Hayleigh's Blessing - Family Pictures

Before Hayleigh's blessing on Sunday, both sides of the fam gathered outisde the church for a few pictures.

This is about as cooperative as anyone could get the boys to be.

Here are the Garners.

And I have some serious reservations about putting a super ugly picture of myself on my OWN blog (for crying out loud), but here are the Knights, too. (Thanks to Uncle Dave for taking the picture!)

And, finally, Hayleigh with her parents.

She's much more cooperative. :)

After the Fall Colors in Provo Canyon

Dad, Ames and I went up Provo Canyon last night after work to capture the fall colors. Dad said they were really nice on Saturday.

Unfortunately, it looks like the rain took out most of the leaves, so there were a lot of bare branches and less-than-awe-inspiring colors.

Regardless, we did take a few fun pictures.

My white balance was on Auto (oops) for most of these, so they're a little on the blue side. Oh, well. I think the subject matter is fall-ish enough, even if they're not the typical fire-colored leaves.

This last picture doesn't really show it very well, but this was a HUGE field full of these cattails. Dad and Amy got closer pictures, but to get there they had to cross a river on three narrow felled trees. I was in as-yet-un-weatherproofed suede stilettos, so I wasn't about to venture across the river. Maybe Ames will post some of the pictures she took.

I hope you enjoyed (or still get to enjoy) the fall leaves in your area! If not, click here to enjoy them vicariously via Flickr.

Friday Faves : Favorite Cities I've Visited (and Stayed longer than 24 hours)

Woops! A bit behind schedule, but here it is...

Favorite Cities I have visited and stayed in for longer than 24 hours.

1. Paris (of course) - everything about it is wonderful

2. Florence - Art and architecture, the David

3. Berlin - the museums were amazing, and there is SO much significant (and RECENT) history

4. New York City - Broadway, the bustle of so many people in so few square miles, great international food

5.Rome - ummm... what's not to love? Gelato, architecture, the Vatican, creepy Italian men trying to kiss me (oh, wait... icky).

What are your favorite cities to visit? What makes them appealing to you?

Brand New Features the Vancouver Olympics

One of the design blogs I read is called Brand New. Its focus is on logos and other branding elements created by/for different companies. Usually the posts are about a company that is updating their brand image, with commentary and opinion by the post author (and usually getting raked over the coals by everyone else who comments).

Today they posted about the "graphic identity" of the Vancouver Olympic Games. Personally, I think the look they're going for is ugly for the most part, but I do like the concept of their emblem (more than the look of it). The paralympic emblem isn't too bad, actually.

Top 100 Books

In 1998, Random House published a list of the Top 100 Books of the 20th Century, chosen by an editorial board. This list was reported by the NY Times (click here for that article), and posted on the Random House Modern Library website. In addition to the board's list, there was a list compiled based on reader feedback, and a list compiled by students in Radcliffe's Publishing Course (of which 42 were apparently subject to attempts or successful banning from libraries or school curriculum).

I have combined all three lists and sorted them by title, showing the list they were on and their ranking in that list. I think I'm going to work my way through the lists starting with the books that made it onto all three (highlighted in grey).
Click here to see my list.

Text + Photo = Laziness on My Part

This month's challenge at Takeout Photo was Text + Photo. Marc did some great tutorials using Photoshop and posted a lot of inspirational ideas. I'm just lazy, if we're going to be honest (well, that and I don't have Photoshop of any kind on my computer), so I used my new-found friend the Mosaic Maker as a creative crutch. This is my interpretation of the theme, complete with punctuation (because I'm just OCD enough about that kind of thing).

A Mosaic of...Me (because I'm just THAT self-centered)

I saw this on The Scoop and thought it was a cool way to share things about myself and associate them with pictures. Flickr is fun! I love the mosaic tool... so don't be surprised if you see more popping up on the blog.

1) Sarah 2) Real Italian Pizza. 3) Boring Hallway 4) The red one 5) David Boreanaz 6) Apfelschorle 02 7) Door - Morocco 2002 8) This picture didn't work... don't quite know why 9) Painter's corner 10) incurable laughter 11) The Listener 12) blonde/brunette


1. What is your first name? (Sarah)
2. What is your favorite food? (real Italian pizza)
3. What high school did you attend? (Orem High School)
4. What is your favorite color? (red)
5. Who is your celebrity crush? (David Boreanaz)
6. Favorite drink? (Apfelschorle) Update - apple juice mixed with sparkling water--this is NOT beer, people. :)
7. Dream vacation? (Morocco)
8. Favorite dessert? (crème brulée)
9. What do you want to be when you grow up? (a painter)
10. What do you love most in life? (laughter)
11. One word to describe you? (listener)
12. Your Flickr name? (skbrunette)

Look here for instructions on how to do it.