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St. Croix Garden Tour

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A few weekends ago I drove up to Minnesota to surprise my mom for her birthday weekend. The surprise was a big success (the look on her face was priceless), and it ended up being a perfect, albeit short, weekend with my family. That Sunday, her actual birthday, we went on the St. Croix Garden Tour. My family generally goes every year, though it has been a while since I was able to join. We saw some beautiful gardens, and it was fun seeing my nephew enjoying it all as well.

This first garden was my favorite from the tour. It was located on a plot of land that used to be a dairy farm, and had massive gardens that sprawled through the woods, and included a perfect little creek, the old dairy barns, and a tennis court tucked in the back. It was stunningly beautiful. 

The gardens after that were a bit smaller, but each had their own charm. My family got lots of ideas for their own gardens from the tour, and I kept on dreaming about the home I will have someday. 

New posts over the next few weeks may be a bit sporadic, as I get ready to help Scott move to Colorado next week, and then move myself a few weeks after that. I will try to keep things up here, but if it go quiet, trust that I will get caught up again after I am settled in somewhat. 

Christmas in Spearfish (Part 6)

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Now that my thesis show is over, I finally have had some time to finish up images from Christmas!

We had planned on leaving December 30th, but that morning the car refused to start. After Scott and my brother suffered through the below zero temperatures while trying to get it started for nearly half a day, which involved a new battery, multiple sets of jumper cables, and a space heater, we ended up having it towed to the dealership in town. They found that the starter needed to be replaced, and so we opted to just leave the next morning and instead spent the rest of the day lounging with my family. I took advantage of it and pulled out my camera to grab some images of my nephews as they wrestled and ran around. 

That is (finally) it for the images from our Christmas trip. Stay tuned for photographs of my thesis installation up next! 

Christmas in Spearfish (Part 3)

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This Christmas was perfect. We woke up while it was still dark, but as it got light we were able to see the snow coming down heavily outside, just like a snow globe. When I picture my ideal Christmas, this was it. Plus, Christmas morning is so much better with little nephews around. The excitement they have is absolutely contagious, and you can't help but smile as they scream with joy while ripping off wrapping paper to discover what is inside. After opening presents and eating too many waffles with whipped cream, we went for a walk in the snow with the boys, which may have been the highlight of the day for me.


Christmas in Spearfish (Part 1)

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Happy holidays everyone! This is the first post of a short series documenting this year's Christmas adventure. Last year Scott and I went on a long road trip with his parents to visit his sister and her family in Arizona (you can see images from that here). We spent quite a bit of time climbing, and had hopes of making that one of our Christmas traditions as a couple. This Christmas Scott and I decided to visit my brother and his family in Spearfish, South Dakota, since I hadn't seen them in over a year. As an added bonus, Spearfish has a rather incredible climbing scene, including ice climbing (which I will get into in later posts), which allowed us to continue the tradition. 

Our drive out to Spearfish was a bit of a stressful one. It is a long drive (nearly 12 hours), and on top of that we had to deal with some not so pleasant weather. The winds started to pick up midway through Nebraska, and by the time we hit South Dakota we were driving in wind gusts of 60 mph, and sustained winds around 40 mph. The snow and ice picked up in South Dakota as well, though luckily the roads didn't start to freeze until we were less than an hour away from my brother's house. We were quite glad we left as early as we did, or we would have been in a much worse situation.  

The day after we arrived involved a pleasantly lazy morning watching the snow slowly fall outside. A perfect little snow flake was stuck on the window, and I couldn't resist attempting to photograph it. We have been lucky (in my opinion) and had some snow every single day of our stay here, and I have been loving every minute.

That evening we went for a ride on an 1880s train with my brother, Kyle, his wife, Michelle, and their twin boys. The train was a Polar Express style ride, complete with sugar cookies, hot chocolate, and a visit from Santa after we picked him up from the North Pole. The boys were great and loved it all, and it was a nice little adventure for us as well. Unfortunately, it was quite dark and since the boys are constantly in motion, the opportunities for photographs were minimal, but I did manage to get a few that are worth sharing (though mostly just ones of Kyle and Belle). 

That's all for now, since I have hundreds of images still to sift through and edit. I hope you all had a very merry Christmas, and wonderful New Year's celebrations!

 

The DePriests

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Yesterday I had the pleasure of going out to shoot some family photographs of the DePriest family. I have been babysitting these amazing kiddos since this fall and have come to completely adore the family. Unfortunately, as a result of being a military family, they are moving in just a few short days and so this was really my last chance to spend some time with them. Even though it was a quick shoot, I am so glad I was able to grab some images for them before they head off on their next adventure!