Another Trip around the Alpine Loop

Well I am a week behind, but wanted to post a couple of things covering the last week. So last Friday, Andrew did not have school so we took a trip around the loop to see the fall leaves. It was surprising to see how many leaves were already missing in some spots when not too long ago most the area was green.

Quick snapshot of Andrew. I like this one because of the size comparison between Andrew and the trees.

This was a cool little meadow that had a whole bunch of small trees. Purrrdy!

I took this picture in comparison to a picture I took the last time we went around the loop. It is a bit more yellow now.

I liked this one because of the contrast of yellow to green. That is one of the downsides to taking fall leaves pictures in Utah compared to Ohio, you have a million evergreen trees to avoid to get the cozy fall-time feeling.

A picture of Emma.

I liked the contrast between yellow and white.

Andrew just had to get his camera out as well.

Had a hard time getting Andrew to stop for one second to take a portrait, but this one turned out okay.

More yellow, kind of wish there were some red and orange trees.

Here we have a rare shot of me. I don't show up in many pictures because I am usually the one with the camera, and as you can see here, I still am the one with the camera, Rachel just happened to have here camera with her. And no, that ovalesque green shape is not Humpty Dumpty, it is indeed me. Nothing like having someone taking your picture to motivate you to do a little exercise.

More Andrew and his camera.

And a decent portrait of Emma.

And of course the loyal means of transpo. The Odyssey is always good to us.

So the trip turned out to be a real fun day. We drove up Provo Canyon, and came out American Fork Canyon. We had a light breakfast, and the drive went past lunch time so we were starving by the time we came out of the canyon. Luckily Thanksgiving Point came to our rescue with their delish cheeseburgers and tasty fries. I can only imagine the scene we made to the other patrons of Thanksgiving Point would be as if they were watching a commercial for Hungry Hungry Hippos. But it was nice way to cap off a fun fall day.

The Pistolero of Provo

So as Emma grows older, she is becoming quite the character. You know how they say "Girls are made of Sugar and Spice, and everything nice", well Emma is made of Sugar and Spice, and Cheyenne pepper. Here are a couple of notable happenings.

We were at Outback Steakhouse eating for a family Birthday get together and Emma was sitting next to Georgiana. The kids had milk and Georgiana had water. Well Geo goes to take a drink of water only to find her water a smooth creamy color. So Georgiana asks Emma, "Did you backwash in this?" Emma looks at the drink, then looks at George and pridefully nods yes. I can only imagine what Emma was thinking, "is this a trick question? the water is now full of milk isn't it?" Overall we had a laugh about it. Even the waiter was kind of confused on what drink Geo had when he went to replace it. What a laugh.

And just the other day I caught Emma trash talking to a neighborhood dog. We were eating dinner at my parents house and I walk outside to see her waving a Frisbee at the dog across the street yelling things like " you want this!" "stop barking dog!" etc. etc. I am just surprised that she did not use the line "you want a piece of me!" which she has used in various situations in the past.

So Emma keeps the day lively whether it is her telling of her dreams of being a pink ninja to inserting words like "poop" into the song "Who Let the Dogs Out", she keeps the day quite colorful. I look forward to future stories I will get to post.

Just a little more Soccer

Okay, I took a couple of pictures and some videos of Andrew's last game. I thought a couple of the video's would be good to give everyone a sense of what it was like to be there at the game front row seat (family members have reserved sideline seating). It's non-stop action. This should do it for soccer pictures since the Fall season is now over, enjoy!

A typical end of the season picture with Andrew holding up his medal. Why don't they just do the Olympics that way, everyone could get a nifty medal, and you wouldn't have any grumpy athletes.

This first video shows just how intense and focused these games can really be. (Andrew is number 3)

This was one of the decent videos where I was actually able to capture Andrew playing Soccer. Most the videos I took unfortunately lost precedence to me shouting and yelling encouragement from the sideline. You don't really realize how much you yell until you hear yourself.

Just one last video showing typical Game play. So you can see how eventful the games were. Mostly it was just nice to get out of the house and sit outside and veg. Andrew really loved it. He really enjoyed "battling" with other teams. That should do it for now, but we will have spring soccer to look forward to.

Portraits from September

One last group of pictures from the month of September. Basically these are just some quick portrait shots that I like. Nothing I spent too much time on. If I spend more time, or have a more organized photo shoot, I will also post them on my own dedicated "Travis Deming Photography" blog.

Just a quick photo of Allie. Sometimes I really like the "halo" effect (light coming from behind), but there are some challenges with the shadows on the face.

Another quick photo of Allie. It was overcast and close to sunset so the lighting was kind of weird, but I like the way it turned out.

Emma had to play in the grass. Not a great picture, but I kind of liked it.

This picture is not that great, but there were hundreds of Dragonflies flying around and I was hopping to capture that feeling. I wasn't that successful, but you can see several dragonflies, and the spots in the distance I believe are dragonflies.

Typical Emma expression.

Okay, I couldn't resist a Black and White picture. This was actually a picture I took testing a photo setup that I was going to use to photograph a friends baby.

One last one of Emma. Andrew is the most uncooperative child at the moment, but I will work on getting some pictures of him.

Random happenings from September

Here is a collection of some random pictures from the month of September.

Yes, we turned around to find that Allie had climbed onto the dishwasher door to explore uncharted territory. And hey look, no hands!

To add to her new sense of adventure she is learning to scale the stairs. And if you are familiar with our stairs you understand that going up our stairs is like a rock climbing wall.

Rachel and Emma getting warm at a Soccer Game.

This is the typical sleeping position of Allie, head flat on the mattress, arms nearby, on her knees with her back end sticking up in the air.

I was making a cake for Rachel's birthday, and Emma insisted on helping. She actually did a very nice job and followed instructions really well. It was nice having a "little helper" that actually helped.

Revenge of the Camera Ham

Ever since Allie started to give her cheesy grin, she is now starting to pull it whenever the camera comes out. Usually she is doing something so we get the camera and take a picture, and she realizes that the camera is out, so she pulls her grin. We have notice a pattern of a normal picture, then immediately thereafter comes the cheesy grin picture, as you will be able to see in the samples below.

Trip around the Alpine Loop

We took a trip up through the Alpine Loop to see the status of the fall leaves. Some of the trees had changed colors, but there was still a lot of green.

Here you can see a patch of the yellow coming in.



I was able to shoot a couple of portrait pictures.

Of course Andrew is not so big on the portrait pictures, so I got a grumpy grumpster.

Then as fate would have it Andrew noticed some dismembered deer legs and taking a decent portrait immediately became non-existent.

What else would you do should you find dismembered deer legs...break out the camcorder.