Yellowstone!!

I'll admit, I've been horrible lately at keeping up on my personal blog. I'm sorry about that. I took a much needed rest from the photography biz this past weekend and went with Ramin, his brother Babak, and Chris up to Yellowstone for 3 fun filled days!

I don't have all of the pictures yet as the majority of them are on Ramin's camera and we haven't yet loaded them on to the computer. So here are the pictures from my camera. Here's how our trip went:

Friday - we left in the morning around 9 am. We took a pit stop right at the top of Bear Lake, there's a convenient rest stop there. As Ramin and I were waiting at the stop we looked at all of those touristy pamphlets they have. I happened to see one called "Explore Minnetonka Cave" - I thought it looked interesting and we asked the attendant how far it was. It was only 20 miles off our main path. We decided to go for it! We got there and realized it was more popular than we realized and we had an hour to kill before our tour began. There happened to be a trail down the mountain near the cave so we hiked it...that was our first hike of the trip :P The cave was AWESOME and HUGE! I definitely recommend going there if you have the chance. We drove the rest of the way to Yellowstone after the cave trip and set up camp. We arrived around 8:30 pm, just enough light left outside to see things :) We stayed at Flag Ranch right outside of the entrance to Yellowstone.

Saturday - we did the infamous Yellowstone Loop this day. We saw all of the mud pots, paint pots, geysers, lakes, rivers and waterfalls!! We took MANY hikes this day to get the best view o the waterfalls. Artist Point was awesome!!! I have a few pics here of Yellowstone's Grand Canyon - I almost like it better than the REAL Grand Canyon!! Seriously!! Overall, this day was great but exhausting! We saved Old Faithful for the very end. I have a video of it going off - I might post that later!

Sunday - ok, this was BY far the hardest day for me of the trip. I was already tired from the hiking the previous 2 days, but Ramin had signed us all up for a half day mountain bike tour and a half day of rafting down the Snake River. We started the bike ride with a personal guide named Dan around 10 am. We rode 14 miles!?!?!?! Let me tell you, it was the hardest thing I've done in my life probably. I cried at some parts because I was so scared going down hill and then I loved other parts because we were in such a pretty part of the forrest. I'm proud of myself for actually going all the way and not giving up, even though I wanted to many times :P After the bike ride we had a little time to grab some lunch in Jackson Hole - we ate at a pizza dive called Moutain High Pizza Pie - it was good but I couldn't eat much after biking so much. An hour later we were on our way to the meeting place for the river rafting trip. We'd all been rafting before, Ramin Chris and I have gone down the Colorado River in Moab before and had tons of fun. But this trip takes the cake!! The water was bloody cold but there were some awesome rapids!!! Rafting is hard work too with the paddling you have to do, but it's really all fun :) After the river trip we packed up the truck and drove straight home and arrived around 11 pm.

So that was our trip in nutshell - obviously a lot more happened. We saw almost all the animals there are in Yellowstone. A moose walked through our campsite. We saw a bison sitting in a parking lot chewing his cud - picture soon to come - we saw an osprey, or hawk, flying over the river carrying a fish in his talons. We saw many elk, bison and deer and Babak found a coyote running around and caught a glimpse of the infamous bear (I'm glad I didn't see it!)

More pictures hopefully to come this weekend!

This was the starting and ending point of our 14 mile mountain bike trip!

Chris, Babak, Ramin and Dan (the tour guide) after our ride

Me after our ride, can you tell I'm pooped?!?

Babak and Ramin acting like the ride we took was a piece of cake :P

Chris had fun too!!

Part of the Loop - this was Mammoth Springs

More Mammoth Springs - very cool formations!

Mammoth again

And one last one

Here's Babak climbin on a tree while Chris and I rest while hiking up from the lower falls

Yellowstone's Grand Canyon - yes it's awesome!

This is the river before it hits the lower falls (I forget which river it is, there's so many!)

Chris, Ramin and Babak admiring the awesome power that is the waterfall!

Chris making a silly "cool" move

More pics to come later!

Baugh Baby!

So as I'm sure you can guess, Jill and I have still been extremely busy with the Atmina photography business. It's been great and stressful! Last Saturday one of my best friends who I haven't seen in years came over with her family to take some portraits!!! I was SOOO excited to see Jenn Baugh (formerly Bahr) and her husband Matt and their new 5-month old daughter Liesel (I always butcher how to spell the name) :) Anyway, I will be posting highlights from their photoshoot on the Atmina Blog tomorrow, but I wanted to give a preview of those highlights here on my personal blog because Jill took a cute picture of me with the baby.
On my goodness!! Isn't she the cutest thing? :) I had SOOO much fun doing this photo shoot with them. I loved holding the little one for a bit.....I can't wait till it's my turn :)

North Carolina Fun!

Here are some of the pictures from Ramin's family reunion in North Carolina. We spent most of our time on the awesome beach and in the pool and therefore we really didn't take the camera with us very much. We're also waiting for the official reunion photos - I'll post those when I get them!

Here's Ramin's dad at the beach house. There was a mass birthday celebration - his birthday was actually today but we all celebrated it last week with the family!

Angela (the wife of one of Ramin's counsins) brought this really fun game called Bananas. It's like Scrabble, only you build your own board. Anyway it was really fun and we played it 2 nights in a row. I think I need to buy this game ;)

Ramin and I at the beach house after the big dinner his mom helped to make. It was GOOOD!!

Ramin's mom, Fatima, and me on the pier at the beach. We had so much fun walking along the beach and picking up shells. You wouldn't even BELIEVE how many shells we collected between the two of us. We also found some beach glass too!

Here's Ramin's mom with Angela's son Riley (I think that's his name, so many names to remember!) - they look so cute here!

Anyway, it was a fun trip and went by too fast of course. Now it's back to the hectic life of work and starting the photography business up. Don't get me wrong though, this is some of the most fulfilling work I've done in a LONG time, mainly because it doesn't feel like work! I'll post more about it later.

Back!!

Phew - we're home and safe! We have a BLAST in North Carolina. I'll be posting pictures I gather up from everyone on here for you all to see. I am burnt, I spent a bit too much time in the pool and lost track of time :P We also had fun on the beach! It was great meeting much of Ramin's family on his Dad's side and it was great spending time with his mom and dad as well. It was hard learning about 30 people's names but I think in the end I did it! Jill and I have a busy week with our photography stuff but I won't forget about this blog and keep it updated :)

Heading to North Carolina!

Ramin and I are heading to the coast of North Carolina tomorrow through Sunday. His family reunion is being held there so it will be nice to meet his dad's side of the family. We're not too sure of all we're going to do there other than golfing :P I also want to go to the beach and look for beach glass. A friend at work suggested I do that and I'm excited to see if I can find any and bring it back! So anyway, we'll be gone for those few days. I'll probably post pictures sometime next Monday :) See you all then!

Family Time

We got our new studio set up at our house for Atmina and we decided that it would only be fitting if we tested it out on ourselves first :) Here are a few pictures of Ramin, Chris and me at the studio. We also got some of Jill but I'm waiting for approval first before I post them. These will all be posted on the Atmina Blog as well :) Hope you like them!

Crazy Rain

As you may or may not know....Utah has been experiencing some of the weirdest weather I can ever remember! We've had SOOO much rain lately it's kind of ridiculous. It was so rainy a week or so ago that everyone had mushrooms growing in their grass!! It dried for a few days this week but tonight we had another storm. Ramin and I were home in the office and I happened to look out the window and saw the most awesome rainbow ever. Ramin decided to take a panorama of it and here it is!!

Tilt-Shift Lenses?

Apparently using tilt-shift lenses can make these scenes from Switzerland look like miniature models. Very cool to see!

gottardo nord from fb1 visuals on Vimeo.

Boom Boom Pow

I posted this video a couple of weeks ago on Facebook, before anyone even liked this freakin song :P Now everyone is into it! Go figure! I get hooked on the video every time I watch it cause it reminds me of the video Dad bought way back in the 90s sometime called The Minds Eye - turns out Bob bought it as well :P Anyway, it was all computer animated stuff BEFORE computer animation was a big deal. I remember bringing the video to school and everyone being amazed by it. This song reminds me of it, actually the video reminds me of it. Also, I like those people in the stripes for some reason...I also like their move at exactly 2:26 in the video. Dunno why, it goes good with the music :P Anway, even if you're not into pop music, just check it out, it might grown on you like it has everyone else ;)

Have you seen Atmina?

So I just wanted to make sure you were all aware that we do have our photography site up and running...it's not the official site, it's only another blog for now until the real site is up. We do have www.atmina.com registered but for now check out the Atmina blog HERE! Jill and I are so excited with the progress and response we've received so far. July will be EVER busier than June has been. It's so great! We're waiting for our studio equipment to arrive as we just bought some. Check out the blog and the pictures and leave any comments you may have!