...Christmas 2008...

So, we had to make a post about our Christmas, that's a given. First off, Tyler and I are slackers so we didn't take our own pictures (surprising coming from a photographer huh?!) So we stole a few from Megan & Tim's blog.. thanks guys! :]

I just wanna warn you that this post is long! It's more to document rather than entertain I guess.. so I won't be too offended if you don't read it :]

Our Christmas celebration started on Christmas Eve when we dressed up in our cute PJ's and went to Grandma & Grandpa Roberts for the tradition Aebleskivers for dinner. It was delicious & Grandpa Bruce put us right to work training us on how to make them! The main reason for this was because we had volunteered to make them for my family for Christmas brunch! (And we had never made them! ha ha) In less than no time, Tyler had it down like a pro.
We opened gifts from Grandma & Grandpa Roberts, which was fabulous because it was just what we needed. Food storage stuff & toilet in case there is no running water, etc.

Tyler and I decided to do our Christmas that night before bed because we knew we wouldn't have time on Christmas with having to go to his family's & to mine. Tyler was WAY to good to me this year, getting me lots of cute clothes, a way nice reflector for my photography, enchanted and twilight soundtracks, breaking dawn, and the pearl earrings I've been wanting!! (just to name a few). Tyler got lots of cute clothes, Nike Shox, and a new wallet. I'm so lame but he's hard to shop for because he never tells you what he wants! :]

We went to sleep & were awoken at 6am sharp by Carson (Tyler's littlest brother) telling us we needed to come over! To be honest, we weren't surprised but we seriously weren't ready to get out of bed! We headed over & checked out what Santa had brought them & then we gave them our gifts which the boys were so excited to get Rockband & we got his parents new cell phones & his dad an Ipod.. We then at breakfast there. Jeff (Tyler's dad) made this new recipe he found that was an egg, rice, bean, cheese casserole dish that was way yummy!We then headed over to my families' house to start cooking aebleskivers... we decided we wanted to make brown sugar bacon in the oven & sausage on the skillet as well. We were cooking away & then the fire alarm went off! Well needless to say, we burnt the bacon to a complete black crisp! Which was a total bummer because brown sugar bacon is delish! I managed to cook a few pieces on the skillet but there wasn't enough for everyone.. The brunch turned out better than I've made you imagine though!

We began seperating all the gifts, which is a total chore because there is always SO many! IT IS OFFICIAL... WE ARE SPOILED ROTTEN!
We love everything we got, our DVD collection outgrew our cabinet, we can't decide on where to hang our beautiful Simon Dewey painting, we are the talk of the town in our stylish new wardrobe (wink*) and Tyler is so excited about all his new tools!
Here is Tyler and I in our sweet UofU hoodies we got for Christmas from each other! Tyler got tickets to the UofU vs. BYU basketball game from Tim&Megan for Christmas which he is totally stoked about!

We were especially excited for our parents to open their gifts from us. We all pitched in and got my dad a giftcard for $200 to Lowe's to go towards his dream 60 gal compressor he's been wanting, and we put together 36 black and white photos to make my Mom a "picture wall" she's been wanting. It was so much fun doing this because 3 of the 6 siblings I got to take out on photo shoots, & we finally got some up to date pictures of Micah, he has grown up so much this year! (Check his shoot out on my photography blog)

We love going to Grandma and Grandpa Gapinski's for Christmas dinner & they are so good to us. We are so greatful for this holiday season we had, and we were made so fully aware of how blessed we are. We have such amazing family and friends, that we don't know where we'd be without. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!! We hope everyone had a very merry christmas as well!

...Merry Christmas!...

From our home to yours.. we hope you have a very merry christmas! We hope this season has brought you brightness, love & hope... and that the coming year will bring you every happiness!!

♥ The Gapinskis

8 THINGS!

I got tagged by Megan, this is probably way boring cuz I'm not too exciting these days ha ha!

8 Of my Favorite Books-
I didn't do much reading until recently so this one could be hard...
Twilight Series
Religious books (BofM & Bible of course)
Too Soon to Say Goodbye
Skinny Biotch books (don't wanna swear in front of the kiddies..ha ha)
Les Miserables (the short version :])
The Harry Potter books
-k- this is sad i really can't think of any others that I love...

8 Things That Happened Yesterday- Does it have to be yesterday?!? Um,
1) laundry
2) edited pictures
3) packed and mailed Laura's Christmas gift
4) ordered photo prints
5) made peanut butter fingers
6) took my comforter to get dry cleaned
7) met my cute visiting teachers :]
8) posted this blog! ha ha


8 Things To Look Forward To-
1)Christmas with our families!
2)driving in my new car :]
3)having kids someday
4)Christmas Eve with Tyler's relatives
5)the future of my photography business!
6)finishing the BofM as a family (Ty & I)
7)Tax Return (I'll have to agree with you Meg)
8)learning more about photography :]

8 Things On My Wish List-
1)Lose weight!
2)To have kids
3)To have a great holiday season!
4)To get my website finished
5)To pay off our car loans :]
6)Learn how to cook well for Tyler!
7)Run a marathon
8)For everyone to have a very Merry Christmas! :]

8 Things I Love About Winter-
1) Christmas
2)New Years
3)Warm Fires
4)Yummy treats
5)Seeing snow from inside.. ha ha
6)Remembering Christ's birth
7)the spirit of giving
8)Love

8 To Tag-
Kiera
Meghann
Jacque
Morgan
Laura
Beki
Amberlee
Bridgette

TYLER IS SoOoOo stinkin old!

So, before all the craziness happened with Tyler's accident.. I was planning to post about his birthday last Sunday (dec. 7th).. So I'll just have to do it now.. a little late.. but oh well!

We had so much fun the day before his birthday celebrating with my parents and siblings & sister-in-laws! (Minus Karli... :( we missed you!) We went to Famous Dave's, which is a favorite place of our family's to go for birthday dinners! We got 2 trash can lids like usual.. and OH SO GOOD!
My Dad never smiles in pics so this was rare!! But just wait...

HA HA! L>O>V>E it!

Tyler got a few gifts to open....
I'm not sure what his favorite gift was.. because all of them were FABULOUS, and exactly what he wanted!! THANKS EVERYONE FOR THE GIFTS!! And Aaron & Meghann.. we have already used 1/3 of the gift certificate at Little Orient.. :] We can't wait to go eat at Olive Garden too! Thanks Mom & Dad for the UofU hoodie and t-shirt.. & Tyler you look hot wearing your new DC loafer shoes ha ha.. oh and you're tie is sexy as well! :]

On Tyler's official birthday, we got the pleasure of having dinner over at his parents casa, & his grandparent gapinski's came (what a great surprise!) and we had Tyler's favorite Pork & Seeds.. thanks Amy, you did a great job!! (Thank Cindy Mitchell for giving her the recipe!!)

Tyler got some gifts from his parents and his grandparents, thank you guys so much!! Now we don't have to borrow your hair cutting kit anymore :]

Tyler loved his birthday! Thank everyone who made it so great!!

R.I.P. HONDA!!!

As many of you may know....Today marked the last day in the life of my Honda Accord! This little car had a great run! We shared many trips to work and back together and he never gave me any car trouble (which is more than most can say about their cars). This morning on the way to work the Accord went out in a blaze of glory. While driving south on I-15 this morning I was just passing the refineries, right where the freeway bends around into SLC, when I hit a patch of black ice!!! (result of yesterdays snow storm and last night's cold temperatures!) When I hit the ice I was in the far left lane. I don't know if you are familiar with the area where I am talking about, but there is no shoulder what so ever on the sides of the road. So with my car sliding out of control I could do nothing but brace for the impact. When I hit the left side median my car proceeded to climb up the wall so that my car was litterally grinding the wall. (if anyone is going that direction look for the tire marks on the top of the wall on the left side.....that was me) I couldn't see anything at this point because my airbag went off when I hit the wall. Somehow my car didn't roll and it came down off of the wall. After falling off the median wall on the right side, my car flew across all three lanes of traffic and slammed into the wall on the opposite side of the freeway. The most amazing part of all of this, and the part that I am most thankful for is that there were no other cars involved in my accident. The whole time I kept thinking to myself, "please don't hit anyone else." Even though the freeway was really busy at the time, and there were cars all over the place, I managed to manuver everyone and not hit any other cars. After the chaos stopped I did a quick check of all my body parts and slapped my self a little to make sure I was still here :) A nice road construction man, who i never got his name, ran to my car to make sure everything was ok. He stayed with me until the Highway Patrol and paramedics showed up. He started directing traffic to prevent any further congestion on the freeway. Because I was in the middle of the freeway, with no shoulder, I caused quite the traffic jam! (My appologies to anyone who may have been late to work because of this. ) Anyways, the HP and paramedics showed up and helped clean up the wreck. The highway patrolman was actually not very nice about the whole situation and finished off the whole ordeal by giving me a ticket for.....Improper Lane Travel..... Can you believe that? I wasn't exactly happy. But that is a story for another day. So as you can see from the photos the poor Honda had his final run today. He took the crash like a champ and allowed me to walk away from this all. Some people who stopped said they were amazed I didn't end up in the hospital. I have no doubt that I had atleast one, if not more, guardian angel in my car with me today. I am so thankful that I was not injured, and more importantly that no one else was involved in the wreck. I just want all of my friends and family to know how much I love them! And I want to ask everyone to Please WEAR YOUR SEATBELTS everytime you get in the car!!!!!! (I'm glad I did) :)

Megan's Baby Shower!

This past Saturday was lots of fun, we got to throw my sister-in-law Megan a baby shower! She only has a few weeks left (She's due on January 1st!) We are all so excited! Her Mom & sister brought a 6 foot sandwich (pictures below) & way yummy ecclairs! We played a bunch of games & Megan opened a bunch of great gifts! She got over 300 diapers (very great gift :]) & my other sister-in-law Meghann (yes there is two) got Emerie (Megan's baby) the cutest U of U cheerleader outfit! (picture below) Megan's Mom got her all the blessing stuff including a dress that looks like the one Megan was blessed in, a blanket, socks, a cute bow, and shoes! Megan also got lots of things she registered for, which only leaves a few more purchases left for Tim :]. All in all it was so nice to visit with family & celebrate the coming of my Mom's first grandchild & my first Niece!!

Oh Christmas Tree!!!

So on Monday night my parents got home from the yearly cabin trip to Island Park. Sadly we couldn't go this year because I had to work and Rach had a photo shoot. We really wish we could have gone with the family but couldn't get away from that thing married people call....."responsibility" Anyways, even though we couldn't go my parents still brought a tree home for us and the Gelter fam. They did an awesome job picking out the trees (thanks mom and dad), and we couldn't wait to get it home and decorated!! Rach was in charge of the decoration department and I got the wonderful job of putting on the lights! :) I quickly found out that putting the lights on is no easy task.....my arms look like a pin cushion. Anyways this is the end product. The pictures don't really do it justice becasue you can't get the full effect of the lights! But it still looks really awesome! It now officially feels like Christmas in the Gapinski house! And I love the smell of pine trees! We hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!!!

Ty & Rach=Slackers @ blogging...

Wow, we are going on almost 3 weeks since we posted last.. that's a record! :] Well to recap on what's been going on in our little family...

Halloween was lots of fun.. we carved pumpkins at my parent's house & I just happened to choose the HARDEST pattern to do, but it turned out way awesome... Tyler's wasn't quite as hard but still looked equally awesome! :] We spent Halloween at my parent's as well & helped my Dad hand out hot dogs off the grill & candy to those too shy to grab a bite to eat... oh & I cut Tyler's hair ha ha.. speaking of he ALREADY needs it cut again!

The day after Halloween we all headed down to St.George for my Grandma's 80th birthday celebration/reunion which was tons of fun. We ate pizza made from my cousins brick oven pizza restaurant (2 Fat Guys Pizza) & enjoyed everybody's company! My brothers helped inflate 80 balloons & at the end of the party all the grandkids let the balloons go into the sky to celebrate.

One of my best friends, Laura (Gibson) Hulsey, had her baby finally on October 29th!! Her name is Emma Rae & she's gorgeous! I got to take newborns of her a week after.. check them out on my blog--------------> http://www.rachaeltylerphotography.blogspot.com

Just this past weekend, Laura & Emma moved to Monterey, California to be with her husband (& Daddy!) finally... I'm so glad they can finally be together after 3 months!! But I'll miss her lots :[

Besides working for Tuck Landscaping, I've been trying to keep busy with my photography & am trying to learn lots! I need lots of practice so please don't be shy, I would love to take pictures of anybody!! I have also been caught up in the Twilight series over the past couple months, finding time to read is the hard part.. so I usually try to spend a little time on the bikes at the gym reading.. I finished Twilight, so now I'm ready to see the movie! :]

My brother Tim built Tyler and I a "super computer" which we finally got last week! We love it so much.. & appreciate it so much now that I am running programs such as photoshop.. We are so grateful to have brothers who are NERDS! ha ha. We love you guys...

Tyler has been working so hard at Spring & I can sense he is slowly but surely getting burnt out & 'sick' of cell phones... So if anybody knows of any jobs that would suit Tyler, let us know! :]

Tyler has also been keeping busy outside of work playing basketball as much as possible with his friends, or any other sport he can get his hands on! You can find him watching football, the office, dirty jobs, or his newest favorite Survivor Man in his spare time at home. :]

Roxi got her teeth professional cleaned on Halloween day & this was quite traumatic for me because they put them under anesthesia while they do it... everything went amazingly well though & now she has pearly whites & alot better breath! ha. She also got a physical in which they found out her back knees keep popping out of the sockets! This came as a surprise to us, & we were told if we didn't want he to eventually be bull-legged & possibly in pain we would need to get her in for surgery. (Price breakdown= $650 per leg!!)

Toby has been growing so fast.. not to mention his hair! We now believe he cannot see worth a dime through his shag & I am contemplating whether a ponytail is too girly or not.. ha ha. He loves to cuddle with his best friend Roxi & always loves going to grandma's to visit his other best friend Lily :] There's never a dull moment with him around.. oh and his new favorite thing.. Barking! (yay! .....not!)

Anyways, this is definitely too long & I'm sorry! So I'll stop now... but that's what's been going on around our house lately!

Rachael Tyler Photography

So, it's an unofficial name but it's the best we've come up with so far... It sounds better than a mouthful (Tyler instead of Gapinski... so I still have his name in it :])
Anyways, some of you may know of my obsession I have with photography so I've decided to start turning it into a career. Right now I'm in the portfolio building stage.. so I'm willing to do whatever it takes! If you want any type of photos done, I'm your girl! :] I've started a blog that has samplings of what I've done so please check it out! The address is www.rachaeltylerphotography.blogspot.com
I'm currently interning with Dustin of Dustin Izatt Photography and I am learning so much! A big thanks goes out to him for putting up with my annoyingness :] He is an amazing wedding photographer, so be sure to check out his work as well because I'm learning from the best!
I've shot at one wedding so far & the pictures will be posted soon, but for now I just have a few recent shoots that I've posted.
I'm learning and trying new things everyday so be sure to check back often & leave comments! :]

Farewell Red Sox......followed by a rant about Corporate America.

As many of you may know......This years season is over for the Red Sox.....Much to my dismay the Red Sox lost in game seven of the ALCS. After an unbelievable comeback in game six, arguably the best ever, I had high hopes for a repeat appearance in the World Series. No matter how optimistic I was, inning after inning the young blood Rays kept outplaying my Sox. Game 7 was alot like the rest of the series...plenty of opportunities with not quite enough effort to take advantage of the scoring opportunites. In the end the Rays ambition and drive was too much for the Red Sox. So the MLB playoff hopes ended a little soon for me this year. Suprisingly I wasn't as upset as I thought I would be when the Rays finally won. It really is hard not to love them. Anyone that can go from last place to first place in a single season deserves respect. I only hope that they can continue the Cinderella season and win the championship........As I write this they are losing in game one so they better pick it up or it will be a very disappointing October! :)

Side Note: No matter how bummed I am about the Red Sox loss this is still the greatest time of the year. NFL and College seasons are in full swing. Lately there has been a slight chill in the air which signals that it is just about time for tip off on the NBA season! I love Fall! GO JAZZ!

Now time for me to vent......

I am so fed up with Corporate America! What is the deal with all the rules and regulations that everyone has to follow except for the people in charge.....There are so many greedy people who are incharge of the big business in this country it is scary. It seems that no matter what our government does to try and help these people are just going to continue living how they want and doing what they want.....I have a simple solution to help keep your companies from going bankrupt......Cancel the week long retreats to Spas and Resorts for your CEOs.....Why should you be rewarding them anyways? They are the reason you are trying to fish your business out of the toilet! Lets all take a collective second to realize the things that really matter and make a collective promise to change the way that business is done in this country. Throwing money at a problem helps but it isn't a fix. It has to be a nation wide commitment to fix our economy.

Also I think that health insurance is the biggest joke ever. This is just coming from a few personal experiences that have happend to us over the past week or so. All we have heard is...."you aren't covered"... "you are covered but not for this".... "I don't know why we charged your twice what you should pay this month"..... "everything should be fine, go ahead and use your plan" ....."you still aren't covered"! Seriously people there has to be a better method of doing things here.!!!!!

Anyways, Now that I am done fuming! Everything is going great here in the Gapinski home! Married life is great. No matter how busy and crazy we might be.....There is nothing like coming home at the end of the day knowing that someone is there waitng for you! Thanks for reading! Have a great day!

Random Photoshoot

Kinda last minute, my little sister Devanee & my cousin Jesse & I went out and did a little shoot down in Bountiful. I wanted to find some pretty random places to shoot & we ended up finding some pretty sweet doors! The lighting was pretty far from ideal, but I did what I could with what I had. I won't post many of the photos on here but here is a few we ended up with.Thanks you guys for being my cute models! :]

Snow Basin & one cute family!!

Last week, Tyler's Mom Amy asked me if I would be willing to take family pictures with my new camera I got about a month ago. Of course I said yes, I'm always up for more practice!

So, after the afternoon session of conference was over, we all piled into the car to head up to Snow Basin to see what it looked like up there & try to get some good shots!

It was so much fun, even though my toes were frozen. I really didn't expect it to be that cold!

Anyways, when it came time to get a whole group pic, we had to set the timer on the camera to shoot it since they MADE me be in it! (I would have been perfectly fine staying behind the camera...)

I haven't learned photoshop to a 'T' yet so these photos are un-touched... but they will do!

I must admit, Carson is one hard boy to get a great, calm picture from. He insists on doing the opposite of what you tell him & always has a cheesy grin.. but honestly that's what makes him Carson & there's not one thing wrong with that! He makes us laugh & there's never a dull moment when he's around!

I had some great ideas for some fall shots, but because of the previous days full of rain, they weren't all possible. I was thankful there were lots of options for other shots though...

Amy, I hope you like the photos! We'll have to go out again when it's not so wet & get some shots of Carson playing in the leaves or something!

...We're goin to the chapel & we're gonna get married...

So I've had some requests to put some wedding pictures up! And there is no way I could turn down that request because I am ABSOLUTELY in LOVE with my wedding pictures! :]

I hope you enjoy them ALMOST as much as I do...

Oh, & word of advice... click on the picture to see it better!


















That's it for now! I'll post pictures from the reception soon!