Flagstaff newborn photography

I absolutely love capturing precious moments of new life. What a gift! With everything sad and dark in this world these days, I give my gratitude to the new parents who welcome a new life into their home. What a joy it is to hold little hands and feet. What a blessing to see a child grow!

 

Zion National Park with your whole family.

We started a tradition of visiting Zion National Park since our kids were very very little and we have never regretted it. What a wonderful world we live in! There us so much beauty and wonder for us to explore and find. We treasure the time we have with our kids before they are all grown up. And going on family vacations is the way we like so spend our time together.

My favorite things about Zion is first very noticeable thing, like these red roads. It creates such a magical feel through the whole park.

 Our first stay at Zion. we stayed at a very nice Desert Pearl Inn hotel, very nice place, really close to the park. You can pretty much walk to the park Entrance from there. No Breakfast though.

Many hikes in Zion are very easy, if you start early in the morning you can beat the crowds and the heat. I could never understand why the majority of people did not do this. You can see crowds of people starting to form at 11 am, that is the time when you have to get out of the park and go swim in the pool.

This is me 9 year ago hiking Emerald pools hike, while 8 and 1/2 months pregnant with my son Quinn.

This is our whole family last month, Aug 2019, My 9 year old survived all the hikes so did my 6 year old. So much easier to hike with kids that can do more than a toddler.

 If you follow the Aa'ute trail from the place where you get on the bus at the entrance to the Park, you will find this nice sandy and shady place (also located behind the campground) where you can tube and float downstream on a hit summer day at Zion. This is where we would usually spend the middle of the day, when temperatures hit 100 F, being in the river is the best place.

We bring our own floats and have a blast floating down the stream. You do go through some little rapids and you have to dodge or push off rocks but its not very deep and I felt very safe with my kids doing it all day.

 One of the most incredible hikes in Zion Park is the Narrows. It is one of the most popular hikes and let me tell you it is amazing. It is the best to hike there in the middle of the summer, when the Virgin river is low. Hiking in the water helps with heat and the views get more and more amazing the further you go.

 Make sure to check with the ranger or visitor center on the possibility of the flash flood though. We have never had a problem, but flash floods can kill. If there is any risk of a flash flood I would stay close. This year, the flash flood risk was very low and we went all the way up to the fork. The hike was easy and refreshing and 5 hours up stream went way too fast.

 Before you hike, make sure you have the following:

1. Sturdy hiking stick, do not hike without it. YOU will have to go through rocks in the water and you will need you third leg, if not you will be falling left and right.

2. Sturdy water shoes with layers of socks. You can rent them before the hike or just have your own.

DO NOT wear flimsy water shoes with thin soles, you will feel every rock you step on.

3. Bring water, lots of snacks and a jacket. One year we started our hike early and were freezing because we did not bring our jackets.

4. Have fun and enjoy.

 This 11 year old is so skinny and got little cold on the way there. But we got him warm in the sun when we got to see it.

Another Good to know info for this hike is the restrooms. You will have a chance to go to the restroom before the hike starts, make sure you go as much as you can. Once you are hiking for 5 hours or so there are no other places to go. I am pretty sure people just use the water to go #1 but it gets a little trickier if you have to go #2. I will let you in on a little secret, when you see the hills and the trees, go up a little ways and you will not  be the first one. LOL

 If you want to go on a beautiful, paved trail at Zion, this was one of my favorites early in the morning. The morning sun had an amazing effect on the scenery on this trail at 8 am in the morning. This is the Paa'ute trail. It takes you along the Virgin river, over beautiful bridges and a waterfall.

Catching up on two years of not blogging might be hard

It has been more that 2 years since I have blogged on here, so much has happened. I kind of gave up on it since it was taking so long to post and upload, but yesterday we had a family home evening about Family History and Genealogy, I decided to show my kids our last trip to Ukraine so we went to my blog. It was a blessing to see so many pictures of my grandma Olya (who passed away a year and a half ago) playing with kids we have. I also realized how crazy it was of me to take two little kids and hop on the airplane to Ukraine, that I probably would have though twice about that now, realizing how hard it was. Looking back at my life, kind of fast forwarding I am realizing that through hardships come blessings. No matter how hard it is going through a challenge, one day I imagine we will look through our lives and will see the whole picture, we all will have that:" Aha" moment and understand why we had to go through the things we went through and why Heavenly Father did not deliver us and made things easier in some places.

I am so grateful for the Gospel in my life, it makes this life worth living worth fighting for and not giving up. If you want to know more about the plan of Happiness that God has for you look here:
www.lds.org
it will make your life complete.

If I did not take a chance and go to Ukraine and see my family, even though it was very hard I wouldn't have had this memory and picture of Quinn and grandma to show him one day.

After Grandma Olya passed away My Mom was feeling lonely, so we invidet her to come visit us that winder. And All of us went to Disneyland!!! We had soo much fun!

 Funny to see Quinn is diapers back then.

 WE love the ocean!

 I never realized how fun it is to watch your kids meet the characters! Whinny the Pooh is Quinn's favorite, we even call him Quinny the Pooh

 And everybody wants to meet Mater!

 We also sent Grandma to space! She came back OK:)

 In line to fly with Peter Pan.

Did I mention I am doign a Photography GIVEAWAY???

I wanted to let all my friends know that if they are interested in a Photography Session I am giving one away, ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!

Please check my Photography blog to enroll, it is very simple and easy and you can earn points by posting about this giveaway every day!!!

www.endlessmemoriesphoto.blogspot.com

We are so greatful

The more I think about our trip to Ukraine, the more I realized how blessed we were to get a chance to visit my family and even more lucky to see my grandparents.

 AJ was lucky to turn four in Ukraine and have a chance to celebrate at least one of his birthdays with his other Ukrainian side of the family.

For AJ's birthday we got a cake from the store and it was one of the most delicious things I have ever tasted. I don't know whether it is a Ukrainian taste in me or something else, but I know Ukrainians would think it was good, I am not so sure about Americans.

This is all of us, in our tiny Ukrainian kitchen. They do all the cooking and eating there, and with all of us, we had to take turns.

For AJ's birthday we got a chance to take him and Quinn to a kid train station. AJ had so much fun learning about how the trains worked and how cars got attached by huge magnets.

This was our ride in the green Ukrainian forest.

After the ride kids played on the train playground.

As I look through these pictures and see my grandma I am grateful to my Heavenly Father, that he gave me a chance to see her again. Shortly after we left Ukraine we found out that her cancer came back and now it is destroying her spine.

Grandma went through a very painful radiation treatment where she had to pay on her stomach, wish made nerves shoot down her leg. She also had chemo treatment and now we are hoping, praying and fasting that that would help with the pain.

On these pictures she walked, her leg was hurting, but now she can barely walk and most of the time she sleeps because all the pain meds she in on.

My grandpa is on the other hand is in Ok health for his age. He is pretty active guy even now.

Boys got a chance to play with him.

Here is the only picture of Quinn with grandma.

My lovely Babushka Olya. This is how I will always remember you, sweet and kind to everyone around you.
We always got along great during my many stays with my grandparents in Bratchkivka.

Here is grandma teaching AJ how to play "gadilo".

I am so glad I got two of those boys with grandma, we had to jump through a lot of hoops to get them together with grandma.

In your busy lives, if you get a minute, remember my grandma Olya in your prayers. I know Heavenly Father hears them and every time I ask people to pray for her she has a better day.