So it appears that I do not have a picture for today. This shot is from our trip out to Arizona/Nevada for Christmas at Red Rock Canyon. Love how you can have all the stone and then a tree growing seemingly out of no where. 
Out last day in Arizona for our Christmas trip. We had a red eye flight later that night so we spent the day at my mom's. We decided to go for a hike at Christmas Tree Pass and of course I took my camera! It was a great day - a little chilly and a little overcast but so beautiful in the desert. This is one of my favorite shots of our hike. I love how the clouds look around the sun and the textures of the earth below.
Merry Christmas to All! Well I took a few pictures of the turkey, but they just weren't cutting it, so I had to move into my family shots. As you can see, I'm actually in this picture, but technically I did still take it as I set the timer and clicked the button! This was the Bauman clan (and their significant others) that were able to make it to Arizona for Christmas and to celebrate my grandma's 80th birthday!
It's Christmas Eve and believe it or not, I did not get a picture in today! So I'll use one from yesterday. On our ATV tour we stopped at an old mining area and hiked around a bit. Laying there in the gravel was an old mattress spring. It looked pretty cool - so I took a few shots of it! I didn't do any post processing to this shot.
Day two of our trip at Christmas was to visit the Grand Canyon. We drove over 5 hours the night before to get there and I had big plans to get up early to get to the best viewing area for sunrise photos. Unfortunately Mother Nature had different plans for us. When we got up - it was snowing like mad and already had 3-4 inches on the ground. We still made our way to the viewing area (not easily - the roads were horrible) but you couldn't even get down to it because they had closed it off due to the snow! At that point we decided to go get breakfast at a hotel restaurant in the park. After we finished eating it had nearly stopped snowing so we were able to see a little of the canyon (as seen here). Overall it was a little disappointing as there was so much haze and clouds that you couldn't see down into the canyon at all - which I'm guessing is were you get the hugely immense sense of beauty and grandness of it. But I did see the Grand Canyon in a snow storm - so there!
We were out visiting my mom for Christmas and we spent a day hiking in Red Rock Canyon just outside of Las Vegas. It was a beautiful day for hiking - just a little brisk. We were walking back on one of the trails and I saw this guy just sitting and looking out at the beautiful view. He looked so peaceful - reflecting, contemplating.
Come on Julie, that is not a real word... on the contrary it is! Well at least it's being used at Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, Wisconsin! This would be the area at the end of the security checkpoint with a table and a handful of chairs where you get to re-dress and re-pack everything you had discombobulated to go through! It just screamed for a picture - albeit a pretty lame one!
Ray bought me a personal session with a local chef for a cooking class and today was the big day! I told them the type of things I was looking to learn and they chose a dish that fit. We ended up making shrimp and scallop ravioli with saffron cream sauce - it was SOOO freggin good! I had a great time making it, learned a lot, and LOVED eating the end product! As a side note, I tried to make them at home but had an unfortunate turn of events on the pasta dough and ended up trying to make my own (never done before) with just a rolling pin. Needless to say I they were WAY too think - but such an adventure we had trying!
One more cheater day for a bit (I hope!). This was one of the top pics from my shots at this cemetery but I didn't use it for that day's post. So this is a perfect opportunity to incorporate it in! You see, the one drawback to posting only one picture each day is that sometimes you get that great day where you have more than one that you might want to use! The sky is my favorite part of this pic!
A few missed days coming up - so I went back in my (quite large) archive of photos for one today. I just had to get some shots of this car when I saw it on the side of the road. We were up in Door County and came across this gem! I just screamed out for an antique color wash!
Mmmmmm one of my favorite things to make around the holidays - peanut brittle! I believe this was a batch I whipped up for some Christmas goodie boxes!
Not a very creative day for a picture but still a little fun. This is a magnet set that you put on the refrigerator (presuming its white) to make a fridge frosty! 
Another day I apparently forgot to take a pic. This one is from our trip to Door County earlier in the month. We were in Peninsula State Park and climbed up the tower. The original was ok - I liked the curves of the road and the sparse look of the bare trees, but the color was pretty drab. So I tried to give it a boost with high contrast black and white. I really like how it turned out!
So a little warning as we get further into December - I seemed to have my forgetful hat on a lot and had my share of missed days! But 230 days into this crazy project and I refuse to give up! This was one of those days - so I pulled up this pic from our Christmas light viewing in Cathedral Square. I love the light on the church an that most of the Christmas lights in the shot were blue or white!
