I am so bad at blogging. Summer update.

I am so lame! I don't ever update my blog. Even though lots of cool stuff happens in my life. Well... sort of cool... Okay not that cool. But stuff does happen!
Anyway, here's the update for summer. I've been at home and I've been able to get some cool stuff done around here. The main highlight of the summer so far has been my training to become a yoga teacher.

Yes, I'm going to do this one day. And I'll be that thin.

 I am learning from my friend Jo at Yoga Jo's here in North Ogden. (yogajos.com FREE classes, come see me teach one day) It's a lot of fun and I'm learning a ton of different things about the body, the mind, and even meditation. All good things.
On top of these teacher training classes and my own personal yoga practice, I've been out running/jogging/walking everyday in order to help my workout. It's been sort of killer. I've been either jogging for 1.5 to 3 miles or I've been walking/jogging for two hours on and off on the Ogden River trail. Good stuff. I feel a lot healthier than I did coming home from Provo, and I have learned to discipline myself to go out and do something to get my heart pumping.
In past news, my family and I went to Yellowstone National Park about 2-3 weeks ago and we had a great time. It was my first time back since after my mission. I love YNP and we were able to explore the park more, without bear attacks. I even exercised my Nature Photo skills and knowledge to make cool images. Here is one.

Lower Falls, Yellowstone National Park

Now, there is a badly edited part in the sky, but come on, I was just learning. :) Anyway, so I got some pretty good stuff out of it! And rest and relaxation is always a +. If you haven't been to Yellowstone, please go soon. It's a wonderful place. Also Grand Teton National Park. Example:

The Grand Tetons at Oxbow Bend

But now I'm back in the city of Ogden. We came back from Yellowstone on July 4th in the morning and were here in time to celebrate Independence Day with our neighbors and with fireworks. Just stay at home fireworks, not my annual Weber High football field fireworks. Cause I didn't have anyone to go with. :( Anyway, we still had a great time and I was able to get to sleep even with all the booms and crashes going on outside.
So now that all that stuff is done and over with, I'm just looking forward to finishing yoga teacher training, which actually won't happen for a while and also it's good to know that Pioneers Day is coming up, which is always a fun celebration. More fireworks! :D
Oh! I almost forgot the most important part! I've been practicing the art of editing my photos. Well, of people. The photos of nature seem a little easier to edit, but with people you have to worry about editing skin, eyes, lips, blemishes, and many other small details. So I was looking to take some simple portraits and I got my friend Sam to help me. As much as I think I'm a "creative" artist (cause all artists are creative), I did pretty cookie-cutter portraits that look like studio shots or maybe even senior portraits. Nice, simple, good looking, just not all that innovative and crazy. But it turned out for the better. They were easier to edit and I think I did well. Here they are.

Pretty good work, right? At least I hope so. I know that when I get back to school in Fall I will have a specific class about editing and in Winter a specific Portrait class. But for now, I think that I did pretty well. And what's really nice is that a lot of my friends actually said that they want me to do photos for them now! In conclusion, I might start a small little business of portraits and see where I can go from there. It was just good to actually do a photo project in the summer since I've been vegging around the house.
And that brings me to my final comments. I have new photo ideas!! *applause* This next semester I'll be taking a class with 4x5 cameras.

Vintage no?

And I already have my photos somewhat planned. I want to make images that can be used in a series so for each assignment I want to link the image to a Fairytale. It's mostly been spawned by my new-found love of the musical Into the Woods. (Go watch it on Netflix! Now!) But yeah, I am going to do photoshoots based on fairytales and hopefully all will turn out great.
Okay, this is actually a long post with all the photos and everything.