Photo 1: Brown bear somewhere in Canada.

I have finally gotten through all 14,000+ photos from our trip to Alaska in June and sorted out the best of the best. In today's post, I am sharing some of my personal favorites. There were a lot of them! I was very happy with the amount of print worthy photos I aquired.
I have updated my photography website, www.photoartbylauren.com, and there is 80+ photos available for sale as prints on the Featured Photos page. See website for prices.
At the bottom of this post, there is a YouTube video slideshow of all my favorites. I believe there is around 75-80 photos included.
Grab a hot drink, this is going to be a long post!
The photos are not in chronological order.

Photo 2: Golden Retriever we saw at the Lower Lake in Skagway, Alaska

Photos 3 & 4: The train we took into the mountains in Skagway, Alaska

Photo 5: Beautiful Lily's in Skagway, Alaska

Photo 6: Humpback whales bubble net feeding in the Keni Fjords, Seward, Alaska

Photo 7: Glacier alongside the road near Seward, Alaska

Photo 8: Wild stallion alongside the road near White Horse, Yukon Territory

Photo 9: The harbor in Seward, Alaska

Photo 10: Baby moose just outside Denali National Park

Photo 11: Caribou spotted in Denali National Park

Photo 12: Coyote spotted in Denali Nation Park

Photo 13: Big Horn ram spotted in Denali National Park

Photo 14: Mt. Denali (formerly Mt. McKinley) in Denali National Park

Photo 15: Moose cow somewhere in Canada

Photo 16: Bull moose somewhere in Canada

Photo 17: Stone sheep, mother and baby, on Stone Mountain

Photo 18: Black bear somewhere in Canada

Photo 19: Porcupine somewhere in Canada

Photo 20: Bison Bull, Yellowstone National Park

Photos 21 & 22: Bull Elk in Yellowstone National Park

Photo 23: Last but not least, this is probably my favorite photo from the whole trip.
A gorgeous sunset in Yellowstone National Park.

This was about a third of my favorites, but anymore would have overloaded the page! If you have ten minutes, watch the video below which contains all of my favorites :) Do you have any favorites from this post?

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Fall has definitely arrived here in the thumb of Michigan. These photos were taken a few weeks ago, hopefully I will have some colorful, updated photos next week. I plan on taking an hour or two to drive some country roads on Saturday :)
My favorite this week is the hand cupping the sun. This was very hard to get as the camera kept want to focus on my hand instead of the sun, and since it was my left hand in the photo, I only had my right to hold the camera! It's a little lopsided, but oh well! I still think it came out pretty nice.
The farmer who rents our fields was harvesting soybeans and I got a few shots. The sun wasn't really at the right angle, but I did the best I could.
What is your favorite this week?

Update on Wild Willie:
Willie is doing great. After his many adventures, he seems to have calmed down a bit and his mother, Mad Mollie, is finally starting to take care of him. He had some sort of fungus problem on his back, but that is clearing up and he has not gotten out of the fence again, thankfully.
Below is a photo of Grandpa holding him so we could treat his back and a photo of him with his mother. I'll try to get some cute photos of him for next week.

I love autumn!

If you've known me for any length of time you probably already know how much I love autumn and may have heard me sing it's praises before.

Check out my special "Autumn Love" Pinterest board.

If I were asked to pick one thing about fall that I enjoyed above every thing else, I'm not too sure I could do that. It really is the whole season, the whole atmosphere that I love, not just one particular thing.

But if you were to really put the heat on, I think I would have to say my favorite thing about fall is the changing colors and the crisp mornings. I know, that's two things, I told you I couldn't pick just one.

I am very glad I live in Michigan, where not only do we have brilliant colors in the fall (we get a lot of tourists in the fall for the "color tour"), but the fall season last a fairly decent amount of time. And it actually feels like fall.

I could go on for hours about everything I love about autumn, but I'll just mention a few things.

The brilliant colors...Autumn definitely has the most variety of colors when compared to the other three seasons.

The crisp, cold mornings where you can see your breath and it feels good to slip on a jacket

The feel of the horse's soft hair as they begin to get their winter coat

The storms, they are amazing!

The wind...it seems to have a whole knew language in the fall

The increased animal activity

Reading by an open window while it is raining, cuddled up in a soft blanket, with a warm drink

I could come up with a dozen more, but I'll leave it at that. :)

What is your favorite season? What are some things you like about fall? What is fall like where you live?

I'm back!
I have seriously neglected my poor blog these past two weeks. Life got in the way and I could not summon the energy necessary to come up with posts. My computer was also in the shop for repairs and the few times I did sit down to post something, our internet was so slow I soon gave up.
But I am back now and I will try to keep up!
So since I have been away from my Internet home for awhile, I will catch you up on some of the happenings around here, writing related or otherwise.
First off, I am in the process of re-publishing the two books in my TCCAS series, Rustlers and the Texas Trail and Hidden Treasure and Wedding Bells. Due to continued issues with my publisher, I am re-publishing on my own through CreateSpace. I hope to have that all wrapped up in the next two-three weeks. After this, I will publish all of my books through CreateSpace. I am very relieved to be working on my own.
Be Still My Soul has slowed somewhat as I did not have much time to devote to my writing the past few weeks, but hopefully that will change. I am still hoping to have it published by December but….we will see. For not that is my tentative release date, but it could get pushed into the new year. For now, my word count is at 37,000. My goal is 40,000.
Thunder is at a standstill. I have promised myself I will not start any new projects until it is complete….that is proving to be a painful promise! But I am determined to stick to it. My designer, Perry Elisabeth, finished designing the cover for Thunder several weeks ago and I am very thrilled with it. This a guess-what-never-mind moment because I don't intend to release the cover until the rough draft is nearly completed. Sorry!
Jacy, the mustang is coming along nicely. She is learning to trust me and I have ridden her once so far. At the bottom of this post is a video of our first ride. She did buck on me once, but it was a buck of fear an insecurity rather than malice, which is very comforting. She is such a sweet, loving horse. I really hate to part with her, but I bought her as a project horse and I am sticking to the plan. Lord willing, she will be sold within the next few weeks.
Smoke injured her shoulder quite severely a few weeks back and has been isolated from the other horses to keep her from reinjuring it as she heals. My farrier thought it could possibly be spring before she was rideable, but she has shown significant improvement and I am hoping that the injury was not as severe as we thought. We may even be able to do a few competitions, but I'm not getting my hopes up.
The other horses, and Rio the mule, are doing great. They are fat and sassy, no worries about their condition as we go into winter.
Mom purchased a goat in milk and her 8 week old son last week. We now have our own milk again. My goat, Sabriyah, is visiting a fellow breeder's buck and hopefully we will have babies sometime in February.
My plate has been full as I continue to work at the auction, work with the mustang, kickstart my eBay store and I just started giving riding lessons to a nine year old girl.  Mom and I spent this past Friday and Saturday in Indiana at the annual Dunkard Brethren Ladies Retreat. This was the third year we have attended and it was a wonderful time of fellowship.
What have you all been up to? Are you enjoying this lovely fall weather?