Photos and Memories and Christmas Gifts

Sorry it's been so long since I've written (this is Jared). I'm sure I don't need to apologize because I'm sure nobody really cares. Lori and my relationship can be reduced to a few things. One is that I love her. Another is that we are extremely lucky to be together. Another is that I get ideas, and Lori actually puts them into practice in a day to day consistency. Once she got a handle on the blogging thing, would come back to the computer to blog but that had already magically appeared, like the German fairy tale of the shoemaker and the elves.

I'm not much of a purchaser/consumer. I don't even own a single argyle shirt - it would take years for them to hit the Salvation Army store (key Courtney Andersen reference). My entire car cost less than a single monthly payment of a new Denali (my cube-mate told me how much hers is) - and it is pretty obvious how little I paid for my car, too. I tell myself that I shop second hand because it shows style, but I know I'm just lying to myself - I really just don't like to shop at all, and for some reason spending $2 for a shirt makes it less maddening to me.

So surprise to myself - I've been forever eying a nice camera set-up. It all started with appreciating my uncle David's photography of his family when I was a child. I loved the sweet pictures of his kids as I grew up, I appreciated the memories he created with them. My brother is an excellent videographer (http://www.shadesofivory.com/) whose business came out of a love of home videos, and I have always loved my sister-in-laws near daily artistic insights into the lives of her family via word and photography (http://www.valeriandersen.blogspot.com/) . Courtney Stutzenegger's works of Katherine on my walls remind me daily of my joys of fatherhood. Her blog is here if you can get access to it. http://stutzneggers.blogspot.com

(Caution: Extremely Sappy Below)
So in spite of myself and moving past numerous ranglings with my own sense of lack of style or spending money, I got deeper and deeper in enthusiasm for a sweet camera over the last couple of weeks. In reality the thought of loosing memories (which all who know me, know that this is a very probable scenario) frightened me into wanting to forever remember my children as they are now. I know we will continue to have children and those children will continue to spurr beatiful moments which I will be ever so thristy for. But Katie will never be 14 months old, and children grow up and become boring like all grown-ups (sorry to all you grown-ups out there). But for a moment she is 14 months old and still excited to see a dog or a duck or Michelle Zielke at church.

I would wait until we have more money to spend on a camera - house insurance doesn't cover all the repairs due to hail, and a belated honeymoon was worth it but expensive. But not photographing Katie and my family at this time will mean that I may miss some memories that are worthy to be captured.

Its funny, I didn't need a camera with me when I traveled to Paris/London. In fact Lori and I had to remind ourselves to bring one about with us. And those memories of places could be forgotten and I would be OK with it - as postcards and photos of those places are to be found online. But I can't google my own family, and I cannot relive these wonderful moments.

Because of this I'm excited to breach my own protocol of never spending more than $40 ever in one place at one time, and to buy a camera. Here are a couple of links to it. I haven't gotten it yet in the mail, but I'm super excited.

Nikon D90

AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G

So please don't think I'm being a little cheeky here, because this isn't a blog to ask for gifts. If you want to know what Jared wants for Christmas - it would be $ to buy the lens /camera(linked above) and a couple of good assessories. If you insist on puchasing something instead of giving money. One good memory card will work. Here is a "Class 10" memory card for a good price.

Lori tells me that people only look/read the photos - so here are two awesome photos taken by Valeri Andersen - the link to her blog is given above. These kind of photos/memories are the kind I'm willing to spend so much to preserve. The first is her son Ryan eating a lollipop. The second is one of Katherine at Lake Powell tasting some birthday cake.