Brakes, Stretchers, and iPods

First, let me start by explaining that this post is two or three months past due. Even though I should have written it then, it's very appropriate today. You might be asking yourself what these three items (brakes, stretchers, and iPods) have in common, so I will tell you. About two or three months ago I needed to replace my brakes in order to register my car. Well, I've never changed brakes before and this was a new experience for me. Luckily, I can always turn to my dad, who knows everything about cars. You see, I just have to take a moment to say that my dad is amazing because he can do so many things incredibly well - everything from his career as a professional A/V tech, satellite tech, welder, builder (of anything), designer, and finally, mechanic. It may not seem like much, but he showed me how to change my brake pads and that got my car working, which I desperately needed.

Not only did he help me with my brakes, but he helped me when I needed to build a canvas stretcher. My favorite way of displaying photos is as a gallery wrap canvas, and in order to make one you need a stretcher to stretch (wrap) the canvas around a wooden frame. Well, I knew that it could be built for much less than the least expensive version I had seen online for several hundred dollars. So to whom did I turn to find the help I needed to build my stretcher? Yep, you guessed it - none other than my dad. And help he did. You see, my dad knows exactly where to go for all of the parts, materials, and ideas, so when you need something done, he's the guy to ask. He drew it all up and showed my exactly how to machine the aluminum bars to give me what I needed. It worked out great and now I have two huge (24x36) gallery wraps hanging in my "studio" thanks to the help my dad gave me. He does that a lot, just helps people and that's perhaps the thing that I respect most about my dad. Not only will he help you, he'll go all out when he's doing it. I've seen him help out brothers and sisters, neighbors, work associates, and every time he will do everything that he can (and that's a lot) to make sure you're good to go.

Now to iPods. First I need to thank my dad for the iPod that I already have because it's his old one, and boy is it old. 4 years, to be exact and it's still ticking, thanks to my dad. You might remember my post where I told the story of how my iPod gave me the sad face and stopped working. Well, after my brother helped me fix it once, I broke it again by unknowingly letting it take a long fall onto the cement. Well, I was completely at a loss and just about ready to give up on my 4 year old, fourth generation iPod Photo and accept my fate as an iPod-less member of society. But when I showed it to my dad as a last ditch effort, my spirits were lifted from the proverbial floor when he had the answer. We just had to disconnect the lcd, reconnect it, and leave the battery disconnected for a day and that was it. Now it works like a champ and I couldn't be happier.

These are just a few examples of why I have the coolest dad ever and I wanted to say thanks to him on his birthday. Happy Birthday, Dad! I hope it's one of many, many more we get to share together.

Here are some random pictures of my dad. I have to say that some of them are cell-phone pictures, which I rarely use in posts because they usually are pretty crappy. But some cell-phone pictures is better than no pictures, right?

I told my dad that I needed to post this last picture on my blog and he didn't think that I would do it. And just so you know, he's got a frowny face because we had to throw away those sawhorses that have been around for ever. It was a sad day ;-)

The best part about Halloween

Okay, okay. I admit that there isn't really a good part about Halloween. I mean, think about it. There really isn't any real importance behind it like there are with Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, The Fourth of July, etc. So not only is it an irrelevant holiday, it's also a time where you're bombarded with bags and bags full of high fructose corn syrup. All that candy is really starting to get to me. I can definitely say that all that candy if the last thing that I need!!!

But thankfully, not everything about Halloween isn't totally useless. In fact, it's an awesome excuse to take more pictures of kids. So last Saturday I had fun taking a few pictures of my nieces and nephews. Here they are:

Lily was the cutest little thing with her fairy wings. I love the expression on her face.


Then there's Jacob, who's costume is supposed to be a monkey. I don't know about you, but I was thinking a bear myself.



Brinley was the scary, mermaid, tickle monster. I'll just leave that up to your imagination


I'll bet that all the boys were jealous of Caleb's Iron Man costume. Heck, I was jealous myself. It was awesome!!!

Families in the Fall - Mine

Okay, okay, it's not like these families are mine. What happened was my extended family went to take a group picture and while we were there, I shot some pictures of my nephews, and my two sisters and their "families." So first, my favorite nephews in the world.

Jacob has to be the happiest baby I've ever seen. And can you believe how much he's grown since this?!


Max is a happy kid too, he's just a little camera shy. Well that, and he'd rather be off somewhere reaping havoc. But he wasn't sneaky enough - I got a few good shots of him.




And caleb loved the leaves. I remember when he was one year old we took him to a neighbors house and let him play in the leaves, but he just sat there. Actually, we had to start playing in the leaves for him, and once we started to bury him in the leaves he had had enough. For the record, we didn't actually bury him...just his legs. But look at him now! He's having a grand old time.



And here's my sister Angie and her "family." Yeah, it's just the two of them for now, but we'll see just how long that will last. Any bets?


And last but not least is my sister and her boyfriend, Mitch. He's a good guy, so I decided to take one of the two of them. Believe me, he cleans up really nice. Just kidding! :-P

Fall Pictures

I love this time of year. I'm really glad that the weather decided to cooperate and let us have a fall this year! I've taken a few fall pictures and here are some of those. I'm going to have more later this week to post, so be sure to check back soon. Family shots in the fall are the best! But for now, I give you these two.

This is another of my mom's wedding cakes. That chocolate fondant is the coolest thing in the world. Isn't it perfectly in season?! I just went to snap this quick picture for her and if I would have been the photographer at the wedding, I would have taken one of her bridesmaids too, because they all were dressed in different fall colors. It was so awesome!




This was a panorama that I took up by Snowbasin. I took seven pictures (handheld) and stitched them together in Photoshop to create this panorama that can be printed easily up to 15" tall by 40" wide! Now I just have to get me a printer that big. I'm really excited to take more of these panoramas in the future. Too bad it doesn't look very impressive at this resolution, which I could barely print at 1" tall. Oh well.

Last week my family went to Bear Lake and I was kind of bummed when my sisters went home after only one day. There were lots of uncles and aunts and then cousins that are 15 - 20 years younger than me, so I was afraid that I would be on my own, sort of. Well, I was very pleasantly surprised to see that on the day my sisters left for home, my brother and sister-in-law showed up with their three boys, my favorite (and only) nephews. My nephews are always fun to take pictures of and this trip was no exception. We went to the Minetonka Cave and it was the first time for the boys. The pictures turned out awesome.

Max has a sort of leash made of a Curious George bag. It's so funny, and it was perfect for this trip. In the cave, he of course wouldn't hold still and so the picture turned out like this. I think it's perfect.


Max got to touch the one formation in the whole cave that we were allowed to touch.


Caleb and Jason under one of the bigger formations. I couldn't tell you what it was called, but I'm sure that 4-year-old Caleb could tell you exactly what it is called - I've been through it five+ times and he knows more of it than I do after his first tour.




Caleb was dancing because he got to hike down the mountain with his grandma and the bigger kids.




Grandma's candy bracelts worked like a charm. This is when Caleb rode down with Grandma because her van was cooler than his parents van. It was totally worth the extra 10 minutes it took to set up the seats.


Max's dirty feet.


Max fell asleep as soon as he sat down. Come to think of it, I probably did too.



But Jacob was wide awake.


Max is a drinker. Every time I see him, he's always taking his water bottle with him and he's drinking whatever he can find. I guess that makes it hard to part with your water bottle.

I'm an Uncle...Again!

Actually, I'm an uncle twice, again. What I mean is that I now have two more nieces as of Saturday. Yep, in case you're wondering, they were born on the same day. Madison Jean ( I love that name, Madison) and Lilly Jane are the newest members of my extended family. It's really crazy how different they are, physically, I mean. Maddie weighs about 3/4 what Lilly weighs and she's smaller too. When she curls her legs up and she's wrapped up, she seems even smaller than she really is. I unfortunately didn't get to see Lilly very much because it was late at night and her mom was tired, not to mention how tired I was after an hour and a half of a hospital waiting room. My older brother Joe, who is Lilly's father, was taking pictures throughout the whole thing and did a fantastic job. He's totally a natural, but that's to be expected. He's such an artist, so I didn't take so many pictures of them, knowing that he's got it well under control.

These are pictures of Lilly.

Grandpa (Dad) likes to whistle through his teeth at babies. It's fun to watch.





And here are pictures of Maddie.





Grandma (Mom) was just loving it! I would have thought that it was her birthday, twice, by how happy she was.


I promise that this packaged baby has a head. Now you see what I mean when I tell you that she is tiny.