happy early birthday to me

For a while now, I'd say ever since I've been in college, I have REALLY wanted a DSLR camera. I love pictures. I love taking pictures. I love when I actually look cute in pictures. I love all the things that PhotoShop can do to pictures. It is all just awesome. But, they are expensive little boogers. But as of late, and with the encouragement of my wonderful sister, I really looked into buying a camera! My birthday/Christmas were coming up and I was slowly convincing Josh that it would totally be worth it. And then one day we found what looked to be a great deal on KSL! It was a Sony a-55 and came with two lenses. Well, after looking into it, and driving an hour and a half to go look at it, WE BOUGHT IT (happy birthday, Christmas, and Valentines day to me haha)! It was an amazing deal and the previous owner took extremely good care of it. This is my reaction on the car ride home!

Then to make the trip out there more worth it, we stopped in Salt Lake City and had a wonderful date night (thank you wedding gift card to Cheesecake Factory!!)!  I tried taking pictures with my camera, but I really had no idea how to get good lighting in the dimly lit restaurant and people were giving me weird looks so I have up...

It was a fabulous time and I am so excited for my new camera and all the things that I am going to be learning. As I've been playing with it the past couple days I've realized that I know very little about this camera and all the things that it takes to get great pictures. I also have a lot of learning to do with PhotoShop which I now have better quality pictures to work with! Woohoo!!

I feel so lucky to have an amazing husband to recognizes when something is really important to me and then gets excited with me! He is an amazing support and I love how he is already letting me practice taking pictures on him... what a guy! Hopefully he doesn't get tired of it :)

I am also so lucky to have an amazing sister who gets SO excited for me when I do things, who helps give me information to make great decisions about different things, who is willing to teach me her amazing skills and share her talents with me. Thank you Alyssa for being a great support to me! I love you so much and cannot wait for our "Picture Fest" this Christmas. :)

oh. p.s. I'm turning 21 in 6 days, Holy freak.