B.U.S.Y

First, I'm sorry. I'm very sorry it's taken me FOREVER to put up a normal post. I guess in the scheme of things, a week really isn't that long but still, I am sorry.

The very reason for my absence is my second job. (aka photography) Happily, I have been accumulating more business and therefore, have had more to do. Not only do we have the fun photo shoots or the beautiful weddings, but then I have hours and hours of photos to work on afterwards. Everyone wonders why they have to pay so much for getting professional photos done, well here's your fyi. We work for a LONG time after we see you to get your pics looking just right. So right in fact that you would want to buy an 8x10 to hang right along your staircase or right above your mantle. You are not only paying for the eye of the photographer but for their skill on the computer afterwards. That is if you have a really nice photographer that won't make you pay up the behind for it which I don't. That being said, I've had quite a few photo shoot opportunities and not a lot of "behind the scenes" time.

I think I was just rambling. Sorry again, its approaching my bedtime. I'm neither a morning person or a night person :)

So, I had wedding I shot last weekend. It was very pretty. A second marriage I believe for the couple and it turned out just beautifully. The bride wore a very pretty gray gown and the groom a very handsome tux. They are very much in love, I could tell from taking their pictures. This was the first wedding I've been to though, where they haven't had the "you may now kiss the bride" bit. Hmmm, for how lovey/kissy they were pre-ceremony, I thought I was in for a good one. Once I get those pics all done I will post one up for everyone to see/

Next, I had some senior photos to do. These are by far the least stressful for me. (Weddings tend to prove to be a little more tense for me, I want everything to turn out just right for the bride and groom) I had the photo shoot with a girl named Tiffani from a town even smaller then my own and we had a lot of fun! I'm especially excited to finish all her photos because the turned out so well! A. She was very nice and relaxed which helps everyone B. She's very pretty and had that fiery red hair that I love! C. She was tiny as a twig and wore really... "punk"? outfits.
I'm not sure that's quite the right word but she wore the skinny jeans and the layered tanks with the colorful converse sneakers. I will definitely put up a photo when I get those all done too.

This past weekend, my friend Sarah came up from school and we had ourselves a photo weekend :) That may not sound like fun to most, but for us it was a blast! Too bad I couldn't stay up as late as her (she's a "go to bed at 4 in the morning type while I am a 10pm type) We used JW and Rachel as our models as Sarah had no pics to work on. (I had enough for 10 people) I think my friends appreciate this business as they always get updated photos of themselves. Now, they have been bugging me to see some of the pics and Sarah has put up quite a few of her own so I am giving them 2 of each. JUST TWO MY FRIENDS! YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE! Haha, of course they do. That's the bedtime kicking in again.

I need to take some of the shadows off her face in this one now that I look at it closer...

These are a couple that I worked on quick. I have one of JW that turned out really nice but something is just off about it. Once I figure it out I will post it for you.

I will try to everyone updated on my currently busy life as best I can. I have lots of behind the scenes to do and I have a wedding I'm helping Sarah with on Saturday up in St. Croix Falls and Sunday is my Max's 23rd bday. We are going to the State Fair :) Should be lots of fun!

Tag!

Ten Years Ago:
I was 12 years old, living in Baldwin and was in the 7th grade at Viking Middle School. I had just starting hanging out with my wonderful friends I have now and was obsessed with a kid named Matt.

My To-Do List Today:
1. Scrounge up 100 dollars for Brendas couches (super nice ones!)
2. Find a truck to haul the couches
3. work on photos and reorganize living room after steam cleaning the couch we have now.

Snack that I Enjoy: Anything apple!

Things I Would Do if I was a Millionaire:
Pay off all bills and debt.
Pay for everyone to go to the wedding
Buy a new house farther out in the country with not only one FULL bathroom but 2! or 3!
Help out my friends and family with their debt

Places I've Lived:
Rapid City, SD
Lakeland, MN
Hudson, WI
Lakeland, MN
Lakeland, MN (grandmas)
Hudson, WI (half a house)
Baldwin, WI
Woodville, WI
Baldwin, WI


Tag! You're It!
Rachel
JW
Nikki

PS. I'll try and post a regular one tonight! Sorry! I've been SO busy!

Why oh why the bad hair days?

I am having a bad hair day. I am having a bad hair week. I am having a bad hair month. It sucks. Just so you know.

(sorry for the bad pic, all the good ones were blocked here at work)

n.a.m.e. photography

Well, I have one week to think of a final business name for my photography. My friend Sarah is coming up next weekend to help me make my website and then I can get some business cards and such but with no name, WHAT CAN I DO? I need your help.
Something, something, something Photography
I would just do my name but as my name will just be changing here in a few months, that's not going to work. Then I thought of doing something with Jewell in it as that is a pretty cool photographer name but I just can't seem to get something with the right ring to it... Hmm.
Jewells Photography?
JJ Photography?

Maybe I'll just be No Name Photography... haha. What do you think? Do you see why I need your help? Any suggestions will be welcome. (Nothing too girly though, that's just not me.)

Thanks guys! I really appreciate it!

(don't mind my coloring, I was just playing with the font!)

The end of summer weekends...

I had a fabulous weekend! It's not too often that I can say that, fabulous. Usually I have pretty good weekends mixed with a few "eh" weekends but not this weekend. F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S.

It started with not having to work on Saturday. Heaven! Instead I was the photographer for a small wedding in Hammond. It was very pretty. The bride, Val, called me about 2 weeks ago and asked me to shoot it. Planning everything at the last minute i guess! I had taken her sons senior pictures so that's how she knew to look me up. It was short and sweet and turned out beautiful. It was the first wedding I've been to though where they didn't have the whole "you may now kiss the bride" even though they were very lovey dovey while taking pictures. Weird.

After I got back from the wedding, Max and I got into a small, tiny, itty bitty argument but once we got that done and over with we decided that a date night was in order. Max's sister, Angel, got me a gift certificate to Olive Garden for my birthday so we decided to eat there and it was yummy! I had seafood alfredo and Max had some 5 cheese ziti pasta thing plus as much breadsticks and raspberry lemonade that we could fit in our bellies.

On our way back home, I decided that since it was so nice outside that we should go for a walk down on the pier in Hudson. Max doesn't normally like to walk so much but I think he just wanted to continue with our good night. We got downtown and searched for parking and went a walking. We were on the water right at the sunset and it was so pretty! This night totally sounds like a cliche but I don't care. It was so nice to spend time together. After walking around a bit we went home and watched a movie. Very, very, very nice evening.


Yesterday I did a bunch of laundry in the morning. Our dryer is currently out of order so when it's nice and sunny out that's when I get to do laundry. That's the best way anyway, when your clothes and sheets smell like sunshine. I love to crawl into bed and take a big ole whiff of my bed. Mmmm Mmmmm. Anywho, I got this overwhelming urge to jump in a nice cold lake so I called up JW and Rachel to see if they wanted to go swimming. Rachel was in Woodbury so JW and I trucked over to Eau Galle to go swimming. It was a blast from the past down there. We kept remembering times from back in high school when used to practically live at that beach with our0 We got downtown and searched for parking and went a walking. We were on the water right at the sunset and it was so pretty! This night totally sounds like a cliche but I don't care. It was so nice to spend time together. After walking around a bit we went home and watched a movie. Very, very, very nice evening.

The lake was actually very cold and took a bit for us to get in. First we just jumped in and then laid out in the sun. Then we went back in for a swim. On our way back to our towels the funniest thing happened. I was just about to lay down on my towel, I was kneeling over when SNAP! My swimsuit top catapulted from my ladies and landed 2 or 3 feet in front of me. Geez, I dived for my towel so no one would see and couldn't believe it. It was like I had a blower system in my boobs or something that exploded and made my top fly off. Not cool. I don't think anyone saw me, JW was right next to me and she didn't know what happened till she noticed my bare back so I think I'm covered. Good

My Max...

Max is singing to me right now loud enough so I hear him across the house :) He's so funny.

Things I LOVE and things I don't

I like to be able to put photos in my posts... it seems to brighten up the page and at the same time help visualize what's going on. Plus I love photos and take photos for a part time hobby and love to share what I do. Hence, I have a post from work (boring looking) and now another (visually appealing). We shall start with what I don't love.

I had to come home today to clean. Not the best thing in the world to do but I usually have Sunday be cleaning day and the rest of the week I just randomly do this and that to keep the house decent. Tomorrow, we are having a birthday dinner at my house for Angel and Max so there will be about 10 relatives over here eating and looking over my house. Sigh. This means clean. Clean, clean, clean. So, I got home from work around... hmmm, probably 5:45 and took the dogs for a walk because MAN were they hyper! Got home, Max made a quick dinner and then at 7 we started cleaning. Together we washed, swept, sprayed, vacuumed, mopped, shook, and sweat making this place beautiful. It does look and smell beautiful. I told Max that I like it much better when we clean together, it goes much faster.
me: We make a good team babe, only a hour and a half of cleaning and we are done for the night. I sure love you.
him: I love you too babe. We done good.
me: I'm going to go blog now
him: I'm going to go play poker.
And off we went our seperate ways.

Things I LOVE! More specifically, people I love :) I like reading other peoples blogs and looking at their pictures and being able to put a face to a name so I am kind of going to give you some faces so when I talk later about them, you know who they are. Except for a few key people in my life, who I don't have current pics of, these are the very important people in my life :)

This is my Max, whom I can't wait to marry!

This is my mom, I can't go past a couple days without talking to her.

These are my closest friends, we are a goofy bunch.

I should probably explain my friends and our... habits/tradition with you as I will probably refer to it later on. We decided when we graduated high school, that we would not become "that group" that ended up not even talking to each other after school was done. The ones that see each other at class reunions and have nothing in common anymore and don't know what to say to each other. That was something that we didn't want so we basically said that every Monday night, we were going to hang out whether it was going out to dinner and a movie or just hanging out at our houses. This way we would be sure to keep in touch and stay active in each others lives and we have. For the past 4 or so years we have been doing that. We are very close and consider each other family. If you look from the top down we have Rachel, then Jessie Walton (I will usually call her JW), myself, and then Josh. All of these guys are in my wedding and I couldn't be happpier :)

Well, I guess it's time for bed. Getting the pics ready and uploading them and then writing sure takes a while. Geez!

Oh yes, here is my ring for those who are curious :)

Night guys!

Bridesmaids :)

I ran over to Davids Bridal yesterday to pick up JW and Rachel's bridesmaid dresses. They are so pretty in yellow! When they tried them on in the store, they didn't have the correct color or the correct sizes for that matter so seeing them as they are supposed to be was exciting! The Woodbury David's Bridal doesn't seem to keep much in stock so it makes it hard for them to try stuff on. Caitlin went to the Davids Bridal in Milwaukee and was sending my phone pics of the dresses she tried on and they were ALL in yellow so I know what her's will look like for the most part. I won't be able to see Caitlin in her's until almost the wedding though since the dress is getting sent over there and she isn't able to come back home very often :(
I let them pick out whatever dress they wanted as long as it was the yellow color. My wedding is informal and I want everyone to be comfortable as well as it will be pretty hot on the island. I forgot to take a photo of the girls in their dresses though and I can't figure out how to do a link to the sites... Sad. I can't wait for the next couple of months for all the wedding stuff to come :) We have to start sitting down together and figuring out the bridal shower and bach party (which my girls have pretty much figured out already) and all that jazz!

P.S. I'll get a pic of my ring up here tonight when I'm my home computer :) (Just for you Erin!)

I NEED a VACATION

Doesn't this look wonderful! I desperately need a vacation away, far, far away from this town and the grumbly, unappreciative people in it. (Most of the people in it anyway) Not going to happen for a while yet... a little less then 4 months. sigh.

Did I tell you that Max and I are getting married soon? :) Well we are! On December 6, 2008 on St. Croix in the Virgin Islands. I'm SO excited. For the wedding, for the shower, for the bach party ;) everything. Since the resort plans everything and does everything for you down there, time has been going very slow, slow, slow. Now that we've hit under the 4 month mark I think time will go faster now. We are starting to get the details down for the shower, the bach party and are starting to get into the nitty gritty. I am not a planner at all so this is going to be a super informal wedding. Max and I want to just focus on what it is that we are doing and that is joining our lives together and being husband and wife. :) :) :)

A lazy day off...

Today was my day off. Since I have to work on Saturday, I get one day off during the week and that is usually Wed. I like having a day off during the week. With Max off at work I seem to get a lot done. Today was a great example of that. I'm not going to write a whole bunch about anything because it's late and I want to get to bed but I wanted to show you guys what I've been doing all day.

I woke up early, started laundry. With our dryer broken I have to get all our laundry out on the line and thankfully today was sunny so I was able to get 6 loads washed and out on the line. I LOVE the smell of the sunshine on your clothes and sheets when you bring them back inside. Other then that I've been on my computer ALL DAY! No joke. I had a LOT of photos to download and work on and then I had my nieces 1 1/2 photo shoot today which turned out really well :) She is SO cute! Anyway, here is a taste of what I have been doing all day and some of what I do in my photography business.

Which by the way I need an offical business name so I can start up a website and get more business cards made... does anyone have any good ideas? I wanted to use Jewell in is somehow but not use my name and my name will just be changing in... 4 months from today! Thanks for any help!

This is my niece Audrey :) She was being tickled.



These next few are of baby Hunter. He was 3 weeks in these photos and the smallest baby I've worked with yet! I think they turned out great!


I'm sorry I didn't get any cabin pics done yet... I'll a little time to get a few up here hopefully tomorrow! Good night, sleep tight and since I just washed everything there will be no bed bugs so no bites, just good smelling sunshine!

Looking for Howard

I am car searching and I really don't like it. I started out with my car now who's name is Grandma. (I name ALL my cars, always have, always will) I was hoping that she would last another year or so as she's a camry and they are excellent cars. She's put in her time at 230,000 but in the last 2 months she's broke down 4 times. 4 TIMES! That's ridiculous! All this money i've put into Grandma in the last couple months would have been a good chunk of what Howard (my new unknown car's name) would have cost. That sucks. Big time.

I find a car, call on it and it's gone. Call, gone. Call, gone. It doesn't help I'm looking for one of the most sought after cars, a Honda Civic. Those babies are dependable though and overpriced but I don't care. I know it will last. So if anyone knows of a 2001 or higher for reasonably priced Honda Civic let me know!

P.S. I'll try to get cabin pics up by tomorrow night for everyone to see... we had a blast!