Most my photos are taken with little intention of printing or even impressing. Rather, they are taken to chronicle trips and experiences. However, every once in a while it’s fun to play around with the tools a bit. Because I’m no Photoshop expert, however, I checked a book out from the library entitled “The Photoshop Elements 9 Book for Digital Photographers” by Scott Kelby and Matt Kloskowski. Even though I have version 10, the book works just fine. I found the book to be very practical and helpful as I waded through various menus and tools.

Below are some before and after photos. Before is original out of the camera and after is, well, after my PSE work. You can tell I tend to saturate the colors in my editing. Perhaps I need to tone things down a bit.

Uintas: Before

Uintas: After

What I did: slight curves (color/contrast) adjustment and gradient fill representing a neutral density filter.

Scout Camp (Uintas): Before

Scout Camp (Uintas): After

What I did: Gradient fill only

Nephew Eli: Before

Nephew Eli: After

What I did: Crop, curves adjustment, color saturation, and vignette.

Dead Horse Point: Before

After

What I did: Gradient fill (can you tell I was trying to learn how to make my landscape skies more vibrant when taking pictures in the middle of the day?), curves adjustment, contrast.

Arches NP: Before

Arches NP: After

What I did: Detonate a nuclear bomb. Okay, in this one I blended two photos together because I bracketed them when originally taking the photos. I exposed for the sky in one and the ground in the other and then combined to get the best of both worlds. I added a gradient fill to the sky but adjusted saturation on the ground only.

Both Jen and I feel a bit odd having stuck around in one location for so long. Having said that, we’ve loved it. Our church ward has been fantastic and we’ve really built some good friendships with different families in the neighborhood. Our house has been great for us, too. It’s been a good size for us, it was very cheap, the backyard is great and has vehicle access, and it’s only 10 miles from work. We couldn’t have asked for a better location to have spent the last 7 years of our lives.

Jen and I basically have the means to move elsewhere, but we constantly struggle with the decision to make that plunge. We’d love a house that fits us slightly better and with a different layout. We’d love a newer house. We’d love to live in a place where we don’t have 8 neighbors within earshot of me brushing my teeth. However, we’d also love to stay where we are, figure out how to make do with the space constraints, and use our extra money to 1) continue to make improvements, 2) make it a habit to travel to fun and exotic places, and 3) have sufficient money to dedicate some time to church service after retirement.

However, it’s not just the house that makes us me think. Of the 33 years I’ve been alive, I’ve either lived in a town with <1,500 people or in the country for 12 of those years. Those years had a great impact on me and I loved certain things about living in the middle of nowhere. I loved the freedom to run around outside, to play on the farms, the quiet of the nights, the bad snowstorms that trapped us in our house for a few days until power was restored, etc. I worked on farms and grew to really love that kind of life.

I don't need it this flat, or even this remote, but I liked this landscape when I lived there.

I don’t have that life now and recently I’ve been yearning for it (dang you, Andrew!). The problem is that I can’t really get that life now without a drastic change. I work in a profession that is generally based in major metropolitan areas (remote sensing a.k.a. satellite imagery analysis) and it scares me that I’ll be “stuck” in suburbia for the rest of my life. Unfortunately, the housing market is making it hard for us to make any decisions besides staying put. While we’re nowhere near “upside down” on our house, we don’t get nearly the return on our investment now that we could have gotten a few years ago, making it a tough financial decision to justify leaving.

In interest of full disclosure, Jen would be happy in the third-to-half-acre suburbia. She loves having a Target nearby. I would be happy with a 10-acre-rural set up. I have a hunch neither of us will get our utopia any time soon and we will stick around. If you were hoping I was writing about an impending move, you’ll have to wait.

We actually bought 'boy toys' for the first time in our married lives

We had a fun Christmas nonetheless. We spent Christmas Eve and morning at Jen’s parents’ house. This is probably the last time we’ll ever spend the night at someone’s house over Eve / Morning because we’re getting old enough and have enough junk of our own that we’ll probably stick to our own home from now on. The kids got lots of schwag and came away feeling like it was a pretty nice Christmas. To be honest with you, we’ve never not had a nice Christmas and have been very blessed to have gainful employment our entire marriage.

Jen and I didn’t do much gift exchanging on Christmas because we’ve been purchasing our gifts over the last month or two. For example, Jen recently purchased a nice wheat grinder — a present that I really benefit from because she makes an awesome wheat bread! We also both purchased smart phones from Costco (Samsung Galaxy S 4G – free phones but now have to pay for data on our cell plans) in the last month. Finally, we also purchased Photoshop Elements from Costco for $50. It’s been a pretty fun month despite the fact that we didn’t really open many presents from each other on Christmas morning.

The video below is the present opening — 66 minutes of presents condensed into 35 seconds.

On the 12th Day of Christmas, Monster Austin gave to us:

• 12 poopy diapers
• 11 smashed candy canes
• 10 broken branches
• 9 knocked down garbage cans
• 8 unwrapped presents
• 7 spilled hot cocoas
• 6 pulled down stockings
• 5 broken ornaments
• 4 unplugged lights
• 3 tipped stools
• 2 exhausted parents
• and a lump of coal under the tree

He’s a gem.

Inside the famous Mormon Tabernacle

Inside the South Visitor's Center

Is it the Star of David? Well, no. It's a large spotlight.

Last Saturday I got up around 6:30am and headed a few miles west of my house to catch a glimpse of the lunar eclipse. I took my camera and tripod and snapped a few pictures of the event. It was kinda cool seeing a red moon. I call it “bloody cheese.”

Bloody Cheese #1

Bloody Cheese over Mountain

Bloody Cheese over Mountain #2

• Our house is was on the original roof. That’s not crazy since the house was built in 1985. But with three-tab 25 year shingles, the roof was starting to look original. Luckily, I know a guy, if you know what I mean. He came over, took professional measurements, got a quote from Roofers Supply, and awaited my word. I went in and made the purchase and scheduled delivery of roughly $2100 of materials — 30 year architectural shingles, pipe flashing, ridge caps, 4 turtle vents, and nails. They came and we got started. My buddy reminded me how to do this roofing thing and he also did a lot of the “hard” stuff, namely handling the valleys. I really appreciated his help and time sacrifice he made to come over a few times to get me back on track. It took me more than a month to finish the job because we’re so dang busy — oh yeah, and I went to Europe in the middle of all this. The roof looks great!
  

  From the top of the house looking over two gabled roof lines over the kids' bedrooms.

  

  I added these roof vents and am looking forward to a cooler house next summer.

The Christmas lights came separately.

• Austin turned one year old November 22. Jen made a little cake for the little monster, cupcakes for the rest of us, and little monster picks to adorn the sugary offering. She also made Austin a monster onesie that he wore on the special day. This kid really is a (happy) monster. We have to hide our garbage cans, child lock all drawers, barricade the bathroom, watch stairs, etc. Our lives are a constant battle of following this kid around the house picking up what he destroys. It was amusing for the first little while; now it’s just tiring!
  

  Happy Birthday, Little Man

   

  

  Monster cupcakes -- most scrumptious

  

  Austin had his own little cake.

  

  This was about as far as he got.

  

  The little guy had plenty of help from sisters and cousins.

Then Leah started barfing. Then I started barfing. By 2am, Jen started barfing. Everyone was removing the contents of their stomachs except for Austin. It was very nice that Jen waited until the middle of the night to get sick because we all desperately needed her to take care of us. However, come Saturday morning, we were all still dead to the world, lethargic, feeling gross, and stuck in a house that just permeated barf. Yummy. Yet Austin was just walking around trying to entertain himself. We couldn’t be good parents so we called good friends in our church ward to come get him so we could get some rest with good conscience, instead of just ignoring him.

It’s Sunday night now and we’re all basically recovered. None is barfing, although I still am way short on energy. Luckily, I was able to “church” from 9am to nearly 6pm, so I found some energy to stay going.

Today was also the third time I’ve been set apart as a member of my ward’s bishopric — in seven months! I was called as the 2nd Counselor back in April; I was called as 1st Counselor in July when the current — at the time — 1st Counselor moved to Texas. Then today our bishop was released and called as Stake Patriarch, while the current 2nd Counselor was called as the new bishop. I’m very excited to be serving with these good men and hope Jen and I can continue to balance the many different things pulling on us.

Because the release of our bishop was so sudden and unexpected today, it was pretty fun to watch the faces of members in the congregation when they heard “We’d like to release Martin Harker as Bishop, Jess Clark as 1st Counselor, and Mark Livingston as 2nd Counselor.” Bishops typically serve for 5 years and he was only 3 years into this call. The new 2nd Counselor is new to this stuff and the new bishop is new to being a bishop, so my 7 months of “experience” makes me the longest tenured person in the bishopric — which should make any stake president scared! Good times ahead!

We did have a fun Halloween. This is one holiday I actually really enjoy since it marks in my mind a true start to fall. We were very lucky to have excellent weather for this holiday and I loved it. We’ve missed this holiday many times in previous years (deer hunt, Disneyland, Hawaii, etc.), so it was nice to actually be around and trick-or-treating with the kids.

I gotta say that Austin was one adorable dragon because when he was all decked out, he’d crawl around the ground as if he were a small dragon. I loved it. Jen and I dressed up as Ute fans but we made the colors look good. We had to visit our bishop afterward to repent, but it was worth it.

Adorable. Simply adorable. The kids, too!

Leah decided (on her own) that she wanted the barfing pumpkin. Bless her soul. Yes, I know this is Lauren in the picture, but the barfing pumpkin was Leah's.

'Cause I'm a Utah (wo)man!' -- lines from the Utah fight song that no Ute fan actually knows.

Speaking of selling out, I gave in and am now employed by “The Man.” The Man in this case is the federal government. I applied for a federal job (GS 12 Biological Scientist) back in early July. The job was only open for 9 days, which must have done the trick because there weren’t any veterans who applied and would have, therefore, blocked my application. The government has a great program to give preference for government jobs to qualified veterans. Unfortunately, “qualified” is often loosely defined and in a highly technical field such as mine, qualified shouldn’t be loosely defined. Due to that, the government is really full of a lot of people who aren’t the best for the job. Like, not at all. [Side note: I can't decide whether I'm supposed to say "Except for you, Keith and Andrew" or whether I'm supposed to say "Keith and Andrew would be the first to agree with me here."]

But no vets applied and I made the jump from private contractor to federal employee. I didn’t start my job until late October, so the process is very slow. That’s one thing I’ve learned as I’ve worked with/for the government over the last 8.75 years — they’re not in a hurry. This job is in the same office I’m already in; it’s just a switch from contract to federal staff.

We’re excited for the stability this job should offer and some of the improved benefits. One thing we noticed is that every health insurance plan we looked at on the federal side covers 100% of maternity costs. It’s a shame, since we’ve now had 4 kids and paid between $1500 and $3400 out of pocket for each of our kids. Like, seriously. That doesn’t count the copays and premiums we paid over the last 8 years. It’s a good thing my kids are so awesome or I’d be a little “Hey, I could be vacationing in [insert your favorite vacation spot here] a lot more if it weren’t for you kids.” But they are awesome, so I never think about the money they’ve already cost me and are yet to cost me. Never on my mind.

Our first wait in line at a ticket kiosk in the metro station was an experience. The line had Americans, Italians, Germans, French, and who knows who else. Unfortunately, the kiosk didn’t take certain credit cards (like, American ones…) and no paper money (like Euros). All it took was a French metro pass and coinage. So as we waited in line and watched the spectacle of people waiting and then realizing they couldn’t buy a ticket, we struck up a conversation with the guy behind us. He was a young guy and I asked him, “Do you speak English?” He responded in the affirmative and I quickly learned he was a college student from Boston (Bentley University) on a study abroad in Dublin on a long weekend trip in Paris. We chatted for a while about the Red Sox’s choke in the playoffs until it was our turn to  purchase tickets. Turns out we didn’t have quite enough coinage in Euros to buy two tickets. We were like 15 cent short — yes, ‘cent’ is singular here because apparently Europeans don’t say ‘cents’. The college student behind us gave us the extra coins we needed, after which Jen said, “If I ever see you again, I’ll pay you back, plus interest!” We laughed and went on our way.

We stayed in the Hotel Concorde Montparnasse and enjoyed the bigger room than Rome afforded. We were close to a metro stop and used it to get around town. We visited the Arc de Triumph first, then walked to the Eiffel Tower. We skipped the long lines and took the stairs up 41 flights to the “2nd” story of the tower. From there, we jumped on the elevator and rode to the top. If you’ve got the knees and heart for it, you’ll save a ton of time by following this approach.

The next day we went to the Louvre and saw a bunch of cool stuff. The coolest thing? As we walked into the museum, both Jen and I saw a familiar face. “Boston!” we both yelled out. The guy saw us, recognized us, and came over laughing. Jen promptly paid him back plus interest and we departed. We didn’t see him again. We also didn’t see 3/4 of the museum because it’s so friggin’ big, but we did see Venus di Milo, Mona Lisa, Winged Victory, plenty of famous paintings, enough naked statues to make a teenage boy blush, and secret passageways and clues that would lead us to figure out the Jesus-Mary Magdalene mystery. Just kidding. I didn’t see Tom Hanks anywhere.

After the Louvre, we walked to the Notre Dame Cathedral. That thing will be 850 years old in 2012. That’s like real old. The Salt Lake Temple is like 160 years old. We ain’t got nothin’ on the Europeans! Lucky for us, the weekly organ recitals started shortly after we got to the cathedral so we sat down and enjoyed the music and sights of the cathedral.

We flew home the next morning on a direct flight from Charles De Gaulle to Salt Lake City. We were very happy to be home but boy, what a great trip!