this or that thursday: horseback riding in the canyon

My favorite part of our vacation was going horseback riding in Bryce Canyon. It was a great time! The scenery was amazing and we had a cute cowboy for a guide who entertained us with interesting tales and details about our surroundings.


I definitely wanted to document this adventure, but I wasn't too sure about bringing my camera. Since I haven't been on a horse since I was very young, I decided it wouldn't be a good idea to try to take pictures with my heavy dslr while also trying to stay on the horse. So I put my iphone in my pocket. It was a good decision. I'm amazed at how good the photos are from such a tiny camera!


Here are a few of my favorites along the trail...

And our cowboy was nice enough to take a family pic for us too!

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It's time to link up again! There are just a few rules.

• submit the url of your blog post, not your home page
• link up a photo that was taken by you
• include a link back to my blog in your post (you can use the button or a text link if you prefer)
• visit a few other blogs and leave some comment love 

Okay, now let's see what you've been shooting!

project life: week 22

Week 22 was quite exciting around here! It's the week the butterflies emerged from their chrysalides. Not to mention Gary surprising me with a lemon pie... it was delicious and definitely photo worthy. Here's the whole week not including the insert that I made for the butterflies.

left side:

right side:

All the butterfly photos I took definitely warranted an insert this week. I used Design E which has four 6x6" pockets, but I cut it in half. The front includes a collage made with the upper portion of a Cathy Z 6x12" template and a 6x6" photo. The back is a 6x11 photo cut to fit in the two pockets with a one inch strip of cardstock at the bottom since my photo paper is 11" long.


front:

back:

I really love the colors of the Clementine kit. It compliments my butterflies nicely. If you missed my post about the butterflies emerging you can find it here.

this or that thursday: bryce canyon

Bryce Canyon National Park is amazing. It's a great place to go on vacation. We had such a fun time enjoying the scenery and hiking there. The views are stunning. It's really hard to do Bryce Canyon justice in photos, but I'll share a few anyway...


The red, orange and whitish rock formations are called hoodoos and offer spectacular views...

I have never seen such a gorgeous blue sky in all my life. Seriously, it was just so incredibly blue!

I took lots of pictures and Gary even took a picture this time too. I put the camera in green mode and it worked fine. It still feels weird that I'm so much shorter than my tall boys!

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What have you been shooting? It's time to share again. Here are the rules. 

• submit the url of your blog post, not your home page
• link up a photo that was taken by you
• include a link back to my blog in your post (you can use the button or a text link if you prefer)
• visit a few other blogs and leave some comment love 

Okay, just link up below!

project life: week 21

Hello all! Today I'm sharing week 21. This is the week that summer began which to me is the best time of the year! This is also the week that I found the caterpillars that turned into lovely monarch butterflies.

left side:

right side:

I finally figured out to use the number stickers in the kit to note the week. I grounded the circle numbers with some washi tape because you know you can never have too much washi.

And a few more detail shots...

That's it for this week. Check out The Mom Creative for more project life sharing.

canyon colors

Hello all! I haven't been around much lately because I was on a ten day vacation to Utah. We visited Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks. The scenery was amazing and we had a great time and made lots of wonderful memories. I'm going to be busy editing photos and scrapbooking this week... not to mention washing clothes and recovering from trying to keep up with my guys on hikes!

Here's a little peek of what we saw at Bryce Canyon. I'll be back to share more soon!

this or that thursday: random summer

Just sharing a few favorites from this summer so far...


...a dandelion

Maisy, enjoying a drink

and a female cardinal at the feeder.

I've got to figure out how to get closer without them flying away. :)

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It's time for you to link up again! There are just a few rules.

• submit the url of your blog post, not your home page
• link up a photo that was taken by you
• include a link back to my blog in your post (you can use the button or a text link if you prefer)
• visit a few other blogs and leave some comment love 

Okay, now let's see what you've been shooting!

project life: weeks 19 and 20

This is the first time I decided to combine two weeks into one layout. I just felt like taking a bit of a break from frequent picture taking so I didn't have very many photos from these weeks. But I still enjoyed putting together this little glimpse into what was going on...

left side:

right side:

and a few details...

this or that thursday: brand new monarch butterflies

Watching these two butterflies emerge from their chrysalides last week was an absolutley amazing experience! I spent four or five hours sitting on the ground watching them and taking pictures before they flew away. 


Here's a little recap of the metamorphosis that occurred right before my eyes...


First I noticed Wednesday evening that I could see the monarch's wing through the chrysalis so I knew it was close. (The pictures make the chrysalis appear bigger than it actually is. It's only about one inch long).

Early the next morning, the butterfly could clearly be seen through the chrysalis. You can refer back to last week's post to see what the chrysalis looked like a few days earlier and the week before that to see the caterpillars.

So then the little butterfly started pushing on the chrysalis until he freed himself.

He hung onto the chrysalis for about two hours while he was getting ready to fly. First his wings were a little crumpled.

Then they flattened out...

And finally, he was ready to spread his wings and fly. I was taking pictures with my iphone when he flew and landed right on the corner of it. So I grabbed my dslr and kept shooting!

He flew away right after this never to be seen again, but his friend was still getting ready to fly. When Mason offered his finger, she crawled on. As best I can tell, the one above is male because of the two black spots on the inner veins of his wings. But this one below appears to be female.

Mason gently placed her on one of our zinnias and she stayed around there until she was ready to fly away. I'm happy I get to cross one thing off my photography bucket list. 

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And now it's time to share your photos again! There are just a few rules.

• submit the url of your blog post, not your home page
• link up a photo that was taken by you
• include a link back to my blog in your post (you can use the button or a text link if you prefer)
• visit a few other blogs and leave some comment love 

Okay, now just link up below!