Spider On Our Porch

This is one of many spiders cohabiting with us. One of the fun facts we found out about living here in the mountains is that it is home to a ton of different spiders and unless you exterminate every month you will find them in and around your house. This is one of the nicer spiders (it stays on the front porch). Some of the spiders sneak into our house and cause interruptions to the quietness that should exist in our house. No the spiders don't make noise but, Marisa does and the noise she makes can wake the dead. Her scream when she sees a spider makes me think the world is coming to an end. You would think by now I'd be used to it, but I'm not, and to make matters worse she is training our girls to do the same thing. Anyway here are some pics I took tonight using my friends macro. The first 2 images I used a couple of sb800 one camera right and the other left. The bottom image was shot with just one sb800.

The Fall Festival Parade

My employees gave out Free Pizzas from Little Caesars Pizza. We advertised a couple of weeks before the parade that we would be giving out a large pizza to everyone that shows us their Majik. People brought signs, Majik t-shirts and even painted their faces. This is a picture of Tom driving our new Rhino and pulling the Little Caesar's Mascott. The little boy is the son of one of our Clients.





Ashlyn learns how to get candy at a parade. First you have to Clap and wave!













And then you have to hurry and fight your older brother before he grabs it all. Dillon is really fast when it comes to picking up candy. If we could only get him to work that fast picking up his room!















Livi was in the parade with her girl scout group. She had a lot of fun.















She stops to pose with her friend Skyler.

Blue Bird

When I pulled up to the park to take Livi and Dillon to their soccer practice tonight I saw this bird sitting in this little tree next to the parking lot. What kind of bird is it? I don't think it's Blue Jay. But what do I know? Anyone know what it is?

The House!

Well, we have been negotiating back and forth for the past 2 weeks. We made an offer of 139K + $3000 of our closing cost + we asked them to put in an AC unit. They originally indicated verbally that they would take 139K and cover our closing cost up to $3000. We probably shouldn't have asked for AC, but we thought what do we have to lose? They are now trying to raise the price of the house to compensate for any thing over $1000. For example their first counter offer was 144,900 + they would cover $3000 of the Closing Cost + they would give us a $4000 credit for AC. So they would give us $1100 and let us finance the rest via the higher price of the house. And that is basically where we are today. We have abandoned the idea of the AC unit, we don't want to finance it for the next 15 years. So what that really means is that we are with in $2000 of the deal.

So why haven't we just conceded the 2K? Well, we are conflicted because we felt like they should be more flexible in coming down in price. The original price when we started looking at the house was $139,900. They had, however dropped the price from $159900 about a month before we started looking at it. While this may be an awesome deal right now. The market always slows during the winter months up here. And the biggest employer in Taylor has announced that they are laying off 100 employees next month. A fact that should increase the number of homes on the market this winter given that there are very few jobs in Taylor to begin with.

In addition to that something has happened to our excitement during the negotiation process. Some of our hesitation is based on the distance from Show Low and Pinetop, and St Johns. The things we love to do are spend time with Family, Snow Ski, and go to the movies. We would be about 20 minutes further away from Flynt and Amber. When Marisa's Parents come to visit, they stay at their time share in Pinetop, approx. 50 minutes away. We would be an extra 45 minutes away from the slopes, and 35 minutes away from the closest movie theater.

I think, in the back of our minds we want the seller to pay for all these hesitations, something they obviously are not willing to do.

One of the reasons they are so stuck on this price is that the home is owned by 3 individuals, most likely an investment property. Split the profits 3 ways and it makes it tough to keep everyone happy.

Are we just being dumb? or what? We would love to hear what you think.

My Cousin Julie Is Amazing

This one, I wish I could take credit for, but I can't. It was taken by my Cousin Julie. Julie was unaware of her artistic talents until she was in college. She was one of those diamonds in the rough. An undiscovered. She writes a great blog you can see it here.

Close Ups

A friend loaned me a Sigma 105mm f.28 macro lens today. I couldn't wait to get home and use it. I started shooting right at sunset. Here are the shots I was able to get. Enjoy. P.S. Kiera wanted me to be sure and tell you that she found the Horny Toad.

Grandpa at Roosevelt

I stole this shot from Jen's Blog. Of all the pictures I got at the lake I didn't get any of my Mom and Dad. I know, shame on me. But thanks to Jen I now have this one. does anyone else have any cool pictures of our lake trip? Please send them to me?

Jen has some other cool pictures of our summer activities including some of our time together during the Forth of July. Check out the great shot of Marisa and Amber catching air on the tube at Roosevelt.

Crane Feeding In Pond

I got lucky today. On our way home from our morning session of soccer we saw this crane feeding in a pond next to the road. This is an over flow pond next to Rainbow Lake. I pulled the car over, got out, grabbed my camera and started shooting. I got off a couple of frames and this duck came swimming into the frame. Cool shot huh? I went with Shutter Priority 800. Let the camera pick the fstop. I believe it was f4.5. I focused on the crane so the duck is a little out of focus but still a pretty cool picture if you ask me. Thanks again for all of your comments on the house. We will be making an offer on Monday! Wish us luck.

Our New House?

We have been looking for a house for 10 years! Yes, I know what you're thinking, 10 years is a long time. During that time we have lived in 2 bedroom apartments. They have all been nice apartments but, very small. The one we are in now is the biggest we have been in, but do to an expanding population, it feels like the smallest. The above house is a 4-bedroom 2-Bath house in Taylor on .5 acres. It has new carpet and floors and all new appliances. They were asking $169,00 and just dropped the price to $139,900 (the lowest price by 20k for a 4 bedroom in Taylor) We have been negotiating for the last 2 weeks. They have verbally agreed to drop the price another $4000. I think we are going to make a written offer. We are going to go look at it again with Flynt and Amber tomorrow. Any thoughts or comments would be greatly appreciated.

Cousin Carolyn

You'll never guess who visited my Blog today. Yep it was Carolyn. What tipped you off? The Title? or was it the picture? Any way she has a blog and you can get to it by clicking it in "My Favorite Blogs" to the right. Or just click here: Light Family, or click her picture. I have to admit when I first thought about doing a Blog I was not real keen on the idea, but this has been a lot of fun especially when long lost cousins leave me a note. See her comment below the Las Vegas Post.

Las Vegas

I keep thinking I am going to get a chance to shoot some new photos and do another post but, I haven't had a chance yet. So, given the fact that my goal was to post once every 2 days and it has been over a week since my last post I thought I would post a shot I took last year when I attended management training in Las Vegas. This is a picture of the Strip. I don't remember the camera settings exactly... something like f22 33 sec. exposure. I used the side of a bridge to hold my camera still during the shot.