One thing I Miss about Utah......

It's not the thing i miss the most, but it's high up there is....... Concerts!

El Paso is so lame when it comes to people who play here. The last good person/band, that i would see, that came is "The Sounds". I'm grateful that i have already seen them.....PS they are amazing!!! I love them so much. If you wanna see a good performance go to "The Sounds" you will not regret it. Well, you might if you aren't into their music. Unfortunately, i missed them cause of my little sisters graduation.

But Utah is getting several people i want to see...... Regina Spektor , The Bravery, Ingrid Michaelson, BOB DYLAN, Wolfmother, Snow Patrol and Dashboard and Pinback!!!!....... just to name a few and are they all coming in the next few months..... Yes!!! Stiners you better be representing me at one of these concerts! :)

I've seen "Pinback" already, but i would love to see them again. I also flirted my way into the back stage and i had my ticket signed by all of the people in Pinback. Don't believe me? I will send you a picture of the ticket. I keep it in my wallet at all times :) Ryan, their keyboard player was very very hot. I just waited around with some friends after the show and he came out to clean up, we started chat'n and then i was invited to go backstage! It was sweet!

Have i ever mentioned my LOVE for concerts?!!! Well, I love them. When I was single, I at least went to one or two concerts a month.

Katherine, my older sister, is going to freak when I tell her Wolfmother and Mr. Bobby Dylan are coming in concert. She got me hooked on Mr. Bobby and I introduced her to Wolfmother.

Anyways that is one thing i miss about Utah. Maybe, just maybe, someone awesome will be playing in California when we go out for Christmas...... keep your fingers crossed for me.

Peace,

Michelle

This is mind blowing!!!!! Mind Blowing!!!!!

I wish i could be this good in photoshop and other adobe programs. I'll give my self some props cause i can do some awesome things with photoshop, but this, this is unbelievable!!!

He's Swedish. Those Swedish man are very very ingenious. Working at an architect firm for the last 8 months I've scanned through tons of Architectural magazines. Always with out a doubt, a Swedish firm is winning something awesome in Architecture. So this in no surprise to me that this kid is from Sweden.

His name is Erik Johansson his site is Here

Here is his work.






This is not just hours of work in photoshop, but it's a lot more hours of preparing the images. Each image is separate. Almost every element in the image has to be taken somewhere else which means they have to track the lighting, they have to track the camera height, the camera angle..... everything. It's amazing. I'm seriously blown away at how awesome these are. I don't know if you will be blown away like i am, but at least know this is a good three months of work for one image.


Peace

Michelle

Walmart..... isn't it grand?

I know miss Allison Shiffler and Stiners will get a kick out of this site. :)

I miss you two.

I happened upon this site by...... I have know idea actually.... But it's fantastic and i just spend my whole morning looking at it and silently laughing/dying inside looking at these.

It's called people of Walmart (click here to go to the site)

It's picture of folks that make you go....... "Um......that's just not right." or you just start laughing uncontrollably, and are they at our wonderful Walmarts? they are :)

I almost started to pee my pants. REALLY? Walmart is your best choice to get married in? Was there a contest and the winner got to have their wedding free, provided you have to have the ceremony at Walmart? That poor little boy in the tux. I'm sure he was embarrassed. The bridesmaids look a little pissed as well.... ahahahha

Seriously, there should be a application to procreate.

I don't even know what to say about this one...... What era is he from? King Louis the 14th?.... He looks like a character from the children's book Emperors New Cloths. I think maybe Lizzy will only remember the resembles from that Taco Bell book. Yes, when i was little taco bell handed out children's books for gifts. And he looks like the Emperor from that book.

I'm pretty sure this dude got a hold of some woman's garments...... ahahah He's become a legend now and has about three picture up on the site. All on different days and with the same outfit on. The sweater is the only thing that has changed. hahahahha :)

I hope your visit to Walmart was a pleasant one this evening, Capt'n America? Did you find everything you were looking for?

Tony needs to eat too.

My favorite one..... The owner of this truck apparently really wanted a corvette but since he couldn't afford one, he decided to add the back to his truck and make it a corvette. oh and lets add a new element to make all other corvette owners jealous.... a spoiler. Who wouldn't want a truck/corvette with a spoiler?

Peace

Michelle

Our little outings

So our outings over the last month have not been so small.

1st we went to a Diablos games. They are the local baseball team here and they are like a Division A.... I have no clue what the difference between Baseball stuff is. All i know is that they are not in the major leagues.

Our seats and some cool clouds coming in

We lost, but it was a good game none the less. We had bratwurst and funnel cake. There was one particular player, Jeff Vincent, who was awesome. He is their Right fielder and any ball that came his way he caught. He had some awesome slides/catches. He will surely get picked up by some other higher team and slowly make his way to the majors. No doubt about that. He was really really good.

Mr. Jeff Vincent

It was also boy scout night. Little kids were all over the place. Dan and I got seats next to the opponents dug out, lame. The ticket woman told us they were in front of the Diablos dugout. Anyways a cute family a few row back from us, had a 7 year who was in the scouts. He came to the dugout and tried to get a ball from the Cats team anytime they would listen. The mom finally came down and tried to help as well. Eventually I joined in the fight to get a ball for the kid and finally at the end of the game he got one. He was so happy. :) That family was so nice to talk to. :)

2nd we took a long almost 12 hour journey out to Houston to visit my Dad and family and to see....

BYU play OKLAHOMA!!!

Beautiful and wonderful Texas Stadium

Was that one of the best games that i have ever been too?...... Yes

Will I remember it for the rest of my life?..... Yes

Was Texas Stadium as cool as they say it is?...... Yes

Was that screen so giant that you didn't just see the players eyes but you could see into their souls?..... Yes

Now if you have not heard of this fantabulous 60 yard screen that hangs over the field then you, live in a cave. It was so big. It went from the 20 to the 20 wow!!!

Was the food overly priced and not so awesome for that price?..... Yes

But was I so happy to be there?.... Yes

Sea of Red and the Gigantic screen

Mr. Sam Bradford getting taken off the field after his injury. He really wasn't all the they say he is. I was not impressed.

WE WON!!! that placed emptied so fast. I was stunned!

WE WON!!! and yes I did "we are #1 finger!"

Jealous are we?

Did i mention We won?!?!

Let me tell you how much we drove through out the Labor Day weekend. Friday, drove 11 hours to get to Houston. Saturday drove 4 hours to get to Dallas to see the game and drove another 4 hours home after the game. We got in very very late and thank you Daddy for driving. Sunday, had a head cold almost all weekend, and the game did not help the symptoms. Monday drove another almost 12 hours to get home. Awesome right? Not so fun!

On the way home we stopped at this rest stop just outside of San Antonio... I vote this the best rest stop in the world!!!! If you have been to another please, indulge me in being wrong but i really do believe this is the mother of all rest stops.

Mother of all Rest stops!

Inside Mother of all rest stops

Playground at Mother of all Rest stops

And this past weekend we went to the UTEP game, their home opener against Kansas. After that dreadful game i will never ever be going to another one of their games again. They were that bad. Dan said that I have been spoiled going to BYU games most of my life and have not had to deal with dumb dumb players and boring games. Granted BYU has had a losing season or two.. or three..... Crowton... you sucked. But man, they never have gotten this bad.

Seriously after our 1st good defensive hold on Kansas, where they actually had to punt the ball instead of returning it to us after either a touchdown or a field goal, we rushed the kicker..... so Kansas got the ball right back. And did not just one person rush the kick, but two? Yeah, seriously that is either some bad coaching or some bad sportsmanship from our players. Also, Utep needs to fire their conditioning coach. Every single player looked as if they had just gotten out of High School, they were that small. No wonder they have only losing seasons. WOW again WOW!

Bright Sun... Stadium is actually built into the Mountains it's really very beautiful

That is how close we are to the boarder.... never believed me till now right?

Cars US, shacks/Homes... Mexico

Lots of orange

All in All i have had a fantastic three weeks and I can't wait till the fall here in El Paso, I hear they are so beautiful. Which means we get to do a lot more stuff outside.... Hooray!!!!!

Peace

Michelle

8 months of El Paso

While living in El Paso for the past 8 months, this is what i have learned....

1. People are really dumb when it comes to driving,

• Example one, people like to get into my lane during a left hand turn with two lanes. With out fail this happens 3 times a week on my way home. In Utah i think i saw that once, ONCE.
  
• Example two, when making a turn on to another street they usually do it going at like 5 miles an hour, no joke.
• Example Three, drivers go crazy scary driving mode when it rains and it's a heavy rain too. They don't now what to do with it.
  

Needless to say, i have learned to honk my horn. If i don't they will clip me or run right into me.

2. People only speak Spanish and if i don't understand them it's like I just murdered a baby.

3. People also speak TexMex, Spanish and English in the same sentences. The local commercials here even do it. It's odd.

4. Apparently there are a lot of abortions here in El Paso because, on the freeway and around town, there are anti abortion billboards everywhere.

5. Also it's my right as a woman to breastfeed in public here in Texas. These commercials and Billboards just arrived. Telling women to breastfeed.....odd right?

6. Any Restaurant that you go here will have a hint of Mexican flavor food... seriously. Example; There is an Italian restaurant that Dan just loves, every entree i have ever gotten has had a bit of a kick to it. Even when it says no spice.

7. Salsa is so incredible hot here. No matter what. I'm actually getting used to the heat in food and am liking it more and more.

8. There is such a thing as expensive Mexican food.

9. The sunsets here are the most beautiful things.

10. The monsoon season last for about three weeks and i have never heard such loud thunder before. Imagine the loudest Utah thunder and times that by 10. No joke. It's loud!!! P.s. I HATE THUNDER!!!!

11. You do not go outside in the sun during the hot summer. That sun is so intense!!! It could be about the same heat here as it is in Utah but again the sun just has a different intensity then up there. If you don't believe me come and visit me during the summer months.

12. People call swamp coolers AC. hahaha not even close. Only the rich people or newer houses, like 5 years old, have refrigerated air. Dan and I only have a swamp cooler. Saturdays we usually have to go and see a movie, go to his parents (they just got refrigerated air installed).... we just got to get out of the house. It's to hot to stay there.

13. "Utah is not green" some people say, but really it's SO!!! green compared to here. SO GREEN!!! I forgot how green it got until I went back up last week.

14. Utah people are cheap but they could learn a very good lesson from El Pasoens. They are way cheaper. Example; the zoo is opening up a new exhibit/area this fall and they decided to raise the adult price from 5 bucks to like 9 bucks and did people go crazy mad and say they will never ever go to the Zoo again with that price? Yes, they did. Come on people, support you local places and help them to improve.

Oooo family lets go to San Barbara Zoo during Christmas, Audrey will go nuts and it would be fun to see the place again. :)

15. Everyone here is a Cowboys fan and it pisses me off!

16. There are some pretty racist people here....really.

17. There is a daily count on how many people have died over in Juarez this past year....It's very funny now actually. Lets see....how many is it now...... about 1400.... wow. That averages about 40 deaths a week... nice. :)

18. El Paso Policeman are not so smart. Check this video out. Yes this really happened.



19. Bugs are not that big of a problem here, to hot and i love it. They spray here for mosquitoes every week. It's very very nice.

20. The electric company has a really cool commercial and campaign. It makes them look like they are the best electric company ever... like superman. But really they suck. There was a small little storm. Small being like only about a 20 block radius got the storm. Did the power go out in some places? Yes. Did it take like 2 hours to fix it? Yes? Does this happen all the time even without a storm? Yes.

So, that is what i have learned living here in El Paso. :) I'm sure i will discover more as the months go by.

Peace

Michelle

Making Money..... :)

As most of you know I was up in Utah for a shoot, a well paying shoot many I add, for the clothing company Shabby Apple.

It was fun and i had a good time, but very very stressful. Lots of shooting in 2 days and I'm so sorry i didn't get to see everyone that i wanted to. I really only had time to see my family, which I didn't really get to do to much of that of either. My mom was at Band Camp during the day and was shooting a Movie that she is costume designing for in the evening. Which was sad.... :( But I'm so happy for my Mom. She loves working on Movie sets.


Here are some of the images:

This model, Erynn, I really liked her. I never had to tell her what to do she just did it and would listen to my shutter and when she would hear it open she would get ready for the next shot. It was fantastic working with a professional model!!! Erynn loved working with Beckie, the stylist/designer on the shoot, and me and whats to do it again the next time i am up in Utah.

Disclaimer: This outfits are not actually Beckie's, these are another designers but Beckie was hired by Shabby Apple to be the stylist. Once i finish editing Beckie's images I will be putting them up. :)

Peace

Michelle

Project Runway and it's Awesomeness!!!!

Project Runway for me is 49er football for my Husband....

(seriously, my husband LOVES his 49ers)

Just look at these amazing outfits....I wish i could sew like this.

hmmmm......I might just have to take a few classes at the community college here and learn how to do some of this.

Did you check out this dress?!? It's beautiful!!!!!! Seriously they did it with a 250 dollar budget!!!! Amazing!!!

Click on the images to see them bigger, go on, i dare you.... it's mind blowing how awesome these dresses are! the detail is amazing.

What makes me laugh is, I went online to get these images and I started reading the comments and some people were mean saying things like...."This dress is poorly constructed," and "Who would even wear it?" Jealous much? I think so.



I have not figured out my favorite designer, still to early in the season.

Watch the Awesomeness of Project Runway on Lifetime Thursday nights
(I'm thinking i should get a little star or something from Tim Gunn or Heidi Klum for promoting the show.......just say'n)

Peace

Michelle