Freedom Festival Fine Art Exhibit

I recently was accepted into the Freedom Festival's Fine Art Exhibit with my piece "Roaring River Falls." This exhibit is being held in Provo's Covey Center for the Arts from June 19th to July 30th. So, if you are in the area, you can stop by and check it out. It is open Monday through Friday from 9 to 5, plus they open it up in the evenings when they have shows going on. My piece is hanging in the foyer at the south end under the stairs. Unfortunately, the lighting back there is horrible, which is a disappointment. For more information, you can go here.

Our Week of "Vacation"

A week ago we headed out for a week of travel, a CAD Conference, some scenery, and Nate's brother's wedding. The week's activities ranged from being boring, to fun, to busy and stressful. It was a good trip though, and it was nice to be at the wedding. We drove back home yesterday after church. We were very fortunate that the weather was pleasant during our drives to and from our destination. Our trip had the potential to be very hot and sticky in our un-air-conditioned car, but happily the cooler wetter weather kept us comfortable even through the stretch of Nevada desert.

Since we did a lot, and took a ton of pictures, you can read about details on separate posts for each portion of our trip: Reno, Lake Tahoe, and The Wedding.

Jonathan and Karris' Wedding

Friday evening was Karris and Jonathan's wedding. They got married at the home of a friend who has a very nice property. Since they liked the engagement pictures I took for them, they asked me to take wedding pictures for them as well. This turned out to be a more difficult task than I had though it would be, mostly because I didn't have a voice. It was gone when I woke up Friday morning and didn't return until Saturday evening. So, I had the challenge of trying to get people who couldn't hear me to follow my instructions. Nate tried to help by listening to my whispers and then announcing them to everyone else. However, that was simply not ideal, and I often felt like I was playing telephone with my subjects. Despite this, I still ended up with a lot of nice pictures, and everyone seemed happy.

Jonathan and Karris with the Scott family.

Jonathan with his niece and all his nephews.

This was just a funny picture of our nephew Scotty, who made a face at me as I released the shutter.

It was definitely a unique sort of wedding, but then Jonathan and Karris are pretty unique people. Who else has a wedding bouquet and boutonniere made of broccoli? And wedding cakes made by family members for a cake competition judged by the bride and groom?

But then, I know Jonathan's goal was for the wedding to not be boring. I must say that he and Karris succeeded on that point.

This "cake" was made by Karris' father and step-mother. Notice the custom made bobble heads of the bride and groom they had made for the center piece.

This was our cake. It didn't turn out much like we originally planned. We almost didn't make one when we discovered that there would be more than enough cake without ours. However, under the pressure of family members, we tried making a much smaller and simpler one than we planned a few hours before the wedding. This did not give us enough time to really make it look very good, and then the frosting melted on our way to the wedding in our air-conditioning free car. We managed to patch it up there. It definitely didn't look the best, but the raspberry filled lemon cake did taste really good. And it spun! Jonathan explained in the competition rules that any cake that could levitate would automatically win. After filtering through various ideas, we decided we didn't have the time or means to make ours levitate, but we could make it spin, so we went with that. Apparently between the spinning and the taste, it worked, because we were awarded the groom's choice award for our cake.

Our prize for the cake was this creme brulee set (because Jonathan likes making fire). Plus, like all other contributors to the wedding, we got these bottles of juice soda with pictures of the bride and groom on them.

The sunset that evening was amazing!

At the end of the night, Jonathan and Karris rode off on an ATV streaming toilet paper. So romantic.

I spent most of the next day editing, organizing, and burning CDs of wedding pictures. We also went to In and Out burger for lunch and to a ward party (at the same family's house the wedding was at) for dinner.

Lake Tahoe

We left our hotel Thursday morning and headed to California. However, we drove through the Lake Tahoe area and took our time reaching our final destination. After asking for some directions, we were able to locate the Tahoe Rim Trail, which is a 165 mile trail circling the lake and valley from the mountain rims. We headed down the Spooner Summit to Kingsbury Grade portion of the trail for a few miles.

The trail was absolutely beautiful and offered occasional glimpses of the lake and valley below. It was also pretty chilly and windy, so our stops along the trail were short.


We decided to save enough time to try hiking the Big Meadows trail down to the beach. Unfortunately, we didn't learn until we got there that the trail is closed during the day right now since they are doing logging in the area to help prevent fires. That was sad, especially since the meadow looked so beautiful and inviting.

So, instead, we found an area along the beach to enjoy ourselves for a little while. Lake Tahoe is pretty cold normally, and it was a cool day, so we didn't venture into the water. We just enjoyed the picturesque scenery.

Reno

We arrived in Reno Monday evening. Actually, to be more accurate, we were in Sparks, which is right next to Reno. Nate spent the following couple of days attending the "International CAD Conference and Exhibition" presentations he went there for. Nate presented his own research from his master's thesis at the conference Wednesday morning, and I was able attended his presentation. He did an excellent job.

Being in Reno and the hotel though was not very exciting. I have never understood why anyone would spend their vacation at a casino resort in the middle of a crowded city in the desert, but having actually spent some time in one myself now, I am even more confused by it. When you could go anywhere, why would you spend your time in a flashy gaudy hotel? And even more puzzling, why would you spend your vacation in a jam packed, smoky, stuffy, stale casino throwing away your money? (Especially in a place like Reno that is so close to one of my favorite mountain ranges, the Sierra Nevada Mountains.) It is honestly a mystery to me. I don't understand why that appeals so much to so many people, but it apparently does.

I generally felt out of place at the hotel, but I especially felt out of place as I walked through the halls first thing Tuesday morning carrying my French easel, camera, and camelpak. I was on my way to the Washoe Lake State Park. I spent the morning there along the beach painting Slide Mountain and the lake. It was a beautiful, peaceful area. The gentle light and the cool refreshing morning air were a welcome relief from the noise and glitz of the city. My only company came from the birds with their accompanying songs.

I liked it there so much that I returned to the park Wednesday morning before Nate's presentation to walk along the beach and explore other areas as I took more pictures. It was nice to be able to get away, because I was a bit bored at the hotel the rest of the time.

Above is a view of the lake from "Deadman's Creek Trail."
Below are pictures of wild rose and cool looking dead tree
along the trail.

Tuesday evening we went bowling with Nate's friend Shane who was also presenting at the conference. Wednesday evening we drove to downtown Reno where we walked along the pathway by the river, which was nice but windy.


So, our time in Reno wasn't bad. We did some fun things, and it was good for Nate to be able to go to the conference. It was also nice that the conference was at the right before Nate's brother's wedding so that we could just stop by it on the way to California.

Soccer

This past week concluded the spring soccer season. I discovered that Clearfield City hosts a soccer league for adults, so I decided to join. I ended up on the "Pink Panthers" team. We did pretty terrible, but it was fun anyway. Nate was very supportive and came to all my games. While he was there, he even took pictures.






I am definitely a fan of cities hosting adult sport teams. It is great fun.