Like Rabbits...

I guess bunnies are doing what they do best these days, because my family's dog Jaxon has been sniffing out some cute little kits (that's what they're called! Wikianswers says so) and bringing them faithfully to my little sisters. Lauren called Brent a few days ago, frantic that she couldn't get a hold of me and told him to get me on video chat STAT! I got on and she tried to remain composed as she informed me that Jaxon had just killed a baby rabbit. No sooner had she finished her report then Maddie came running in shouting "No, I think it's still alive!!". I was sure that there was some poor mangled animal dying a painful death somewhere so I told them to check on it and see if it was still breathing. Maddie sent me this picture as proof that it was "ok":

I wasn't convinced, so they brought it inside and showed it to me on video chat...

After a while it started looking a little less traumatized...

We hung up, but a few minutes later I got another call saying that there was a second bunny! Jaxon just couldn't control himself.

It turned out they weren't too mangled after all! They're actually pretty cute. For example:

Doesn't it make you want one?? Unfortunately my dad made them put the bunnies "back", though nobody really knew where they came from. They followed some random rabbit down the road and let them go where they last saw it...I want to be optimistic about this, but I'm just not too sure what happened after that. I hope they're ok :'(

Stone Mtn part deux...kind of.

That post last week reminded me of another time that Brent and I went to Stone Mountain. He got home early from school/work and it was such a gorgeous October day that we decided to head over there to try "the loop". We took the camera/tripod (unfortunately I forgot my "hood" to block the sun flares...as you will see) and as we came around a bend in the trail there was this huge field of tall grass and the sun was shining just right...so we wandered off the trail and took some pictures. Like, such as...



I think that one is my favorite. We actually have it framed, it feels good to actually print a picture every once in a while!

Here are some more that are cool/funny/awkward :)

And pretty...

Also, Brent found some boulders he wants to climb...if any of his friends would ever visit (MATT).

Stone Mountain has the BEST sunsets.

Yep, the best. And yes, we ran the last half mile of the trail in the dark after this picture...Brent thought a pack of bears was going to jump out of the woods and tear us apart at any second!! But they didn't.

Come visit us in the fall and we will take you here! Ok, Brent will probably be working, but I will take you here!! Seriously. I will.

Hey Chasey, It's Your Birthday...

So we made you this video.

Thanks for being an awesome Brother. Love you.

Spring "Break"

It's weird having a spring break when your significant other does not. Not that I'm complaining, it's just like, what do I do? Get ahead in school? Lay out in the park across the street? Work and make some money? All of the above?? The answer is D, all of the above...and wish that Brent could have like 2 minutes of spare time to hang out with me! Actually, as of this week he is now on an "easier" rotation...still has to be in at 6am, but has gotten out around 4 the past 2 days, as opposed to 6:30 for the past month or so.

Aaaanyway, Brent's parents and little brother came down here for their spring break, and Brent unfortunately had to work while we toured around NC for a couple of days. He did get Friday off though, which was quite nice. It was Ellen's (Brent's mom) birthday the day after they got here, so we had a little party with some delicious cream cheese pie! I like my cheesecake dense, with a layer of sour cream on the top, and this recipe is perfection. Seriously. I could talk about it all day. But moving on...

Our pie dish got lost at the church after some activity several months ago...hence the square dish...

The next day we went "Antiquing" in High Point and Asheboro, which was exciting, but alas, I have no pictures. We also went to J Crew and PF Changs on our way back through Greensboro, two of my favorite places. The next day we went to Pilot Mountain for a little hike and some great views...

In the parking lot we saw/smelled this car:

The tires are melted!! Crazy.

The next day we went to Stone Mountain, one of our favorite places out here. There is a 4.5 mile loop that is really pretty and takes you up the side of the stone face, and then back down again. I counted the steps up the side this time, but now I can't remember the number! I think it was like 575 though...lots, in other words. But there was a nice breeze at the top, and we took some pictures and enjoyed it

This one didn't really work out, unfortunately.

Brent was super sexy up there though.

And I am reeeeally good at cartwheels.

Brent is just OK at cartwheels, he could use a little practice.

Ok, enough of that silliness.

We had a fantastic time and can't wait till we can get back up to DC to hang out with them some more! Oh, and our other friends who live in DC, we miss them too.

How I almost Died on my Birthday.

Seriously, it was a close call.

The day started out great with an online episode of Dancing with the Stars, I really like the cast this season, except for Kate Gosselin, I can't believe she didn't get kicked off this week. Then I had some ice cream before my BFF Teri came and took me on a lunch run, then out to lunch and frozen yogurt! Mmmmmmm....

Brent was supposed to be on call till 9pm Thursday, but his attending told him he could go home early which was awesome (thanks Dr. Reeves-Daniel...weird name though)! When he got home he tracked my birthday present package and saw that it wasn't delivered, so he called UPS and they told him he could go pick it up at the store. I stayed home because Teri was coming over so we could all drive to dinner together, and right after Brent left a gigantic thunderstorm blew into town! We have great thunderstorms here, especially in the summer, but we have yet to document them properly, so I ran outside with my camera to try and get some of the action on tape. I took a video of the pounding rain, but it wasn't too exciting. Then the thunder and lighting started to get really loud and scary so I went back out and took this video...



Haha, I love how you can see the camera shake when the thunder claps!! It scared me soooo bad. The audio doesn't even do it justice, I think it maxed out my poor little camera speaker! I don't think there was even one second between the lightning and the thunder. Too bad it didn't strike the tree right across the street from my house, that would have made for an even more exciting video.

Anyway, Brent and Teri made it back to our place safely and we went to a delicious restaurant called Downtown Thai for dinner. The food was great and we had a fun time talking about such important topics as breastfeeding, the BYU Jerusalem Center and how gross Tofu is. Brent got me some sweet shades, and Teri got me the beautiful sparkly necklace pictured below, thanks guys!!

 

Then I came home and opened this present from my Dad:

Totally unexpected, and awesome. Makes me wish I had some waves nearby to play in! Check his stuff out, it's amazing.

It was a great day, thanks to all of you who called and/or gave me a shout out on the fb!! Love you all.

Babies!!

As most of you probably know, I'm not at all interested in having my own baby right now, but it's fun to play with other people's babies sometimes, and even more fun to take pictures of them! Luckily I have an abundance of friends who have just had babies, or who are expecting one soon and I got to take pictures of two of those babies recently.

Samuel:

And Zack:

He didn't like the wagon very much, but he sure looked cute in it!!

Ok, that's enough babies for now ;)

Dear Edwina,

If you don't know Maddie, you might not fully appreciate this post (but you'll definitely still think the video is cute!). You may remember her from videos such as these ones, where she can be heard (over the music) loudly "asking" her little friends to do her bidding. It should be no surprise then, that she recently played the part of Edwina, a 6th grade "advice-columnist" who answers questions from her neighborhood friends in the form of a musical show. I didn't make it out to CA for the show, but when in was home in January she was already rehearsing and there was one line that stood out to me, it was something like "Too bad there's not a prize for telling others what to do" (if there was, Maddie would win it hands down). Edwina's brothers and sister are always getting prizes for their achievements, but Edwina's talents aren't really the kind that win prizes ;)

Anyway, it was all caught on tape, but the file was really big so my dad just posted this clip for me, enjoy:



I'm so proud! I think she's awesome, and I wish I could have been there. Can't wait to see the whole thing in a couple months...

Complementary Colors

Here's this last week's shot for Color and Light, highlighting the complementary colors red/orange and blue/green.

 And this week's shot which shows analogous colors:

 This is the beginnings of my final project for this class, which I was forced to narrow down a bit this week since I had to turn in a proposal explaining exactly what I want to do. Most of the photos I take from now on in this class will be geared towards my final project so that I'll have lots (hopefully!) to choose from in the end. I'm going for a mysterious feeling, where you're not really sure what's happening in the photos, you never get the whole picture. Another example...

By the way it's still really cold here and I made Brent take of his jacket for an extended period of time while the wind was blowing, and there was minimal whining/complaining. What a trooper.

Now off to start a new project...I'm kind of nervous about this one. Hopefully I'll have something worthy of posting in a couple of days...

Maddie's Twelfth, and my BIG debut...

Over the years it has become a tradition for me to fly home for Maddie's birthday, and there was no way I was going to miss it this year because she turned 12!! I know, I can't believe it either. We always have some kind of crazy party for her and this year it was a real LIVE concert! Seriously. Here's the invite (that I made):


And now for the best part! My brother Chase is in "Carbon Charisma" the band (he says it's not a "band"...you can be the judge) on the invite poster, and they played for like an hour at Maddie's party. I told him when we asked him to play that he would have to do at least a couple of "girly" songs, and he reluctantly complied. Then about a week later I got an email from him asking me if I would sing the girly songs so he wouldn't have to! ha. Of course I said yes, and got to work memorizing lyrics, though as you will see, it wasn't really necessary...



Don't I make a great Miley!!?? haha. I'm not a huge fan, but you have to admit that song is awesome (and it was stuck in my head pretty much the entire month of January). Ok, next up: Taylor!! So the guitarist is totally awesome, and I think the acoustic versions of these songs might even be better than the originals (seriously) but somehow we started this song waaaay lower than when we practiced it that morning...you can tell when I'm reaching for those low notes! ha. Still fun though, and the kids pretty much sang the whole thing for me, so no worries...



Maddie is the crazy one with the short hair, in case you were wondering. Climbing up on top of everyone and grabbing the mike for her own solo! Needless to say the party was awesome and a fantastic time was had by all. Thanks Madeleine Pickett for the awesome flip camera skills (and the singing! I totally heard you ;)  I already can't wait till next year...

RGB Love.

Last week for Color and Light, we had to make a photo that showed off three primary colors, either the painter's primaries (RBY) or the photographer's primaries (RGB). I wasn't sure that I would be able to find all three colors together so I told Brent to put on a red shirt and bring his blue jacket and we would look for either yellow or green. I ended up finding both, but I really liked how the image with green turned out. We went exploring in "Old Salem" which is the oldest part of town, with buildings from the 1700's, and came across this old brick wall with really bright green moss on it. Voila:

 My teacher said he really liked it, and he thought it looked like Brent was about to "get all hot and sweaty" going for a big run or something! haha. Brent, running. What a joke.

Ok, actually, when it's not too hot or too cold (which accounts for like 2 weeks out of the year here) he will actually run with me, but the day we took this?? Definitely not.

Anyway, for some reason I really love this picture. The ones I took with the RBY theme just felt too much like a circus, and the circus is creepy (Ok, I've never actually been to one...but I'm guessing they're creepy).

Also, I have a new website! It's not quite fully functional yet, but it's getting there. Check it out:

Courtney McNaught Photography