And.... we're back!

You know that saying, "You don't know what you got till it's gone?" Yeap, I learned that this is true. My focus motor and my GM Tract was broken in my tender lens. I had to part ways with it for far too long so it could get fixed. Man, it was SO hard! I had to revert to my crappy, CRAPPY Tamaron lens and it was so depressing. I didn't realize how good I had it until I used the crappy lens! My homework just hasn't been coming out right! At last... the beloved Nikon lens is back.

God Bless Clarence Spencer for fixing my lens!

Salt Lake LDS Temple

Besides being really busy with school, not much is going on in life that I wish to blog about. So I figured I'd post some pics I took up in SLC after shooting a wedding. I did some in BW and will post those to my portrait blog in the next few days.
I hope all is well for all those who are reading this!

The Start of a New Semester

I'm excited to announce that I am happily back in school. It's funny cuz I was one of those girls that never really liked school. Now... I CRAVE it. I'm taking Advanced Photo Studies, Alternative Photo 2 and History of Art from the Renaissance. I love my classes so far. In a way of course, they push my to think outside my box and out of my element-which of course is good. There are ways that I have to think that I don't want to think (very deep and personal). Art is by far, is an emotion. A lot of the students REALLY get into their art-I mean to the extreme. I sometimes find myself just gawking at them thinking, "Am I just on a whole other planet or how in the crap did you ever THINK of such a thing?" To each their own I suppose. At any rate, I'm thrilled to be back!





In my Advanced Photo class, I'm thinking of doing a social documentary with the concept of "What is it that we hunger for that gives us our personal gratification?" I wanted to focus a lot of the project on the homeless vs. the ones where they have it all, but it is never enough. I also wanted to focus on the homeless to make myself feel more gratitude for how good I really do have things despite current situations in my life. Well... The project is not going as well as I hoped so far and I may end up changing my idea all together. We'll see... But here were a few (horrible-not even close to what I consider good photography-a drive by shooting haha... not literally!) images that did break my heart. As bad as times may be for a lot of us, at least this isn't me.

Christmas in Almo

This year, Jor and I headed up to Almo for Christmas. It really was a nice Christmas this year. All the Ward kids were able to be there. The nice thing is, we all get along so well and can I just tell you how nice it is to have one of my sister in laws as my best friends? LOVE IT... It was for sure a white Christmas too. In fact we got snowed in and all the roads were closed. I was worried that we were going to get stuck there for like a week. However, we all made it home safely. Here is a pic of Almo from Jory's parents deck. He loves this pic.



Below are pics from the few days we were up there...

Christmas Eve

I love, love LOVE Christmas Eve. It's my favorite part of Christmas actually. This year, we took some pics of Cas (see my SW Portraits blog for these!) Then all us girls started fixing the big Christmas Eve Dinner. Brandon helped us frost Sugar cookies. We watched movies, listened to Carols (yeah, they still do that out in Almo), finished wrapping presents and of course stayed up late talking. Here's a few detail shots of the fun day.


Someone is excited for Santa! ;)


Cas reading a story to Sophie.


Ohhh... Dayle makes yummy sugar cookies!


Dayle and Cami working way hard on dinner.


I set the table.


By the end of the night, I was soooo tired! But what a great day.

Christmas Morning

Christmas Morning came much too early this year. Jory woke me up at 5:50am. Not cool at all. But this is how it works Christmas Morning in the Ward Family. It's still soooo dark when we open presents. By the time we're done, it's light outside. It was a really nice Christmas though. Hanging out with everyone and seeing all the nice things everyone got. The rest of the day we just spent laying around and getting some much needed sleep!


The tree before we dug in...


Sooo cute!


Josh got an Xbox.


Grey's BABY!!!


Some new cloths for Jory.


Our Mother in Law made all us girls a necklace and a pair of earrings. She did really well. They look amazing!


Dayle made Cas this adorable quilt.


She LOVES her new baby!

After we opened presents we went to Grandma Donna's to see her open hers.
She told us it was much to early to join us. No joke!

Everyone needs a Grandma like G.Donna! She is very sweet and loving.


Trying to get her head stuck or something. Either way, it was funny.