New Years Quiz

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
Went to Hawaii! And went on an actual trip with C!

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didn't make any.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Only nearly every woman in my small group!

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No, thank goodness.

5. What countries did you visit?
None.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
More trips. Or weekend excursions.

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Hawaii. Other than that, I can't think of anything too noteworthy..

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Raising my GPA! Learning photography!

9. What was your biggest failure?
I dunno.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I got sick a ton :(

11. What was the best thing you bought?
my camera!!!!!!!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
I have no idea.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Kanye West :P

14. Where did most of your money go?
My money went to camera stuff. And an ipod

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
My camera. Hawaii.

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?
Love Story by Taylor Swift.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder?
b) thinner or fatter?
c) richer or poorer?

Same on all counts, I guess.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Hung out with friends

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Staying holed up inside

20. How did you spend Christmas?
With both families.

21. Did you fall in love in 2009?
With my camera!

22. What was your favorite TV program?
The Office

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
No.

24. What was the best book you read?
Faith of the Fallen by Terry Goodkind

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Probably Kim Walker.

26. What did you want and get?
A camera. An ipod. A kitchenaid mixer.

27. What did you want and not get?
A new lens. :P

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
Hmm. Wolverine or Star Trek.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Turned 21. Went bowling with friends and out for pizza!

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
More trips!

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
whatever. There was none :P

32. What kept you sane?
photography.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
*shrugs*

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
Healthcare.

35. Who did you miss?
Family and friends.

36. Who was the best new person you met?
I got to "meet" Susan!

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.
Life goes on.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
*shrugs*

Close

I was able to get extremely close to this guy. I had to leave before I could get closer though. It was just too cold. I lightened this one up immensely, but I could not lighten it up anymore without damaging the eagle.

Frost on the Railing

I thought this was quite intriguing!

Frost Again

Solstice

Today is winter solstice. One of the best days of the year for Alaskans! At this point, the sunrises at 10:04AM and sets at 4:03PM. I have spent many days in the past month shooting the sunrise, coming home, and practically turning around again to shoot the sunset.

I love winter solstice. The fact that it is the shortest day of the year means one thing: Summer coming! There will not be much of a difference in daylight till the end of January or so. It's quite fun to talk to people around that time, because it inevitably comes up. I love it.

Here's to the coming of summer! 4 more months till the snow starts to leave!!!

More Frost

I love the bokeh in this one!

Photo Love!

Not sure where I found this one, but I love it!

Beautiful Sweden by Th06
I adore the pinks!

Dead Leaves and The Dirty Ground by Matthew Stewart
I just love the colors and the composition.

Haines, Alaska HDR by Alaska Photography
A beautiful Alaskan summer scene

Web of Life by Orca76.
I usually don't like spiderweb images, but this one is amazing!

Tension by Orca76.
Another one! LOVE it!

Sierras and Iris by Moonlight by Narmansk8
I have become intrigued by shots with stars. This is no exception!

Kaboom by Aaron Feinberg
He won an award for this one. I love it!

Psychadelic Palms by Aaron Feinberg
Palm trees are fascinating.

Hawaii Sunset Memories by Kevin Mcneal
Lovely sunset

Dragonfly at the Morning by Tamy191
This is a great macro! The bokeh is fascinating!

Ice Cracks by Slickwilly182
I love the crack. It's so cold looking, but amazing!

POW by Mark Flammable
Just beautiful.

Nice to Meet You Dolphin by Windylife
This is adorable!

Summer by My Shots
I love the water here!

Please go by and give the artists some love! :)

Frost

I adore this!

Chains

More frost.

Grades

I'm quite proud of myself for my grades this semester!

Computer Literacy - A - This one was a given. Brainless course.
Excel - B- - It ended up being hard towards the end!
Digital Photography - A - I'd be worried if I had anything else :)
History of Photography - A - Wasn't sure I'd pull off the A, but I did!

Income Tax - B- - I struggled all semester long with this class. I got D's on my exams, failed some quizzes (not hard to do when there are only 5 questions!) I calculated what my grade should have been and it appeared I could end up with a C-. I need a C- to keep the credit for my degree. I have no idea how I got bumped up to a B-...but I'm not questioning it! I was so excited!

Hopefully this will bump my GPA up again.

Round and Round

We had ice fog over the weekend, which in turn produced some amazing hoar frost. Here some is on a merry-go-round.

Another Quake

Just had a second earthquake from this week. It was shaking the house softly. I waited for it to be a bit more rough, but it wasn't. 77 miles from here and magnitude 5.16 at this point.

EDIT: 5.4

Purples and Blues

More sunset on the 6th

Foam

Sunset Sunday the 6th

Earthquake

This morning I woke up to the bed shaking, figured it was an earthquake and went to sleep again. I was right. A 3.9 one 62 miles away! I haven't felt one in a while.

Pink

Sunset at Beluga Lake Sunday the 6th

Flake

I love shooting through snowflakes!

Glory

We had an incredible sunrise on Saturday the 5th. Simply amazing. I stepped onto the road to take this photo and almost could not hold still. The wind was gushing so badly that I could not catch my breath. but it was so worth it.

Christmas Tour of Homes 2009

Welcome everyone! This is my second year participating. This is the wreath I made extremely cheaply from Joann's about a month ago. I may add to it in the future.
My tiny corner. Stuffed animals from my childhood, the Nativity set and the small tree.

I love blue Christmas lights!Brand new star. Bought it on sale after Christmas last year.
One of my favorite ornaments!

Thanks for visiting us!

Done!

I love being done with the semester! It is the greatest feeling in the world. The weight on your back suddenly lifts and there is free time in abundance. Supposedly anyway!

I am done a week earlier than I expected to be, so that is a great blessing. I finished wrapping all the Christmas presents that I have yesterday. I still have a few more I need to buy, but it feels good to have a pile near my tree.

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Last night before we fell asleep, C started telling me some stories about Luann (the comic strip). He reads the comics on his lunch break and had to update me on the latest with Luann, Garfield and Pickles. It was super funny. I kept laughing about how it was 1AM and he was getting in depth and describing the story lines of these cartoon characters and their personality traits. It was great. :)

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Christmas is in 2 weeks! Hard to believe. We finally have real snow here, so it definitely feels like Christmas now.

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For my photography class, we picked out the best images from the class and made a slideshow of them. I had probably 13 images picked for it, which was pretty cool. The slideshow will hopefully be showing at the movie theatre before they show movies. It's definitely a cool opportunity for me to get my name out there more. I'm excited about it.

I'm going to try to hang out with friends today. I haven't gotten to do much of that with school. Wish me luck!

Deviant Art Features

I've been featured in a couple of journals on Deviant Art so far. I wanted to keep a record of it for myself. But feel free to check them out to see the other incredible work featured as well!

Ice Block featured by PaperDollXDecays
Taking Off featured by KKart

I love this post

This post is just fantastic: He Reads.
Please check it out!

Photo Love!

Please check out the artists and give them some love! :)

I love the colors in this one!

So cute :)

Ahhh, this one just wowed me!

So peaceful.

Just incredible!

Adorable girls! I love the composition!

I love the blues!

I love the color!

Simply incredible! Make sure you read the story!

So touching!

I love the bokeh!