Trip to St. George

Last Friday I went with some of my family to St. George. Skyler stayed behind. The trip was a good excuse to get away and to soak in some warmer weather, but the initial reason for going was that my late great grandpa was being honored for being put into the Newspaper Hall of Fame. He started the Davis County Clipper. Friday night we met up with my moms sister, Sara, and her husband, Scott who live there. They showed us around their lovely home.

Aunt Sara and Uncle Scott
Saturday morning was when the award was to be given. We ate some breakfast at the tables while someone from the Utah Press read a 4 or 5 page small history about him. Which I enjoyed because I didn't know anything about him previous to this. Then my grandpa and his siblings accepted the award on their dads behalf. We got lots of family pictures and then we were off for some family adventures of sorts. We all packed into cars and drove to the Santa Clara cemetary. Many of my ancestors immigrated from Switzerland and ended up in St. George.

My grandpa wanted to go and look at some of the old grave stones. There were so many headstones that had different spellings of what has now been simplified to Stahle. we wern't sure which was ours. Then we all drove up to Snow Canyon. Skyler and I had hiked here awhile back when we stayed in St. George for our one year anniversary.


We all did a small hike and some of us climbed the rocks to the top. It was much easier getting up than down!

Scott & Sara's sweet ride
Next we ate lunch at the famous Larson's Frost stop and brought our lunch to the park. The weather soon turned pretty windy and so we didn't really stay too long.
But we did stay long enough to get to drive Sara & Scott's convertable around. I got whistled at by some young guys. Wahoo! I still got it! (Shhh... I know they were probably just whistling at the car, not me but I can just pretend!)

How does the wind-blown look look on me?
Sunday morning sunrise from our hotel room

Sunday Morning we met up with most of the family at the Bear Paw for delicious breakfast.





Haley, my cousins adorable daughter
Before we left for home, we had some time to spare so we walked around the red rocks for a bit.

Like to share a thought...

or actually, an excerpt about thoughts.



So I am reading this book, a book that I have been reading since I was on the plane heading to Hawaii back in October. I really have not liked this book. That is of course why it's taken me so long to read the thing! I am only a little over half-way. It was just so hard for me to get into. I wasn't connecting with it that's for sure. I shoulda quit a long time ago, but I didn't and I'm starting to be glad I didn't. It's just today that I decided to give it a another try. Anyways, here is a little blurb from it. It's so incredibly simple but I like simple but true aha! moments...

There is so much about my fate that I cannot control, but other things do fall under my jurisdiction. There are certain lottery tickets I can buy, thereby increasing my odds of finding contentment. I can decided how I spend my time, whom I interact with, whom I share my body and life and money and energy with. I can select what I eat and read and study. I can choose how I'm going to regard unfortunate circumstances in my life- whether I will see them as curses or opportunities (and on occasions when I can't rise to the most optomistic viewpoint, because I am feeling too damn sorry for myself, I can choose to keep trying to change my outlook). I can choose my words and the tone of my voice in which I speak to others. And most of all, I can choose my thoughts.

...You need to select your thoughts the same way you select what clothes you're gonna wear every day. This is a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. That's the only thing you should be trying to control. Drop everything else but that. Because if you can't learn to master your thinking, you're in deep trouble forever...

...So I've starting being vigilant about watching my thoughts all day, and monitoring them. I repeat this vow about 700 times a day: "I will not harbor unhealthy thoughts anymore."

...A harbor, of course, is a place of refuge, a port of entry. I pictured the harbor of my mind. The harbor of my mind is an open bay, the only access to the island of my Self. And now- let the word go out across the seven seas- there are much, much stricter laws on the books about who may enter this harbor. You may not come here anymore with your hard and abusive thoughts, with your plague ships of thoughts, with your slave ships of thoughts- all these will be turned away... This is a peaceful harbor, the entryway to a fine and proud island that is only now beginning to cultivate tranquillity. If you can abide by these new laws, my dear thoughts, then you are welcome in my mind- otherwise, I shall turn you all back toward the sea from whence you came. That is my mission, and it will never end.

I read the first part of this to a girl having a meltdown earlier today at work. This definately pertained to her current situation. I felt so proud for finding something applicable in her time of need, thinking surely it would inspire and help in the moment atleast. After I finished, I looked at her, she looked at me, then she burst into tears again. It all went right over her head! So much for that!

My little sister McKenzie stayed over at our apartment Friday night just for fun. We invite her over to do that occasionally. We totally love having her over because she is so much fun! My sister is seriously the coolest. When she is over we have so much fun. McKenzie is pretty much my best friend. We get along very well. She is 14. She has the maturity of a 25 year old but still really knows how to have fun. She really brightens up our lives.
A list of things you must know about McKenzie...
*She is an awesome volleyball player
*She loves big earings (so she takes and wears mine)
*Her favorite color is orange
*She LOVES cats
*She wants to be something to do with CSI when she gets older
*She only likes Scary/mysterious books and movies (anything else is just boring)

Ingrid Michaelson

Joshua Radin & Ingrid Michaelson

Last night I was able to see Josh Radin and Ingrid Micaelson Live with some friends. I was pretty happy that they were playing together. It's kind of rare for me to actually like more than one act. I happen to like them both almost equally. I may however, be somewhat more partial to Ingrid Michaelson. I just adore her voice. It is pretty unique and lovely. It impressed me how wonderful she is live. Just an amazing voice.
One thing that suprised me about Joshua was that there is apparently a story behind every song that he wrote. He told us briefly about the story behind each of his songs before he sang them. Which I unfortunatly only caught bits and pieces of because we were up top and the sound system in this place is miserable. Thankfully it got better when they sang.
Here's a video I took with my pocket camera. I appoligize about the lack of quality. This particular song Ingrid was trying to see if we could manage to clap correctly while she sang, and then stop when she gestured to stop. Someone from the crowd shouted out that we've been to primary so we should be good to go. It was pretty funny. Didn't get that on the video though. I just stuck to videoing it instead of clapping. Who knows how embarrassing that would have been had I messed up!


Untitled from nicolette on Vimeo.

New opportunity

So I very well may be on my way to fulfilling my dream to become a professional photographer. Well I'm taking it step-by-step and very slowly. This is one of the first steps towards that; gaining experience.
I was just hired on as a photographer at a professional photography company (Well I haven't even yet done the fun paperwork, but she told me I'm hired so that counts!) I will keep my current part-time job and have this in addition. When I inquired about the position, I assumed that it was just an assistant photographer position, but no. It's an actual photographer photographer position! This company does wedding photography (including engagments and bridals), maternity, baby photography (my favorite), as well as senior portraits, etc.
I will first just bring my equipment out to shoots with the main photographer, Courtney is her name, and be a second photographer for awhile. I suppose I will be learning some by observation and experience both. She is due in 5 weeks but has been having complications so it really could be anytime. After she gets a little break, we'll get going on training mid-late April. After a few months of training I will completely on my own. To be honest, this terrifies me! But I suppose, after some trainging from her I will feel much more confident and ready. Hopefully.

Bradley, my brother, requested I make him a crazy neon colored scarf. So I did and then made him model it for me in return. It ended up being lots of fun. One thing I learned was that neon orange (and maybe pink too) looks terrible in black and white. He is the guitarist in a band, but his guitar wasn't home so we used the guitar hero. I think that worked out better anyways. Hint: the pictures seem cooler if you blast 'Rock 'n Roll' by Led Zeppelin;)

Check out the set:
Bradley photoshoot

We have an injured one here...

Last week we were planning on heading up north, but stopped by at temple square to snap some shots of the sunset. When we were done, Skyler jumped over a snow pile to get back on the sidewalk and slipped. He pretty much did the splits, but his right leg was twisted behind him. I saw the whole thing. I could tell it was no bueno. He was in pain and his first thought was that he completely tore something and would need surgery. This was his first thought because he has a friend that tore his ACL completely and it was a $50,000 surgery. But he didn't have insurance. Well it turns out that even though he was in pain, he was atleast able to somewhat use his leg. Good news. The next morning he went to see a doctor and was told on a scale of 1-3, 3 being a complete tear, he was a 1.5, so, bad, but not bad bad. He gave him a knee brace and sent him home. He may be doing a little physcial therapy in the near future. So aside from occasional cramps which are pretty painful for him and becoming a couch potato, he is doing quite well.