Tag: photography

Engagement Pictures with Jennette and Kegan!

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A few weeks ago (before all this crazy rain started), I had the honor of taking engagement pictures for my friends Jennette and Kegan. It was kind of awesome because I’ve gotten to watch their whole relationship from the very beginning. I met Jennette because she did her masters research in my lab and I totally remember the snowshoeing trip where she met Kegan. I also remember meeting Kegan for the very first time when he came to our lab to pick up Jennette for a lunch date. Awwww the memories… and more to come! I am so excited you guys! :) Anyway, we met up at Chautauqua Park for an engagement photo session and it turned out to be a lot of fun. I am normally skeptical of doing fancy pictures at Chautauqua because it is a very popular hiking destination and is often full of people just waiting to get in your super cute portraits. It also has really weird lighting during most parts of the day so you have to plan your photo sessions just right. All that said, however, we had a great time and the photos look amazing. Thanks so much Jennette and Kegan for being good sports while we trekked all over hills and rocks and fields to capture your awesomeness as a couple!

And now a few more of my favorite pictures…

This one turned out so epic… I kind of love it… :)


Some things I learned while doing these pictures:

  1. As I previously mentioned, I learned that Chautauqua has a lot of cool places (hidden from the majority of hikers) for neat pictures
  2. Bushes are not my friends. I edited a lot of these pictures with the help of my nephew and he and I ended up getting really frustrated when we would come across a picture with Jennette and Kegan looking adorable and a giant bush blocking one of them… way to go setting up that shot, Potassium. :p
  3. I had a lot of fun with Jennette and Kegan because we’d find a cool place to shoot pictures and then they’d start suggesting poses/ideas/etc that they wanted to try! It challenged me to be more creative and thoughtful with my poses/angles/etc.

Wow… it’s been a while since I’ve written. Life has been a little insane here for me and Cobalt. More about that later maybe but first and foremost, how the heck are you?! Anything exciting going on? If so, please tell me because Cobalt and I could definitely use some cheering up. :)

Engagement Pictures with Melanie and Joel!

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A few weeks ago, I had the honor of doing engagement pictures with Melanie and Joel! Melanie and I met at our friend’s superbowl party a few years ago and we bonded over being able to make weird noises (haha… seriously…). I am sure L was super happy that she introduced us after that part. Anyway, now Melanie is engaged to Joel and they asked me to do their engagement pictures! This was my first time meeting Joel and I have to say, he is awesome. And he and Melanie and super adorable and perfect together. We had a ton of fun with these pictures and I am very honored that they asked me to take their pictures. I hope they enjoy them (I should be getting them in the mail by the end of the week)!

Some things I learned doing these pictures:

  1. It’s fun! I love getting to know couples and figuring out how to take pictures that show off how awesome, adorable, happy, etc they are.
  2. Taking engagement pictures is inherently a bit of an awkward situation so the faster I can get everyone laughing, the more comfortable we all feel and then the pictures turn out more awesome!
  3. My two lenses are not equal in awesomeness.
  4. I need to take a lot of pictures because sometimes people blink!

What have you guys been up to lately? I took engagement pictures for my friends J and K this weekend so be prepared for more adorableness in the near future! In lab related news, there is a lot to get done if I really want to do graduate within the year so this is going to be an interesting school year…

The great defenders!

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Some of the awesome girls in my class back in the first week of our first year of grad school… awwww we were so young!

Helllloooo everyone! I finished my committee meeting yesterday so I am back! I think it went pretty well. I analyzed a lot of data and didn’t sleep pretty much for the past two weeks so that I could put all of what I know about my protein in my presentation for my committee members. They were helpful in telling me what they think I should focus on that will tell the best story (i.e. so that I can write a paper/my thesis) so that I can graduate within the year. Yeesh… It’s going to be an epic year. That’s all I can say about that…

Anyway, for now I am happy to be back in a world where I don’t have to analyze data and think about my project every waking (and sometimes sleeping) moment. I have a lot of stuff to catch you up on but first, I want to talk about my two friends E and L who are both defending their PhD theses today! Congratulations you guys! You worked so hard and by the end of today you will be doctors!

And now a little back story. First, L is my first friend here in the state of CO. I met a lot of the people in my class all at the same time (recruitment weekend) but I actually met L at the University of Washington’s recruitment weekend two weeks earlier. The next weekend, she went to go check out a school in Canada while I checked out UC Davis and then we reconvened after that here at CU chemistry program’s recruitment weekend. I am so glad we both decided to come here. It has been an honor getting to know you L and I hope we keep in touch about what’s next for you!

Potassium and L (second from the right) with two other girls they met at the University of Washington recruitment weekend. I wonder where those two other girls ended up going to graduate school…

Now E! E is an organic chemist in my year but we decided early on that she is an honorary biochemist because we pretty much were inseparable our first year. E, I will never forget our horrible decision to go to Wendy’s and get milkshakes right before an indoor soccer game. It was worth it because we had to get caught up on everything but man… that was an interesting soccer game. Also E was my first photo buddy here in town because we got our DSLRs right about the same time. It was so much fun running around Boulder county learning how to take pictures with you. Also, I think we all had a blast at your wedding! I know you are about to head to Portland soon to join your hubby and I wish you the best of luck! Keep in touch friend, I will really miss being neighbors! :)

Potassium and E, photo buddies…

That’s all for today everyone but stay tuned because I have engagement pictures for you (hopefully) next week! :D So what has been going on in your worlds lately?

Happy Anniversary! Now pose…

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Turns out it’s really hard to get a picture in which 10 people are simultaneously smiling…

Hooray! Wedding anniversary pictures finally!* :D So before you scroll down to see the rest, let me tell you a little bit about the party. It started out a little sketch because Cobalt and I were running around like crazy building things from IKEA and we lost track of time. When the first guests arrived, they got to go with Cobalt to the store to get party supplies and snacks while I made sure the house was in order. Then when more people showed up we headed to the park by our house with a bag full of props for the photo shoot! It turned out to be really fun as you can see below (in no apparent order)!

K and A bravely started us off…
I think J is rethinking saying yes to K’s marriage proposal now that she knows that sometimes K has yoda hands…
Cobalt and T being sneaky in masks
A has requested the name Titanium on this blog now… Love it. Also she totally rocked this mask.
I love that C and L seem skeptical about the parasol while K seems so happy about it.
The happy couple?
J’s turn with the claws…
Titanium modeling the parasol, the mask, and the backdrop!

Then we went to the playground to play with the props. Cobalt is especially happy with the lens flare in this picture.

After the photos, we had a BBQ, played Cards Against Humanity, and giggled over all the awkward but hilarious things in that deck. I think it turned out to be a really fun time and thank you to all of you who came out and celebrated with us! We really enjoyed it! Cobalt and I are already coming up with new photoshoot ideas…

What do you think of the photos? Do you have a favorite? Also, what have you guys been up to lately? We’ve been getting a lot of rain (almost a proper monsoon season if you ask me!) lately. What has your weather been like? Are you ready for fall yet? I think that I was so annoyed with all that May and April snow that we got that I am still dreading fall and then the inevitable winter…

In other photo news, I took some engagement pictures for my friends M and J yesterday. Can’t wait to show you my favorites! :D

*Unfortunately my posting schedule is probably going to get a little weird for a while. My committee meeting is coming up soon. For those of you who don’t know, that’s where I meet with 5 faculty members and tell them everything I did this past year and how I plan to graduate in a year or less (freaking out excited not sure how I feel about any of that). Anyway, I have a lot of work to do to prepare for it. Also Cobalt and I are just plain BUSY right now. Craziness…

The story of the girl with the yellow hair

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So my sister is coming into town today and in her honor, I thought I would post a story about our childhood that recently resurfaced…

A long time ago when we were kids, we had this amazing bathtub toy (the Floating Marina by Fisher-Price) that included a few people, the floating marina, a water plane, and a boat. We loved this toy. It pretty much hung out with us every bathtime for more fun in and around the marina. We especially liked the girl with the yellow hair. We liked her so much, we gave her a special name: “The girl with the yellow hair” (creative, I know…). Anyway, our family used to go stay in a cabin in Yosemite National Park for a week or so every summer and of course, the floating marina had to accompany us on our vacation. So there we were in the bathtub in Yosemite playing with the marina and its accompanying friends. I put the girl with the yellow hair under a bowl (maybe she was in a submarine?) and moved it along the bottom of the bathtub until… oops… she fell down the drain!

Looking back and thinking about the size of the girl with the yellow hair, I am confused about how she even fit down the drain because she is a pretty large toy. Anyway, tragedy struck and my poor parents had two crying children to deal with. They frantically attempted to retrieve her for us, even calling a plumber the next day to see if she was stuck in the pipe… but alas, the girl with the yellow hair was with us no more.

Now you are probably confused because I’ve posted this lovely picture of the girl with the yellow hair in her plane on the top of today’s post. To get to that part of the story we have to fast forward about ….. 20 years from the original incident to a few weeks ago. I was talking to Cobalt because I was upset about a mistake I had made and for some reason, the girl with the yellow hair story resurfaced. As soon as the conversation was over, Cobalt ran upstairs to search for the girl with the yellow hair on ebay and he found her (thank you Cobalt)! I called my sister, who was visiting my parents at the time, and she managed to dig up the sea plane from the marina set within all of our old bathtub stuff (surprised that we still had it actually…). So now the girl and the plane are finally reunited (and my sister and I will also be reunited)!! Happy days. We already decided we’re taking the girl with the yellow hair out to brunch to apologize for throwing her down the bathtub drain all those years ago.

Now it’s your turn. Do you have a “scarring” childhood story about losing one of your favorite toys? Or a story about you and your siblings? Let’s hear it! :D

In my Defense…

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Remember back in first year we didn’t know each other yet and we bonded over dinosaurs (and languages apparently…) during the TA training?

Welp, I am about to enter my 6th year of grad school which means that some of my lucky friends in my class are starting to defend their theses and then graduate! Since I’m probably going be talking more and more about defenses as we get more into the season, I thought I would take a minute to give you a run down about how grad school works in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry here at CU. So during our first year, we have this crazy schedule that involves classes, TAing (usually general chemistry or biochemistry), and trying to find a research group to join. We also have a written test about our knowledge of chemistry or biochemistry that we either took every first Saturday of each month until we passed a certain number of them (the Chemists did this) or that we took one epic day the August after our first year (We biochemists did this). Then our second year was full of finishing up our classes, doing research in our labs, and preparing for a scary oral exam where three professors spend two hours asking us about anything in chemistry and biochemistry to make sure we understand enough science to do our projects (the point is to see how you handle not knowing the answer so it’s a pretty awful two hours…). After that, the remaining years of grad school are full of science, going to conferences, (hopefully) writing papers about our findings, fighting with instruments not working/cells not growing/something breaking/procedures not going right after they worked perfectly every other time, making mistakes/figuring them out, etc until finally one day, it is time to write up everything we’ve done in a nice neat little package called a thesis, present our work to our faculty committee, our peers, and our families and then (after the presentation when everyone except our committee members leaves) defend our theses to gain the title of PhD. Whew… It’s a ride. And I’m not even done yet… but someone is…

This picture was taken when we were walking back from lunch one day and there was this crazy prop sale by the theater department…

The first of my friends in my class, P, defended his thesis today! Yayyyyy! P I am so proud of you! I remember back in our first year P and I used to do homework together and talk about graduating like it would happen at some point in the distant future. I also distinctly remember getting confused when I was teaching a lab and I ran downstairs to the lab P was teaching in so I could ask for his help. After our first year, we stayed friends and caught up over lunch almost every week. It was especially fun last year because we were both planning our respective weddings and so we could compare wedding planning notes in addition to catching up with why science infuriated/excited us that week. There was also much soccer and kite flying and other adventures. We even tried to take a kendo class together one semester at the school rec center but found that we both liked trying to stab each other/sword fighting with the shinais (kendo sticks) better. You made grad school more bearable and fun for me, friend and I’m really really going to miss you when you and P make your big move this fall but I am super excited for what happens next for you guys! Congrats friend! :D

Back on the dinosaur theme… this is us not paying attention in one of those TA meetings we had to attend after classes on Fridays during our first year…
Also one time we went cross country skiing at night on the hill behind P’s house even though it was freakishly cold (3 degrees F?) outside…
Even our stuffed animals (Scrarmpl and Munchers) were friends and got to go on adventures!

What are you guys up to this weekend? I think I am going to be sleeping. I know I say that a lot but seriously… this week was REALLY intense…

Photo Grab bag

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Today is a random assortment type of a post. Here we go:

Lately I’ve been:

  • Doing an Instagram photo challenge with my friends – some of my favorite entries are below
    This was day 3: 5pm

    This was day 6: self portrait
  • Teaching high school students about DNA/heredity/genetics research. I got them excited about the concept by first having them extract DNA from strawberries using household supplies (dish soap, water, salt, and rubbing alcohol). The boys thought it was COOL and the girls thought it was GROSS but it got them asking questions.

    This was also an Instagram Challenge pic. Luckily for me, the day of the DNA workshop was also day 4: food
  • Making delicious egg and bacon sandwiches in home made biscuits and pondering how to make Cobalt’s and my meals more healthy but also delicious while on a budget… Ideas?

    Yummmmmmmmm
  • Running another glow in the dark 5K and actually running it this time (last time I was out of shape and it was so disorganized there was no way we could actually run anyway…)
    Potassium and A before the race with all their glowy stuff on

    Potassium, A, and Cobalt being silly before the race…
  • Finally getting around to hanging the beautiful wall hanging Cobalt and I got as a (late) wedding present from a family friend

    I am so mesmerized by the patterns on this quilt…. I could stare at it all day.
  • Getting excited about art and painting and the idea of art journals?
  • Finishing my challenge of reading 50 books this year (up to 53 now… guess I should go back to trying to tackle Crime and Punishment…)
  • Feeling super excited for all my friends who just got engaged or married recently!!!!!!!! So much love! Also, if any of my said engaged friends want some sweet engagement pictures, I happen to know someone who’s pretty good at that kind of stuff… her name’s Potassium… Seriously. Let me know! I would love to take some pictures for you!

Your turn: what have you been up to?

Look at that family…

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This last weekend, Cobalt and I went to visit his family (Success! We saw both families in the same week!). I brought my DSLR so we could take a family picture! We were planning on doing the picture outside but then there was this HUGE thunderstorm so everything outside was soaking wet. The result was that we ended up pushing all the furniture around in the living room to make room for an indoor picture. It turned out to be fun though and I got to use my sweet infrared remote so no one had to run around with the timer on…

In other news, my friends A, J, and I made up an Instagram photo challenge to do together starting today… so exciting!

I’m sorry about the crazy posting schedule lately. There’s a lot going on/coming up (including teaching middle/high school students genetics and running a 5K – The Firefly Run – this Friday). I have a lot of ideas about things that I want to post (especially about France, which was 2 months ago now! :p) but no time to write about them. Boooo… What are you guys up to? Also, how do you make time to do creative things because I have all these projects/creative activities (like photography) that I never have any time for… wah…

Your turn… talk to me! :D Allllllso, leave a comment with your Instagram name if you want to do our photo challenge (and you need to know what “qwrahhhhh” means)!

Let’s talk about America!

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This would have been my entry to our photo contest. America: the great melting pot (mmmm fish and chips and Mexican sodas…)!

Today’s post is dedicated to the photo contest Cobalt and I hosted on the Fourth of July. Basically, we were inspired by a similar photo contest that we held a few years ago so we sent out texts to ~20 or so of our friends asking them to text us a picture of something they thought best represented America. As usual, we enjoyed getting responses and I think it helped make our Fourth of July even more fun! Sooooooooooo without further ado let’s announce the winners!

Grand Prize

Cobalt and I were both mesmerized by this one. So pretty…

Second Place

This one came with a caption: “light shining on the bridge of opportunity.” Also points to whoever can guess where this bridge is! I’ll give you a hint: America :D

Third Place

Yummmmm! Here’s a secret about me and Cobalt – we love our barbecue so much that we will grill food year round! We cooked steaks in the snow earlier this year…

All of the other pictures were fun too so I thought I would post them all below. There was a large selection of photos that fell under the food and drink category (we all know we looooove eating here in America!) so it gets its own subheading.

The food and drink category

This pic and the next one are titled “boys with food.”

The last (but certainly not least) photos

This one came with a caption too: “America is education and freedom enough to talk smack with this hippocampal neuron!” (that’s an electrode in the top left corner)

This one is kind of creepy and also one of my personal favorites.

Well, what do you think? Which one is your favorite? What do you think best represents America? And most of all, how was your Fourth of July? Awesome I hope. Cobalt and I went to the beach in California. The weather was perfect (this does not often happen at the beach in Northern CA, despite all you might think you know about California beaches) and we went running around in the waves. :)

Fireworks from the sky!!!

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I took this picture during a storm a few years ago in Boulder…

Hey everyone, sorry about the crazy post schedule this week. Anyway, today I wanted to talk about lightning because last weekend, Cobalt and I were driving home from a movie (Joss Whedon’s Much Ado about Nothing) and a vicious storm was moving into town. There was lightning everywhere! It was pretty cool actually – it was like nature’s fireworks show just in time for the 4th of July! The storm turned out to be pretty epic too. As soon as Cobalt and I got in the house, it started pouring and then hailing with this HUGE marble-sized hail. We had to run back outside and rescue our little plants from death hail!

Plants hanging out in the kitchen during the crazy storm…

Does anyone have any fun plans for the 4th of July? We have a 3rd of July fireworks celebration here in California that we will be attending tonight. Exciting!