TOBY KEITH!!!

I went to lunch today with Amy and Melissa, and was informed that i'd be attending the Toby Keith concert tonight....okay, okay, i actually begged until they gave in and agreed to take me! So it ended up being Melissa, Jeanette, Amy, Chari, Sam, and I. It was a fun filled night of music, drunks, and hoochy mammas with not nearly enough clothes on! What more could ya ask for, right??!! Toby put on a great show, and aside from the $8.00 Hot dog/Drink combo, I can't complain! Heck, we even saw a girl poppin a sqwat under her boyfriends truck after the concert! Haha, gotta love the good ole country crowd!

Great shot of the girls!

Chari & Sam (or as the kids will soon call him..... Officer Sorensen)!!

The gang!!

The Man!!

His flippin sweet setup...notice the Ford Super Duty grill behind him!

A night well spent!!

A Ride Up The Canyon!

Okay, so I have many things I need to update on my blog, but I'll start with my favorite as of late!..A while back a met a girl named Tiffany, and she's a freakin blast! We've become good "Friends" quickly and she's a stinkin laugh a minute. She's 24, also divorced, and has the cutest little 18 month old boy named Gavin. We've had some fun times together already, and tonight we went on a motorcycle ride up and over the Alpine Loop. I thought maybe by bringing her over to meet Nalani, Maile, Kami, and Mom in one shot one of two things would happen:

1. They'd tell me to kick her to the curb......or

2. She'd kick me to the curb in fear of my sisters.......

Well...neither one has happened, so i guess so far so good!

Gettin Ready for the big ride!

Once at the top, I couldn't help but cackle at the sight of Tiff so concerned with helmet hair and looking just so, for all the people that weren't even up there to see her!!!...Oh how vain!!

And of course a quick potty break before we could take any pictures.

That setting the camera on the fencepost thing never seems to work out right, so ya might as well laugh about it, right??!!

Strike a pose Tiffany, ham it up!

Tiffany kept heckling me..."Come on Mr. Cameraman, don't ya know how to use that thing?" So this was my simple response to her taking over the photography!

And Tiffany requested I put this up, its her favorite!

Grandma & Grandpa Oram

Thursday night I went up to Blackfoot to shoot a wedding Friday morning at the Idaho Falls Temple. I called ahead and booked a room at the Oram Inn...AKA Grandma and Grandpa's place. I had a lot of fun chatting with Grandma, cuz we all know Grandpa cant get a word in edgewise!! J/K Okay, really its true, but thats why we all love her so. And not to worry kids, she made a nice big breakfast before my big day of work! Anyhow, I snapped this pic with my point and shoot, and touched it up a little in photoshop. Fun visit!

4-Wheelin' in Victor, ID

After the wedding I shot in Idaho Falls and Blackfoot this weekend, I went and stayed the night at Charlie Messerli's home. He, his wife, and their 3 kids live in Rexburg. On Saturday morning, I woke up to Cody (Charlie's 4 year old) patting me on the Cheek saying, "Wake up Cody, time to watch cartoons"! So being the good Uncle I am, (afterall, he is my namesake) I cuddled up to him and watched some transformers! Good times! Charlie and I left later that morning for Victor, ID which is over by the Wyoming Border off Highway 33. We parked at Charlie's cousin's home that is at the base of the Mountain range and unloaded our 4-wheelers there. Jason, the cousin, got his quad out and took us for an amazing ride up through the mountains that are on the South end of that valley. It was a really fun ride, and of course, I took some pics!!

Getting Ready to unload

Takin a rest at the top

This is the view from the top, overlooking Victor, ID facing North

This is us starting down the mountain and facing west, there were some cool meadows up high.

A Clean Shave!!!

Yesterday I got a new position at work. I'm all done estimating, and now i've moved into the service department to help with dispatching and scheduling our technicians. I'll also be in the field helping from time to time, so it should be a whole new challenge! As part of dealing with homeowners more now, our service technicians and staff are required to be completely clean cut. So the owner asked me yesterday to shave off my goatee! Dude, i've had that little champ for about 6 years now, so it was rather traumatizing!! I hate not having it! But I did have one of my office girls tell me I looked younger, so maybe its a good thing! Anyhow, here's the before and after pics!

Before!

And after!

Ya learn somethin' new everyday!

Those who know me well, know that I keep a stack of magazines in the bathroom for a very good reason......I like to read.....why else??!! Okay, so today I was reading a cool article on photoshop, and read about a new technique I hadn't tried yet. It is a technique used by professionals to create a "Dreamy" feel to a photo. This technique in film was called the "Orton Effect" and took a skilled person a very long time to produce a single image. Now with the magic of photoshop it takes less than a minute! We have it so easy with computers!! I played with an old image of Maile's son Canon. I used an image that I already quite liked, so I thought I would show you all the before and after just for the fun of it!! Go ahead people, i'm open for critique!!

P.S. Does anyone know why my pics wont expand when you click on them??

Here's the before

And after!

A Manti Wedding

Today i went down to Manti, to shoot my first wedding at that temple. I really love the Manti Temple, it is so majestic the way it sits up on the hill. After the wedding I dinked around for a few hours before heading to Mayfield for the Reception, which was held at Town Hall! I seriously had forgotten how fun it can be to be in a small town, so I took some pics to shed some light on my day!

This is Mayfield Main Street. I swear....i'm not even kidding!!

This is the Mayfield 24th of July Event Calander...any takers to go with me???

Seriously...does anyone really want me to elaborate on this one???!!!!

Okay, now that i've poked a little fun at Mayfield, here's the scene as I was leaving town.

As a funny side note, as I ran into my old college roomate at the temple and found out he is really good friends with the groom. His name is "Chewy", but few call him by his birth name of Brian Call! It was a lot of fun to see him after 6 years. He lives in Rexburg with his wife.

This is my friend Katie King "The Bride"!!

And here is the happy couple Katie and Chad Westover! They are so much fun together, and Chad couldn't be half bad cause he rides an '05 Yamaha Roadstar Warrior! I texted Nalani after watching how cute they are together and told her I didn't know whether I should be hopeful or suicidal!! haha!! J/K!

A day as an Electrical Estimator

Okay, so I thought I would blog what I do for work everyday. The idea came to me one day as I was driving around looking for more jobs to keep my guys busy. So here it goes!!

Okay, first of all, this is what I look at A LOT during the day...how exciting eh? Nothing better than the inside of a company truck..but hey, its got A/C, a CD player, and NAV...so im all good!

The next important step to being an effective electrical estimator is to keep yourself plenty hydrated with frothy Mt. Dew beverages! I forgot to mention in the last caption that my truck comes standard with 2 cup holders! One for my current beverage, and one for a future beverage!

Miniature ponies have nothing to do with electrical estimating, but they sure are rad!!

If you like to read blueprints, you might be cut out for this line of work, cause I stare at a lot of them, and sometimes the architects even get it right! Hmmm, paper with lots of symbols...exciting, I know!!

Every once in a while I come across a contractor that wants a fully customized electrical and lighting design. So I walk through the house, design things the way I think they should look, and then try to convince the contractor that he needs to spend another $10,000 to make it happen! Not an easy sell when they all want to work with a $500 budget!

I hope you have enjoyed a day on my job......stick to yours, i'm sure its more exciting!!

4th of July Ride!!

So I got up bright and early the morning of the 4th and left my house at 6:45am to go meet up with a group of riders from Chris Cameron's ward to go for a long motorcycle ride. We left Chris' neighborhood about 7:30am and headed up and over Suncrest which runs from Lehi up and over the point of the mountain down into Draper. We then hugged the Wasatch range from Draper up through Sandy and up to Parley's Canyon. We rode up to Park City and arrived about 8:30am. Oh yeah, by the way.....BRRRRRRR!!!! It may be July, but that doesn't mean it was warm by any means!! We then went up through Kamas, into the Uintas and up to Mirror Lake. WOW! What a beautiful ride! It was a lot of fun, and I didn't get back until about 12:30pm. My lower back and even lower back side are only a little sore! Only 13 more days until the big motorcycle trip!!!!!!

Getting ready for the ride!

Headin out!!

Mirror Lake

Steve Wiser giving us infinite wisdom...aka B.S.!!!

This one is for Nalani...and she knows why!!

For some reason this is a common sight on our rides!! If we spent have as much time riding as we do shootin the bull at gas stations, we could cover 3 times the ground!!!

Orem Summerfest 2007

I kinda got persueded into going to Orem's Summerfest 2007 with Melissa tonight. She promised me that it would be a grand ole fireworks show, and I gotta admit....it was pretty fun to go people watch!! Here's some pics!

Here's the amazing fireworks!! Not too shabby for our little city!

Missy and I on Center St. in Orem

Uncle Carl would definitely say the fireworks were a ten, cause pieces of the mortor shells were falling down on us the whole show!!! Made for a good laugh, but hard to look into the sky without some safety goggles!!

Chris and Jen have a baby!!!

A long time ago, I set my good friend Chris Cameron up with my good friend Jennifer Coates, and they've lived happily ever after!! They got married a few years ago, and last night they welcomed a 7lb 9oz baby boy to the world!! His name shoulda been Cody!!,,, but they went with Chase Victor Cameron instead. Here is a few pics of my visit to the hospital today. I told them that my only request is that he call me Uncle Cody! He is a cute little sucker and definitely has the Coates cheeks and chin!

Recent Works

I guess I just wanted to show a couple of recent photo shoots that I have done. The brides name is Kristi Moysh. She is the sister of a mission friend of mine, Nikki Moysh. They are from good ole Blackfoot! The other girl is Leah Chambers. These are a few of her Senior Portraits that I did. She is Courtney's sister. They're open for critique!!!

Motorcycle Season!!!

The weather has warmed up and that could only mean one thing...................SUNDAY AFTERNOON MOTORCYCLE RIDES!!!!!!!! I have been so excited this year to get back into riding with the guys. We've all enjoyed some fun rides already this season with many, many more to come!! The first week we met at Steve Wiser's home, the father of a friend Justin, and he made us breakfast before our ride. We then rode south to Nephi, up and over the Mt. Nebo loop. That puts you out in Payson, and then back to Orem. This last week was a much shorter ride, up and over the Mt Timpanogos Alpine loop. Good times had by all. We figure we all gotta get a little time in the saddle before our big trip at the end of July!! Too bad padre isn't here to ride with me!! Here's some pics I took on my camera phone.