In Flight

I am currently sorting through my GoPro footage from the flight home.

The best part of it, by far, was the very last section I videoed of us landing over Oklahoma City. It was the most beautiful thing ever to fly in over the lit up city, and the GoPro captured it really well!

This is a picture of my set up -- I was using the suction cup mount -- and on the left is a snap I took with the GoPro while we were in the air.

The only problem I'm having right now, is trying to make the decision of where to use the footage from my flight... Do I make more of a home-video compilation and use it at the end of little snip-bits of our time up in West Virginia? Or do I wait and use it for the skiing video I want to make? I don't have enough footage to make the skiing video, so if so I did that, I would have to wait until I went back and got more skiing footage in February.  :/  Hmmm... decisions.

-MarLeahJoy

Wishful

I send myself into so much anguish sometimes when I look at my archives. It's especially bad when you are in the dead of winter and you start looking at photos from the lush summer time.

It's even worse when those photos were taken with the lovely 35mm f/1.4. Boy! I need to start saving for that lens again!

So I know this is a really weird picture because the poor guy gashed his eyebrow open playing football... but those amazing summer tones are to die for, though! And this is even straight out of the camera...

-MarLeahJoy

"Let's Take a Walk"

"Let's take a walk", she said. 

"It will be fun, short walk", she thought.

Well, apparently my whole family interpreted my words as an express desire take a walk that would burn off all the calories we ever ate in the whole 5 days we were there visiting my sister.

Yeah, so we sat out on a walk Christmas Eve to go down the lane from Alyssa's house... Kiki and I were about 20 minutes behind everyone, so we thought we would walk until we met up with them at a certain point by the creek. Not sure where we got that idea, because we never ran into my parents. And by the time we realized that they were probably walking the whole loop, we figured that we would walk more miles by turning around than to just go ahead and walk the whole loop as well. We found out that it was only a piddly 4 miles... ;P But trust me, it felt like 6 or 8. It was still really enjoyable, though.

I videoed the first section of our walk with the GoPro on my head and I had my DSLR taking pictures of scenery... I created a little video with the combined video and pictures. Because I have nothing better to do. jk.

But here are the pictures :)

And the video!

Part of the walk triggered so much déjà vu... back to our many vacations to a certain special cabin in Colorado. Mostly because you can hear the creek bubbling as it moves along swiftly... hidden behind the dense pine foliage. But also little things like these rusty old mailboxes, the little shack-like cabins built close to the road because they are crowded by the steep rise of the mountain, and the wet road we walked on all reminded me of Green Mountain Falls, Colorado! :)

Basically, I'm saying that it was just as good as any vacation to Colorado. Except there is no cell coverage... which is spotty in Colorado anyway, but you can rest assured that you will never have a chance of getting any in Pocahontas County, WV! ;)

And I actually used the compass on my phone for the first time. :P

When I got off the flight, the only directions I had to find my car was that it was on the East end of the second garage level. o.O How is someone directionally challenged supposed to find that!? LOL

Thank goodness for the iPhone!

I had a wonderful time... being with family and my sister's "second family" (basically everyone out in Green Bank), skiing, and flying home. It was all lovely! ;) 

And I got paid to do it all. It's a blessing to get so many weeks of paid vacation time. So basically find a job you love, or find a job with lots of vacation time. LOL, just joking... I love my job!

-MarLeahJoy

Oh Happy Day!

This is the day I've been waiting for! I've been planning for a few months to make sure I have all the skiing gear I needed, and I even had it laying out in my room for the last week (And then I just threw my iPhone on top of it to keep it classy for the picture ;P)

Yesterday, I almost got a little jittery thinking about it. I started panicking in my mind thinking: "What if I just totally loose my touch with it???" That would be horrible! But I know that's not going to happen. I think I just can't believe that I was so daring the last time I went skiing and went on such steep slopes... So I might have to ween myself back into it tomorrow. But I'm sure as soon as I get the skis on it will feel normal again.

-MarLeahJoy

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...

So I still think it is pretty sweet that my sister's new house was completely furnished with everything when they got it. Yeah, maybe a few things in the house are a little older and she plans on trying to update somethings... but they have quite a few vintage gems - like these chairs. We had our first meal together after church Sunday.

Then we sang and played the guitar and piano. I felt like a super star... just saying ;P 

And ever since VHS went out of style... we really haven't had any "home videos" made around our place. So it's really nice to have my GoPro so I can easily record our family time, and it was fun to see everyone passing around my GoPro and recording different things :)

This is just a little screen shot from the video of the duet Kiki and I did :)

At night I asked Marty to build a fire -- they just make everything more cozy!

While we were sitting around the fire, it made me think of the new song by Pentatonix, "That's Christmas to Me" when it says: "The fireplace is burning bright, shining all on me..." :) Yep, it's Christmas alright! :)

Christmas wishes!

-MarLeahJoy

Birthday Wishes

I took this picture of my room with the bouquet my mom surprised me with at work before my birthday. I love it so much because it is such an original arrangement. I had to leave the bouquet to fade away on my dresser :( but there are more exciting things ahead! :) 

If I had one birthday wish left, it would be that we are already at my sister's house. It's been one loooonngg day :P

- MarLeahJoy

Almost Time

I can't believe that tomorrow marks the last day of work... for a week! :)

I also can't believe that me -- the last of all people on the totem pole -- got the whole week of Christmas off! I'm normally not excited about packing my clothes and getting everything ready for a trip, but I am so ready for this trip to West Virginia to see my sister's new house, to have Christmas as a family, and to Ski! So eager that I laid all my clothes out, and even tried on my whole skiing outfit. 

Speaking of eager... Tuesday was my birthday and I couldn't have been more happy to have a birthday! lol It normally doesn't excite me very much to simply turn a year older, but this year... I was hyper days before Lol! My dearest friend and cousin, Heather, sent me this for my birthday. It is a little globe from Target (right Heather?) that I have almost bought for myself at least two times before.

If you are Katelyn or Karissa and you are reading this... you should stop now. Or you may as well open your present now. Hehe ;P 

I love just a little bit of giving here and there! It's just so right! It's not about what you get, neither is it about what you spend... it's only about the attitude of your heart! <3

I hope to see you all soon!

And I severely hope it is with a video from my GoPro with some fun skiing stuff.

Crossing my fingers that all my ideas work out!! :)

-MarLeahJoy