Jamestown Conference

Last weekend was our third annual Jamestown NY Stake YSA conference. We keep trying to plan things early and each year planning goes awry, but things went really well this weekend. It's just hard planning when you have the holidays and planning sessions canceled due to snow right when it's crunch time. Laura and I were the most consistent YSA planners, a few others helped but not as much. Let's just say I slept really well when it was all done!

Instead of having things at the stake center and farming people out to member's homes, this year we decided to try having everyone camping in cabins, which worked out well. Camp Hawthorne Ridge is not far from school so I was happy to have a short commute. It also didn't make sense to have everyone drivel up to Jamestown when they are coming from the South- no one would be coming from Buffalo or someplace like that. Everyone rolled in from Pittsburgh, Ohio and West Virginia.

Friday night was spent playing board games, we served yummy food and just wanted people to have fun chatting and relaxing. People roll in at all hours of the night, so it's hard to do much else. People had fun, they stayed up late chatting and playing.

On to Saturday:

We had breakfast and then classes, I taught about easy things to improve your photography. I put together a Powerpoint presentation that I'll share more about soon. It was a lot of fun to teach and I got a good response. We had another good class about Cooking on a Budget and then then Brother Trusel taught about Dry-Pach Canning with the help of his lovely assistant, Bertha (aka Betsy his wife, she does this bag lady bit that is hysterical!).

We didn't know if everyone would be excited to do their own can of rice but they were!

The Strassbergs from the Palmyra temple also came and spoke, they were great. I've gotten to know them from my recent trips to the temple (for Rene and then Dan & Sissy's sealing) so I really enjoyed having them there.


We had an ice carving demo from Bro Alexander, I didn't know if people would care but they loved it!

Had fun at freetime, went to Presque Isle, which is just so lovely anytime of the year. I tried out my new DSLR. Part of Lake Erie was frozen!

Cute houseboats:


Gotta love lighthouses:

Ice dunes were neat!

Then we rushed back for dinner and our 80's dance! I wished the dance had gone a bit better (I think I would have been a better dj) but it was still fun!

All of my outfit is new, it's hysterical to me how 80's influenced everything is these days!

Me and my friend Anne:

After the dance, the boys had built a bonfire by their cabin and invited us girls, I had to laugh at their macho attempt to impress us. Because being a pyro is so attractive, lol.

On Sunday, we had sacrament meeting in the main cabin, which was interesting. The Strassbergs spoke more about temples (very lovely) and then we had a really nice testimony meeting. Then it was time to grab some food and go home!


Me and my friend Levi (I tease him about being a vampire, lol)

I did not get much sleep this weekend- all us girls were crammed in our cabin and it was not restful! I came home, slept like a log for hours, ate dinner and then went right back to bed! And I was still tired come Monday morning!

In all, everyone gave us rave reviews, which was great. I tried really hard to make things more fun/better than the other conferences that I've traveled to. We had some spoilsport girls from our stake who couldn't just have fun (Odds are you will *not* meet Mr. Right at this shindig, get over it! Like they're gonna want you anyhow when you three were so snotty!) and went home early but they were the only ones and really nothing would please them. Other people who left early did so for callings, baptisms, etc, not because they weren't having fun. In all we had about 50 YSA, a great number. I don't know how we'll top it but we'll try next year!

Stay tuned for my Photo 101 class!

Winter Break

I had a fairly decent New Year's, I spent the evening with a few YSA and our leaders. There were more leaders than us, but we had a good time playing games and stuffing our faces. Everyone wore a party hat or crown. It was fun to watch the New Year's countdown on tv cause I haven't watched that in a couple years (we don't have tv!). But where did I really want to be? At the big fancy New Year's dance in Seattle with my friends. I scoured around but none of the other "nearby" {snort} stakes out here were doing anything.

Laura, me, KL and Michelle:

Hank was festive too:

After New Year's, it snowed a TON! Like feet of snow in a couple of days. I went a little (okay, a LOT) crazy from cabin fever but managed to get out a couple of times. It also didn't help that my family kept passing several diseases around so you were either sick or tending to someone else.

Cemetery in Erie:

Laura with Grant in Erie


Snowy berries:


This barn by the post office is a good backdrop:

Laura feeding the neighbor's swan & ducks:

Me by the fallen apple tree:

Don't you love my new hat? Gotta love clearance at Fashion Bug! I wear it all the time. And I'm not a hat person!

Since these photos, our snow has condensed down to six inches of grainy ice, it's become quite hazardous to your health to walk outside. I really like my ice cleats! It's all dirty out too, no more clean pretty snow. I am starting to become Eskimo-like with all the different words for snow that I now have!

Break was also spent planning final preparations for our YSA conference...which we are hosting this weekend! A lot to do since there are so few YSA in our stake these days, but I think we'll have fun. Stay tuned for pics and wish me luck!

How I Roll

Stole this from Angela. Here are the rules: Bold the things you’ve done and post on your blog!

Started your own blog
Slept under the stars
Played in a band (EHS junior high band, I'm so cool!)
Visited Hawaii
Watched a meteor shower
Given more than you can afford to charity
Been to Disneyland (5 times! I want to go now!)
Climbed a mountain
Held a praying mantis
Sang a solo (Does singing a duet count?)
Bungee jumped
Visited Paris
Watched a lightning storm at sea
Taught yourself an art from scratch
Adopted a child (someday!)
Had food poisoning(ugh!)
Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
Grown your own vegetables (so yummy!)
Seen the Mona Lisa in France
Slept on an overnight train (going from WA to CA when I was a kid...my first rejection from a boy...so romantic, lol)
Had a pillow fight
Hitch hiked
Taken a sick day when you’re not ill (my dad wanted me to so we could see tall ships!)
Built a snow fort
Held a lamb
Gone skinny dipping
Run a Marathon
Ridden in a gondola in Venice
Seen a total eclipse
Watched a sunrise or sunset
Hit a home run
Been on a cruise
Seen Niagara Falls in person
Visited the birthplace of your ancestors(does visiting my birthplace count?)
Seen an Amish community (everyday occurance here!)
Taught yourself a new language
Had enough money to be truly satisfied
Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
Gone rock climbing
Seen Michelangelo’s David
Sung karaoke
Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
Visited Africa
Walked on a beach by moonlight
Been transported in an ambulance
Had your portrait painted
Gone deep sea fishing
Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris (someday!)
Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
Kissed in the rain
Played in the mud
Gone to a drive-in theater
Been in a movie
Visited the Great Wall of China
Started a business
Taken a martial arts class
Visited Russia (I had a pen pal from there, does that count?)
Served at a soup kitchen
Sold Girl Scout Cookies(well, Campfire candy...)
Gone whale watching
Got flowers for no reason
Donated blood, platelets or plasma
Gone sky diving
Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
Bounced a check
Flown in a helicopter
Saved a favorite childhood toy
Visited the Lincoln Memorial
Eaten Caviar
Pieced a quilt
Stood in Times Square
Toured the Everglades
Been fired from a job (Old Navy didn't keep me on after Christmas 2001)
Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
Broken a bone
Been a passenger on a motorcycle
Seen the Grand Canyon in person
Published a book
Visited the Redwoods
Bought a brand new car
Walked in Jerusalem
Had your picture in the newspaper
Kissed a stranger at midnight on New Year’s Eve
Visited the White House
Killed and prepared an animal for eating
Had chickenpox
Saved someone’s life
Sat on a jury
Met someone famous
Joined a book club
Got a tattoo
Had a baby
Seen the Alamo in person
Swam in the Great Salt Lake
Been involved in a law suit


Hmmm...I turned into a fuddy-duddy at the end. There you go. I want to see the sights/art that they describe here real bad!

I {heart} Christmas

Yeah so this post is a wee bit late. Get over it! I don't have internet access at home while I'm on break and I love posting about Christmas. Maybe one of these days I'll come to grips that it's 2010!



Anyhow, I probably should've showed this before Christmas, but maybe you remember this and do it next year. It's a fun photo trick, anyhow. I learned how to do this way back when I was in photo class but was reminded recently on Color Me Katie here and here.

I am magic, I have turned my tree into hearts!

So how did I do this? Easy. You do have to have a manual camera, though. You cut a heavy piece of paper to fit your lens, then cut a little heart or whatever shape you want in the middle. The heart I cut was only a quarter of an inch big. Set up your tripod, set your camera to manual focus, and adjust until you see hearts (or stars, lol!). Have fun!

Vintage Christmas

I love vintage, and Christmas is no exception. One day I'd like to be all decked out like this:

{Image Rhonna Farrer}

...but I made some strides this year. I found some little bottlebrush trees at Walmart and at some drug stores that have a vintage vibe (and they were like a buck each!). They lived with Mom's things in the wardrobe:

I love love love little cardboard village houses, found a couple this year. They're only a couple bucks each as well, making for an affordable, cute display!

I love my Cracker Barrel Santa:

Dad has had this Santa for a long time, it's cute:

I found an antique place that sold vintage reflectors that go on big Christmas lights, you don't see these much:

I love vintage ornaments, and I loved the box too:

I used them and some vintage bells I found to make a garland over my closet door. The tinsel was from Walmart, I loved the shape!

I also found these sweet little molds, I'll turn them into ornaments one day. I think it'd be sweet to have a vintage kitchen themed tree when I get a kitchen of my own.

And there's new ornaments that look old, gotta love it!

I loved these quilts that I saw at Cracker Barrel, might have to copy them!

Aren't yo-yo's sweet?

When I was up in NY shooting the wedding I killed some time at this HUGE antique mall. Loved it! Couldn't buy everything, but it was fun to look:

Gotta love vintage Christmas linens!

You don't see many vintage tree stands, I liked this one but the $18 price tag was too much:

Aren't all these Santas cute?

And there were some great village houses, so tempting!

I think vintage Christmases are the best!