and the Award goes to....

I decided to have a vote, I polled myself, and the verdict is in, Connor is the cutest kid ever!

Too Cute

Sometimes my dog is way to cute, which is extremely frustrating, especially when she decided to make my rocket dogs her newest chew toy.

Exhibit A
This is just all-together cute, how can you yell @ this face, especially when she tilts her head and gives you Bambi eyes.


Exhibit B
Her extremely cute white goatee, and her nubbin. This nubbin will wag at supersonic speeds which I swear will send her skyward one day.


Exhibit C
My favorite, her white toes, I want to kiss them they are so darn cute!


In conclusion dog, stay the heck away from my shoes, or I may finally mush you like I've always wanted to do in response to your cuteness.

Festival of Trees

We went to the Festival of Trees last night. Our main purpose behind going was to see the tree donated on behalf of Dalan's grandpa who passed away just over a year ago. While riding his bike he was struck by a car running a red light. The tree was decorated with a bike theme and had some really creative ideas. We are very thankful for everyone who donated time and materials to make this a reality. The proceeds from all of the sales at the Festival of Trees go to Primary Children's, so a very worthy cause.

Relief

So after I finally accepted the fact that my dog looked like a greasy hobo I made her an appointment for a full treatment @ the groomers.  It was like a spa day, she got a shampoo, a cut, her nails done, even the hair plucked from inside her ears.  I was actually terrified for what she would turn out like given her first grooming experience as seen below.



Here is the new Tobey?


Which one do you like best? Lets make this interesting like all the trendy blogs leave me a comment and you can win something like a handful of this crunch n' munch

And Then.....

Hannah beat my high score on Tetris, jerk.

Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very-Bad Day

Remember that book from around 2nd grade that I'm sure we all read.  The poor kid has everything that could possibly go wrong in one day go wrong.  I've now experienced one of those where I can't catch a break.  The last 24 hours have been an absolute joke.  It started last night when I found out I had accidentally deleted one of my memory cards that had 5 pictures for my final on it.  After realizing there was no getting them back I had to search all of my old photos from this semester and try to bs some of them to work for the project.  After I found some that would work ok I uploaded them to Sam's Club website to order the prints.  After they were all uploaded I got an error message saying that they were all sized wrong and had to be cropped on their website.  I couldn't just resize the picture I actually had to take substance off of everyone.  I've already spent hours on these making them exactly right and the right size, so now I have to cut off my hard work and they don't look right anymore.  This morning I woke up late, ran into work, and got chewed out, all before I had even turned on my computer.  I had a million problems to deal with @ work and in the middle of a near nervous breakdown the boss calls asking for a report, that I forgot to do.  Don't worry though when I go to get the info for the report I found out that 3 of my computers are fried, no idea what happened, or how to fix it.  Then I find out that an update didn't go through last week and we are 3 days behind.  I took a lunch and went to pick up my pictures from Sam's when I find out they are out of chemical, and my pictures aren't even ready.  This is really frustrating because I did them early so I would have a few hours to fix any problems.  So I go back to work and get to deal with all of the same stuff again.  After work I went back to get my pictures, and they were done.  I had 21 prints, and one of them was huge, that was the only one I was worried about, because its pretty hard to screw up a 4x6.  I checked out the big picture and it looked fine, I stopped @ WalMart on the way home to buy a frame to house the huge picture because chances are with my day its going to get ruined somehow.  The lady couldn't find a barcode and ended up getting out her keys to un-wrap part of it so she could scan it.  Once I got home I opened up all of my pictures and found out every 4x6 is horribly underexposed.  Not one is even close to what it should be.  Being extremely frustrated I pull out the large picture to frame it because that will make me feel better right? Well when Walmart lady tried to break into the package with her keys she actually scratched a huge portion of the glass on the frame.  So now I have to go return that.  Oh did I mention I found out as I was leaving work that I have to work tomorrow night?  So that means no time to re-do my pictures, or purchase a decent frame.  Great.

Capacity

I read the other day that there is only so much pigment in your hair, and once you use it all up its gone. This makes sense as I think back to my youth when my hair would grow annoyingly fast. Even today its faster than average. I've been able to donate it 3 times in the last 4 years. But wouldn't that be great if there was a slow down button. If I could say, "okay, I would rather not be going gray @ age 22, how about we slow the process a little, and save what pigment is left." Sadly that is not an option. This made me think about other capacities, mainly my brain, and what happens once I use up all of the available storage space there. Is there a purge button that I can get rid of all of the useless information (like my best friends phone # from 4th grade, or the SKU for a graduation tassel) to make extra room for new information. Or like my gray hair am I destined to get old ridiculously young, sit on my front porch (if I had one) and yell at the young children for being too loud, when really I'm just jealous of all the pigment left in their hair.

Twilight Premier

As a lame sort of joke last night Hannah, Amanda, and I went to see twilight.  It was one of those things that make you feel much better about yourself when you see how messed up other people are.  Our evening included capes, screaming hormonal women, and breast feeding.  Apparently finding a babysitter wasn't an option, and neither was missing the movie, sicko.

Nothing interesting

This is Braden's dog Jake.  He got mad and pulled a face.  Sadly his face got stuck like this.  All of the other reindeer now laugh and call him names.

So apparently my life is so lame it is no longer blog-worthy.  I think back to the weeks of multiple posts and wonder if there was really anything going on, or if I had an extra large bowl of random for breakfast.

Gettin' ready

Think its too early?  Me too, but its not going to stop me from adorning them on cute kids for Christmas pictures! 

Tender

So sometimes when my dog is being an absolute nut (pretty much always) I forget how cute she can be.  She was even cuter back in the day.  I just got this pic from my grandma, it was taken when she was about 8 weeks old.  Doesn't she just melt your heart?

New photo shoots

This weekend Meg and I were able to take pics of 2 families, one being my aunt Janae's. They have such cute kids and we had so much fun with them.





This is just a sneak peek, to see the rest check out my facebook page or my photography blog

I think that we are just about ready to start charging and doing this for real. It's scary and exciting at the same time. We also received some emails from my brother so its been a pretty good week. If you want to read them you can look at this blog http://elderbutler.blogspot.com/ I post the letters and pictures he sends to us there.

Can I say AHHHHHH?

So its so stressful, but such a good thing! Meg and I have 3 photoshoots on Saturday. I am so excited it should be awesome. The kids are such cuties from all of the families. But still AHHHHHHH!

Sneak Peak

I was able to take family pictures for my friend Josie the other day. Here is a sneak peak. For more check out Ash Hilton Photography What a cute family, and for sure the happiest baby I have ever seen.

Photo Sessions

Hey all,

I've currently started taking pictures and I am loving it! I'm offering free photo sessions right now to help me gain experience and a portfolio. My best friend Meg is also in on this, so here is the deal:

You get a free photo shoot, this includes a cd of the images, copyright release, and selected editing from 2 photographers.

We in turn will be using some of your photos in our portfolio, pretty simple. Let me know if you are interested!

Dear Prism

Obviously none of us are perfect, but it gets tiring everyday when I log into Prism it has a note that says,

"Last unsuccessful login..." with the date.


Guess what Ash, you're not perfect, and what's more, I just wanted to remind you that on this date, you screwed up.

Thanks,
Prism.

Fatal

Apparently lack of attention is a relevant problem in Tobey's world. She is absolutely sure she is going to die the second I get on the computer and cries at my feet. I have cured her for now though. Apparently picking her up and holding her like a baby will result in her falling asleep in approximately .8 seconds. This is somewhat inconvenient because it forces me to type blog entries 1 handed, but the silence is bliss. And hey if I ever lose a hand at least we know that the blog is safe, unless Tobey decides she's dying again, hmm...

Weekend Project

After work on Friday Dalan informed me that he needed to build something. Two days and two trips to Lowes later this beauty is now adorning our living room.

Jake After Bath Time

So while watching my brother's dog one weekend I had the awesome chance to give him a bath ;P. Most dogs I know run around crazy after a bath, but Jake actually tore apart my living room. His antics included pulling the arms of the couch out, throwing 3 pillows across the room, and knocking a vase off of the end table. Sadly I only had the chance to record about the last minute and a half of his conniption fit.

Uncoordination

While playing one afternoon Tobey and Hurley experienced the equivalent of missing each other's hands on a high five.

The Tobes

The Tobes has a stuffed moose that she carries everywhere. She can't sleep without it. One night she woke Dalan up at 3am insistent that she had to go outside. Apparently she had left him out there earlier that day because she ran out grabbed him and jumped back in bed falling asleep immediately. Moose is usually accompanied in her mouth by at least one other toy sticking out the other side.


Usually Tobey's ears are slightly floppy, but sometimes when we are not giving enough attention to what she finds important at the moment she holds her ears straight up. She looks like some kind of bat or gremlin creature when she does this.


Tobey loves being held on her back like a baby. Around 9:00 every night she finally gets tired and crawls into one of our laps. Sometimes her tongue rolls out the side of her mouth in a dopey grin. This can go on for hours.


Tobey enrolled in a beginner puppy class at PetSmart. We would highly recommend this to anyone with a new dog. Most of the training problems were because of Mom and Dad, not Tobey. We had a great time in class and learned a lot. I think she is on her way to being an awesome pet. Intermediate classes start next month, I can't wait to enroll again!


I absolutely love my puppy, but she can be a handful. Definitely a great prep for kids one day, but I've got my hands full with Tobey and Dalan right now.

Flaming Gorge - The Most Obviously Plagiarized Blog Ever

Thanks Meg for providing all of the info :)

A couple weeks ago, we were sitting in the Morrill's living room. Meg sighed and announced that she needed to get away, she needed some sort of vacation. Thus was born the idea of a 4-day extravaganza.


On Thursday evening we somehow managed to cram 4 people x 4 days worth of stuff into the trunk of Meg's poor Accord. And off we went, arriving at the trailer in Manila after dark. We were greeted by two gnomes and Jesus staring at us from a window ledge. The "trifecta" would continue to watch over us from there during our stay, except for the short stint they pulled in the fridge at one point.




The boys, of course, were bound and determined to get the old record player working. And they did. And we listened to "Hot Rod Hootenanny" for about five seconds before turning it off again.



Day 1
We drove to the marina and got our boat rental set up for the next day. We were introduced to the "wakeboarding boat" we'd be taking. A bright blue monstrosity, which affectionately came to be known as "The Blue Dart." (We're so mature.)

During the afternoon we did a bit of sightseeing.





That night we ventured over to the Daggett County Rodeo, which was quite the experience. Everyone in town got all "gussied up" to come to the big event... but once they got there they refused to cheer. It was the most docile crowd of cowboys I've ever seen.

Day 2
We all woke up early, eager to get our boat out on the Gorge at 8:00. The temperature was perfect, the water was crystal clear, and only rarely was another boat to be seen. After some fishing, we headed back to the dock and picked up a wakeboard.









Throughout the day, both Steve and Dalan would bust out the wakeboard. Dalan was eventually almost able to stand up on it. :)





Eventually Steve biffed it hard enough to decide to call it a day. He got back on the boat with an array of scratches, bruises, and a bit of a headache.





We turned the boat back in at 6:00. Over the course of the day, we all went from using 30 SPF to heaping helpings of 70 SPF, but still wound up a bit toasty.

Day 3
To start off Steve's birthday, we headed over to Red Canyon Lodge and got ourselves some horses to ride. We did a half-day ride and after 4 hours of sitting in the saddle, we were all sore, dirty and ready for some relaxing.

I rode Shaker who had some digestion issues. Dalan became very attached to Mabel, so much so that he made her a theme song that dealt with her going back to the stable and not being allowed at the dinner
table.



Meg got Foxy, who gave me very little trouble. But poor Steve got to deal with Tiny, who was ginormous and actually mowed down a tree during the ride.








That night (after an afternoon nap) we found a gorgeous little campsite to cook dinner. We had marinated chicken... and we meant to have some potatoes with it, but they became victims of a tragic cooking accident.




After dinner, we made pies and stuck a few matches in Steve's since birthday candles were not available. :)






Day 4
We crammed everything back into the trunk and headed to Jordan Commons. We all had a date with the IMAX theater and Batman. It was an incredible movie, though, obviously not one I'd take kids to. Hands down my favorite part was Heath Ledger as the Joker. It was a phenomenal way to wrap up a fun vacation.