Random Friday

-A couple months ago my sister Tiana got her new camera, a Panasonic GF3 in the mail. It's a mirror-less interchangeable-lens camera, so the body is quite small, about the size of an average point and shoot, but has interchangeable lenses. It's takes great pictures!

-Our friends Rose, Carrie, and Emmalyn had never seen any of the American Girl movies, but had read the books, so whenever we could we've been getting together to watch them all. We watched them all in date order; Felicity, Samantha, Kit, and Molly. We finished this past Sunday and are planing on watching The Princess Diaries next.

-Two weeks ago our family went to a costume party that our friends hosted. I dressed up as a Disney Tourist. It was awesome.
(Follow me on Instagram! I'm "sereinab")

-Tuesday I watched Bells are Ringing, a musical staring Judy Holliday and Dean Martin. I first saw it 2-3 years ago when I was just getting into old movies, but I enjoyed it even more this time. It's got some catchy songs and my sisters had them stuck in their heads for days! lol!

-Yesterday I suddely decided to take some video of all the pretty fall leaves and such outside and made a video montage with music. I turned out pretty good!

(for best quality, be sure to watch in HD!)

What have you been up to lately?

My Siblings // Autumn Portraits

The other evening, quite randomly and suddenly, decided I wanted to take some fall pictures. The lighting was perfect for portraits, although it was a bit chilly outside. I had Tiana, Alina, and Daniel dress in some fall-ish clothes: sweaters, boots, scarfs, and such. I was able to try some new poses, which I found on Pinterest. There are so many awesome ideas on there! After we finished, we went inside and ate candy corn. Yep, I like fall.

Ohanapecosh // Camping 2012

This years camping trip was at Mt. Rainier again, just a the Ohanapecosh campground instead. Only one family went with us and we booked sites right next to each other. The sites were next to a creek, which was lots of fun to play in. We would also set our chairs in the water and sit and enjoy the creek.



Our first dinner was hot dogs roasted over the fire. They taste much better fire roasted! Plus they were fun to cook!



Since we were just at Mt. Rainier last year, we didn't go to Paradise or go to view the mountain. We stayed at our campground the whole trip. There is a hiking trail that starts and ends in the campground and takes you up to the falls.





Emmalyn and Alina who had fun exploring the creeks along the trail.



And here it is folks, Silver Falls!




Daniel's Junior Ranger patch. He was the only one who did the Junior Ranger Program, since all of us girls had done it in 2006.




My perfectly toasted marshmallow. Roasting marshmallows is one of my favorite things to do camping.



Daniel caught this frog, which stayed in his hands just long enough for me to get one picture. Then he jumped out of his hands.




On our last day we walked around the campsite looking for a place to walk down to the river. We found this neat area with lots of rocks to sit on and just enjoyed the river for a while.




And that was our trip! We all had a great time and we were sad to leave. Us kids all had fun playing card games, going on walks in the dark of night, talking about cave deer, and chatting around the campfire. I had a wonderful time.

What was your favorite place you visited this summer?

A Blueberry Pickin' Mornin'

Tuesday morning we were up bright and eairly to go blueberry picking with two other families. It was something that I had never done before, but it was quite fun.

I don't care for the taste of blueberries myself, but I had a wonderful time picking them. The bushes are fairly tall, making them easy to pick off. 

It wasn't long before we reached our goals. My family ended up with just over 8lbs of berries.

Adventures in Oregon {2012 Edition}

For those who have followed my blog the last couple years, you know that my family usually visits family in Oregon about once a year. Since I've grown up going to visit Aunt Carol and Uncle Terry, they're house is like a second home to me and my family. I've shared some pictures from our trips in 2010 and 2011, which you can check out if your interested.

This year, we decided to go on the 4th of July. We left bright and earily on the 4th, around 5:30AM to be exact, so we had a lot of the day to relax. Most of us were tired by the time it got dark, partiularly myself, so we didn't say up to watch the fireworks. However, as the sun was setting, we had some fun with sparklers and some smoke bombs.



One of Daniel's favorite things to do while we're at Aunt Carol's is to catch lizards.



Recently Tiana and Alina made their own bows and arrows out of PVC pipe and brought them with us, since there's no shortage of space at Aunt Carol's.



Uncle Terry.





The weather was warm when we got there and just kept getting hotter by the day. On our last day there, it reached 90°F and I was melting! I don't do to well in the heat, so I was happy when after walking around town all afternoon, we found a water fountain at the shopping center that Tiana, Daniel, and I got wet it. It didn't take long before I was soaked, head to toe!





Cactus look pretty cool.





Some bright green grass under the shade of a giant tree on that 90°F day.



After grabbing some frappuccinos in Starbucks in town, we went to this really neat candy shop that we had never been to before. They had the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory playing in the back and had lots of fun and unique items and candies.




Tiana bought this Star Wars: Episode IV tin poster at the candy shop. She's a huge Star Wars fanatic.

Summertime

Ahh, summer is here. We've been having a lot of cloudy and rainy days, but we've been getting some warmer, sunnier days sprinkled in as well.

Some of the things I've been doing this month:

Sewing things like aprons and pajama pants...

...baking things like chocolate chip cookie dough truffles...

...watching Emma, the 2009 version, for the first time...

...reading Tintin...

...guest posting on a friend's blog...

... and photographing (and editing!) my friend, Sarah's, wedding.

What have you been doing this summer?