my brother got married!!

 brian and amy's wedding was so wonderful!!!  we really had such a wonderful time.  i don't know if i've ever seen brian smile so much :)  it was so joyous.

here they are coming out of the logan temple.

 my handsome husband and calder (and don't forget piggy).

 the crowd hanging out, waiting for picture time.

 eric's darling family.

 the reception was so much fun too.  the cousins had a lot of good running around time.  elliot was one of the present collectors.  it was so cute.  all the little boys got to wear bowties.  i wish i would've gotten a picture of that.

 the 6 homer kids - youngest to oldest from left to right.

 elliot and will are so alike.  they LOVE legos, technology, and angry birds. 

 what a cute dad.

 before the wedding brian and amy had a breakfast.  seriously, the love i see between the two of them is so beautiful.  i loved the words brian said to amy that morning.  amy is such a neat person.  even just in the few days that i met her i already feel like she is my sister.  i can tell brian is lucky to have found her.

 we also had a chance during our visit to go see eric and sarah's new house.  it is beautiful and so spacious.  we also played out back on their tramp for nearly 2 hrs.  my kids sure loved being with their cousins.  it's hard to live so far away.

 we got a chance to go have a "girl's lunch" while i was there.

 the allen's all met up at a nearby pool, and karie and beef and their kids joined us too.  we had a blast!

 calder with taylor and emery.  aren't they darling.

 the allen girls :)

 beef and karie let us spend the night at their house our last night in town.  we stayed up really late, just like old times. 

it was a wonderful trip and we can't wait for christmas when we get to go back....

easter eggs....

 we decorated some eggs this year.  the boys had a lot of fun. we bought a "make a monster egg" packet last year that we never used.  they turned out fun.

notice cute little calder in the background.  he's strapped to his chair so that he wouldn't crawl on the table and destroy our work :)

 here is what we ended up with.  sam's are on the green stands, then mine on the pink, then elliot's on the blue, and finally jeff's on the purple.  he didn't have time to finish his second one, but we hope to do some more tonight.

 on saturday morning we went to an easter egg hunt over at a nearby elementary school put on by a local church.  there were tons of people there.  they had put out 5,000 eggs!!  the kids got to go in age groups so that it would be fair.  before they started they had donuts, juice, and a coloring contest.  this is the kind of thing that makes me love living in fort wayne.  they are always doing fun family stuff like this.

here is calder coloring his paper.

 searching for some eggs.

 me and my boys :)

 elliot's stash.

 sam's stash.

happy easter!

waiting for springtime

my boys love to read.  i thank my mother-in-law for this.  the one thing she always told me when i asked for advice about teaching my kids was the importance of reading.  she always told me that it was the most important thing for us to do for them to help them be prepared for school.  elliot loves reading and is doing so well.  he can read for hours at a time.  sam just started learning how to read but for years he has looked at books intently while we drove in the car or at quiet reading time - which we have often when things start getting too crazy in our house.

well, it has been so fun to see calder, even at such a young age, following in his brothers' example.  i find him often carrying a book around and he'll sit down somewhere and just start flipping the pages.  sometimes when he is walking around the house playing, i will notice it's suddenly become quiet. i'll go to check on him and i'll find him in his room, rocking in his rocking chair, looking at a book.  it is so precious.  i don't know what it is, but there is just something magical about kids loving books.  so, thanks mom sheryl!

we lucked out and were able to have our friends come over to play last thursday.  they got to play the wii and stick around for dinner.  the 4 big boys played the wii....

 
...and calder and ian had a blast running around, throwing balls, climbing on the coffee table, driving cars, magnadoodling, etc.  it was so fun to see ian finally have a buddy to hang out with. 

 

during all the boys' fun morgan and i got to have a really nice long chat.  i got to hold baby eli too.  he's so darling and filling out well.

thanks for coming over friends!

little guy

i just love this little guy.  one of his favorite things to do is dig in my purse for my wallet or for his snacks.  i love that even at this age they know exactly what they want and where to look for it.  once a week i have my friend mallory come watch calder and the first thing he does is check her pockets for her iphone.  hehe.  love it.

oh and here is a recent (somewhat blurry) family picture.  i love these boys.

southeastern utah travelogue

last october i (jeffrey) went back home to do a southeastern utah photography trip with my dad.  this trip had been in the works for about two years but since we're living away from home, i had a tough time scheduling it.  i was eventually able to take a few days off of work to fly out last october and finally make the trip.

the plan was to see some old anasazi ruins and also to explore some of the wild landscape in that area.

the first stop was the valley of the gods (a huge expanse of sandstone towers and mesas) but to get there we first drove down the moki dugway - a series of switchbacks that drop 1000 feet in just over 2 miles.  it was constructed in the 50's to be able to transport uranium ore from a nearby mine.

this is the view from the top.

this is what the road looks like on a topographical map as it meanders down the cliff wall.

here are a couple of views of the valley of the gods.  in the second one we stopped just in time to see the rain coming in over the cliffs.

the initial plan was to camp out during the trip but that only lasted one night.  the price of a hotel room starts to look better and better as the temperature drops lower and lower.

here's a shot from that night.  you'd be surprised at how much light there actually is when you photograph under a full moon.

and here's a shot of the sunrise the next morning.

the next morning we headed off to see our next site, the 'fallen roof ruin'.  all over the mesa there are canyons that were formed by water runoff.  they start very small and then get deeper and wider as they go along.  a lot of the anasazi ruins were built in these canyons.  because of the water that collects in these canyons, they're usually a lot greener than the surrounding landscape.

this is the canyon that leads to the fallen roof ruin.

and here's the ruin.  over the years slabs of sandstone have fallen from the roof exposing mineral-stained layers of sandstone.

an amazing thing happens in the late morning here.  the sun hits the opposite side of the canyon and reflects this brilliant red light onto the ruin.  the sandstone usually has kind of a coral/pink color to it but when the light hits it right it glows a brilliant red orange.

these hand prints are located up on the lower left side of the roof just above the left window.  it's kind of weird, it makes the place feel more human and less relic.

this next ruin gets the same effect from the late morning light and for obvious reasons is called the 'house on fire ruin'.

later that day we moved on to our 3rd location, the citadel.  this one required a bit more of a hike to get to - about 2 miles in - as well as some pretty nauseating exposed edges.  nothing too dangerous, just enough to make you appreciate staying on the top of the cliff as opposed to ending up at the bottom.

here's one of the little critters we saw on the way in.

and here's the hungry cactus-pillar.

this place is called the citadel because it's only accessible by an isthmus that's only about 20 feet wide at the narrowest point.  in the picture below i'm actually standing about 100 feet above the formation looking down at it.

this is the ruin that you find after crossing the land bridge.  it's on the right hand side of the 'cap' of the formation.  it's in extremely good condition - presumably from the relative obscurity of this ruin.

right next to the ruin is this huge boulder - probably about 40 feet high - that not only looks like a giant head, but also is balanced on a surface only about 5 feet by 5 feet.  it was kind of nerve racking walking past it.

here's the view of the ruin when you first see it after hiking around the 'cap'.  after scrambling up that angled rock you have to work your way up a 5 foot ledge.  i have to say it pushed my practically nonexistant rock climbing skills to their limits to make it up there.

here's dad looking back the direction we came from.

we started back just before sunset in order to get back to the car before dark.  the moon rose up behind us as we hiked.

we also got a nice cloud show on our way back.

after we got back to the car we headed off to blanding, utah - the 'base camp to adventure' - to spend our first non-camping night.  the next morning we drove up to canyonlands national park to find a sunset shot.

on the way up we saw this crazy sandstone monolith out in the open.  we looked on the map and found out that it's named 'church rock'.  i looked it up and discovered that in the 1930's a woman named marie ogden led a utopian community called 'home of the truth' who had grand plans for this rock.  they intended to hollow it out to make a church out of it.  although they didn't get too far on the project, you can see the entrance to the unfinished church - a doorway chiseled into the bottom of the rock.

this next shot is from the green river overlook in the island in the sky district of canyonlands.

this is looking east from the grand view point overlook at the la sal mountains.

we set up for a sunset shot looking over the green river overlook but the sunset never came.  just cloud cover on the horizon.

looking east at the moonrise from the green river overlook.

we spent the next night in moab and then got up for a sunrise shot of mesa arch.  we got there well before sunrise but found about fifteen other photographers lined up tripod to tripod who had gotten there before us.  i wish i had taken a picture of that scene.  it was pretty absurd.

we quickly changed our plans and made for the dead horse point overlook.  we got there just as the sun was peeking over the la sal mountains.  here's the view we were rewarded with.