Yellowstone 2013

This summer Logan and I went up to Yellowstone with his family and some of our family friends. We started off with the Playmill's show "Fiddler on the Roof." That was my first time seeing that show and I was a crying mess. We sat in the front row and Papa was right in front of us with TEARS streaming down his cheeks into his beard. REAL TEARS- so I was a mess.

The next morning we all had breakfast at the hotel and got everything packed up to go into Yellowstone Park. But we had a little setback. Our friend DeVere was loading things into his truck when the bed cover fell onto his head, splitting it open, bleh. It was a pretty nasty gash, but the clinic wouldn't be able to get him in until later that day so they decided super glue would do just fine.

We entered the park and went towards the Lower Falls for our first stop. As we drove there we were the first car in a line that had to stop because a buffalo walked in the middle of the road and right next to our car.

 And then in the parking lot of the lower falls this gem came right through and I think Logan was a little stressed that I kept following it and getting closer and closer to get the shot I wanted because I was shooting with out my zoom lens for this one.

Lower Falls was beautiful! I'm always amazed at the beauty of this earth and the wonders that Heavenly Father has placed here for our enjoyment. We I took a long time taking pictures, etc, etc so from there we went on to have some lunch at the lake. We sat on a hill overlooking the lake and watched the smoke from a fire in the park grow bigger and bigger.

 My husband the poser

After lunch, we packed up our cars back up and headed to Old Faithful. We got there with perfect timing, even if we got stuck behind the WORST driver ever and it took longer than it should have. We waited about 15 minutes and it erupted. Remember that whole amazed by the beauty? Yep, this qualifies as well.

Have you ever been to Fire Hole? Well, next year when you plan your Yellowstone National Park trip, make time for a Fire Hole swim! This was my first year ever going there and I wish we would have spent all day there. The water is warmer than normal Idaho water. And you will just have to watch the video to understand what it looks like, but there is places to just be out and swim, a little rock to jump off, and this awesome little rapid thing to jump into and the current pulls you down into the swimming area. Soo cool!! Logan had a cold and didn't want to make it worse so all these pictures are his; lesson learned, giving your husband the camera will result in more pictures of you than you would ever want.

Waterfall before you get to the swimming hole

 Logan made a new friend

 I love this shot of Papa Paul (my father in law)

 Just swam up current- money

Yellowstone video-

Counting Stars

Arizona- Frost Family Reunion

This summer seemed to fly by because there was so many things going on ALL the time. The day my spring semester, we packed up the car and Logan, Amanda, Emily, and I all headed for Arizona for our Frost family reunion. The reunion was the first one my mother-in-laws family has ever had.

We all took turns driving and sleeping. My turn to drive ended in a HUGE storm right before St. George and I hate driving in storms. My fear got to the point of tears welling up in my eyes making it even worse; Logan told me to pull off an exit and we switched thankfully. He drove the rest of the way to his sister Rachael's house. We pulled in at 4:30 am. For almost all of the drive I stayed awake with him and just enjoyed the little moments we had to talk and enjoy the silence with him.
When we stepped out of the car at Rachael's it was hot ridiculously hot and muggy and gross. When we walked in Tami (she flew down earlier), Rachael and Davis all came down to talk to Logan and I; we finally got to sleep around 5:15. A few hours later I was woke up by the sounds of little Fin. I got up and went and got her and the rest of the morning was spent playing with the kids and then going to Big Surf with some of the Frost family. Living in Idaho during the summer, you go to a waterpark to feel refreshed and cooled off. The only thing cold at this waterpark was the water in the bathroom; the pool water was like a warm bath. Not refreshing whatsoever, but it was a lot of fun to catch waves and ride them in and go down all the slides. After we left the park, we headed to our Uncle David's house for some yummy dinner with the family.

The next day we headed out for Show Low, Arizona to Grandpa Frost's ranch. As we drove, Logan and I missed the turn that takes us to where we needed to be, good thing I checked the phone to make sure we were going the right way. We went about 20 minutes past the turn so another 20 minutes later we were back on course. Everyone was going to meet at Grandpa's house in Snowflake that night for dinner. From his house, you can see the Snowflake Temple on the hill, it was such a pretty view.
Friday morning we headed down to the ranch to ride four wheelers, sit around the campfire, play some basketball and just enjoy being with everyone.
When Mr. Logan and I dated he told me that the ranch was one of his favorite places to be and now I understand why. The ranch is out away from the city and there are so many places you can go. Logan and I went on quite a few four-wheeler rides and he showed me some of his favorite look outs; those moments when we would go off, I was able to just enjoy those moments of hugging him while I was on the back of the four-wheeler and the moments of peace and quiet we shared together. That is one of the memories I hope to remember for eternity- sitting beside him looking out at the beauty that this world has to offer and worrying about nothing.

 The whole group that came for the reunion

 My Mr. Attractive :)

And I made a little video from our trip!

 Take a Back Road

Fowler Family Pictures 2013

As a photographer, I really enjoy doing family pictures every year because there are changes, growth, and new memories to preserve; this year though marks one that could be the last for a few more years that we would all be together to be able to take pictures together. Troy and Carrie and the kids moved to Colorado for his residency program for the next 3 years. Later this summer, Cody and Kinzie moved across the country to Pennsylvania for his PA school. So here's a look at how our family has grown. We now have Mr. Logan in the picture and all the little kiddos have grown.

 The Colorado Fowler fam

 Trent, Lindsey and Logan

 This is how family pictures really go for us- kids jumping off rocks, each other, being thrown around, and just about anything else you can imagine

 The Fowler sisters

Brothers

 J+C

 And I just think Chelsea is gorgeous in this one

 Mom and Dad

 Pennsylvania Fowler's

photo-bombing at it's finest

 

I decided to play around with the video setting on my camera before Troy and his family moved to Colorado. Here's the link to watch the video of some of the things we did before they left!

On Top of the World

Spring Semester 2013

Warning this post is filled with the frustrations and struggles I had with school and it strongly lacks in pictures. You have been warned.

I am enrolled at BYU-Idaho for the Winter/Spring track. During the winter semester because of the wedding, I chose to defer the semester so I had from July 2012 to April of 2013 off. That was the first mistake with my last spring semester; I had been out of school for so long and I had been enjoying spending my time doing the things I wanted and focusing on photography, wifey things, and loving life. Spring semester seemed to me what summer school would feel like for a teenager; I always wanted to be out playing and doing things other than homework, especially because Logan wasn't enrolled.
My second mistake was not being prepared for my registration that just so happened to be while we were on our honeymoon. I remembered one of the days that we were on sea that registration was supposed to be while we were there and I needed someone at home to register for me. My sister in law Chelsea was so kind and got on an looked into classes I needed to take and got me a full schedule to meet scholarship requirements. After we came home, I kind of forget about all of it and didn't really check into any of the courses until a week or two before the semester started.
The third mistake was that I made completely unrealistic expectations for myself. I wanted to be wifey and have the apartment always clean, make food, and be the best wifey around. I wanted to be pushing myself farther in my photography career. And I wanted to continue to keep good grades and maintain my scholarship.
A few of my classes were for my major in marriage and family relations (no, I am not taking any photography classes at school) and classes to fulfill the foundation credits. I did take one class that was just an elective and enjoyment class. I have always loved to dance so I asked Chelsea to sign me up for a modern dance class and I was reminded of the passion I have for dancing. Some of my other classes were loaded with so much homework that I would come home and do homework for hours on end.

As the semester progressed I felt so drug down and tired all the time. I was up to my eye balls in stress with my homework load and wishing I was doing photography instead and the wifey stuff just wasn't happening the way I wanted it too. I was really starting to struggle with one class and my teacher hadn't finished putting all of our grades in (didn't finish until the last day of the semester) so I had no idea how I was really doing. Throughout all of high school and college, I was confident with my study skills and everything, but I my confidence was fading in my science abilities. After realizing I needed help, I signed up for a tutor. And I was humbled. I'm so grateful I went to the tutor, that was one of my favorite classes, but I wasn't enjoying it because I couldn't recall and put it all together. But I went to the tutor twice and I learned how to help me remember, from there on, I LOVED that class and ended it with a high A.

During all this stress and frustrations, Logan was the one who always picked me back up, dusted me off, put a smile on my face. He truly is my rock and best friend. No one has ever been able to help me calm down and get refocused the way he has. He is my cheerleader, coach, and teammate all in one. And I sure love him. We started to talk about the possibilities that are before me now and what path we think I should take. Some of those include the idea of me graduating with my associates after the next semester so I can just push myself with photography. Another is to continue with my degree but also start taking some other classes for a minor in accounting or business. And another option would be to graduate with my associates after winter semester 2014 and then going to the College of Massage Therapy that just opened in Rexburg. This is something that has always interested me, but it wasn't ever close enough for me to really consider it, but now I am. And now we are left to decide, but we will see what the Lord wants us to do and we will trust Him to lead us where we need to be.

Now you now where we are standing for what is going on with my schooling stuff! Sorry for all the frustrations, but for the purpose of printing our blog out in a year, I want to remember all this. I'm grateful for the tough times, because it has shown me how grateful I should be to have the opportunity to go to school and gain an education. It also reminds me of how wonderful my dear sweet Mr. Logan is and lets me know, I truly married up.

Our "Home"

When Logan and I got back from our honeymoon, we showered, did laundry and started packing our cars full of stuff to move into our apartment that day. It was a crazy mess because nothing was really in boxes; we just hauled stuff up. We lived in the Ferrinsquare aparments on College Avenue in Rexburg. The complex used to be a hotel and below us was the Craze where lots of punk teenagers like to hang out. I had a few bad experiences with them. We were in walking distance to Broulims, Little Caesars, Florence's chocolate, Cocoa Bean, and way too many other yummy food places.

Our apartment complex had a lot of apartments and they all have different layouts. I'm not sure if any of them are the same. Ours was shaped like a bunny. Our bedroom was the bottom half, then the living room was the head, and our kitchen and bathroom made the ears; got it pictured? It wasn't a big apartment. It was tiny and by the time we moved out, I made Logan promise me we wouldn't live in an apartment that small again.

We had an amazing ward and great managers. We were so grateful to have found that apartment and had the experience to live there. We lived there for 5 months and we made great friends and memories from those months there.

 Our bedroom- we did have a HUGE closet. It had mirror sliding doors and the closet went the whole wall that you can't see from these pictures. That was pretty sweet!

 One of my lovely roommates Hannah made these pillowcases for us.

 Our small tiny kitchen

We didn't have a dishwasher- oh the torture- but we survived washing by hand. Our kitchen was tiny and our fridge/freezer made all of our food taste bad, even our milk. Bleh. So we ate out more than we should have because we couldn't get our fridge switched out. There was rarely anything in the fridge other than condiments, milk, cheese and tortillas because of the taste.

Logan and I have a slight obsession with Kitchen Aid; with gift cards to Macy's we were able to get the red Kitchen Aid toaster, my parents got me the Kitchen Aid for Christmas, and behind the paper towels is a little holder full of kitchen aid gadgets (ice cream scoop, potato masher, pizza slicer, veggie peeler, etc).

When I graduated high school my mom and I decided to start collecting dish sets for me. I chose the Fiesta brand because I really liked the look and colors they had. I started out with all red, but I took some back and exchanged to have turquoise too! We got all of our sets from Kohls. They are normally $50, but we would watch for sales and get them for around $25.

Living room/kitchen table area

Now can you see how the kitchen and bathroom were the bunny ears?

Bathroom- it was already painted green

 Well, now we have moved out and live in Shelley with my parents. Three months ago when our contract came up to be renewed we decided to renew it, but we felt prompted to pray about it and go to the temple together. While we were there, we both felt prompted that we needed to move out. We followed the prompting and finished out our contract. While we were waiting for our contract to end we looked everywhere for housing and nothing felt right. Finally we came to the decision that for the fall semester we should maybe live with my parents. Logan will be going to school Monday, Wednesday, Friday in the fall and I will be off track. Logan will also be working at Olive Garden throughout the fall so either way he would be traveling. For whatever reason, we know the Lord has brought us to my parent's home for a reason and we are so grateful for them allowing us to live there.

That was it! That was our first home together. And now we are "home" together at my parent's home. I'm grateful to have a home no matter where I am with my Mr. Logan. Home is wherever I am with him.