Photo Collages = too much fun!

This is two series of panoramic views from Maine. After downloading 2 panoramic programs that didn't work properly, I decided to just stitch the photos together myself..it's not the best, but it gets the job done! One day, I'll have a super snazy camera w/ photoshop pro, and look back at this post and laugh at my lameness :) 

Remember how I said we went on a 'food vacation'? I was not joking, and here is the proof! Try to find a vegetable other than the deep fried onion rings - which doesn't even count!

Here is just a little blip of our time with the Trans. We love them and miss them already!

Daniel's 1st year is done!

In mid August Daniel finished his last exam of his first year! For the next 1.5 years he'll be in 13 different rotations, mostly at the Yale New Haven Hospital. It's an amazing accomplishment and am so proud of him. He took one exam every week, and spent every night in the Library. I keep forgetting Daniel doesn't have to go to the library every night! It's been so nice!

Once Daniel took his last test, we left town immediately and began our summer vacation. First stop was to The Cox Farm in Maryland for the annual summer family reunion. Highlights included camping with the cousins up in the woods, the huge slip 'n slide, and the most wonderful homemade ice cream party ever!

After that we headed up to Maine to go camping in Acadia National Park. We camped 2 nights and filled 3 days with sight seeing, bike riding, and a lobster or two :) It was incredibly beautiful there, but surprisingly crowded! I often felt like we were at Disney World, not a National Park. Despite the crowds, everywhere we went we were able to go off on our own path and enjoy some peace and quite and solitude. Some of my favorite times was when we would go off onto the rocks and read our books for a while. I was so amazing to see all the beautiful elements of nature come together in one place...mountains, ocean, cliffs, big lakes, forests. It was so incredible! Can you see the amazing fog in the picture below? It was blowing in and getting caught on the islands in Bar Harbor.

We came home, cleaned up from camping, and then welcomed our good friends Hoang, Amy and their baby Lydia to Connecticut. They came up from Arizona for a week long vacation. We spent 4 days in NYC, and 4 in CT. Hoang and Amy are die hard food network lovers, and have been making note of good restaurants to eat at in our area as they are featured on different shows. It was a food centered vacation, and attractions and sight-seeing were filler activities :) It was more fun than I could have ever imagined.

'Here's what you do during a jam session...'

The above title was one of the best lines of the John Mayer concert I went to last night :)

Here is a recap....

- "Here's what you do during a jam session" and then watching John Mayer dance like the inner hippie fool we all try very hard to keep locked up deep inside +188543 points
 - Impromptu song sung for a couple who "just got engaged" according to their cardboard sign +4342 points for clever and quickness, +5578 points for poking fun at them :)
-Seeing John Mayer in a headband -15405 points (it wasn't pretty) (here's proof)

- People watching with high-schoolers galore + 875465445
- Train being the opening act, and then having the lead singer come up to the lawn, and then later coming out to preform a song w/ j.m. +22465422

- $40 t-shirts -1835642sucharipoff!902342
- Going with friends from Daniel's class Kaitlin and Kelsey +287965456

- Analyzing all of his song lyrics and discussing his many past high profile relationships +2757453 (I'm sure none of you care. BUT we decided that Jennifer Aniston IS in fact too good for him.)
-Getting over the fact that the head band wasn't coming off, and that the nice looking John Mayer we had expected to see wasn't coming out either -82546345whhhhyyy???34254353

- Jamming out, singing at the top of my lungs to some of my most favoritest songs, watching a super talented songwriter, guitar player, quirky and awkward-as-heck musician on the most perfect Saturday night summer +990801203454586!!!!!!!!!

It was an amazing concert. All headbands and quirkiness aside, I was blown away at how talented he was. Vocals and guitar were completely on par with the perfected radio and CD tunes we're used to hearing. The talent was so impressive and I also enjoyed his many 'thank you for being here' and the quick cover's he thew into his own songs (homeward bound, ain't no sunshine, and boys of summer).

Pass the s'mores

This weekend we went on a short camping trip to Macedonia Brook State Park in north west Connecticut. It was very beautiful, uncommonly cold and hysterically uptight. The intense teenage rangers were so so serious, and told us the campsite curfew was 10pm. They also took great concern to tell us about the no alcohol policy...little did they know we were just goofy married Mormons with a baby, not college kids trying to have a crazy weekend :)

Here are the culprits...those weirdos on the bottom probably worried the rangers the most.

Just a normal Saturday morning defacing a cow statue...what?!

After camping on Friday night we went into town to check out their sidewalk sales (where we found the cow statues). Then we checked out the town waterfall in Kent. It was very cute and made us all wish for a waterfall in New Haven. We decided that one could easily be made off of East Rock park :)  

The main event Saturday was actually tubing down the Farmington River in West Hartford. It had some quick and fun "rapid" sections (maybe I shouldn't joke with the quotation marks, two people in our group {Becca and Daniel} fell out of their tubes!), but it was mostly slow and calm. There were tons of people tubing down it, and other odd people standing on the sides spraying people (me) in the head with water guns, haha. No pictures though :(

It all turned out better than I ever imagined! Thanks to the Hustedts, Allreds, and Gublers for coming along!

To black and white...or not to black and white?

I've really enjoyed experimenting with different editing programs the past few weeks, and have constantly debated on how a picture looks better, in vibrant colors or classic black and white. I can usually never decide, so I save both forms :) (being indecisive on colors is 'so me').  What do you guys think?

Black and white version above. Isn't this yellow so great?!

Awesome train ride into Verde Canyon in AZ. I love the eagle on the side and the red rocks contrasting against the turquoise.

Picnik.com is a really easy, free editing site that sets up cool side-by-side frames for your photos like this one. It's neat to see the changes between your original photo and your edited version.

I've been editing photos since back in college. I don't feel bad enhancing them, and neither should you! Everyone does it :) It's like steroids and baseball, you have to do it or you wont be as good as the other guys. At school I entered lots of photos of my friends and I to be in USF magazines and in the school planners...all edited of course! My friends and I would always giggle as we 'clicked' our pasty winter white skin into the sun kissed Florida glow we longed for in the winter.

Anywho, you should check out the picnik.com website and play around. It's really fun. Picasa is also good to use, but you have to download it and it's much less fun, and more complicated. You should also let me know which versions you like best! I need help deciding...to black and white, or not to black and white?

Ahoy Matey!

Ahoy Matey! Daniel and I took sailing lessons this weekend and it was quite a learning experience!

We learned that...
- A 'Boom Bang' is not just a sound. It is a specific thing. It is not funny to laugh when someone tells you to 'get the boom bang'.
- A 'jib' doesn't only go before the word jab. It is a specific thing. It is different than a 'jibe' which is a specific action.
- It IS ok to laugh at the craziness of sailing terms. Jib Jibe Boom Bang?!.... It's just CrAzY!
- There is such a thing as too many triangles. Who knew? We Ramos' have a two hour MAX on riding around in triangles.
-  Sperry's are not really great sailing shoes.
- Water-shoes on the other hand.....are Marvelous!!!!
- We will probably never love sailing enough to name our daughter Genoa - which is a type of sail - which is what one of our teachers was named. 
- No matter how cool you act during the process, hooking your boat onto a buoy and dragging around the bay is not OK.

We are definitely not pro's yet...but we never keeled our boat over, and learned that we can go in figure 8's, 'sausage' runs, and triangle routes LIKE NO ONES BUSINESS! Haha. We joked that next time we go out we'll try sailing in the shape of a rhombus...triangles are so over rated!

We decided to take sailing lessons for a few reasons. First being that Daniel is in love with the idea of having a sail boat, and often thinks about living near water to sail and scuba. We decided that we shouldn't let sailing become a factor in where we live until we actually knew if we liked sailing! The other factor was that we knew there wouldn't be a lot of other chances later in life to take lessons. So, we forked out the dough and paid Yalie undergrads to teach us how to sail. There are classes going on all summer, and ours had about 18 people in it. It was a fun experience and I'm glad we went ahead and took the lessons. I was also very happy to have Daniel there, and that we are able to do such neat things together. You need two people to sail, and some of the solo students were understandably disheartened when they realized this. So just like scuba diving, sailing, and life, we'll always be a team and ready for the next adventure together!

{something happened to me. i don't know what exactly, but somehow, i didn't take one picture! sorry!}

Off of the Checklist

Hello Friends! We just got back from a fun weekend trip to Palmyra New York and Niagara Falls. We saw the Hill Cumorah Pageant, the sacred grove, and Niagara falls. They are now off the 'to do' checklist and I couldn't be more pleased! Please don't think all we do is vacation :) The whole drive there and back Daniel was studying in the car. We squeezed 6 people into one hotel room to save money. We are normal people, with normal lives and are just making the most of everything...you know 'enjoying the journey'.

Day 1 - Palmyra at the Pageant. We didn't have lots of time to see all the church sites there, but the show was awesome and I'd love to go back again with more time!

The crew + a lil Nephite Family

Los Hustedts :) 

Us. It rained.

Click 'more' for the rest of the trip...you know you want tooooo!