I'm out of here!

I left work early to get ready to go on a girl's trip! I soooo need a holiday! My mom and my sister and my sister's baby are going to visit my older sister down in the states for the weekend. I really like my job, but I can't tell you how free and relieved I feel to be getting out of here for awhile. This summer was crazy, and I'm not very good at not taking things personally, so it's been stressful! I was going to take a nap before I started packing, but I got home to dirty dishes and a messy living room. Ugh. So, I'm getting lunch ready and cleaning up before I take off. For some reason it's so much easier to clean and do dishes in the morning, instead of at 6 pm when we're both home from work and supper is done.

I had an office over at the pool for the summer, but I was always getting up and walking around doing things - now I have a full-time desk job and it's kinda crappy to sit all day. My shoulders are always sore - I've got to get better posture! I also need to get a better chair. My office is kind of the 'nobody wants it' room and my desk is an old boardroom table with a random selection of chairs to choose from - orange plastic to those padded old church chairs, which is what I'm currently using. When I get back I'm going over to the pool and stealing my nice chair from there for the winter.

Last night I went to see my little sis play volleyball - I love that girl! She did great! She's the starting setter - this girl can actually play, unlike her older sister. My aunt coaches the varsity team, and my mom and Kels came out, so it was fun to see some family! I felt bad, but I just couldn't cheer for Raymond. Two of the lifeguards who worked for me over the summer play for Raymond, so I cheered for them silently. Clark and I were visiting with our neighbors the other night, and their grandson came over. He told us his wife wears her old school's colors at football games where her school plays Raymond - and it's the biggest football rivalry around here. When you grow up with certain views...they can be hard to shake. :)

Before the volleyball game, my sister-in-law came with me to a jewelry party. It was all really cute but it was more fun just to get out and hang out with people! Clark and I have been hermits since we got married and I have been slowly going crazy, I think.

Anyway, I think my chicken is done so I'll stop rambling!

When Clark makes monkey sounds...

This is the face my nephew makes!

Family Recreation

I was recently asked by our ward enrichment leader to help her with a family home evening enrichment. Enrichment is an activity for women in our church. In our church, we hold family nights with our own families every Monday, and sometimes people run out of ideas. Someone requested that the Relief Society (women's organization in the church) show what a family home evening should be like, and offer ideas and host a discussion on things to do.

The lady who asked me to do this mentioned that she was asking me because of my degree in Recreation. This reminded me of my favorite class - Family Recreation! I've been going back over my notes and I get excited all over again! I don't think I even got an A in this class (A-), but it was my favorite. Our professor was working on her Ph.D and she was one of my more hard core instructors. Family Recreation sounds like a joke of a class, but it really wasn't. This lady was serious about the subject. She was passionate about it, and I think she really made an impression on most of the class, if not all. So, in a nutshell, I'm passionate about family recreation!

A proclamation put out by our church had this to say about it:

Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities (emphasis added).

I've emailed a few of my cousins/aunts for ideas on what they do for FHE, and what works/doesn't work for them so if I haven't talked to you, and you can help me out, please email me at ktorrie@gmail.com!

I'm doing this presentation/discussion next Wednesday. Thanks!

Busy Week

Last night I went to my mom's after work and we canned and froze peaches for me. I felt pretty grown-up and domestic. :) Don't I have an awesome mom? She's not doing any fruit for a week or so, but she helped me do my two little cases. My great grandma gave me her mini freezer when I got married and it's the perfect size to fit into my little apartment. Our fridge isn't full-size, so our little freezer can't hold very much. Thanks Grandma! I was so excited to use it for my peaches! :)

I got home late last night and didn't do anything but go to bed. After we did peaches, my mom and I (and my brother and sister) went through a bunch of decorating stuff and packed it out to my car so I'd have it for the wedding this weekend. A friend asked me to do the decorating for her reception on Friday, so I've been busy with that lately. I'm also shooting a wedding on Saturday, which I'm really excited about. I'm still editing pictures from the last wedding I shot, so the summer will end busy!

I found out about a photography workshop in Utah in September, and I've seen the guy's work and attended a lecture of his before, so I really want to go. My sister and mom and I are trying to plan a trip around it to see my older sister. I miss my her family! My niece is already back in school and she's lost her first tooth, and my nephew just turned 1, and I haven't seen him for months. Kids change so fast.

My older sister is working on getting her new website up and running, and it's so cute! It's not finished yet, but check it out here. She started doing cloth diapers a few years ago, and when I first heard about it, I thought she was crazy (Sorry Ton!). But wow, cloth diapers have changed! They're cute!! My nephew has one with flames all over it. And they aren't as disgusting as I thought, lol. I've watched her do cloth diapers and it's not much worse than regular diapers. After trying a few kinds, she decided to make them even better and started developing her own pattern. She now has huge waiting lists for her diapers! Anyway, my sister is amazing. :)

Socks...and Dryers

On Sunday I wore boots because it was raining and cold out. I went to grab ankle socks (I used to wear nylon/pantyhose but socks are way better) and I didn't have any that matched! Since I was wearing boots, I figured it didn't matter and grabbed two.

After church, I took off my boots and rediscovered my mismatching socks. Clark was in the bedroom and I was about to go in and tell him about my amazing sock-ness when he walked out.........


In these:

I know, we're ridiculous. But that leads me to the second part of the title. We don't have any socks because we haven't had a dryer for a few weeks!! Our landlords finally bought a new one and we just got it today. The old one got so hot when it was used that we smelled smoke and it was heating the whole apartment! We could actually see glowing red when we looked down on the door opening. A little scary.

My awesome mother-in-law has been letting us use her dryer, but we've been trying not to interrupt her laundry routine any more than necessary. And, it's summer, so when do we wear socks??? Clark never wears black socks to work, because he wears khakis every day, and I wear flip flops. Oh yeah, except Sunday. Haha. But, we have a dryer now so next Sunday Clark will have matching socks to wear. :) We have to speak, so cross your fingers for me (Clark doesn't need it, he's not even nervous, lol). I hope I survive...

Last days of summer...

Only a couple of weeks until the pool is done for the year, which is pretty much the end of summer. Looking back over the last few months I can't believe they're already over. This was our first summer as married people, and what have we done??? We took one weekend trip to Kalispell, and rode horses once with my family, and that's pretty much it for events. We've been to the pool twice, and I got in once. We've had 3 campfires, I think, and haven't even made it to Waterton! We have played tennis, and gone for bike rides and walks and runs, so at least we've actually been outdoors. I'm so sad, I feel like I wasted our whole summer, and time is one of those things you never get back. I haven't been totally myself the last few months; this job has been stressful for me. Call me a pansy, I'm sure you're right, but it's been a big adjustment moving to Raymond. :) Most days after work I just want to sleep. Maybe it's because my office has no blinds, or walls, really, and the sun is glaring in for the last couple of hours. I might just be coming home with heat stroke. :)

Anyway, here are some pictures of the 3rd campfire we've had this summer (thanks Shelley and Cory)!!!

Most of these are courtesy of our nephews:

On second thought......at least once it starts getting cold, we have Christmas to look forward to! :)

Wedding Shoot!

Last weekend I had a lot of fun shooting a wedding. It was out in Barnwell in the middle of the prairie - it was so good to get out there again. I need my wide open spaces! I know what you're thinking....yes, Raymond is a small town, but I miss my prairie, and Raymond is not it. Here are a couple of pictures of me shooting, captured by the groom's little sister:


Check out the cowboy gear! The groom's ring had a barbed wire pattern on it, and the bride wore cowboy boots!

My amazing cousin Eric lent me some of his equipment and it was SO nice to have!! My fav (and dream lens) is his 70-200 mm f/2.8. It's an L-series, with IS, which you definitely need cuz it's heavy! My wrist hurts after shooting with it for awhile.  A girl can only dream....haha one of these days I'll have saved up enough...maybe a few days after we save up for a house. :)

Anyway, you can check out the pics here !

I know the groom's family well, because they're from Barnwell and in my family's ward, so our wedding present to them is a wedding album, which I can't wait to start designing! It will be a hardcover, and it's bound so the pages lay perfectly flat when you open it - perfect for double page spreads!

And this is what I saw as I was driving back from the ceremony site: