We ate peanut butter sandwiches with home-made strawberry freezer jam on the faded plastic picnic table – a hand-me-down from the neighbors.

The sun shone so hot on our backs. Even boredom of a backyard played in a billion times couldn’t convince us to go inside.

Olivia swang – up, down, up, down; the blue sky like a never ended dome above her with soft white clouds that couldn’t make up their minds which shape they wanted to be.

Calvin climbed the ladder. Then he climbed down. He played with the garden stakes – swords he said. He shared with Olivia, even when she whined and wanted both. He played on the slide, he inspected the rocks. There was a great deal of interest in them. I lay in the grass, playing with my camera, trying to imagine how to capture perfection . . . in focus.

I got into Nauvoo about 11:00 at night, shot the temple for about twenty minutes, and then headed back to the hotel to sleep. Got up the next morning at 5:00 am to catch the temple at dawn. Met up with the bride and groom at 7:30 am and shot until about 1:30 in the afternoon, at which point I had to turn around and head home

It was a super fast trip. But I got a few good shots (I’ll let you know when I have the wedding pics processed and on my photo website.)

I’ve been doing a lot of photography lately. Fun for me!

You can see some of the pictures on my photography website: Green Orchid Photo

But some you can’t. Because I’m not done processing them. Which reminds me . . .

Anyhoo, some of the pics I’ve done recently:

Leslee and Jason – wedding pictures at the Salt Lake Temple

Leslie & ??? (I can’t remember her hubby’s name!) – Maternity pictures at Red Butte Garden

Beth and Alex – engagement pictures on a rainy morning.

Jameson & Gregson – darling kiddo pics.

Torri & Kylie – fun prom pics

Megan & Ben – wedding pictures in Nauvoo Illinois

Not to mention my own personal photography  – pictures of my sweet kids and our daily adventures.

I even bought a new 8GB cf card.

I’m glad I have a camera.

1) Prom in my neck of the (back) woods

2) Wyatt’s big 33

3) Baby Sunshine’s summer dresses

4) Summer stars

5) The things they say (O & Cal of course)

6) Someone I really admire (maybe it’s you!)

7) Photography up the WahZooh! (Where is the WahZooh?)

OH MY, I usually don’t let myself get behind in my blogging, but there’s just so much going on these days.

Stories to follow . . .

Today she agreed to be his wife.

Even though I’ve heard the story from Beth, and then again from Alex, Carrie is sitting next to me as I type, so she’s telling this story:

Carrie, Beth and Alex were s’posed to all stay at Danny & Eliza’s house, but at the last minute Beth decided to stay at my parent’s house in St. George. So then Carrie and Alex got up at five am (way to go Super Carrie!) and snuck back over to the house. But the door was locked, so they called Beth and asked her to open it, telling her that Alex needed to get his glasses (which he had cleverly left there the night before) so he could go running with Eliza. His plan was to cover the area where she was sleeping with flowers and slip the ring on her finger without waking her. But since he’d already woken up, he sat there for half an hour waiting for her to go back to sleep. Finally he got too impatient, and even though he knew Beth was only pretending to sleep, he decided to spread the flowers out and put the ring on her finger. And then as he snuck out of the room he heard a little chuckle from her. Then he had Carrie drive him up to the red rocks that overlook the St. George temple. He planned to write “Will you marry me” with rose petals on the top of the cliffs, but the wind wasn’t cooperating, and just blew all the petals away. In the meantime, Carrie drove back to Beth’s and kidnapped her, and stole a pillow case and put it over her head (but she didn’t check to see how see thru it was, apparently it was totally see through). She took her to the red cliffs and made her climb up them bare foot & with a pillow case over her head. She was s’posed to call Alex ahead of time to warn him they were coming, but his phone didn’t get reception so they totally surprised him. Once he saw them and realized it was them, he took Beth and walked her up to where he had set the now-blown-away petals up, overlooking the St. George temple. He got on his knee and asked Beth to be his queen. And she said yes.

And then they decided it was really cold, so they headed back down to the valley.

Ah, love.

More pictures coming soon.

And when I woke up I decided: I should learn how to take Jumping Pictures.

And so I called the best jump-picture-person in Utah, who also lives on my street – Rick.

We conned a few people to jump for us.

And I learned lots.

NEATO, I say.

Last weekend I did a couple photo shoots -

1) Another Bridal session with my sister, Leslee. It was: FUN to hang out with Les for an afternoon, AWESOME to practice my photography NICE to have a captive and willing model and a GREAT memory with my sis.

2) A Newborn photo shoot with my neighbor, Tiffiny and her newborn, JACE. He is darling.

You can see more pics at Green Orchid Photo

Today was her official “Bridal” session – with her photographer. Wyatt asked: Why didn’t you just take the pictures? Well, she has a photographer. And so I just went along to do sisterly duties – fluff the dress, watch the hair, hold stuff, hand over tissues . . .

and document the documentation.

I really liked what happened with this shoot. I thought it might turn into a disaster, but it turned out A.W.E.S.O.M.E.

It was supposed to be at the Salt Flats. But after driving 110 miles from Salt Lake – we found out that it was flat, and salty, but also watery. A situation we did not anticipate. And then a blizzard blew in. And it was COLD. But Leslee and Jason were way good sports (as was the photographer’s pregnant wife!) and look how cool these turned out!

But during the last several months of 2009 I somehow found a confidence that I had never had before. I had an idea and a direction in the type of photography I wanted to do, and how I would go about persuing my passion.

And then one day in January . . .

Leslee was over for lunch. I was showing her my website, that wasn’t quite finished. I told her I needed to figure out how to create a group on Facebook. I told her about my idea for a wedding giveaway.

Leslee sat down at the computer and created the Green Orchid Facebook Group. She announced the give away. She linked people to my site.

Talk about being pushed out of the nest! There was no going back now! I scrambled to finish the last few details on the site. Then I started to watch . . . would anyone actually visit my site? Would it just be my family and neighbors?

I am surprised at the amount of traffic I’ve received on my site in the past month, let alone the number of entrants I’ve had in my giveaway (my goal was 10 – and I thought that was pushing it).

I’m working hard to create a successful photography business. I love it, and I want to do it more.

The other day I was at the grocery store and I saw a magazing – Utah Bride & Groom – on the stands, with a cover story article about wedding photography. I was busy and didn’t have time to peruse it, but made a mental note to hit Barnes and Noble later to check it out. The article was entitled: 200+ Utah Wedding Photos – Inspiration and Ideas from Local Couples. Well I’m excited to say that I didn’t find ANY inspiration. There wasn’t anything particularly special about the photography that was presented. In short, I think I could do better.

Which is always a shot of confidence.

Tomorrow is the end of my give away. I will be announcing the winners.

But I don’t have any clients – YET.

So I went and took my bambinos on a practice shoot yesterday afternoon. It’s good to go practice. And I think some of these turned out lovely.