It just doesn't get any better then this....

Last month we were lucky enough to have 20 or so photographers (and friends) fly into Denver from all over the US and Australia. We spent the weekend trekking the kiddos (and a ridiculous amount of camera gear) ALL OVER the mile high city!

My shoulders still hurt ever time I look at my camera bag... LOL!

But I can honestly say that I have not had that much fun in a very long time... and Denver will probably never be the same after the Pea-parazzi were let loose.

This was our version of a Shoot-out in Downtown Denver. These are the Canon girls (from left to right: Jami, Amy, Jenn, Jannet, Amanda, Heather, Farrah and Rachel).

And the Nikon girls on the other side courtesy of Amy at Picture This- http://www.anyhamilton.com/ (from left to right: Melissa, Barbie, Anne, Me, Brenda, Tracie, Ciara- yes that is a tiny little Nikon, Danielle and Brenda's son).

Not pictured are: Gina- who was our lone ranger Sony Shooter and Shanna who was still sleping off her eventful trip from Australia to the US.

Believe it or not I'm STILL trying to finish editing pictures. Apparently SOMEONE got a little trigger happy (we won't point fingers) and came home with well over 1,000 pictures. And then that same someone turned around a did it all over again the next weekend.
La... de... dah... Who? Me?
I know... I know... I need a twelve step program...

But, since I'm not one to leave people hangin' I do have a few to share that were taken by some of the other amazingly talented ladies I got to hang out with.

We started the day at Chatsfield Park taking pictures of the kiddos.
Here are two of Little Miss Sassy Pants that I took. Can you believe the attitude on this one? I have no idea where she gets it....

Jami with Life in Moments Photography (http://life-in-moments.blogspot.com/) caught this fabulous picture of me with Ciara. I'm usually behind the camera so I don't get very many pictures with me in them and this one is just FANTASTIC! Thank you so much, Jami for being super-sneaky and fast on the trigger.


And she got this one of me in action. LOL!

There are about a ba-zillion more that I'll post later once I've had a few weeks to do nothing but chain myself to the computer and photoshop but, for now that's all I got.



Now for the super-fun part!
Guess who can still fit into her Wedding Dress after almost 8 years of marriage and one child??? You got it! THIS GIRL!!!! WOO-HOO!
(okay... so maybe I did have to liquid diet it for a few days to drop a pound or two... I'll admit it. But still... not too shabby after all these years!)

So... this is what we call a TTD Shoot or Trash the Dress.
Basically I put on my Wedding Dress and.....



....... JUMPED IN A LAKE!!! Seriously....





I'm sure the guys in the boat across the lake thought I was a total nut job for destroying my Wedding Dress but, it's not like I'm gonna wear it again. Right?
(Don't worry mom.... no Wedding Dresses were harmed in the making of these photographs. I'm 96.7% sure that it will be good as new after a trip to the cleaners.)

Now to give credit where credit is due.
The above pictures were taken by:
Becky with Thru Becky's Lens (http://www.thrubeckyslens.com/)
Barbie with Life Style Images (http://www.barbieschwartz.com/)
And, ofcourse, Jami again.
If you have a minute check out their websites. They are all amazing photographers.



And here's what the other side looked like. Here is everyone doin' their thing while I was in the water. We must have been quite a spectacle.

Believe it or not... this is only half of Day 1! After we finished up the TTD the guys in the boat got a bit of a peep show while I changes out of the soaking wet dress (and I thought that thing was heavy when it's dry... they basically had to haul me out of the water and I had to strip down right there on the shore). Then we went back to the Hotel and showered since we all smelled like stinky lake water and then headed downtown.

I'll save those pictures for another day.
But I will say this... that night we had reservations at the Cheesecake Factory and I totally ate Cheesecake for dinner!!!!
What??? I had a few pounds to gain back. It's not like I have to get back into my Wedding Dress any time soon! LOL!

CAMPING! WOO-HOO!

Okay Miss Mel....

Here are the pictures I promised.

These are from our trip to Platoro a few years ago. This is where Kris spent his summers when he was a kid and it's absolutely beautiful!

Platoro is about 4.5 hours from us and about 4 hours from you. It's right across the Colorado state line from Chama, NM. I'm not sure if you guys want to go that far so Kris and I are totally up for other suggestions.

If ya'll are interested there's TONS of stuff to do.... lots of places to fish... and the waterfall is an easy 1.5 mile hike (Ciara did it when she was 3 and had no problems).

Let me know what you think and we can start making plans. Other options that I've found on the Colorado side are:
* Mesa Verde State Park (about the same distance... maybe just a bit more). I've been there too and it's really cool! Lots of Native American Ruins. It's a pretty commercialized campground but there are several other camping options within 30 minutes or so.
* Telluride/Ouray are about 5 hours for each of us. TONS of places to camp and it's AMAZING but I'm sure it fills up pretty fast on Labor Day Weekend.

Let me know if ya'll have come up with anything on the New Mexico side. Chama is pretty and I'm sure there's lots of places to camp there. Raton Pass might be another option.

Love you! I'm super excited!

Winter Bridge

Here's one from our trip up the mountain to Helen Hunt Falls the other day.

I took about a bazillion shots... but this one was my favorite!

The World's Ugliest Snow-troll... and other Winter-time Adventures

So... we got TONS of snow over Thanksgiving Weekend (close to 5 or 6 inches). It seriously snowed for an entire day! I was so excited!

This is what I woke up to....

He's such a stinker... but he was a little premature in his assault and the Glass Door was still closed. Foiled again Batman... Muahahahahahahahah!!!!

Unfortunately I wasn't quite so lucky with the little one. She's cute... but way more viscious! She actually came into the house and pelted me with snowballs in the middle of my own living room while I was still in my PJ's and slippers! Little Monster!!!!

And, without further delay, here is the World's Ugliest Snowtroll.
The snow was so fluffy that we had a heck of a time getting it to stick together. Rolling individual balls didn't work... they just crumbled and fell apart... so we resorted to making a snow mountain with the shovel and trying to carve a snowman out of it.
You can see how well that worked out. We decided he looked much more like a troll then a snowman so that's what we called him.

And this one is my favorite! I like the falling snow. The effect was created with Textures in Photoshop.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a very quiet Thanksgiving this year. Just the three of us at home.

Everyone was sad that we didn't make it back to Albuquerque to spend it with family... but it was kinda nice to just sit back and enjoy the day without trying to balance Thanksgiving at a bunch of different places.

I happy to report that I didn't spend one second in the car all day long! I got to wear my PJ's and slippers as late as I wanted and we watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade for the first time in forever! YAY!

It was very relaxing.... but I think we'll all be ready for some family time by Christmas! So get ready...

Kris smoked a Turkey this year. I was kinda skeptical when he started talking about stuffing it with apples and coke (yep... I said coke- as in Coco Cola-WEIRD!) and I'll admit that I did check to make sure that McDonald's chicken nuggets were available if things took a turn for the worse. But he really outdid himself! It was fabulous!

Ciara and I made Homemade Macaroni & Cheese, Cranberry and Sausage Dressing and Mashed Potatoes & Gravy.

I made Kris his Apple Pie (which actually looked like Pie instead of my traditional Apple Pie Soup) and Ciara got to help with the Chocolate Pie this year. The making of the Chocolate Pie is a tradition in my family. I have no idea how old the recipe is but I remember helping my mom when I was about Ciara's age. We made a HUGE mess and had TONS of fun! And she's a great helper. I told her next year she's on her own. ;)

Everything turned out really good. We had one minor malfunction with the Turkey (it was a really stubborn bird and didn't want to heat up all the way) but we worked that out pretty easily. I hope eveyone else had as much fun as we did!

These next one's are my favorite! She such a sneaky little troll! I guess it was just too tempting......

We did get snow last night but it held off just long enough to get the Turkey out of the Smoker so poor Kris didn't freeze his tail-feathers off outside. We woke up to 3 inches this morning and I think they're saying we may get more tonight.

The snow wasn't the only suprise we woke up too... Ciara's face was swollen up like Quasi-moto when she woke up. She's been complaining of a toothache for a few days and we know she cutting one of her 6 year molars a little early. She doesn't seem to be in any more pain then she's been in for the last few days... she's still eating and playing like normal... and there's no redness or swellinginside her mouth so I'm hoping it's just swelling from the tooth. We're watching her closely and if anything changes we'll let ya'll know.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We love you all!

Frosty the Snowman....

Yep... still no snow... :(

But we did get frost... so maybe it's a start.

This morning while I was driving Ciara to school (late, I might add, because someone borrowed my ice scraper to go to Kansas and didn't put it back so I spent 15 minutes trying to scrape the ice off my windshield with a credit card) I looked over at the park behind the house and it was covered in frost.

It was sooooo pretty!

When I got home I got my camera and went for a walk. I froze my tushie off... but it was totally worth it!

Some of the frost had already started to melt off by the time I got out there... but look what I got....

It's days like today that I really want a macro lens and that really cool IR filter I've been lusting after. Kris is right... I'm an endless pit of wants and needs. ;)

What's a Halloweenie?

Ciara didn't have school on Halloween this year because of Parent Teacher Conferences

(By the way.... she got her first report card and she's doing really well. You guys wouldn't believe how much she's learned since the beginning of the year. It blows my mind!) so we went to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo with Liam's family.

It was tons of fun!

There were 7 kiddos total and they had a blast running around with eachother. It's so nice for Ciara to have kids her age to play with outside of school!

The Zoo here has the coolest Giraffe Petting Zoo! Ciara got to feed them and was totally grossed out when one wrapped it's tongue around her entire arm. Giraffe's are no longer her favorite animals... she likes the Meercats the best now because they don't have " gross snakey tongues".

The whole Zoo Crew except for me (I'm taking the picture) and Eric. Where's Eric?

After the Zoo we came home and Ciara got dressed up and went Trick-or-Treating. Her costume kinda took on a life of it's own. She started out as a Punk Rock Fairy... but we couldn't find the right wings... so she wanted to be a Princess. Then she fell in love with a pair of purple and black striped Nightmare Before Christmas socks... so we bought those and the princess was out. Then she wanted a Orange and Black feather boa... so we got that too. I made her a purple and black and orange tutu and by then end no one had any clue what she was.
So we called her a Halloweenie... because it seemed fitting!