The Holidays

This Christmas I was able to go home to Oregon for a week. Of course during that time I had to go to the Oregon coast and get my whale fix in (which I did, and I saw one), on a beautiful clear warm day (warm compared to what I'm used to in Utah!). I went with my mom and brother, and we had a grand ol' time, climbed Yaquina Head Lighthouse, and had sushi on the bayfront after watching the sea lions. I loved living in Newport two years ago (my how time flies!) and I would love to live on the coast again. I've missed the smells, the sounds, and the scenery!

Christmas was great, as always, with our traditional dinner (honey-baked ham, yams with browned marshmallows, strawberry/banana/pineapple jello salad, mashed potatoes, green beans with toasted almonds, and of course pumpkin and pecan pies), and the grandparents. Ha, the way I put that sounds like we ate the grandparents, but no, this is not true, they were with us ;). My grandma has diabetes but she is doing quite well lately, better than she has been since she was first diagnosed. When her blood sugar level is high, it's scary: She forgets everything, and she's always in a bad mood... but when it's low, like it has been, she is so loving and happy and energetic! It's really great to see that.



Before the break, my co-worker and friend, Ammon, took me to Temple Square in Salt Lake City since I had never been and really wanted to see the temple and tabernacle. The grounds were beautiful, and the temple is incredible. It's amazing to see the carvings on the outside and the different symbols engraved in the walls. It took 40 years to build, and was completed in 1893.

The Mormon Tabernacle

Something my family is very proud of is my brother Michaelbanks, and his school's success in making the Rose Bowl this year for Oregon (University of Oregon). He is in the band for the football team, and was able to play in the Rose Parade (something I have always wanted to be in, but on a horse ;) ). He also played during the game, and before the game (which I have not watched yet since I don't have a tv) they did a close-up on JUST HIM for a good 10 seconds at the beginning of a song. Like he opened the show. Pretty awesome! Can't wait to see it. Here is Michaelbanks:

I was back in Utah for New Years Eve, and spent it with good people. It was really chill, but that's just what I wanted after a long day of traveling!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season!! Happy New Year :).

Thanksgiving Weekend

It's been a week and a half since I moved to Utah, and I feel so good about it. I feel like I am moving on in life finally, rather than being stuck in Limbo. I finally have a job that I can use in my future photography career (yes, I will tie my degree into that as well), and am happy with my surroundings.

Since I was not going home for Thanksgiving this year, my good friend's mom invited me over to their place in Logan. I grew up with this family when I was ages 8 through 14. They were like a second family to me. So when I got the invite I was so happy I had somewhere to go, and it was just wonderful. I felt like I was at home with them, and, (no offense mom) I didn't even miss being home for the holiday. It's really interesting to have other family's Thanksgiving dinners to see what else people do. And it was oohhh so good! Us "kids" also made gingerbread houses, and after about 20 minutes of making them we became quite lazy and didn't decorate them too much, but it was still fun!

After dinner, Lindsay's daughters and Elise put on tu-tu's and danced around the living room. I got this cool shot of Lindsay's oldest daughter, Audrey, twirling.

Samantha, Elise and I left around 4pm since they had to drive all the way to St. George 5 hours away, and they dropped me off back in Provo around 6pm.

It's really cold here and the mountains all around us have a nice dusting of fresh snow on them. The day before Thanksgiving I was getting ready to leave for Logan, and the power in my apartment went out. I didn't think much of it since it happens all the time back at home, and left. When I came back the following day, Thanksgiving night, the power was STILL out. It was 57 degrees in the place, pitch dark and I was all by myself! Who could I interrupt from their Thanksgiving dinner to have me come over? The only person in town happened to be one of my best friends from high school, who is so caring and easy-going, and I gave her a call. She invited me over for their little dinner they were having with a couple friends, no problem at all. So I went and had a second Thanksgiving dinner. She was so kind to accommodate me with a warm room and a hot shower! The next day I called the electric company, and they said since the girl whose name the bill was under moved out, she took her name off the account, which made the company think no one lived at my apartment anymore! So they turned off the power. The night before Thanksgiving. AND since no one was working the day after Thanksgiving but the guy answering phones, they couldn't set up a new account for me until MONDAY. So that's 5 days without power. I've just been staying at my friend Amanda's house every night and work and do Christmas shopping during the day. I avoid the cold dark apartment as much as possible right now, and so are my roommates.

But alas, this weekend was a time of giving Thanks, and I must say I am so grateful for the path that I am now in, and that things are falling into place so nicely here in Utah. I finally feel like this is where I belong, at least for a while. I am also grateful for all the wonderful people I have in my life!

:)

Well things are coming together quite nicely for me here, and it's only been a day and a half. Yesterday I found myself a place to live. I got a room in a condo with 2 other girls, both named Chrissy. It's a really cute place, only a few minutes from work, which I start training for tomorrow morning. I'm pretty excited for what life throws at me next. BRING IT ON, LIFE!

On the move again!

I'm moving to Utah!

Where to start... Ok, so the past couple weeks have been quite busy. I road-tripped to Wyoming with my friends Bryce and Jared for a friend's wedding, and on the way back stopped in Utah for a week so I could job-search. (Pictures of the road trip I will post soon.) I chose Utah because I have so many old friends out there I would love to be near for a while, and I love all of the outdoor activities Utah has to offer. Not to mention I love living in a place with mountains as the backdrop, and I'd take snow over rain any day.

After job searching for a year and a half all over Arizona, Oregon, Utah, Washington and California, I found myself a job in Orem, UT after one day of job searching there. So I feel like that's telling me something, and it's where I belong right now. It will be nice to have a change in life for a while; I'm excited to see what life throws at me there!

Bryce, Jared and I left Utah on Friday, and since they need me to start work this coming Wednesday, I leave tomorrow (Tuesday)! It's been a fast-paced weekend of packing and saying hello and goodbye to my family and friends here in Oregon, but I will be back for Christmas.

The job is a sales/printing job at a camera/photography shop called "Inkley's Cameras" (Ritz Cameras without the name change). It was the only job out of 6 I applied for that week that I wanted, and happened to be the only one hiring. The manager liked my application more than anyone else's, and liked me a lot so hired me before giving me a formal interview, haha. The job is part time (~32 hours) but could increase soon. I might find myself another part-time job if I need it. I'm excited though, because although this job is not in my "field" (wildlife), it is in my greatest interest right now, since photography is my passion at the moment. At this shop I can learn about all the equipment, AND get discounts!! :) My dream is to work for a magazine like National Geographic or Nature, take photographs and write columns about them. This is where my degree and knowledge of wildlife and earth sciences would come in. So I feel this is something that is needed to get me started in all of that. While I'm at this job, I will continue to search for wildlife jobs in the area, but there has just been nothing for quite some time because of budgeting.

I'll be staying with a friend Amanda until I find a place to live, which shouldn't take long. I'll post my new address as soon as I have one ;).

I will try my best to update this more often, but please check out my new photography blog www.hollandbanksphotography.blogspot.com where I will be adding pictures as often as I can. I've already had 2 clients!

New Photograph Site!

I have finally created a site with all of my pictures easily accessible, and contact information for people that would be interested in purchasing them. I first looked into making a real website, but this of course costs money, and the more photos you add, the more it costs per month (we're talking at least $20 a month, and I can't afford that at the time being). So then I looked into Flickr.com, which is a site where you can add a large number of photos for free and share them with the world, but this only allowed me to add 60 photos, and this was just too few for me! SO, I went with Blogger. It's free, I can put up unlimited photos, it's just not as organized as it could be. But it will have to do for now. Please take a gander! www.hollandbanksphotography.blogspot.com.

Lately

So since I've been back in Oregon, I found out a lot of things. Although I missed living here and being here (especially in the Fall), I don't feel like I BELONG here right now. Where that place is, I don't know, but that is what I'm trying to find out. Yes, I have my family here, and my close friends, but there is a whole world out there that I could be exploring! Another thing is, Oregon's unemployment rate is 2nd highest in the nation, at 12%. So I think it's going to be pretty tough to find something here, especially in my field. At this point I could go with anything at all, and continue looking for things in my field, but so far I can't even get THAT.

I have been doing a lot of job searching in Utah. After being there and exploring the beautiful country, and visiting good friends that I haven't seen in YEARS, I came out feeling really good about the place. And although it seems far, it is still a day's drive away from my family in Oregon, if I need to get home for any reason. Obviously I have had no leads yet, it's only been a week, but I am planning a trip with my friends Bryce, Mariah and Jared to take a road trip the first week of November to Wyoming for a friend's wedding. Then we'll be going through Utah on the way back, where Bryce and I will stay and job search/visit friends. I'm hoping it works out, but I won't have a car to get myself around towns to search for jobs.... Anyone know of a good rental car company that is reasonably cheap, and will rent to people under 25 years old?

I am also in the process of building a website for my photographs. It is a little more difficult than I thought, as the more pictures I want to put up, the more my site will cost me per month. So I might have to wait on that till I at least have a job.

Oh, and if you are wondering what kinds of jobs I'm searching for, they are mainly environmental sciences, wildlife, biology technicians, resorts, and little things like bookstores, art shops, and gift shops. If anyone comes across anything they think I might like, please let me know, as anything would help right now!

My 2,000-Mile Journey

Although this journey took about 3 weeks to accomplish, I will make this as short and sweet as possible ;).

The first week of September I started out in Phoenix (flew from OR to AZ) and hung out with my friends down there before my big move back to the NW. It was great to see everyone again, just unfortunate that I had to say "hello" and "goodbye" in the same visit. Erik and I had a lot of time to talk, but it still didn't seem like enough. I think I left on good terms though, and we are going to try and stay good friends. While I was there it was storming pretty good, and I've been working on getting good shots of lightning... this will suffice for now.

6 days later, I drove from Phoenix to Orem, UT in 10 hours, where a bunch of my old friends live. I grew up with a family in West Salem, elementary school through middle school, and hadn't seen any of them since they lived in Oregon, 4 years ago. It was so wonderful to see them all again, and their husbands, wives, and children whom I had never met! The youngest, Samantha, who was my best friend in my younger years, and her friend Elise took me around Salt Lake to show me the sights and go shopping. We hung out a few times and it was great to catch up with her. I really missed that family! I had another friend who was another best friend in middle/high school, that lives in that area, and we were able to have time to catch up as well. Then there was my good friend Jake who I worked with at Reds, who took me hiking and to see sights in the mountains that I never new existed in that place. I always thought of Utah as a rocky desert, but this place was pretty beautiful, and the fall colors were just beginging to show through.

In these mountains, just outside of Provo and Orem, are numerous canyons, and each canyon had what seemed like hundres of waterfalls pouring down the walls. We went to Sundance, where the film festival takes place, and visited Robert Redford's resort and stables and said hello to the horses.

Other days we went to explore some caves in one of the canyons, and I went rock climbing for the first time in my life! Although I only went up about 15 feet, it felt like much more since we were on the side of an open cliff that overlooked the entire valley. The sunset was amazing that evening.

After spending about a week and a half in Utah, I drove SW another 10 hours through the boring state of NV back to the Sierra Nevada Moutains, where I worked this summer, to ride along on the horse drive from Mammoth Lakes to Bishop, CA (45 miles). A horse drive is like a cattle drive, by the way, for those of you that do not know, where we herd 90 animals all that way, coyboy style. It was a blast, but quite hot (105 degrees in the sun) since we rode in the desert the whole way. I don't have pictures of the horse drive yet, but will hopefully soon. Since I only had 3 days off this summer, I didn't get many pictures of the high trail, my favorite trail along the Pacific Crest Trail, but arrived a day early to do so, and capture the fall colors there.

Along my hike to Shadow Lake Lookout I spotted black bear tracks left by a medium sized bear, relatively fresh, but there was no sight of the bear.

It's always nice to get back to the Sierras, and I rarely get to see them in the fall, so that was a treat.

After the weekend horse drive I left Monday morning and drove back to Salem, OR in 12 hours where I am now. I had a great trip, and I'm glad I did as much as I did and saw so many people, "stopping to smell the flowers" rather than doing the whole 2,000 miles in one stretch. Now it's time to look for a job and a place to live......