Adele

Really liking this song right now! Not to mention that it has a nice little beat which makes this girl a pretty happy runner.

PoW : March 20-27

The Festival of Colors at the Krishna Temple

My teeth have never looked so white.

PHO-TOS

No, this is not a depiction of Rodney and his seven wives - although I'm sure he'd be fine with that. This me asking you to pass my name along to anyone you know who might be looking for senior/graduation pictures (or just portraits in general). Utah is unpredictable this time of year, but it's definitely getting warmer out there which in turn makes me excited and anxious to do something. Like take pictures. So there you have it - email me! jmail19(at)gmail(dot)com

Riley & Trace

My cute nephews. I blinked and they weren't three years old anymore. Now they have opinions on sports teams and slug each other and want to be DJ whenever they ride in my car. The day Riley starts driving/dating I'll probably pass out ... and I'm not even his mother.

PoW : March 13-20

This is, unquestionably, a lame photo of the week. Taken with a phone camera, nonetheless. But this past week just flew by without a single St. Patrick's Day photo taken. But I did wear green so no scrooges here.

Before you judge us based on our awesome choice in sunglasses, know that they're 3D. And I didn't throw mine in the collector bin after the movie. Is that allowed? I figured that I did pay for them. You can never have too many Halloween options.

Anyway, we finally saw TRON. Probably would've helped to have known something about the storyline before going in. About halfway through, confused as ever, we just googled the synopsis to catch up. Technology saves the day! Final thoughts: lasers are fun, I'm gonna download some Daft Punk songs for my workout playlist, and how'd they get Jeff Bridges to look so young? Probably technology.

PoW : March 6-13

Cute Kambri and her new butterfly sunglasses.

I never knew there were so many ways to take a photo with sunglasses until Kambs took a shot at it. There was even a moment where they were on her knees followed by on her toes. Well played.

Jackson Hole

Jackson Hole, Wyoming! We went a few weeks ago and it was exactly the refresher that I needed. I've already posted some of these photos on Facebook so if you've seen them there I'll take no offense to you marking this post as read and moving on with your life. I wouldn't even know about it. Just sayin'.

So where was I? Jackson Hole, Wyoming! I've been there in summer and fall, but never winter. A friend of ours was working up there for a few days and he invited us to come along. I checked the weather beforehand to figure out packing and it said snow. And more snow. And boy was it beautiful snow.

Here's the watered down recap. First up - these creepy fellers:

What's a trip to Jackson Hole without feeling like you're being stalked in each and every store? I suppose it's not their fault. I wonder if stores ever think about putting surveillance cameras in their eyes in order to catch shoplifters. If I owned a store I'd totally do that ... and then jimmyrig their eyes to move back and forth to freak people like me out. I'd probably pass out. Puuuurfect.

Anyway. Jackson was beautiful and the cold wasn't so bad as long as we were covered on nearly every square inch.

Turns out it was "Winter Fest" up there that same weekend. They were doing these ski jump shows each night which were pretty entertaining. There was even some punk tween kid who was keeping up with the rest of them. Start 'em young when they have no fear, I suppose. These are his friends (that's not him jumping, though):

Looks terrifying, right? My thoughts exactly. I'm real glad that we're all different and that some people get a thrill off of this so they can entertain the rest of us .... the ones who'd much rather get down that hill by sliding on a garbage bag.

We also took a sleigh ride out to the elk reserve. While heading to the sleigh we were told that our guide would be Meredeth. For some reason I was a bit disappointed since I had imagined some sort of authentic cowboy as our guide. Which seemed entirely unlikely with a name like that. But looky here - Meredeth was a man! A cowboy (see: bandanna), just minus the hat. And he knew his stuff, too. I've never been so fascinated with elk in my life. Good work, Cowboy Meredeth.

Elk. Lots and lots of them. Their antlers are made of calcium. Did you know that? Neither did we until Meredeth came along.

The snow was beautiful during the entire ride. The white against the black of the horses was really great.

Sidenote: this horse had mega gas. Try sitting towards the front of the sleigh right in the line of fire. Fail.

One of the restaurants we tried was the Silver Dollar. It was super loud because there was a live band (and the only table that could fit us all was right next to them), but that's also what made the atmosphere fun. And then there was this couple:

They danced EVERY song. And not the LDS singles swing dance kind -- the real kind. Which was really fun to watch. Not to mention that fact that the man was giving Wilford Brimley a run for his money with that mustache.

And of course - snowshoeing:

This was fun, I only wish we could have ventured a bit more away from the pack. But I have a feeling we would have gotten carried away and gotten ourselves lost so maybe it's all for the best.

So. Ski jumps, elk stalking, snowshoeing, trying new restaurants, movies, art galleries, HOT CHOCOLATE, hot tubbing ... yeah. Not bad at all.

PoW : Feb 27 - Mar 6

Okay Jen, don't be mad. But you need to know why this qualifies as my Photo of the Week: this is my ONE AND ONLY winning Words With Friends game this entire first week of having my new phone. I've always thought I was okay with words, but apparently I'm off my mark as of late. So can you see why I'd be proud of it? I'm thinking "YETI" was the clincher. 

Also to be noted: Jen pretty much killed me in every other game we've had. So in reading this you could also assume that if you need a self esteem boost, let's go ahead and play. That should take care of it.

Ash

Ahhh Ashley. We met up at Utah State and bonded over stinky boys and too-much-drama girls. She's remained a close friend and even moreseo now that we live just three doors apart. Stellar person who has always been my voice of reason when I'm over analyzing things to shreds. Which is pretty well all the time.

PoW : Feb 20-27

Let's call this ... Family Dinner.
Starring my little superstar sister.

Pow : Feb13-20

Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Rodney

My friends humor me when I wanna practice. AND when I throw out ice cream bribes. Works like a charm!

And then, of course, to counteract all the non-smiling serious I'M SUCH A GUY shots we have these lovelies:

The end.

PoW : Feb 6-13

Bues Pond Park ... thawing out. Was Phil right about that early spring? I wouldn't be mad. 

PoW : Jan 30 - Feb 6 ... sort of.

I don't really have much by way of a Photo of the Week this time around. The week flew by and I spent it sick and plowing through boxes of tissues. Well, with the exception of that stint to Wendover which I'm pretty sure made things worse (and cost me $5 to those blasted penny slots).  

I started organizing my external hard drive and came across an old scan. You know, better this for a PoW than some boring photo of my garbage can piled high with tissues (grossed out yet?). So here we have a fun family photo with all the cousins at Christmas dinner. Precious! Such perfect little kiddos with such shining smiles! Happy holidays everyone! Except ... wait a minute. Who is that little gem in the back with her FINGER UP HER NOSE? Yeah. That'd be me ruining the perfect Christmas dinner photo. Can't rip it out for two seconds to take a nice picture. Here's the thing, guys - this most certainly isn't the only picture of me where I'm picking my nose. And let's be sure that if I have that many pictures of me picking what in the world was I like when the camera wasn't pointed in my direction??

SO LET'S RECAP: Big Jess with a nasty cold this week and 'Lil Jess enjoying herself some good old fashioned nose picking. Full circle. See what I did there?

Easton

Little E: our resident vampire. But how could you not fall in love with such a toothy little grin?