Peace and Pandemonium

About 3 months ago, Sheye Rosemeyer announced that she was going to do an online photography workshop. I immediately knew I wanted to participate! Sheye is a photographer that I greatly admire and respect. The opportunity to learn from her was one that I was not going to pass on. Well the workshop has been going on for a week and half now and I am only just now getting around to posting my week 2 assignment. Yes, true, I'm early for this task but I have yet to finish my week one assignment. I'm working on it and I figured since it was already late I should spend my time on the current task.

For this weeks assignment we were supposed to have a willing model pose in a similar way with a similar expression in 6 totally different locations. The idea is to see how different locations effect the mood of a picture. This assignment was really fun because I love on location shoots. It's so fun to explore and find new places to capture an image. I hope there are different moods and feelings found in each picture. That's what I was trying to do. Take a look and decide what you think. : )

But first, a look at my beautiful and "willing" model, Erica.

One of the activities my family did together last weekend was to watch Skyler compete in a chess tournament. We went to Salt Lake Community College to watch him play and show him support. I took some pictures but every time my camera snapped I felt so embarrassed. Everyone was so deep in concentration and I didn't want to disturb the players.







My family is very political. Everyone has very strong views politically and thankfully we all mostly agree. Some way more than others. : ) Ashley and Joseph traveled to Colorado for the Obama campaign to make calls and try to sway voters and convince people to get out and vote. I was so proud of her (and him). Living in Utah makes getting your vote to count a tricky thing but Ashley figured out the loophole. Convince someone else, somewhere else, to vote for your candidate.

While waiting in the student center for Skyler to have a break, we found our esteemed presidential candidates and had some fun with them while we passed the time. Chess is kind of boring it would seem. : )









Ashley getting a little lovin' from Baby Boy, I mean B.H. Obama.

Every time the whole fam gets together, we always take a siblings shot. I wanted to put a spin on this one, have a little fun, express myself! : ) For fun.


From left to right: Christian, Skyler, Ashley, Tavia, Michael, and me.

The day before our big Saenz family shoot, I took my dad and his lovely wife Terissa out for a really quick session. I knew getting pictures of everyone on the 'big day' was going to be overwhelming so I made sure to get these two ahead of time. I happened to have a couple of rootbeer suckers and I lured these two over to the railroad tracks for some fun lollipop pictures. These tasty treats helped to bring out individual personality and some sweet moments between 2 of my most favorite people in the world.





















I swear he looks like Denzel Washington in this picture! : )

This weekend my whole family gathered to spend time together. My brother Michael, his wife Candice and their baby dog Chief drove out from Kentucky. My dad, his wife Terrisa and my youngest brother Christian drove down from Boise and we all met up here at my house for some good old fashioned family fun.

I insisted that we have a family photo shoot. With 16 people and me taking all the pictures, I started to wonder WHY? Once again, I got my cardio workout. Here is a small sampling from our shoot.
































More to come.

October is my favorite month. I love it! All I ever want to do is go on walks outside. Let my kids (an myself) play and crunch in the leaves, and soak in this beautiful but brief season. Autumn truly makes me happy. When I was a kid, October was even more exciting because of my birthday. Nowadays I'm less enthused about that particular aspect of the month but this year was a big one for me. When Steven turned thirty I would tease him that he was over the hill. This year he got me. Let me explain.

To celebrate my birthday this year Steven took me to SLC for a fancy dinner (that we ended up not doing but that's a whole different story) and I thought that was all. I had absolutely NO expectations. My best friend Rachel lives in SLC. We had talked on the phone and decided that we would swing by her house before going home to say hi and eat treats or something. I didn't suspect ANYTHING and I can't over emphasize that. On the way over I sent her a text saying that we probably wouldn't stay very long. I hadn't been feeling my best that night and I had visualized myself crawling into bed by 11 and going to sleep. Little did I know that a big surprise was in store for me. Steven had planned my very first surprise party. That sneaky guy!



We walked in and this is the look of shock and awe as I realized we weren't alone...


Realization had set in at this point but I was still so unbelievably surprised...and happy! Steven's expression cracks me up. He is really enjoying this!


Oh look out, the water works are kicking in.
I was so surprised, completely floored would describe it better, that I couldn't help but cry!


Steven knows he just pulled off a huge surprise. His weeks of planning definitely paid off. He deserved a hug!


Here is where Stevens humor comes out. I love the sarcasm behind his question..."Is 30 still over the hill?" the answer of course is NOT ANYMORE! : )


Blowing out my candles! And crying a little still.


And now, the party goers...



This is Rachel, the lovely hostess and my best friend since 8th grade. Love her!


Steven and I, my sis Ashley, Claire, other sis Tavia, and brother Skyler.
Who is Claire you ask? The anonymous woman in the middle. ; )


Johnny and Alexis. Skyler and I.


Me and Alyssa.
When we pulled up to Rachel's house I, of course, was still completely in the dark about a party or gathering of any kind. I saw Alyssa's car and recognized it but still did not put two and two together. That shows how totally clueless I really was.
This is a very enthusiastic hug but she drove all the way from Spanish Fork to be there, she deserved it!


The Cagels, Mark and Jessica.
Steven and Mark worked together at PF Changs. Mark still has the pleasure of working there and his wife Jessica is one of my favorite people!


Michelle and me.
I mentioned earlier that she gave me Cullen lounge pants for my birthday. They are amazing! Yes, Cullen as in Edward Cullen and they are now my favorite pants to run with a vampire in!


The Unofficial Bradbury's. Joseph and Ashley.
This is what she always does when she gets in front of the camera. Maybe its a disease. : )


For some reason I didn't get a picture with Rebecca. Maybe because there were two cameras going around and our picture was taken on the other camera. At least I hope so. Until then, this is her. She would kill me if she knew I had posted this picture but she's traveling in Italy with her mom right now so I don't feel even a little bit bad about it!




As soon as I thought all of the surprises had been revealed I was hit with yet another one. Steven gave me a Nintendo Wii along with the Wii Fit for my birthday. Wii had so much fun playing the wii that wii played it into the wii hours of the night, literally. : )
I have a funny movie that I'm going to post but I have to figure out how to do it first. Watch for it soon!


I have never had a surprise party before and I have to say I really enjoyed it! Thanks to all of those who went out of their way to help me celebrate. Now I need to start thinking of a way to get Steven back!!!

***I need to mention the person who was pivotal in this night even happening for me. That person is Greg, Steven's brother. He watched the kids at home so that we could go out and party! Thanks so much Greg! He even cleaned my house while we were gone. What a great baby sitter!!!***

Normally I wouldn't post more pictures from the same photo shoot. However since it's my family I thought I would.



















On a totally random side note...
I think I have finally figured out how to properly upload my pictures onto photobucket. (Trial and error I tell ya!) For the longest time I was uploading and then changing the size of each picture individually. This was fine until I noticed that the standard size I was changing the pictures to was too big for some of the images. They would be pixelated and I never knew why some would upload bigger than others. Well, to make a long story short, I changed the size of the screen from 15 inch to 17 inch and I think that has resolved the problem all together. At least I hope. I'm not having to manually change the size of the picture anymore which is also a time saver. Im keeping my fingers crossed and I guess we'll find out soon enough if that was the fix I needed.