Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving for us out here in Virginia marks the beginning of several months of homesickness for our families in Utah. This time of year we are always thinking about them, and all the celebrations and traditions we miss out on being so far away. I can't help but think about seeing my whole family at Uncle Russ', sitting at our beautiful tables and joking about who has and has not graduated from the children's table. Or making the long, beautiful drive through southern Utah down to Blanding, sitting in mom and dad Carroll's house chatting or playing cards. We love being here in Charlottesville so much, but being this far away from family during the holidays is so hard!!

But being so far away from family has also taught us to be especially thankful for our wonderful friends here. They really are our family away from home, especially during this time of year! We spent this Thanksgiving with our good friends the Burtons and the Dahles. And we had so much fun! Here are some shots of our Thanksgiving...

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These were taken by the LM Marina on our way over to the Burton's (with the new wide angle lens- a fantastic landscape lens!! Please excuse the crooked horizon in #2- batch cropped that one) It had been raining off and on that afternoon which made for a gorgeous sky!

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Here is the cute centerpiece for the kid's table- made by April and the Burton gang. Check out the solid cheese stick-you can't have too much of a good thing! And Packer looking thoroughly entertained!! LOL

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The beautiful table- complete with beautiful china all arranged properly. I really admire anyone who can really 'set' a table. To this day I cannot remember what goes where without asking my mom first or consulting Google. Someday when we have a big enough home to really entertain in, I am going to patent a fridge magnet that shows how to properly set a table. Isn't that a genius idea? Please don't steal it from me- I really think I might be able to make some money off of it.

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The company pre-feast- Nate and Hillory, Craig and Craig's co-worker-friends-from-Isreal-whose-name's-escape-me (I think his name was Gal?)

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The bird: juicy and tasty!!!

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The post-feast chaos party. Here is Jake posing for the camera, while Ellie tries to steal his thunder.

And take a look at this one- can you say future Abercrombie&Fitch model? Watch out, Craig and April! (I hope not Abercrombie&Fitch, though- I detest that store for using NAKED people to advertise. I mean, HELLO, they are a CLOTHING store! Really too bad- because I really did like their jeans and that they ran big so I could wear a smaller size- always makes a girl feel better!)

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And last one of Tim watching Jace on the Bop-it. Jace LOVED this toy and could not put it down all night! I think Santa may be bringing him one of these for Christmas... And I spy paparazzi in the upper right corner (reflection)- Nate and his fancy new Canon 40D (which made me a little envious by the way- that is a nice camera!!)

Phew- that is all folks! I want to thank you again, April and Craig, for inviting us over- it was so fun and the food was great!! And I hope everyone had a very Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Eye candy...

Just some random test shots with the Macro. I am loving this lens- so fun! The first shot was taken in our front yard- our new baby grass had dew drops on it. Tim pointed it out to me on his way out to work one morning. So I headed out there in my PJs, headband, and coat to get this shot, waving at the neighbors as they passed by and wondered why in the heck I was taking pictures of our grass LOL! Just to give you some perspective, this blade of grass was about the width of dental floss- teeny-tiny! Amazing that I can get that close! I only wish that the dew drop was on the other side, but alas, this is the only shot of the 40 or so that I took that was in focus. The rest are just taken of random branches and plants growing in the jungle next to our yard. And Katie, you may recognize this flower! The little bud was about the size of my pinkie nail!

Okay, I am done for today! Ethan is not cooperating too well with Productivity day this afternoon (come on, bud, didn't you get the memo?) But I did get lots done this morning. Hopefully I will stay caught up now!

Until next time!

New Lenses...

I am sure those of you who have talked to me in the last few weeks have already heard about my new lenses, since I talk about them as much as I talk about my kids! Well, those who don't know, I added a Nikkor 60mm 2.8 Macro and a Nikkor 17-55 2.8 wide angle zoom to the Mandy Carroll Photography family. It seems crazy to me that these two lenses together cost more than Tim's car (which I guess isn't saying much!) but they are awesome lenses, definitely worth the investment! I know they will both be very useful for the business, but lately I have had so much fun just playing with them- especially the Macro lens! It is unbelievably sharp and the detail is amazing! It is going to take some practice to master it though- the depth of field is so narrow that if I move even a millimeter it messes up my focus. Hopefully I will get it down though- it will make a great lens for those detail shots on newborns (fingernails, flaky skin...) So here are some fun, around-the-house shots with my lenses... The first taken with the 17-55 at both extremes, and the rest with the Macro. Have to give credit to Tim for the last shot- he took this while playing with the lens at the dinner table. Have you ever seen a more beautiful shot of fruit salad? Makes my mouth water:)

A few more to come...

Halloween Party

These are from Ellie's Halloween party. Jace talked about this party for weeks and it definitely lived up to his high expectations! He had so much fun! The first shot was taken at home, just before we left- he is practicing his toughest "Argggggh, Matey!". I was a little worried on the way there because he was acting really finicky about his outfit. As soon as we went outside in the rain and his faux boots got wet, he started to cry. I had to practically drag him from the car into the grocery store before the party because he didn't want to get his outfit wet- funny kid! But luckily he quickly forgot about that once the party started- lots of fun!

Give me an S-L-A-C-K-E-R...

What does it spell? SLACKER! Yes, that is me to a T this month! I can't believe November is already over and the last time I posted was on Halloween- ouch! My apologies to all my blog followers! Normally I would excuse myself by saying how busy I have been, but I can't even count on my hands and toes how many times I have used that lame excuse! I mean, come on, who isn't busy? More accurately it is just plain old procrastination and poor time management skills. I am very good at taking lots of pictures, but I have a horrible habit of just downloading them to my hard drive to clear off my card so I can take more pictures, which I will leave on my card until I need to take more pictures and so the vicious cycle continues. I have so many folders of pictures that I haven't even looked at yet- it is pathetic! They are just sitting there on my hard drive, constantly nagging me to be edited and blogged (and printed, but I will save that project for later in the winter!).

Does anyone else ever feel like the longer their to do list gets, the more incapable they become of getting anything productive done? Well, this is serious problem for me. I spend so much time agonizing over the things I need to get done that it makes me so tired and stressed that I just need to go take a nap. I really need to work on my time management skills! But, after writing out a thorough to-do list, I declare today Productivity day and I am determined to accomplish everything on my list! And one of those things is to bring the blog up to date. So watch out for a flood of outdated posts!

I know we are into the Christmas season now, but here are our Halloween pictures. Jace at UVA getting loads of candy for mom and dad (and a few for him)... These are for you Camie- hope they bring back fond memories for you!!

More on the way...