Do you want to go to the seaside?

We went to the beach!!! And it was great. Especially since these beautiful people came with us:



It was called Carolina Beach, and we stayed in a cute little beachfront condo:




Complete with these amazing beds:



I don't want you to be confused and think that these are twin beds....because they're not, they're whatever size is smaller than that. And I don't want you to assume that those are real mattresses, because they're just foam! I was confused too, until we tried to sleep in ONE of these beds. Well, first we got on the top one, but Brent was worried that it might collapse (ha!) so then we got in the bottom one instead. Brent was so tired that he fell asleep in .2 seconds (as usual) but I don't think I was asleep for more than 10 minutes at a time the whole night! haha. Good thing we found the sheets for the pull out bed the next day or it would have been a looooong weekend.

Moving on...let's talk about the fun stuff. There was lots of tanning and reading:









And lots of walking around trying to find Britt's Donuts, then eating them:









They were SO good that we had to go back for more that night, but this place is so popular that the line was wrapped around the building at 9:30pm! Don't worry, we came back the next morning and only had to wait about 20 minutes. Mmmmmm...

There was also a lot of driving on the beach at Fort Fisher State Park, which was scary for Brent but fun for those of us who weren't driving! We only passed two "beached" cars...











Ok, this is getting too long, I think I'll have to make a part deux because there is still so much left to tell!! Well, mostly pictures to show. Hope you're ready for more!



*Anybody know the song from the title? It's one of Brent's favorites, listen to it here.

A Man of Mystery...

School's out for summer....kind of. I start my summer classes in San Francisco in 2 weeks!! But I've had a couple of weeks off to recharge, which has been fantastic. We even went to the beach with our friends over Memorial Day and had a blast - will be posting about that soon.

But first I want to show you what I worked on last semester!

This is my final project for the class "Color and Light":



They are meant to be viewed in that order - as you can probably tell by the last shot - hence the slideshow view. We got to choose whatever subject matter we wanted (which was really hard) but we had to have a consistent color scheme (mine is warm/cool contrast). I love the air of mystery that these "darker" parts of the city bring to the images, so the "mystery man" theme was a natural progression of things. I want the viewer to be wondering: who is this guy? where is he going? why is he running? And at the end I hope I at least got a smile, if not a laugh out of you! Brent and I had a lot of fun scouting out locations and shooting for this class (most of the time!), especially when it got warmer outside. The last shot was actually Brent's idea (hard to believe, I know). As you can see, these areas are not the nicest part of town, but that was what was so great about this project. I got to explore areas of the city that I would never have gone to otherwise. And we only got kicked off of Reynolds Tobacco Factory Property ONE time!! I don't wish to incriminate myself further, but trust me, that's a good record. It's mostly abandoned anyway, so I don't know why they bother being so defensive of it.

The final project for my other shooting class, called "Photography Concepts", was a hypothetical ad series for the blog A Foodie Stays Fit, written by my good friend Teri (you may have seen her on my blog before, such as, in my very first post ever ;)

Voila:



The point we are trying to get across with these photos is that everyone can make time to be fit and healthy, even with a crazy, hectic schedule like Teri's. She works full time at a bank and also teaches classes at the gym multiple times per week, while also working out on her own (and with me!), not to mention taking care of her puppy and husband, and of course blogging. I wanted to catch people's attention with these images by making them over-the-top and showing Teri exercising in situations where she wouldn't normally do so. Let me know if you think it works!

So that's what I've been doing for the past 4 months...plus about a million other pictures that didn't make the cut! Oh, and some other things that I'll be posting about very soon...

Encore...

I know y'all have been dying for round two of the dynamic duo!! And it just so happens that it's Brent's little brother Garrett's 16th birthday today. He's the one doing those awesome jump moves with Brent in that one post about Stone Mountain.

We had so much fun doing that video for Chase that we decided to go for number two. Now, a couple of things to explain about this one...we call Garrett "Garrete" because he used to think that chocolate was spelled "chocolete",  it's stuck ever since. Also, for his eagle scout project, Garrett built "bat boxes" for a warehouse in Idaho Falls that had problems with bats trying to live in it...or something. What else...oh yeah, he likes to wear baggy T-shirts, and he maybe used to have a little problem with spray paint... :)

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.