Via Formspring:

Are LDS hymns all uniquely LDS or do you sing ones you will also find in other Christian denominations?

There are a few universal Christian hymns, bust I think most of them are original.  I actually don’t know which ones other people sing and which ones are uniquely LDS. You can listen to the LDS hymn book here if you’d like. A few of my favorites include:

Abide With me, Tis Eventide

Brightly Beams Our Father’s Mercy (I cry every time this song is performed, it has such a beautiful message and the harmonies are very moving)

Nearer My God To Thee

Be Still, My Soul

Lord I Would Follow Thee

Oh My Father

On Sundays I try to avoid secular things, and focus on hymns and podcasts that will help me draw closer to God. I’m always looking for something new to add to my Grooveshark playlist. What are some of your favorite hymns? (I’d love YouTube links so I can go listen to them myself!)

Those are undoctored eyes! I think they’ve faded a bit over time but they’re still my favorite baby eyes anywhere.

No surprise, since he’s my favorite baby ever. (Until T2 comes, then I will have two favorites.)

If you’re looking for a place to stay in Bologna, and you don’t want a 20 minute walk to city center, I highly recommend Aemilia Hotel. The staff spoke excellent English, the room was modern and clean, and compared to a lot of hotels closer to the city square of similar quality the price was really excellent. During our stay in September 2011 we payed 62 euros per night, and when we called last minute to add another night onto our reservation I believe they charged us something like 90 euros.

I loved the branding of their bathroom products, and the glass-walled shower. They also had a garden area on the rooftop, and I think there was a hot tub as well, but we didn’t visit those. We did have to walk through some more deserted streets late at night to get back, but we never felt threatened or unsafe. It had free wi-fi with a password that you request from the front desk.

The breakfast provided was the second best we had in Italy. It had a large variety, and everything they set out was really well done. My favorite combinations were celery/brie/walnuts, and a spoonful of granola with yogurt and Nutella plopped on top.

In September of 2011 we boarded a plane for Europe. We flew the Polish airline LOT, which was a big mistake (I’ll get more into that later). Departed from Chicago, landed in Warsaw, and ended up in Katowice. My FIL’s smiling face is always such a welcome sight after that journey, especially with a toddler in tow (I have pages of notes about flying with a toddler, which I’ll write a separate post on). After a few days in Poland, where I spent most of my time sleeping off the jet lag, we headed back to the Katowice airport and hopped a plane to Bologna. Our Italian vacation, the one I had been dreaming of for years (this is why I took Italian in college after all!) had finally arrived.

I spent a lot of time researching before this trip. Hours and hours reading blogs, checking out books, trying to figure out where we wanted to stay and where we wanted to eat (what we would actually do while we were there wasn’t something I felt needed much attention, it’s Italy after all!). I’m going to be writing several posts for each location we visited, one to show you what we did, one to review where we stayed, and one talking about where we ate. I kept detailed notes during our trip for this very purpose, because there were places that we LOVED which must be visited. And there were places we wasted time and money on which should be avoided. If you’ve been to Italy and have suggestions for other people on what they should do and eat, and where they should stay, I’d love to have you chime in down below.

I’ll go ahead and show you everything we did, but if you’re considering a visit to Bologna, read my summary at the bottom. (Teaser: I don’t think this is an area worth visiting if you’re considering other options.)

Our first stop on our trip was Bologna. How nice to fly into Italy not looking like a hot mess, right? Having that 2-day stopover in Poland before we came to Italy was so wonderful, because we were able to step off the plane and start enjoying our trip right away, instead of forcing ourselves to fight through the jet lag. We flew into the Forli airport on Friday, grabbed a taxi (which was very easy) to the train station, and then spent something like an hour trying to figure out how to get up to Bologna on the train. The station was very small and the train schedules were really confusing. The first train we missed because it sound it would be on platform 4, but was really on platform 2. Eventually we asked a fellow passenger for help and made it up to Bologna.

We didn’t get to our hotel until pretty late, but of course having dinner wasn’t a problem, since Italians don’t eat dinner until between 8-10pm at night. The next morning, Saturday, we set out and started exploring. I had planned out an itinerary involving a bakery, pizza, a snack, ice cream, Zara, a toy store, a hike, and dinner. Ha! We slept in and went shopping for That Husband instead.

Celio is a gem of a store if you have a slim husband who has trouble finding clothes that fit in American stores that cater to the heavier American male population.

Probably my favorite statue in all of Italy.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

I’ve owned a dSLR for 3 years now, and in that time I’ve learned a lot. On the left you can see a photo I took and delivered to my clients when I first started, and one from a session I did last year. I’m self-taught, and certainly don’t know everything, but I’d like to tell people about the things I do understand. If you have a dSLR and would like to work toward understanding how to use your camera better, click here to learn about the Aspirations Workshops I’m going to be holding during the month of February.

I’ve done workshops like this before, and here is what one of my attendees had to say about the experience:

I was very much on the fence about my photography. I went into this almost completely blind. Almost meaning, I did a few sessions with my father-in-law’s camera (Canon XT), was satisfied with the results of the pictures I took, but in no way used the camera to maximize its capacity. After that (and after getting lots of “ooo, great pictures!”, “nice work”, “oh you’re doing these for FREE? i’m in!”), I did my research, got the best camera I could get for my budget (Canon 40D with the kit lense, which I very much regret getting that lense to this day), started up a photo blog, and went on my way. I skimmed the camera manual for some guidance, had absolutely NO idea what they were talking about, and was completely frustrated with how my husband was trying to teach me. So being completely blind still, I did lots of sessions with the little knowledge I had of what my camera was actually doing, and was decently satisfied with the results of my pictures. I mean, I did have Lightroom and Photoshop anyways to fall back on.
Which brings me to my editing. I HHHHHAAAATTTTTEEEEEDDDDD it with a passion. Yes, all caps, and super exaggerated. If you don’t say it like that, then you won’t get the full effect. I spent hours upon hours editing EVERY SINGLE good and decent picture. It was so overwhelming, so tedious, so not exciting. From what I read, this was supposed to be one of the best parts about photography. Effects, actions, presets, the whole shabang was supposed to be fun! Eh wrong.
Now I know I was completely going at it from the wrong angle. Here’s what Jenna Cole taught me:
First we started out with Composition. I went into this knowing a few photo techniques, i.e. placing the subject(s) on a grassy hill with hands placed just right and saying, “don’t move”, or as my husband chimes in “try to look natural, but don’t move too much”. HA. Jenna taught us how to make the subject look flattering, how to make them look and feel natural, how to not take awkward ‘up the nose’ shots. All around, I learned the right angles to take and not take photos. For example, Jenna stood up on the bench above our model and took an above picture. Why I didn’t think of that angle before I do not know!
We moved on to ISO, aperture, shutter speed, white balance, using our histogram, and a few other techniques. She explained them in ways that make absolute sense! I won’t get into every single detail of each one, but if you had absolutely no idea what those words/acronyms meant going into the session, you would walk away completely knowing AND understanding what to do with them and how to get every shot at its best.
Jenna gave us plenty of time to photograph our model, helping us in each step to process the information she gave us and use it! She was there to guide me through what buttons to press and what settings to be on. She even let us use her lenses she had on hand (and even let us play with the precious 5D Mark II, which I did not want to let go of) and gain a visual on the difference between what we own and what we could have.
I’m now completely on the other side of the fence. And will not go back on again. Jenna Cole’s Aspirations session was completely unexpected in a very good way. I learned more than I thought I would, and can USE what I’ve learned, which I think is the most important aspect of workshops/mentoring sessions.