A Touch Of Tyrell

I was actually really sad and cried a lot on my birthday.  I also cried a lot the day before too so I had a crying hangover. You know, where your eyes feel fatigued and you feel dehydrated? It's been a rough 3 years for Jake and I  (some things get better while other things get worse) and I can't seem to stop crying. But it doesn't make anything better... it actually just makes it worse because Jake gets mad that I've been crying so much.  So I slept on the couch, woke up and went on a drive. Life has been too stressful and I needed to get out of the house. When it comes to fight of flight... you can probably figure out which one comes more natural to me.  I ended up driving through midway and park city.  The colors blew my mind.  My mom called and tried her best to cheer me up/offer sympathy/understanding.  I eventually came home to birthday surprises that Breckie and Jake worked on all day.  After baking all day I suggested he skip his dinner pl...

I don't get on social media very much... but since I get messages about photography on both Facebook and Instagram, I check them every few days just for messages.  A few days after Valentines Day/my Dad's birthday, this was the first thing that I saw when I opened my FB app.   He was so loved. He was so kind and sincere and was an amazing brother, cousin, friend, and father. He left a big impact on people.   He was such a lover of nature and the outdoors. He always told us kids that he didn't want to be buried in a cemetery with a headstone. "Just put me in a pine box and bury me in the woods" is what he always told us.  At his funeral, one of his brothers, my Uncle Doug, asked if he could have some of my dad's ashes to spread out where they grew up. Of course I said he could.  When talking with Wes and Tana, Wes preferred if all of dad's ashes stayed together. Anytime Wes and I talked, he always asked if I still had th...

After my Dad's funeral, Raven (the coolest cousin of all time) has made a huge effort to keep in touch. A couple months ago we set a weekend aside to go camping... where we always went as kids. To the Heap Reunion spot in the White Mountains.  I compare all camping to camping here. In these mountains.  The drive was SUPER beautiful and Jake and I were like "WHY WHY WHY haven't we come camping here yet???!"  We drove through Show Low and Pinetop, past the place we always did go-karts, the old pizza hut where we would have all-you-can-eat pizza and I would eat 100 slices of dessert pizza, I recognized the parking lot we were parked in the first time I ate peanut butter m&m's... clearly I am way too nostalgic for my own good! We passed Sunrise (a ski resort) right before we got to the dirt road turnoff and it made Jake even more excited to start enjoying this part of AZ. We try not to think of everything we've missed out on these l...