Lake Photos + Growing Pains

Of course I am only going to show you the good ones. Well the ones I thought were good. I sware my sister in law takes the best freaking pictures lol. And my swim shorts made their way into a photo too. Despite the look of the pics we really did have a good time splashing around in the cool water that day.

Like I said in my previous post, it was a relaxing day out on the lake. I could use more days like that but work takes up like ALL OF MY LIFE it seems!! Which brings me to my next question: Why in hell did I want to grow up?

I remember talking to my friends about the house I was going to get that would be next door to my bestie and we would have awesome cars and for some reason I couldn't wait to start working! Boy was I day dreaming HARD! All you do is work and pay bills when you grow up, unless your cool and graduated from your dream college and went straight to your dream job where it doesn't feel like you work a day in your life. Oh yea, that's how I thought life would be when I stepped across the stage for my diploma in High School. I never thought I could fail a class in college or work at the same gas station for 3 and a half years. Life sure can be a tricky one huh.

With all of that "experience" under my belt I have learned to take chances and see where they take me. I do have goals, don't get me wrong, but now I feel like if I just stay on the straight and narrow I might miss out on some things that I might never get another chance for in the future.

I don't know how I spiraled the conversation into this but I am known to be random at times. I just want to live a little. Maybe I will "take a chance" and quit both of my jobs........or maybe I will think of something a little less crazy. Me and my husband are working our butts off to save for what I would like to call a nest egg.

Anyways enough about me: How is your grown up life treating you?

I Saw The Sun

Hello world! I am sorry for the lack of posts this past week. I tend to work a lot (taking double shifts when I am already passed the point of physical exhaustion) so it kind of got in the way of me taking any good pictures recently. I even slacked on Instagram, my favorite social website.

Another thing that kept me from my blogging is lack of anything to post about. I lead a boring life at times and that is when I hit a roadblock with my writing. So I have been searching for something to type about and came up with a few topics to keep me going for the next few days yay!!

Lucky me, I got an off day to go to the lake with my in laws. That means I have been in a lake 4 times this year. A new freaking record. I love to swim plus its a fun work out for the arms and legs. I didn't hesitate to go under as soon as it was deep enough. I can't describe the relaxing feeling you get when you are just bobbing in the water practically weightless. Until your little 8 year old buddy comes splashing towards you snapping you back to reality. It was nice getting to hang out with her for more than a couple of hours, along with the rest of the family.

I took some pictures towards the end. As much as I wanted to snap away at everything that was happening, I also wanted to live in the moment and not have my camera in my hand at every second. Although it pained me a little every time I visualized the perfect shots while "in the moment" I am okay to miss a few. Stepping back from the lens can't possibly hurt. I will put up the pictures as soon as I can get them edited like I want them to be.

Any last words before the summer is over?

InAnimate

Sometimes I just take random pics and every once in a while they look pretty good. Well to me lol. So I decided to share em. Don't you just love the extra crispy flowers? It has been uncomfortably hot in Texas for a while now and the grass has officially stopped growing. I can't wait for Fall now. 

I have been busy working doubles, but now I have some free time so I can get back to picture taking! Finally!

A Few Fab Photos: Pool Party

Last weekend I practiced with taking photos during sunrise/sunset. It was pretty cool learning something new, but in the midst of that my little sister and I went to a little "pool party". It was just four of us but we had a good time.

This is my bestie Sam, the owner of that cutie dog named Rex. She invited us over for the party

My little sis had some swimming fun with Aden, my besties son.

She even showed off her little plankton tattoo.

I hope this weekend is just as fun. What are you're plans for this weekend? I mean it's a holiday so you must have something big planned lol :) Happy 4th of July!

The Golden Hour

Thanks to my Nicole (my sister in law) and pinterest, I am now interested in capturing photos during "The Golden Hour". If you're curious it is the moments just before the sun starts to set. When You take a decent picture of it, this is the result

I was excited about the sunburst effect I got when I took this with my camera phone. When you put people and things in front of the sunburst it makes them have a certain glow and makes the picture look fantastic :) ! I practiced over the weekend with my good camera and wanted to let you guys see.

I won't lie, it kind of forced me to play with my apertures and shutter speed a little. I have yet to touch my ISO button. But let me know how they look. I'm still learning and could use some pointers

365 Photos_July Photo A Day

This past year I have been on a challenge kick. I would look on the internet for different monthly challenges to get into to distract myself a little. One kind that I took a liking too was photo challenges! At first I was just finding random lists on Google search to accomplish challenges, until I stumbled onto this blog:

I'm not going to lie, I thought the name was funny but I love her blog. I like new recipes to try and she has plenty of them. Especially since she is in a different country and all. Anywho, she does a monthly photo-a-day challenge and I have tried and failed every month to follow the list she has. Here is next months list if you're curious:

I like her lists. It's not too specific, leaving room for creativity and imagination. So in July I am challenging myself to actually finish a challenge and I am using this blog as motivation. When the month is over I will post all of my pictures up and let you guys see how I did. I post them daily to my Instagram along with my sister Nicole too. And it's cool if you want to join in the fun. I mean taking one picture a day isn't so hard lol. I just get lazy sometimes.

Interview With An 8 Year Old

Me and Alyssa (my little sis in law) were sitting around one morning and I decided to interview her for fun. I saw some questions online that I thought would be fun to ask her a few. Her answers where simple but I want to see if anything changes when I ask her the same questions next year. Sounds fun huh?  Here are some of her answers.

What's Your Favorite Color:

RED AND ORANGE

What's Your Favorite T.V. Show

SCOOBY-DOO AND SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS

Who Is Your Favorite Singer

CHRIS YOUNG AND JUSTIN BIEBER

What Is The Grossest Thing You Can Think Of

POOP

If You Could Be Any Animal What Would You Be

AN EAGLE

What Is Your Happiest Memory

WHEN MY DOGS, PUP AND LETTIE, SAVED ME FROM A CAR

-her dogs literally pushed her out of the way, how awesome is that

What Do You Do For Fun

HANG OUT WITH MY BUDDY

-that's me!

What Is Your Favorite Thing To Do In The Summer

GO SWIM WHEN IT'S HOT

What Is The Nicest Thing You've Done For Someone

WILLIAM COULDN'T WRITE HIS NAME SO I WROTE IT FOR HIM

-William is her classmate that has special needs. She watches him like a brother.

What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up

A HUNDRED DIFFERENT THINGS

-she was very indecisive with that one lol

Favorite Food

CHOCOLATE

I Love When Mom/Dad Cooks..

BEEFY NACHOS

One Word To Describe You

HAPPY

What Are Your Pets Names

SABRINA (puppy), NATHAN, NADIA, AND ROSE (her cats)

What Would You Do With A Million Dollars

SPEND IT

-apparently I asked a dumb question lol

She is a very interesting little girl that is has an answer for everything. Even the things you don't ask her about lol. I love her to death and love hanging out with her though. We have fun when we get together. There are times when I just want to sit around with the other adults but half the time she is not happy with that one bit. Undivided attention is her M.O.

Hope you enjoyed my little random questionnaire. I have the whole weekend off so I will be taking pictures for sure to share. Looking up aperture and shutter speed settings this time around! Pinterest is the best place ever for that. 

A Few Fab Photos: Rex

Isn't he the cutest! My bestie, Samantha, got a new puppy and named him Rex. He is a pitbull-american bulldog mix I believe. He is the fattest, laziest, sweetest dog I have ever seen. I just wanna steal him away, but since I can't do that I just took some pictures lol.

I got a quick pic with my phone yesterday. I just love those spots on his little nose!

Visiting Lil Sis + Flower Photography

The other day I got to see my little sis like I had hoped but things didn't go quite as planned. We were supposed to draw with chalk, which is hard to do when you don't have any chalk in the first place.We still had fun spending time together despite being chalkless. I feel like I haven't seen my little buddy in forever. I brought Zeus and Charlie along too. Alyssa has a little puppy that they love to play with, so it was an all around good time for everyone.

=

Another thing on our bucket list was picking wildflowers. So we searched in her yard and stumbled upon the saddest group of yellow flowers (those aren't sunflowers are they??) I had ever seen lol.

We ended up not picking them afterall. They were mostly wilted and buried in tall grass that I did not want to find a stray snake in. Plus there was an extra large puddle of what looked like black water nearby that Zeus was very interested in. We had to spray him down after noticing his whole left half was covered in black guck.

Coincidentally he loved the water being sprayed in his face. Good thing too because before the day was over he had gotten into the black puddle again, requiring yet another spray down.

We found more flowers that I decided to take pictures of because these were clearly not meant to be picked.

I was getting picture taking happy with the last one. Those are just the berries on one of their many evergreen trees. 

After taking pics we decided to have a little scavenger hunt. Thinking up things to find was much harder than I had expected but Alyssa found everything on her little list. She is such a smarty for an 8 year old.

I took the time and actually edited these pictures. I even experimented with putting my name on them. After putting my name on them though, I realized people usually put watermarks on their photos, not just plain text. I am wondering if there is an easy way to watermark pictures. I want to do it to my good ones :). Any suggestions would be awesome since I don't seem to know what I am doing lol.