Memorial Day Weekend | 2012

This weekend was super! I went to my grandma's house, (Which is about thirty minutes from mine) and arrived fully prepared for staying a whole week. What did I do during the week? Well take a look! First meet Rose, a female goat who's only two days of age in this picture. 

       This is Rose's mother, Pj

Absolutely adorable, right? 

Then there is my girl Paisley, who just turned four recently! Me and my grandma have been working together trying to train her. 

    This is where I spent *most* of my weekend. Yes, it was on the back of a horse. Pretty much the most amazing thing ever! Yesterday, was the first time I got to ride my own horse up into the mountains! The trail ride had uphills, downhills, rocky parts, but she did everything perfectly. I was so surprised, she is not the same horse that I bought over a year ago!
                   

Then there's rugger, he's a certified search and rescue dog. If someone is missing they'll use him to go find the person. He is a pretty amazing dog if you ask me!

Then there's Ithaca, the dog that talks! Just kidding, well sort of. He can kinda say I love you. It's really quite cute! Ithy (Nickname) is a crazy smart dog!

                                       

         Trail ridding was the bomb!

   Can't be in the rough outdoors without some worn-out, cowgirl boots!

     

         Deer tracks, they're everywhere! Speaking of tracks...two days in a row, I've seen a moose, and a cow elk! Which FYI is pretty rare to see! :)

                We had some obstacles for the horses, in which they did awesome!

      Winchester! The.BEST.Dog.EVER!! So loyal, sweet, and caring, seriously would not even hurt a fly.

        I love where we live!

 Tall, green pine trees, blue sky, fresh air, and tons of wildlife. Who wouldn't like it here?

   The view from the house, pretty epic!

     This picture is not so great, but do you see that blurry thing in the middle? Yeah, that's a cow elk.

      Some of the weekend awesomeness! 
Steak slowly smoked over a fire, and seasoned to perfection? Yes please!

     Graham cracker, marshmallow, chocolate = S'mores!! Some more! ;)

       Trying to get the fire started, so we can roast our marshmallows. The fire was fun, the food was great, and basically, whole week was just epic! However, that's not what Memorial Day is all about...

It's about those who gave there lives for our country. It's about taking the time and honoring those men and women who fought for us. Maybe some of them were out numbered, and knew that if they went on fighting that they would die. What did those men do? They died fighting for something they believed in. Memorial Day is a day of remembering all the men and women who fought for America. Let's keep that in mind.

How did you spend your memorial day weekend!?

 ♥ Dakota Nicole

Bad to Good

Like my awesome parking job!? ;) I wonder why I didn't pass my drive test? Beats me.. 

I was pretty bummed about not passing my drive test. It wasn't perfect, I failed. I felt like just giving up, but then I realized, that it's the times that I feel like giving up, that count the most. I realized that we are human, we fail, and that's just life. I'm not necessarily just talking about driving, it could be anything. I was looking at it from the wrong point of view. I'll admit, even in my photography I feel (at times) like I'm failing to create what I had in mind. I see it as two ways...I can get down about it, or I can work harder. Practice and hard work is the only way to succeeding in life. I see it as this, it doesn't matter how many times we fail, because we're just that much closer to thriving! Therefore, I shouldn't be sad about failing, because it means I'm on the verge to succeeding! Shouldn't that be something to be happy about?


Just a few thoughts...


Thanks for stopping by!
♥ Dakota Nicole

Inspiring Photography Quotes | May

Stumbled across a few photography quotes, and these are just some of my favorites. I hope they can inspire you in some way, as they did for me.

“ You don’t take a photograph, you make it. - Ansel Adams

“ Beauty can be seen in all things, seeing and composing the beauty is what separates the snapshot from the photograph. - Matt hardy

 “ You’ve got to push yourself harder. You’ve got to start looking for pictures nobody else could take. You’ve got to take the tools you have and probe deeper. – William Albert Allard

If you do not raise your eyes you will think that you are the highest point.  ~Antonio Porchia

 “There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.” — Edward de Bono

“It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.” — Edward de Bono

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

 “Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.” — Mary Lou Cook

Like the quotes? Have a favorite? Let's do a poll...should I do a post of "Inspiring photography quotes" monthly, or no?

Thanks for stopping by! 

 ♥ Dakota Nicole

Homemade Lemonade | 2012

Howdy there! ;) How has y'alls week? My week so far, has been just dandy! Yesterday, me and my siblings had the idea to make fresh homemade lemonade. So we gather together all the lemons we could find, snatched our juicer, added some water, and a dash of fructose, and wala! Deliciousness was born. Talk about summer in a cup! Basically it was pure deliciousness! Yes, that is a word...

So meet my two siblings...Kaitlin (aka the genius of the family) and then there's Braden, my favorite brother! Okay, my only brother.

                                                           Me and lemons have a love, hate relationship.

                                         Little girls with bare feet & lemonade = adorable! Do you not agree?

    Something about this picture makes me want to drift off slowly listening to the breeze blowing the  leaves.

                                                                        Goofy girl, guess it runs in the family. ;)

    I'm going to try to blog more, so keep your eyes peeled for more posts! Thank you for stopping by! Whoops, almost forgot to ask, how do you like the new blog look? I've been meaning to change it up for awhile now.
                                                                                                        ♥ Dakota Nicole

Lacey Graduate | Class of 2012

Hey all, meet my graduating sister Lacey. She is a 5"8 seventeen year old, who enjoys spending time with her Savior, guitar, fashion, friends, shoes, family, city lights, video editing, and of course modeling for me. ;) She is my best friend and oldest sister. We've had our share of laughs, and cries...maybe we also had our share of fights. Who us, no way!? ;) Now prepare yourself for a surprise..... yes, even now and then we find something to argue over. In the end we still love each other. Lacey will be going to a video editing school soon nearby, to pursue her talent! She has always been naturally gifted in that area. I think it's awesome that she enjoys it so much, after all your job shouldn't really feel like a job. You've heard how the quote goes, right? "Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life." 

 --  Confucius 

                 See her, yeah that's my sister...

      Wow she is truly beautiful on the outside, but also on the inside!

             Oh and did I mention that she's pretty much awesome

        After all she'd have to be pretty awesome to put up with me! ;)

 Thank you for stopping by! Have a favorite?

♥ Dakota Nicole