Halloween part 2

The Gertsch's throw great parties, especially on Halloween, Doreen gets WAYYYY into it!  Thanks for throwing a fun, game filled party, guys!

 We voted on several things, one of which was best halloween treat, guess how many votes I got with these pumpkins I made?!  zero.  yep, that's right.

At least there was really good competition, Marianne's awesome white chocolate dipped oreo eyeballs, these won first place

Allison's shortbread fingers with almond fingernails and raspberry guts to dip it in

Doreen's very cute mice!  Man all these ladies blew me away, obviously, they all got votes!

We had a catwalk performance...Allison and Tessa

Matt, I know it looks like I'm checking out his butt, but I don't think I was!

Oh, it gets better...and yes that is Carleton, note the keys in his back pocket

Yep, he's attacking me, both he and Allison won best catwalk performance

Finally I was part of a winning game, that's me under there and they wrapped me the fastest, and we had one less teammate than all the other groups!  Way to go team!

I didn't understand the rules of this game...

This is me looking at Ben ticked that he won when I thought the rules were whoever could eat the most off the string but still leave the tiniest part on...apparently you just had to shovel it in fast and not drop it on the floor to win.   Maybe next year I'll understand better!

Balloon pop race!

They gave Carleton a "hand" for doing so well on the runway

And here is the story behind the keys....

After most of the people were gone, we decided it was time for our halloween night to come to a close too.  Carleton was searching all over the place for his keys, he thought he lost them while he was doing summersaults on the "catwalk".  The remaining 3 or 4 couples helped us turn the Gertsch's place upside down looking for them.  Under every cushion, in every nook, in every cranny, even in rooms he'd never gone in, everywhere.  I asked him if he checked his pockets...he said yes, about 5 minutes later, I said are you sure, cuz something is in your back right pocket.   They were in his pocket, he forgot he put them there to help him pop balloons.  Needless to say, I won that game!  Gotta love that boy.

Halloween part 1

We started halloween with the family...ok actually it started out with me waking up at the crack of dawn and driving to mebane, then turning around, then doing that again, getting farther that time, and turning around because the morning shoot we had looked like it wasn't gonna happen because of the weather.  Then I called up Kristin and Ben and did pictures of them, Kristin had asked me to take some pictures, and Ben agreed (for her birthday I think).  THEN we headed to my sister's house to go trick or treating with the kids and rest of the fam.

As you can see here, Talan is Buzz Lightyear, Kaylee is Snow White, and Taylor is the cowardly lion...Jes and her whole family dressed up as all the characters from the wizard of Oz for a ward halloween party-cute!

The entire night she wanted to chew on every piece of candy she could get her (very VERY quick) hands on.  Carleton and I both commented on how we'd never seen so many things in her hands, or her move so fast.  Sweetarts were sticking out between each finger, and she double fisted every candy basket, we just had to be quicker than her which, at times, proved difficult!

Kaylee posed like this for all pictures in her dress

Fearless, anything for candy!

She was quick to get from door to door!

He'll smile at me, but not with me

This started at Disney World.  He figures if he makes a goofy face, I'll stop asking him to take pictures with me, I have been pleading for weeks for him to just smile normally in one picture...he did at the BYU game, that's it.  

PLEASE, I'M BEGGING, ONE NORMAL PICTURE!

This is me begging some more, he married the wrong person to hate pictures so much!

And, sadly, as much as I hate to admit it, I gave up:( he triumped...this time

 and now he smiles

Next: to the Gertsch's!

Utah!

If you remember back from our anniversary post, I bought Carleton (and myself) tickets to Utah for the BYU game.  We had SUCH a great time!  We got to spend time with some of our best friends that we hadn't seen in a while, enjoyed the BEAUTIFUL scenery of a bumpy drive through the mountains that Carleton and Mike made regularly when they lived together at BYU.  Upon arrival to SLC, I got to experience "the pie", a pizza place in Utah that has really good, yet greasy, and HUGE pizza....we got two things, one of which was a 23 inch, $40, "mountain of meat" pizza, 6 adults and a two-year-old partook in this.  That's two feet, I've never seen any piece of food, or even a whole platter of food so large.  It was impossible to eat an entire piece.  We ate some for breakfast, lunch, and dinner some days, and there was still some left when we went home.

  

It was really cool to enjoy things with Carleton that he did as a single college guy....including jack rabbit shooting at midnight the last night we were there.  After the game, Mike said you can't come all the way out here and not go rabbit shooting, so we did.    Luckily they were all hiding...or Carleton and the boys killed them all when they used to go and they are now extinct, because the guys only saw one or two, I really wanted to see what one looked like, but I didn't want to see it get shot so I just plugged my ears, closed my eyes, and cuddled up in my blanket:) 

Carleton also took me to the engineering department where he spent many hours of his time at BYU.  One of his projects is still on display in one of the glass cases there!  Way to go, husband!

Carleton got to participate in game day, ESPN was there and a ton of students, and others, gathered for their chance to hold up signs, scream about how excited they were, and get their faces on tv. 

This was the first place I asked Mark to pull over on our mountain drive

 I showered later that day...I promise

I was reading a photography book on the plane and Carleton looked occasionally, so he gave me projects to do while on our drive, haha.  This one was to make something small in the foreground really sharp, and have the background really blurred out.  I wish I could've gotten closer (or had a more telephoto lens on me)...but I was already on the edge of this mountain leaning out to get that random thing sticking up out of the side of the mountain.  I think he had fun learning about different shutter speeds, aperture, and ISO...

I loved this trail we drove by, so I had to stop and take some pictures, a few different angles 

Carleton and Mark.  Carleton is huge.

They dropped me off so I could "take pictures"...really they just wanted to go do wheelies at the top, there they go!

more "project" pictures playing with different shutter speeds and apertures 

I was going for a sense of movement in this picture with the wind blowing, some slightly in focus, other's just whispy blurs and blurry mountains in the background

Finally, they remember I'm down there wasting time

more pretty scenery:)

We had lunch and apples with Rachel and Ben (and Max!)  It was soo great seeing her and her cute family!  Her baby is so adorable and I'm excited to photograph him when they come visit in a couple months.  Miss you, Rach!

Lastly, well aside from bunny shooting, we went to the BYU game.  Carleton mentioned that the marching band routine hadn't changed since he was in it.  He's so cute, my little marching band boy!  There was one tall guy in the band with really short pants, and I couldn't help but smile thinking that's what my boy must've looked like freshman year when he was in the band:)  He said the pants are supposed to be short...I'm not sure they're supposed to be THAT short though.  

Carleton and Mike

Happy (Freezing) Family:)

So Carleton really likes Mike, he was really happy to spend time with him for the weekend

This video is longer than it needs to be, basically I was just trying to capture them yelling "B-Y-U-COUGARS".  It's really cool.  When they started doing I was like oh neat, after 5 minutes I was like dang how long does this go on...apparently until the team runs out, so I had to grab my camera quick to get it when I realized everyone was lined up waiting for the team's grand entrance.

The cougars lost, bad, it rained a little, and I was frozen to the bone, but we still had a great time with some great people and can't wait to go back again.  Thank you again, Kolste's for letting us stay with you and being great hosts and Mark for driving us all over the place!