I love take photos...I'm sure you all know that by now. I decided to put some pictures out on Flickr that I really like. Here is the link...
http://flickr.com/photos/54115788@N00/
Just for fun, I've put links from some of my pictures into photofriday.com. Its just a photo site that people enter links to their photos to and people can see them and comment on them if they want. I think its pretty fun.
Enjoy!
I know, I know...its been a while!
My classes have started up again and adding that to wedding planning...I don't know if I will ever be able to blog again! But I will anyway! Even though they are belated...here are some pictures from Christmas!
We went to Mike's parent's house in Decatur for the actual holiday. I guess I took more photos of Jack than I realized...pretty much no one else in the family got in the pictures...oops...sorry. :(
Jack in his jumping toy thing...
Christmas time is time for decorating Christmas Trees, singing Christmas Carols and making fun of the puppy that falls into the snow! :) Just kidding. Here are some pictures of Rou after the first real snow fall of the winter.
He's winking!
Check out how deep the snow is! Rouge didn't seem to mind though. I thought his paws were going to freeze off, but he stayed out there for a while.
Of course, I have to have some artsy type pictures to include...this first one is of our evergreen tree out back. It was so pretty with all the snow on it, but I didn't have the right shows on so I had to shoot it from the patio. I decided to add a few effects to the pic and this is what came out. I think its pretty.
I was trying to take some pictures of our Christmas tree without the flash on and it never seems to work. Its always blurry...so I decided...lets just make it really blurry and twisted the camera as I was taking the picture. Pretty cool, eh?
This past weekend, Mike and I took the puppy to the kennel and went on up to Chicago to see the Illini battle the Arizona Wildcats. We hoped the game would be like the 
last time they met in 2004 when the Illini went to the final four in St. Louis, but unfortunately, this time they lost.
We met up with Tim and Laura in Collinsville on Friday evening and headed up to the windy city. We ended up getting there a little after midnight and couldn't even muster up any energy to get one drink at our fun looking hotel on Michigan Ave. Oh well. So we got up early, went to breakfast and then Laura and I went on our shopping adventure, while the boys did their manly watching the basketball game thing that they do.
The city is 
awesome. It is so big and there is so much to do. We saw three Walgreens within the first few blocks we walked and passed three Ann Taylor Lofts! We went into several stores (mainly to get the feeling back in our toes), but didn't buy much since the lines were around 2 miles long. Oh well, saved some money, right? After our shopping, we heard from Mike and Tim that the game was over and met them at a bar near the United Center. It was great to see all their college friends and hang out. Everyone was in pretty good spirits despite the Illini loss. From there we decided to go to Wrigleyville, which is obviously where Wrigley Field is. 
We went on our impromptu pub crawl and took lots of crazy pictures. I usually don't like taking pictures of people, because I feel like I'm being annoying, but I got more courageous as the night went on. Here's a free lesson in bar photography...just hold the camera up above your head and fire a few off. And poof, candid, silly pictures. Boy, I'm good...I should write a book!
By midnight we were back to the hotel ready to sleep, because that was a long long day! We had to leave early the next day because of course, a string of ice storms was lining I-55 and we knew we'd have to drive slower than normal. Luckily the roads weren't too bad and we were able to get back on time to get the puppy from the kennel.
What a great trip, but way too short...I'm going back again and definitely when its warm! Chicago in December...What were we thinking?!?!
I am trying to improve my photo shopping skills and I'm not sure if its working or not, but I'm having fun anyways.
I took several pictures in Mammoth when we went there a few weeks ago and really liked a lot of shots I got. It is easy when the scenery is so beautiful! Here is a picture I took at Mono Lake. The rock formations are called Tufas and wikipedia tells me Tufas are "rough, thick, rock-like calcium carbonate deposit that forms by precipitation from bodies of water with a high dissolved calcium content." I just thought they were cool looking.
I decided to turn it into black and white because there is so much contrast in the picture with the rock formations, and so this is what I got when the computer took away the color.
Then I realized there was an option to chose the filter type I wanted to use to convert it to black and white. Default was blue, but I could also try yellow, green and red too. My photo class from high school was starting to come back to me and as I tried the different filters I got this picture by using the red filter. 
A few weeks ago, Mike and I went to Mammoth Mountain in California with our friends Kim and Ty. Kim is my friend who I met when I first started working at Boeing and we both moved to California for work. She moved to Ridgecrest, CA (2.5 hours North of LA in the desert) and I moved to Lancaster, CA (about an hour north of LA also in the desert).
It was the first weekend of ski season, but since none of skied we just enjoyed the scenery. If we did ski we would've been disappointed because there was only one run open on the mountain. Anyway, I just wanted to share some pictures from our vacation, so here they are!
Below is a picture of June Lake. (8 miles north of the ski resort)
Kim and I at Mono Lake (15 miles north of the ski resort).
Next is a picture of the hot springs we saw.
This is convict lake. It is my favorite lake because I love the way the mountains dip down around it. I have some pictures of this from the last time Mike and I went to Mammoth when we lived in California and it looks so different because it was barely cloudy out last time. 
Thanks for checking out my pictures!
Yeah, so we got engaged a while ago, but its never to late to get engagement photos done! I had hired our photographer and included in the package was an engagement photo session so we met her at Tower Grove Park and she just started snapping pictures. I felt so America's Next Top Model!
This last picture we took kind of as a tribute to Mike. He is always wearing his sunglasses, yes even indoors with no lights on sometimes. Probably not the picture we'd use for the newspaper announcement, but its fun to have. He was tickling me by the way, that's why I have the double chin face going on! :)
