2011 in Review+Christmas! Married Style

Hey All!

Happy 2012!

Hope the New Year has treated you all kindly thus far!

To celebrate the passing of one of the best years I've had, I thought I'd do a lil recap using Photos (surprise surprise!)

It was so fun going through all of my old photos over the past year and looking at all the fun we've had!

In January of 2011, we were deep in the bowels of wedding planning!

But we made time for fun things like finding a giant snowman out in Logan Canyon..

Maybe this year, we'll make one!

March 4th... we got hitched!

And what a fabulous day it was. My favorite day thus far! Can you believe that was 10 months ago? Craziness.

After the Wedding we had a little mini-moon down in SLC..

We visited the Aquarium

and the zoo! Wish I would have taken more pictures!

We went down to Provo and got covered in lots and lots of chalk...

and we did it with awesome friends

Clay had his first experience being married to an art major and helped me put together this little number until all hours of the morning...

and even now I think the hours and hours of work were worth it

not sure if Clay agrees ;)

We took a few silly photos together in photo booths

and we caught snakes on a Sunday walk

we wandered the farmer's market and had tasty tasty lemonade

and I had my first experience with a commercial photo studio at my internship at ICON

and I learned a TON. Still missing ICON a little bit to this day

We hung out with these cute kiddos as much as we could...

and they loved us for our iphones...

Clay had his first experience with college classes!

and I officially became a Reed woman on Clay's 22nd birthday after I successfully passed the Reed birthday cake ritual

We added a new member to our little family...

and Clay got a new bike

lots and lots of people got married

and we went to the zoo

with the Reed clan

The hubs taught me how to use a clothes line

and we had a little family togetherness time at my cousin's wedding

I got very tan, spray style

and we ate pizza out on the patio while watching 24... or The Office... or Cops...

We did a lil rock climbing

with our bestie Rach

and I worked a little bit more

Part of our childhood died when we watched the last Harry Potter movie

So bitter sweet

We did a little mattress surfing at a sorority

a little more difficult then you would think

I got to experience my first Reed family camping trip

and we did a lil fishing

and playin

and attempted to get a nice picture of (almost) all of us

I went on a man's trip with these handsome guys...

and got to enjoy the view

our fine steeds

and the fruits of our labor

after being gone for a week, I came home to an amazing surprise

from this handsome guy

we watched lightning storms from our patio

and Clay started his first FULL semester at USU.

And didn't agree with my enthusiasm :)

and I worked a little bit more. But how cool was my job?

we took cute, blurry iphone pictures

and tried our hand at one of my favorite, very strange trends, Planking

We had sleepovers in our living room

We went mini golfing

and decided we are going to invest in putters and become champion mini golfers one day

We had a snow day and made silly faces while drinking hot chocolate

and we took some naps.... Clay took some naps :)

Clay made delicious Filippino food

We carved pumpkins

and went to Lagoon where I got very wet.

we got iphones... oops

and became grandparents to the Luna puppy

we got a brand new nephew!

and hung out with our crazy friends

I took a painting class up at school...

that caused many casualties... my jacket... one of clay's shirts... my fingernails... our poor carpet.... my GPA... I'm clearly not cut out to be a painter

We went to the BYU:USU basketball game.

So much controversy... it was fabulous

and for some brand new news, one of my oldest and best friends got engaged!

I was lucky enough to take their engagement photos! Aren't they cute?

And some of the biggest news of 2011... my lil bro got his mission call!

Brace yourself Albuquerque New Mexico

Feb 22nd... it's going down.

Now, onto the last bit of news from 2011.... Our first married Christmas!

First off... Christmas Eve bowling...

we were a bit intimidated of the competition this year...

but we held our ground the best we could!

Apparently, Devin pulled a Sherlock on us and preferred not to be photographed.

Britton and Clay are feeling very good about life that day

Christmas PJ's this year were the best they've ever been. Britton and Clay's included monogrammed robes

and all of our pj's were chosen based on our preferred method of nerdiness

The Baird family Christmas haul. We (my mom) goes above and beyond the call of duty for Christmas that's for sure.

Opening presents VERY early in the morning

and I'm sorry to say I was a super lame sauce and got NO pictures at the Reed's for Christmas. We spent the day chasing kids around. And I loved every minute of it. :)

On a side note, Devin, (who was my secret santa this year) got me some freaking awesome zombie stuff this year (YAY Walking Dead!) this included these little beauties...

Zombie mints.

Well, one morning I decided a mint would be a great thing to have after brushing my teeth. So I popped open my zombie mints and threw one in my mouth. I did this so quickly, I didn't have time to process the very weird smell that the mints collectively gave off before I had a mint in my mouth.

It took me a second to realize that those mints were NOT mint flavored

In fact, they tasted like some kind of mixture between meat and the smell of cat food

So I investigated the container more closely (see above)

Why yes, those zombie mints are in fact brain flavored

And they do in fact leave a lovely after taste in your mouth, even after you brush your teeth again

and again

and again

Lovely yes?

Well, moving on to a completely different topic that I can't think of a clean segway into...

I got my hair did!

Please ignore the fact that I look kind of preggo in this next photo. I promise I'm not

Man that taco in my hand doesn't help my case much does it?

But my hair is MUCH more blond and fabulous! New year, new do!

Nothing too dramatic. I don't think I'll ever be able to give up my signature bangs... But mark my words, one day I will chop all of my hair off and become the rock star I was meant to be!

Once again, (enter creative segway into a completely different topic here)

Clay had to go back to Logan on the 27th.

Me, having no school, and no work decided to stay behind and hang with the family a little bit longer

Unfortunately this left me without a car

my dad conveniently has this airplane though

and he was nice enough to give me a ride back to Logan!

as you can see, it was a beautiful day for flying

and for some reason, my iphone has the ability to slow down the propeller blades on the plane

how gorgeous is that?

The husband was happy to have me back after almost a week

Being the good husband he is, he had pined and sulked around the house until my return

yah... that was a bunch of bologna

He was very excited to see that I brought home my parent's present to us...

See?

Just imagine the editing I'll be able to do on this bad boy... I get shivers just thinking about it.

2011. You were wonderful

Give 2012 a few tips alright?

Can't WAIT to see what the new year has in store for us

XOXO

Hodgepodge

Hey all!

I'm back! And I'm excited to be blogging again!

Unfortunately I have a TON to catch you all up on!

First off, right before Thanksgiving we hit up a magical little place called

DISNEYLAND!

on the airplane there...

Clay was a Disneyland virgin (gasp!), and of course our first day in California it is POURING rain

So we decided to save the real magic for sunnier days and went to California Adventure the first day

It was a little bit chilly unfortunately

But we went on fun, indoor rides like the Tower of Terror

and not so warm indoor rides like California Screaming

always fun getting pelted in the face by lil droplets of water

Thank heavens it warmed up the next day!

Clay and Devin, excited to sample the sweet happiness that is Disneyland

Splash mountain! Poor Clay (who had just got his feet dry) was a little upset by this ride. :)

No worries! He had fun anyway!

One of my most favorite pictures of all time

The only bad news we had during this fabulous trip was a TON of people!

The stroller parking lot was particularly stressful...

Hey. Wanna see a creepy picture of Clay?

There yah go.

The sucker really adds to it doesn't it?

One of our favorite parts of Disneyland was the new and improved Starwars ride. O my goodness it was AWESOME! Even if the line took an hour and a half to get through.

Thank heavens for fast passes.

Space mountain is always a favorite of ours.

And the castle was all lit up for Christmas!

Waiting in line for Peter Pan

We were given an assignment by our neice, Sierra to send her a picture of a real princess.

Let me tell you princesses are elusive!

We were hanging out waiting for a bathroom break to wrap up and all of a sudden, there is Cinderella! She was MOVING and this is the only picture we got...

And of course, what would a trip to Disneyland be without chocolate covered bananas?

This is for you Rach.

Well after Disneyland and Thanksgiving (which Clay and I unfortunately had to spend apart. Stupid work) It was onto the Christmas season!

One of my favorite parts of being married and having our little home is decorating for holidays.

Yes we had to move some furniture around to get our tree in

My mom is awesome. Can I say that anymore? She hooked us up with lots and lots of Christmas decorations. Including a very tall Santa. Something Clay is very confused about. :)

The tree getting all nice and decorated.

Partially through the decorating process. Please admire my fabulous tree skirt. Thank you TJmaxx.

Also our cute stockings and Clay's nativity. Made in the Philippines!

My mom started a tradition with us last year to get us snowflake ornaments. Here's our cute, engaged ornament from last year.

And our nice tall santa.

The leaves from Thanksgiving are replaced with snowflakes

We listened to the new Michael Buble CD, decorated the house, and of course, wrapped up the evening with hot chocolate

In our giant hot chocolate mugs!

It is so fun to be starting our own Christmas traditions as a family

Alright, onto what has kept me busy for the past month...

FINALS

duh duh duuuuunnnnn.

Yes, I complain about this pretty much every month but this semester nearly killed me.

Literally almost killed me.

Don't believe me?

Well, here's a little story for you.

So being in a studio class, you have to take photos with artificial lighting (obviously)

Unfortunately, our photo program is just starting to gather studio equipment so the pickings are slim

Meaning I scheduled 3 photo shoots in one day

The stress was thick in the air and after 2 photo shoots in the course of 2 hours my creativity was wearing thin by the time my 3rd model showed up.

My first idea was not working out but then I had a stroke of inspiration hit me

I remembered seeing some textured glass down in the studio

Perfect

So I grabbed my model and the 2ft by 6ft sheet of glass

It needed to sit up straight so that I could shoot through it so I grabbed one of the stands,

just to hold the glass upright.

I slipped the glass into the head of the stand while my model held the glass upright.

It seemed to be holding steady so, knowing that my model was holding the other side of the glass I let go to see how it was holding up

The glass EXPLODED

It sounded like a gun had gone off

little shards of glass shot all over the studio

Some of it hit the brim of my hat

This all happened in a split second. I jumped back and looked at the pile of glass dust on the floor

(after it was cleaned up)

and then I looked over at my model...

Which is when I saw the blood

I had been lucky enough to be wearing pants

My model... not so much

We were both barefoot (trying to keep the studio sweep clean) so another girl that was in the studio with us came and carried my model out of the carnage so we could examine the wounds more closely

The hand that she had been holding the glass in was cut

But it was her legs we were most worried about

It looked like she had really bad razor burn with tiny little cuts all over her legs

And one rather larger one that was causing most of the blood that now spotted the studio

And it was pretty wide.

I left the glass mess and loaded my model into the car and headed to Instacare

Where we were rewarded with 5 stitches...

(photo taken from my model's facebook)

Don't worry. She is healing nicely but she did tell me she is never modeling for me again if it involves glass.

Calling my photo professor was probably one of the most terrifying things I've ever done.

He informed me that that glass was NOT supposed to be in the studio and that it was tempered glass.

Which apparently is designed to explode into a million tiny pieces if there is any kind of awkward stress put on the glass.

Oops

But we all made it through with minimal injuries!

In my 19th Century Photographic Processes class we got to try this really cool process called the Wet Plate Collodion Process

It basically involves taking a polished piece of glass (lots of glass around the studio apparently) taking collodion (a chemical that hardens when it is exposed to oxygen) and coating the plate of glass and then dipping it into silver salts, then running it over to the camera before the mixture dries.

It was very difficult to coat the plates and you had about 5 minutes to get the plate to the camera and shoot the photograph but the results were awesome!

My fellow classmates and myself found out something interesting about what happens when I model for collodion wet plates...

Yep. My blue eyes glow like a demon's.

But I thought it was awesome.

Well, besides the incident with the glass the other threat to life and limb was my lack of sleep.

From Monday night to Wednesday night I got a total of 10 hours of sleep.

I stayed up until 5:30 in the morning 2 of those nights.

Ugh

But heaven smiled upon me and I finished my studio final!

Here are the results...

These first ones are our technical shots.

Below is my conceptual stuff...

The cool thing about these next photos is I MADE the locations! These maquettes are about 2 feet tall and made out of poster board! The people were composited in after the fact

Yah... I might have slept for 13 hours Friday. It's fine.

On Saturday after Clay and I had basically sat around in a stupor for the past 24 hours, we realized that there were only 8 days left until Christmas and that we had done no Christmas shopping. We headed out for a few hours and happened to run into this guy on our travels...

O husband. You make me laugh.

Well readers, you really are dedicated if you've made it this far! I'm impressed.

I promise to have more posts soon! Hopefully we'll have some exciting adventures to share over the break!

Hope you all are having an awesome December!

XOXO