Summer & Tyler

I actually wakesurfed in my first contest!  I'm not joking here...  

Little did we know when Heather and I arrived and were registering for the clinic, (showing our love and representing Board Bunnies of course), we were actually entering in the contest.  What??  Yeah....we were two of three girls going against a bunch of dudes.  We were pretty nervous-actually really nervous...the boat was packed with people.  This was the first time I had surfed this season so going out on a board completely foreign and a whole bunch of strangers watching me was quite the experience.  But we did it and had a great time! The weather and water were perfect and we were able to network and meet some cool new people and received a sweet goodie bag with stuff from Skull Candy (got a rad pair of headphones) and Red Bull for participating.  

{Mastercraft sponsored boat we surfed behind}

{Matt Cross w/Red Bull on the left who is also a pro photog}

{One of the judges showing us up}

{BB's new wakeboard}

{All the girls: Christina Wehry, me, Heather Bird, Kristy Kohler, and Kim Mckee}

P.S.-I'm also BB's new sales rep--the catalogue is finished and we're just about ready to start promoting the product in stores! ;)  Check out the tear sheet on my other blog...

{Winter of 2004 I think)

{Today with my new haircut!}

I HATE how dumb it makes me feel sometimes though.  I know I'm not an idiot-I did go to college, have a 4 year degree, and feel like I have somewhat of a decent grasp of the English language.  To add to that, Tyler and I both grew up in California and both went to Brigham Young University.  

Why then is it that he is constantly teaching me correct grammar and word usage? And why is it that it took 27 years to ever hear these two phrases used correctly?  Please, please, please leave comments...do any of you use these as I do?

1.)  Bold face lie

2.) Nip it in the butt

I now have been taught the correct (ok...Ty I said it!)  usage of the phrases...but I will not promise that I will start using your versions, because is sounds just too weird after using the other ones for so long!

1.) Bald face lie-It refers to a "shameless" or "brazen" lie. One where the teller does not attempt to hide his face while telling it.

2.) Nip it in the bud-This phrase clearly derives by allusion to the de-budding of plants. the earlier form of the phrase was 'nip in the bloom' and this is cited in Henry Chettle's romance Piers Plainnes Seaven Yeres Prentiship, 1595:

For her birthday last week we played the funnest (I know that's not a word but I like to use it anyway) game.  Like normal husbands, Tyler wasn't full of excitement to be going to a birthday party with people we don't really know besides the Crains, but on the way home he actually thanked me because we had such a great time.  

These pics explain everything we had to do---the point was to take pictures of everything on the list and each item was worth a certain amount of points.  We were split into two teams and had two hours to get as many things on the list as we could.  We SMOKED the other team...(I'll admit it was mostly because we were familiar with Lehi)-some of these were pretty hard to find!  

{Get every team member on a slide}

{Random family w/4 children...luckily we're in Utah}

{team member in shopping cart...did you know it's illegal to take pictures in Wal-Mart?  Yeah...we didn't either but we broke some rules and got yelled at by a mean Wal-Mart greeter lady}

{Spell a word...do you see it?    It's OK!}

{High five a stranger}

{I think you can get the idea}

{Human pyramid inside a fast food restaurant using most of the team members}

Get Mickey Dees lady to autograph a coffee cup}

{Have a bartender do whatever that lady is doing...}

{Find a 10+ passenger van}

{This was supposed to go at the end...horrible pic but we have so few together lately!}

{This one is what made us the winners really...we actually had Lehi City Fire Department do sirens and lights for us!}

{Find live chickens-Props go to Kierstin!}

{Me and the birthday girl}

{Her and her hubby, Bri}

I think I'm going to have to steal this idea...everyone had a blast and it was pretty funny going through the pictures on their big screen.  Lots of laughs. :)

Love you girl!  Hope your day was grand!

Milo is such a chunker!  I don't know what to do about it.  I feed him and Nic the recommended daily amount of food, alternating between wet and dry...but geez, I think he keeps getting bigger.  I do NOT want to have to separate the two and monitor them eating, but maybe I don't have any other options at this point.

Anyways...the real reason for this post is that if you look closely at the photo below,  you can see something shiny and new.  That's right!  Ty finally got his wedding ring!  My hubby finally looks taken and that makes me hap-hap-happy. :)

Ty took me to my first Gallivan "concert in the park" in downtown SL last week.  I was excited-my friend Jennie was going with her daughter Phoebe, and she had been telling me about how fun they were last year so I was looking forward to the summer and being able to go to these on Thursday evenings.  I had pictured families lounging in the park, kids running around, a good view of the bands, and having a fun, relaxing evening.

Nope.  This place was insane!  We ran into all of Ty's single friends, including his brother, Jordan.  The park was so packed we weren't even able to get a glimpse of the band that was playing.  The music was awesome, but I have no clue who was playing...  I was super casual and wore my sandals which was a huge mistake.  Girls were dressed to the max and  I don't really have any phobias, but seriously...I was claustrophobic because of how short I was!  

Kinda a bummer because we left pretty early-it was just too crazy.  Hope next time is a little more mellow!

{Jordan, Ty, and friend in back :)}

I love how every photographer and their style is completely different...you never know what you're going to get.  I worked with Kristy Lee Photography in Salt Lake last weekend at a "secret" location that was pretty beautiful.  She was really kicked back and even had a couple friends join to watch, and enjoy the view.  She's working on a new photoshop technique this week to work on the rest of the shoot so I'm waiting on the rest...

I can't wait to get my camera!! I'm learning a ton of stuff and the camera I want is comparable, if not better than the ones used at all of my shoots.  I'm learning that lighting is pretty much everything-any decent camera will be able to take stellar photographs.  Ty also got me all the photoshop tutorials I need to brush up and get good at my skills so I will be ready when it comes time to take on that new hobby.  I'm so excited...I had the best shoot on Sunday and Monday with a couple who is a photographer, and both model/MUA (makeup artist) and they offered to have me come take photos with them when I get my camera.  The lights they have cost over 3 grand...wow-what an investment-so I'd love to take them up on their offer and learn some new stuff without having to fork over that much money or rent the equipment myself.  

I received a package yesterday with these photos from the rest of the shoot.   He was really pleased with the way everything turned out and booked me again for next Monday.  He has some new ideas that we are going to try and I'm looking forward to how they are going to turn out!

I was going through my genealogy stuff and came across these photos this morning.  The one right below is of my mom when she was 27 years old, which is exactly my age right now.  These are priceless!  Isn't my mom a babe!  I hope my babies some day have blue eyes like hers...

{Sunday...(real name Saundra) at age 27}

{Sunday-17 years old}

{My dad (in the middle) for a Gas Company advertisement years ago!}

{My dad at age 2}

After seeing all these old photos of family and research I collected while in college, I just got the fire going again for my interest in genealogy work...it's been a few years and it's time to get it going again.  I don't have very many relatives that are still alive as my dad was an only child and my biological grandparents all passed before I had even graduated high school.  My mother has two half brothers and that is it.  A very small family indeed!  

I have so much work to do and many gaps to fill in.  It is an enormous amount of work, but it is so gratifying to find pieces of the puzzle and connect with those who are related to you.  It's wonderful!

I don't know what's wrong with me but I feel as though I'm repeating myself.  If I already mentioned this in another post forgive me!

Yay for technology!  Ty (my husband Ty) and I got my dad a flat-screen monitor for his computer for Father's Day.  I say flat screen, because his was so old mind you...(he's guessing it's over 12-15 years old) that it was curved!!! So old that you can see each pixel without even pressing your nose right up to it, the colors are indistinguishable, and it actually gives everyone headaches because it's such a dinosaur.  I can't believe I didn't think of it before!

Anyways, I'm mentioning this because my parents are FINALLY checking our blog-whereas before you couldn't even see a thing on that screen....and my family in Wisconsin are checking too.  Mondlock Clan I miss and love you guys!

This makes me happy!  Here are more photos from my shoot last week that I promised you...

{Cullops Photography West Jordan, UT

FYI...If you click on the picture, they should enlarge}