. The only ones I have are ones from Peekaboo Photos or that my mom took. (By the way, if you click on the Peekaboo Photos link, you will see that Ian is their poster child )

I haven’t had a chance to use it yet, but I am looking forward to seeing what I can do with it.

I found a new website called Parentography. They are giving away a Gorillapod to one lucky winner. All you have to do to win it is to link to their site on your blog. The contest ends on November 15 at midnight. Hurry and check it out!

National Blog Posting Month is here again! For the uninitiated, NaBloPoMo is simple; write a post a day for 30 days. That’s it. November is the traditional month for it, developed after the idea of National Novel Writing Month where you challenge yourself to write a novel in 30 days. This will be my 3rd year participating. Posting every day for a month really got my blog going last year. I know I might sound crazy, but I am actually looking forward to it!

We carved our pumpkins tonight.

I don’t know why, but Halloween seems to sneak up on me every year. I have all these cute Halloween decorations, and I never remember to get them all out until a few days before Halloween. Then it just doesn’t seem worth getting them out

The same thing happens with pumpkin carving. I never want to do them too soon, but we usually end up waiting too long and doing them at the last minute.

I planned to do them tonight, but the day was kind of crazy and I just felt overwhelmed about adding another thing to our to do list. Plus, Scott wasn’t feeling well, and I didn’t think I was up for carving 4 pumpkins with 3 kids by myself.

But it ended up being fun. Scott was feeling a little bit better, and he came and helped. The whole family really got into it. Emma was really great at carving this year, and she was a huge help. This was the first year that she was really able to do it by herself.

Check out this jack-o-lantern that she made almost all on her own. I cut the top off for her and then she went to work. She cleaned the whole thing out, and separated the seeds to toast later. Scott helped her draw a face on it, and then she cut it out all by herself. It turned out great and she was really proud of herself.

Nora enjoyed “helping” too. She liked stabbing the pumpkins and then she got a hold of the pen and drew all over it.

Even though I felt stressed before we did it, it ended up being a lot of fun. Afterward, I spent some time playing around taking pictures of the pumpkins. I actually used my tripod for the first time. It was fun, and I think I got a few good shots.

One of my mom’s friends here in North Carolina told her about Crystal Pines Alpaca Farm. We made a visit there today and it was really worth the time we spent. It is a working alpaca farm, with lots of other animals too.

The kids really had a fun time and I think we all learned something. The alpacas were extremely friendly and used to seeing people. As soon as we walked into the pasture they came right over to us. Ian was a little afraid of them, and I couldn’t convince him to feed them. Emma thought they were cute and she enjoyed feeding them.

Alpacas don’t have any top teeth, so they really can’t bite you. If you just hold your had out they use their lips and just scoop up the food. They are really soft and like having their backs rubbed. They explained how they shear the fur, and showed us how they hand spin it into yarn. We saw some of the products that the farm makes with the Alpaca fur like sweaters, hats and a few finger puppets. We bought Ian a really cute hat for the winter.

After we saw the Alpacas we got into the gator tractor and went for a drive to see the other animals. They had a lot of different varieties of chickens. They had a type of chicken that they called the “Martha Stewart Chicken” because they lay colored eggs. We were hoping to see some of the colored eggs, but we only found one brown egg.

They had one cow, Daisy, who was a Zebu cow. She was so cute, and incredibly friendly. She followed us all around the farm. At the end of the day on the way home in the car I asked Ian what his favorite part was and he said “Tickling the cow!”.

We all had a really nice time, and I would recommend anyone in the area visit the farm.

Tonight I took the kids to see The Singing Children of Africa. I loved just sitting there listening to their sweet voices. They were so fun to watch. The kids were mesmerized by their their bright colored costumes and their dancing. I was so sad that I forgot to bring my camera. I couldn’t help looking at their little faces and imagining the portraits I could take. The pictures that you see here are all from their website.

I also couldn’t stop thinking about the lives they lead. These children were all from Kenya. Many of them come from single parent homes, some of them are orphans. All of them live in extreme poverty. They know what it is like to go hungry. Most of them live in adobe houses. I just watched them and thought about how happy they all looked to be there singing to us, despite all the hardships in their lives.

There were a few children that I just couldn’t help but feeling a connection with. This little girl Diana was one of them. She was 13 years old and just had a sparkle in her eye that I can’t describe.

It really make me want to do something to help. But I just feel kind of powerless. What can I really do to help? I can donate money, but they need so much more than I am able to give. Never the less, I still want to donate something to them. I looked at their donation page, and I found it difficult to figure out. The organization is in the UK, so all of the donation amounts are in pounds. I am going to email them and just see what I can do. I would love to donate money or sponsor a child or something. Maybe we could be a host family some time. I know I can’t do a lot, I just feel like I want to do something.

Today the JRCC Club Championship wrapped up. Tuesday was the first round, and it didn’t go well for me. I didn’t feel like I did anything terrible, I just didn’t do anything very well. I missed a lot of greens, and didn’t chip well. I made a bunch of bogeys and a few doubles. I ended up shooting 87.

I was hoping for better today, but I didn’t do much better. I started out pretty steady. When I got to hole number 5 I kind of fell apart. I duffed my drive into the hazard and had to re-tee. Then I missed the green and chipped and 2 putted. I ended up with a triple bogey. I was bummed about that, until I got to number seven.

I duffed my drive again, this time into the trees off the front of the tee box. I decided to re-tee, and I hit that one left into the bushes up by the green. I had to hit a third shot. It looked like it was going to be fine, and then it tailed off to the right and went into the bushes too. I found that one, and was able to hit it. I was in the weeds, so I took an extra club, figuring that I wouldn’t be able to make great contact with it. I hit it as well as I could and airmailed the green into another hazard. I ended up getting a 10 on the hole! I walked off the green shaking and trying not to cry. I was so bummed.

But, I was able to hold it together. I finished the front nine with a 49. I had a little talk with myself and decided to just put it behind me, and finish strong. I ended up making a birdie on number 9, and I went on to shoot 37 on the back nine. I was proud of myself for holding it together and finishing so well.

Maybe next year I’ll be in contention!

I finally finished Breaking Dawn last night. I was so engrossed in it, I just wanted to read constantly. Unfortunately, I have other responsibilities I tried to stay up late a few nights to read, but I just couldn’t keep my eyes open much past 10:00pm.

No spoilers here. I’ll just say that I really loved it. There were lots of great surprises. I enjoyed it so much that I was sad to see it end. I may go back and start reading the whole series all over!

The last 2 1/2 days I played in the Jeremy Ranch Invitational. I was really looking forward to this tournament and to be back out playing with my friend Jen. I have been playing team this summer, but it has been a long time since I have played in a competitive tournament. I was really excited about getting back into competition again.

Thursday night was the derby. In the derby everyone in your flight tees off on the first hole–think 14 teams. Each 2 woman team takes turns hitting their ball until it is in the hole. The 4 worst scores on each hole were eliminated. It is always so much fun! It is crazy how much pressure you feel when there are so many people watching. I hit the first shot and it was nerve wracking, but I got it in play at least. We ended up getting eliminated on the 3rd hole. All in all, we did pretty well.

The tournament really started on Friday with a 2 woman best ball. We played with the best player at Jeremy Ranch. I played lights out on Friday. I just felt like I was doing everything right. I hit the ball well, especially with my irons. I hit so many shots close to the pins. Jen struggled, but I was happy to be able to come through for our team. I shot a 75 on my own ball. We ended up shooting a 74 gross and were one shot behind our main competition.

Today was the second day. I felt good about where we stood. I knew that Jen would play better today, and I felt like we had a good chance of winning. We came out with a bang. We started on the 5th hole. I hit my drive down the middle of the fairway. I had a pretty long 2nd shot, and I nailed it. It almost went in the hole! I ended up with about a 3 foot put. I made it, and we were back to even with the leaders. Jen and I were a great team and we helped each other when we needed to. Unfortunately 2 holes later we made a bogey and we were back to one down.

The turning point of the day came at the beginning of the second nine. We made a few birdies and pars and they made a few bogeys. Just like that we went from being one down to 2 up. Our competition started to get upset and it showed in their game. They came on strong, but we were able to hang with them. We just kept making pars from all over the place. On the 16th hole I drained a 40 footer for par to stay 2 up. It was crazy and so much fun. I saw the other team just slump when I made it.

We just kept making pars and went into the last hole with a 2 shot lead. The last hole was number 4–an elevated tee box down to a par 3. I knew we pretty much had it locked up. All we needed was for one of us to get it on the green. I hit a great shot about 15 feet from the pin. I knocked that put in, just to put a little icing on the cake. I ended up shooting 76 on my own, and we shot a one under 71 for the day. We won the tournament by 3 strokes.

It was a great 2 days. It was so much fun to be out there competing with my old friend Jen. We have always been a great team. And I was really proud of us for winning!

A few months ago I heard about the Twilight Series by Stephanie Meyer from a friend’s blog. People were just raving about the books. It was written by an author from BYU who happens to be LDS. It was geared towards a more young adult audience, but people my age were loving it too. I checked it out on Amazon.com and decided to order the 2 books in the series–Twilight and New Moon. I had no idea I would be hooked so fast!

I read both of them over the course of a few days, which is a feat in itself for me! I meet monthly with my book group, and almost always read the book. But, I can’t seem to read much more than one book a month. I just have too much going on. But, I read both books in a few days. I couldn’t wait for the next book to come out. As soon as it did I devoured that one too.

Now I am anxiously waiting for the last book in the series, Breaking Dawn, to come out! I pre-ordered it on Amazon months ago, but now I am having second thoughts When Harry Potter came out, they has some special so that it would arrive to you on the day it came out. It doesn’t look like they are doing that with Breaking Dawn. It comes out on August 2nd, so I probably won’t get it until Monday. Which is probably all for the best anyway. I am playing in a golf tournament on Friday and Saturday. It probably wouldn’t help my golf game to stay up all night Friday night reading

I can’t wait to get it and find out what happens. My sister-in-law is getting a hotel room with a few of her friends so they can have a read-a-thon. I wish I could join them!!

UPDATE: I just checked Amazon.com and my order is now showing release date delivery! Woooo Hoooo! Now I just have to control myself and not stay up all night so I can play well in my tournament.