Friday My Town Shoot Out - Park Landscapes

As much as I'd like to think that I work ahead of our schedule with assignments each week, so I'm not overwhelmed on Thursday when I realize I have pictures to shoot, this rarely happens. However, I was very lucky with when this assignment fell on the calendar. If you looked at my previous post to this one, you saw that my family and I took a trip this weekend to see some gorgeous Arizona landscapes. As we left for our trip, I looked up what our assignment was and was SO excited to see that it was park landscapes! I am very proud of some of my pictures this week and so excited to share them with you.

Our first stop was the Grand Canyon. How's that for a landscape? :)

Here's my husband and Bella posing for a picture.

I am very proud of this next photo and think I may frame it. This picture was still taken in the park. The Canyon is actually about 10 feet to our left.

After the Grand Canyon, we drove to Sedona, which is located in the Coconino National Forest. The drive there was so gorgeous, and we stopped to get some pictures of the scenery.
And I have saved my favorite to be last. I am definitely framing this last picture.
If you've been here, you know that Arizona has some gorgeous scenery to offer. If you've never been, I suggest you try to make the trip!

Our Northern Arizona Vaca

This weekend, my boys and I made a trip up north. It's crazy to think that "up north" is the Grand Canyon, considering growing up, "up north" meant the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. THAT is up north. Anyway, while on this side of the United States, we wanted to take advantage of being so close to some awesome sights.

We left yesterday morning and drove the 5 hours to the Grand Canyon. I vacationed there as a child, but Greg had never been. It was as gorgeous as I left it 13 years ago. See for yourself...

Isn't God amazing?

We spent the morning there. We would have loved to hike down, even just a little ways, but that's obviously impossible with a toddler. So we just enjoyed the view from the top. After the Grand Canyon, we drove 2.5 hours south to Sedona. Now, if you've never been to Sedona, AZ, YOU MUST GO! This place is GORGEOUS! There's seriously no place like it...I don't think so anyway. The drive there was gorgeous too. The highway twisted and turned around mountains-and I MEAN twisted and turned. There was a stretch of the highway (probably about 2 miles long) that twisted down the mountain and probably brought us down about 1000 feet in elevation...if that makes any sense. I got some pictures of the drive too...

We arrived in Sedona right about sunset. We ate at a really cool diner called "Red Planet Diner" that was all space themed. It was really cute for kids. And their food was good too! We went to bed early after all the driving we did.

This morning we drove around Sedona and looked at all the gorgeous Red Rocks. We got pictures from up on top of a mountain looking down at the valley where the city is and then the mountains behind it. Isn't it gorgeous?!

Just to the left of the center of the picture is "Coffee Pot Mountain." Can you see it?

One thing you can do in Sedona to get the full feel of the mountains is to go on a jeep tour. However, if you're extremely tight on money (like us,) another option is to find a jeep that is driving on a tour and follow them! Now, in no way is this even comparable to an actual jeep tour (because I got to experience one as a kid when we visited there) but it is at least good to find the dirt roads that take you to some gorgeous places!

After Sedona, we made the 45 minute drive to Jerome. Jerome is a little town that was built in the side of the mountain. It was established in the late 1800s as a copper mining town. Now, they have cute shops all along the streets, and a gorgeous view of the valley.

While there, I got a turquoise stoned necklace and Greg got and awesome belt buckle! Check this out! It's real!

We drove the last 2 hours back home after a good lunch and lots of shopping. It was a fun filled, and very busy two days, but very enjoyable. This was our first let's-go-see-the-gorgeous-views-that-America-has-to-offer family vacation. I think that means we're officially Mom and Dad.

Friday My Town Shoot Out - Classics of Childhood

For this week's topic, I photographed my son and his toys.

My son ADORES his father, so I wanted to start out this Childhood Week with a picture of Hunter and his hero. :)

Below is my son's tricycle. It looks a little weathered, and that is because it was originally his daddy's!

Next are wooden letter blocks that I think EVERY child has had!

And what's a play session without a mess? :)

Hunter Talking on the Phone

So today, Hunter grabbed my phone and let us know he wanted to talk on it. So, we called grammy at work (Hunter is worth the interruption) and I got the conversation on video. He talks so matter-of-factly about nothing, really, and it's so sweet. Enjoy! :)

Friday My Town Shoot Out - Sunrises/Sunsets

WOW - Friday really snuck up on me this week! Sorry I'm just posting now!I had a really busy week, so these are just pictures of the sunset from my backyard...still beautiful though!

Friday My Town Shootout - Silhouettes

Ok, so had I looked a few weeks ahead at our assignments, I would have saved my cactus silhouette from 2 weeks ago for today! Oh well. I still tried to get another Arizona type silhouette. I'm happy with my picture. It was taken in front of my local Target.

Busy Busy

So I have been away for a little while.

The last couple weeks have been super busy for me. At least it seems that way. I haven't found enough time for all my household chores, let alone time for blogging.

This past weekend flew by, and I told Greg it felt like I was only home to sleep. He said, "you were."

If I wasn't working, we were car shopping. I'm not sure why, all of the sudden, we decided to go on the hunt for a new car, but we did. Since about a year after we got our VW Jetta, we looked for a car to replace it with. After Hunter was born, we REALLY wanted a new car, because the carseat didn't fit in it very well at ALL. I had to have my seat almost all the way up, and I was basically sitting on the dashboard. We were also just leasing the car, and only have 5,000 miles left on the lease but 11 months until we were due to turn it in. We were really worried about riding out the lease and going wayyy over in miles.

Anyway, after lots of praying, test driving, and negotiating, we FINALLY found a new car! We kind of found it by accident too. We were leaving yet another dealership "empty handed" last week one night, and decided to pull into the Saturn dealership that was right next store to check out the Outlook (which is, one day, EXACTLY what we want.) We were greeted by this super friendly salesman who we LOVED. We told him what we were looking for and he told us he would find the perfect SUV for us. I was so impressed that he was willing to listen to what we wanted in a vehicle, and not just sell us a certain one that they wanted off the lot. So, we told him we'd be back the next day to check out their vehicles. Long story short, we were able to trade in our VW and get an '09 Pontiac Torrent, for the same monthly payment we were paying on the Jetta. It has 11,000 miles on it so we were able to get it for a used car price, but it's in awesome shape. We are both very excited about it, and both feel that it's the car that God intended for us. And it has so much more room than the Jetta had. And it's black and gorgeous!!

Anyway, we're very excited. :)

Friday My Town Shootout

I will not be participating in this week's shootout, but please keep me on the list. I'll be back on next week!