Happy Halloween!!

Well Halloween has come upon us once again and once again I have unsuccessfully come up with a creative costume to wear, and have made no plans for this holiday. Well as long as we have pumpkins to display on our porch. We had our friends, Katie and Eric come over and carve pumpkins with us Tuesday night. We didn't get many pictures, but we did make some pretty sweet jack-o-lanterns. Mmm...SkullCandy


Kalli went with a little happier display

family photos

We went up little cottonwood canyon Friday to check out the fall leaves and take a few pics. We had to hike down some rocky terrain to get to these sweet spots, but it was worth it!
We had to use the timer on my camera which turned out to be quite a challenge with all the boulders in between us and the camera(for me at least!). Because of this, we discovered Joel's mountain-goat-like capabilities which I am very greatful for.

What can we say? The beauty of nature makes us jump for joy :)

Boys Fishing Trip

Last Saturday I got up at 4:30 am, rode for two hours in a truck pulling a boat up a canyon, arrived at Strawberry Reservoir while it was still dark and about 35 degrees outside. We loaded up the fishing boat and put it in the water. What was I thinking? I guess that's how a day with "the guys" starts out. Something I've been missing out on my whole life, until now. But the pictures tell the real story. It was a whole new experience for me and a whole lot of fun at the same time.


Brian and Kendall loading up "bananas and creme" (the boat)


Wee hours of the morning on the reservoir. Yes, that's real steam on the water! The guys weren't too happy with me for taking so many pictures while we were supposed to be getting the fishing poles ready before the sun came up, but I had to, it was too picture perfect.


Here's the master-mind of the whole operation, man-ing the motor and picking out just the right set-up out of the tackle box of wonders. You look a little tired Kendall!


The first catch of the day belonged to Brian (as well as every other catch of the day!) Somebody had the right stuff on the hook.


I have to admit, I was pretty surprised at the size of the fish. I think altogether we caught 16 fish and they were all between 16 and 20 inches. These are just a few beauties.


The one exception, however. I think Kendall was today's winner landing this bad boy near the end of the day after the clouds rolled in! Ok, I lied, he got this one in Alaska a month ago. I think we ate him a couple weeks ago.


The colors all around the reservoir were pretty amazing also. Thanks for my first real fishing trip guys, I really did enjoy it, even though I got a little frustrated near the end for not catching anything. I ended up getting a few.

Pictures from Elder Smith

For those who don't know, my little brother, Jeremy, is in Hawaii on a mission. He is coming home in about a month and a half. So in lieu of him coming home, I thought I would post a few of his pictures that he has sent home that I doctored up a little in Photoshop. I have a Photoshop class this semester and have learned a few things. I decided to put my newly found skills to use on some sweet pics from Hawaii and they turned out even sweeter. So for those of you who are awaiting Elder Smith's arrival in November, let these pictures motivate you to round up some monies so we can get there someday!! (Note from Kalli: Joel's actually the one that worked on these pics. He's amazing! I'm glad he's taking this photoshop class cause he's teaching me a lot! :)








See ya in a few Jeremy

Music break

I love this song, it makes me cry. Have a listen!


This music video is a little odd, but I really like the song.

Larson Cabin

We went up to the Larson Cabin for 3 days last week for a much needed vacation. Ohhh what a fun place. More info to come.

Thanks so much for all the nice comments everyone! To answer your question Melissa about the night photo: If you have a manual setting on your camera, you set the shutter to stay open for a long time like 15-20 seconds and set the ISO pretty high, like 800 or above. I'm not sure how to do it on other cameras, actually...I don't really know how to do it very well on mine, we were just kind of messing around. sorry, thats not too helpful. (Oh but it's really important to have a tripod and to use the timer. If you don't, even the tiniest movement from your hands can make it blurry. Thanks to Uncle Von for letting us use his tripod :)
Here's a little more info about the trip.

The humming birds looooved the feeder grandpa put up. We saw a total of 6 fighting for it at one time! Those things are ruthless!




What a cute little boy!!! We rode up with Lindsay and Bryan and got to sit with Brayden on the way up and back. He didnt cry once the whole way up, which is amazing because it's a 4 hr drive and a big part of it is washboard dirt roads!
Oh my handsom husband, I love him.
The boys had fun shooting their b.b. guns.
I got to push Hannah on the swing for a little bit. She is so cute! Oh and we also had fun reading her Barbie coloring book.
We couldn't believe how many wild flowers there were all over the place. It was amazing.

Joel after our ride back from duck fork reservoir. Haha, his hair was awesome thanks to a little wind.


hahaha loved this one.
This was a fish my dad caught. I thought it was actually really pretty!
Look at that innocent face...Joel were you fishing without a license??? tsk tsk haha ;)
Check out the monster my dad caught!

The stars were AMAZING!!!! We loved looking at them.

Josh and his b.b. gun. He is pretty hard core.
All the girls. We were pretty outnumbered this year.

Tribute part 1

I love my husband Joel. He is such an amazing and wonderful person for so many reasons. One of the things I've been very greatful for these last couple months is his courage when facing horrible, disgusting, creapy crawly creatures (spiders). Anyone who knows me pretty well knows that I HATE spiders and am completely terrified of them. Well since we've lived in this basement I think I've seen more of them in the past 6 months than I have in the past 10 years, which hasn't been very easy for me (or Joel) to deal with. He has had to put up with me screaming for him to come to my rescue countless times. I've even woken him up with my screams when there was a spider that was crawling on me in the middle of the night (I think that was pretty traumatizing for both of us). After being around them for so long I'm finally able to kill them as long as they're not really really big, and as long as they're not fast (I only kill them when Joel's not home). Killing them for me requires lot's of hair spray (to slow them down), shoes on my feet (in case it runs towards me so I can step on it), and a hard pair of flat bottomed shoes in my hands (so they don't have any treds to hide in). Well it still amazes me that he will kill even the biggest spider with nothing more than a kleenex, shoe, or even his bare hands. Ohhhh I am so thankful that he will do that for me. If I see a spider I know I can count on him to kill it quickly (and not chase me around the house with it.......Dad!). I love it! He is truly my knight in shining armor.