What I did like, though, was the pictures we got while we went on a small hike.

If you remember, a few months ago we did this same hike when it was green out. I will post some “before” pictures along the way to help you remember.

We didn’t hike in this area, but where we started is where this path ends near. Look how gorgeous the yellows, blues and greens are in the Summer! If we had snow shoes or skis, this is suppose to be a good hike in the winter. Maybe next year!

Here is where we entered. There isn’t a lot of snow, so it wasn’t too hard to walk on. Most of it was packed down from previous hikers.

A little down the path, further into the wood, is where the waterfall is located. In order to reach the waterfall, you have to go down a very steep set of rock stairs. In the winter, they are heavily snow covered and very slippery.

We basically slid all the way down. But the effort was worth it!

As a refresher, here is what it looked like in the Summer.

It is so peaceful down here. In the Winter, it is a whole new place.

I love the texture that the frozen waterfall created.

While we were down there, we met a man who was taking photos for his wife’s photography class. I am pretty sure he just wanted to play with my camera, but he asked if we wanted our picture taken. So, here is a rare photo of me on my website.

I hate posting photos of myself!

Anyway, it was a lot of fun and I am glad that we ventured out to get these photos.

Why is that?

Because THE GREEN BAY PACKERS WON THE SUPER BOWL!!! Oh yeah! I am a huge Packer fan. I get a little carried away…

I even named one of my vehicles after Rodgers (the quarterback).

Obsessive.

I am also happy because it finally snowed a decent amount last week. We got somewhere between fifteen and twenty inches.

Here are some pictures.

First things first, Matt had to shovel the driveway. Ernie thought he wanted to help, but since the snow was taller than him, and he is a big pansy, he came back in rather quickly.

Actually, before this, I had to actually find him in the backyard. He thought he would follow Maggie out, and quickly realized that the snow was even taller than he realized and he was stuck.

It was actually quite funny.

After the driveway was done, and Matt shoveled away the four feet of snow that the snow plow left at the end of the driveway three times, we went for a drive. We have four wheel drive, and a pretty tall vehicle, so it was fun. Most of these roads were not plowed yet.

The trees were beautiful!!

This is one of the roads that was not plowed. Someone made a tunnel through the snow, but that is actually a 7 foot plus wall ON the road. It was taller than my vehicle, but so much fun to drive through.

These were some of the vehicles that were stranded and left in the middle of the road from the night before. There were several of them alongside this road.

There was so much snow and nowhere to put it, so it had to be taken away by trucks. There are still plenty of city roads that this needs to be done to yet.

Isn’t downtown gorgeous in the winter?

Those weather combinations do not make for good camping.

Anyway, this was also our first camp outing with our dogs, so we just went somewhere thirty minutes away.

The best part about this park is that it has a lot of nice walking trails. And even better is this…

A waterfall! It is in a valley so the temperatures are nice and cool, and it is quite peaceful. Magical really.

I could spend all day down there!

Even with there being people around almost always, it is still a peaceful place.

The dogs did pretty well climbing down into the valley. The stairs were pretty steep, basically just random flat boulders placed to create a path down the hill side. The first time we ever hiked it I forgot to bring tennis shoes so I was stuck sliding around in my flip-flops. Not fun!

The woods also open up to a walking trail alongside the stream. Not a lot of people chose to walk the path so it is a really nice, and quiet hike with plenty of areas to explore.

Surprisingly, the trail later opens up to this gorgeous field full of butterflies and other small critters before going back into the woods. How gorgeous can one trail be?!

After some adventures at the dog beach (Ernie got beat up by a girl pup) and grabbing some ice cream, we headed back to our campsite. For being the last site available, it was actually really nice. I was worried it would be the worst one. But it was nestled in-between some trees and actually pretty private.

It was a good weekend. Hopefully we will be able to have more camping adventures soon!

This is what happened last time.

He ripped up a few paper shopping bags.

And he made sure he did a good job.

Other things they have done?

Maggie has ate spatulas, knocked a glass off the counter and shattered it all over, goes through the garbage religiously (even ones with just paper), and eats things off of the counter.

Since Ernie is smaller and can’t get on the counter or in the garbage – but trust me he would if he could – he has done other things. Like eat the bug spray and assisted in eating an entire container of cat treats, including the lid.

Just when you think the house is dog proof, they prove us wrong.

Anyone want two rotten dogs?

I put together a pack of 16 free bokeh textures for you all to enjoy. Just head on over to the Themes/Resources page to download!

To give you an example of how to use them, I used it on one of my latest photos:

It adds a nice dynamic/texture to a photo. The only thing I ask is that you do not claim the textures as your own and if you use it somewhere it would be nice to be credited.

I hope you enjoy them!

I also made a new design for myself. The other one grew old fast and I wanted something not as bright.

We will see how long this one lasts.

Starting off, the update on my laptop.

I will say that I am never buying a Sony Vaio again. I only owned it for a year and a half and guess what? It is dead. DEAD.

Since the hard drive was all screwed up and Windows basically killed itself, I thought I would reformat the hard drive. I saved my files on Wednesday, after I spent $37.00 on a hard drive recovery program, so I really had nothing to lose. Since I had Solaris on me at the time, I was just going to install that first to make sure that the drive still worked before I went out and spent way too much money on Windows 7.

Well it all went through, but upon doing an update to the new operating system, my laptop started making a lot of noise. Almost like the DVD drive was working over time.

Then. Nothing. It turned off and wouldn’t turn back on. The motherboard died.

Insert explicit language here.

So. I had to go out and buy a new computer since I needed it to go into work the next day.

I had enough with Windows and all of its nonsense so I just bought a MacBook Pro.

The only problem now is that Adobe has the worst customer service ever and won’t transfer my license for CS4 over to a mac license because “they no longer have CS4 stocked in their warehouse to make sure they have enough room for CS5.”

Bullshit.

One: I just need the license not a DVD. Two: The box is like half an inch thick, not like it’s the size of a refrigerator.

And Three: I am pretty much sure that they just want me to buy CS5. But I’m not buying it people.

Anywho. New MacBook Pro = Love. Although I do, sad to say, miss a few PC features. Like the delete vs. backspace keys, the home and end key, and the uniqueness of how the program windows look (such as AIM and MSN). And I can’t use my favorite CSS editor now.

Oh well, moving on. Sorry.

End useless rant.

Yesterday we had the weirdest weather ever. It has been raining pretty much every day for the last few weeks and last night was no exception. Except it decided to storm with clearish skies. It was odd.

But look at the pretty rainbow! I did a poor job at capturing its magnificence but you get the idea. It was the best full rainbow I have seen.

A few seconds after I took this lightning shot across the sky. It was crazy.

But today we finally had a beautiful day. And what better way to end this post than by showing you my two crazy dogs.

They are special.

I applaud you for making it this far. Thank you.

I actually consider it the cats’ bed because they are always on it, as you will see from the photos below.

Since I am very indecisive on most things, I went back and forth between a few sets. I found one I really liked at Target that was on sale, but they didn’t have any in Full size. I even looked online for it and had no luck.

After a few days of pouting, I decided to get the original one I had decided on from Wal-mart. Except, they had an even cuter one. What really made my decision was the cute throw pillows.

Too cute.

Cute little pillow, no?

But I think it brightens up the room very well and the room doesn’t look as small now.

I think Hunter is enjoying it the most.

We got there at about 8:30 a.m. and got done at about 10:30 p.m.

It was a full day of photographing.

The bride had an idea to shoot some pictures out in the middle of nowhere in a park. It was a gorgeous place that I had never been to before and it was perfect for a photo shoot. There were a lot of different textures that worked well as backdrops.

The one problem was getting there.

They had rented two limousines from a nearby town. The problem was that both of the limos were in pretty bad shape. One was missing the front grill and the insides were not nice at all. Wires were hanging down from the ceiling and the seats were all tore up.

They took the chance anyway and off we went. Matt noticed that the limo that the bride and groom were in was smoking a bit and the wheels were wobbling.

We got a few miles out of town and were almost to the location when we dodged something in the middle of the road and then we saw a tire from the limo rolling away.

The wheel was only connected by one lugnut (we didn’t know that beforehand) and it snapped in half! So the limo skidded across the road and into the ditch.

No one was hurt and it didn’t skid very far. But imagine if we were going any faster. It could have been a disaster!

Needless to say, the groom was not happy and sent the limos away.

I can’t believe that a company would send limos in that kind of shape to their clients!

No one, except the bride who was so great through all of this, wanted to take photos after that. So I was lucky that I got the shots that I did.

At least they will have a story to tell twenty years down the road. And hopefully be able to laugh about it!

Here is a picture of our backyard before. See the two pine trees? Those are now gone. Matt and our neighbor sawed them down.

I always struggle with choosing colors because I am more of a visual person. I like to see something in its entirety before I commit to it. Hence, why I am a graphic designer. I love the undo button!

This is why I need your help! I found a color combination that I love and I think will look good on our style of house. But I am just not 100% sure…

These are the current colors. First off, we are going to cut down a lot of these bushes to do new landscaping. They don’t look this nice now and they are trapping moisture next to the house. So they have to go.

I am not sure what type of landscaping I want to do, but I think I will cross that bridge after the painting is complete.

Now, these are the colors I am thinking. The image is from a Better Homes & Gardens article. The house style is kind of similar… well as similar as you can get to our style of house.

The orange is kind of bold, something that I wouldn’t normally do. But I like it. I like how it pops against the brown-ish – whatever you want to call it – color.

We wouldn’t be able to do the cream-ish striped pattern at the peaks because, well, we don’t have peaks like that and ours are too large and it would just look silly. That makes me kind of sad because I think that is one aspect of the color combination that makes it go from bland to exciting.

So, any suggestions?

Do you think those colors would just look strange on our house?

Do you think it would be too dark?

Do I just need to stop thinking so much and go for it?

Help!