Shenandoah Vacation ~ Part Two: The Flowers

One of the happy accidents on this vacation was toting my SLR along when we visited some gardens. I hadn't planned to shoot much, but I just couldn't resist all of these beauties.

So Ryan just followed me around for a couple hours as I hopped from flower to flower like a giddy little bee. What a sweet husband I have.

This one is by far my favorite! I'm also using this photo as my weekly photo challenge image. I wasn't sure what to do with the challenge "foreground", because I like to have the foreground be the focus. And then I realized that's ok! Although I like this next image where we're peeking through the leaves to look at the gate, it's the flower shots with the focus on the foreground that make my heart flutter.

Even dandelions are beautiful when there's some bokeh! 

Peter Pan Stylized Shoot ~ Behind the Scenes

Now that the Peter Pan wedding shoot has been featured on Glamour & Grace Wed, I can share all of the fun behind the scenes shots that my dear friend took for me.

Yes, I stood on the pallets.

And as you can see, I didn't even color correct the behind the scenes shots. Oops!

I'm counting this image as my photo challenge for the week: Bucket List. This shoot was even better than I had imagined. I can't wait to do another!

I'm so glad Martha was able to keep track of my shot list. I'll never do a stylized shoot without an assistant again!

This shot is much too dark but it makes me laugh. Martha was a dedicated helper! Also, she's laughing at me, because I put the point and shoot up to my eye. There's no view finder. It's just habit!

Can you tell that my camera strap gets in the way a bit?

We couldn't help taking a snack break as soon as we got shots of Holly and Ian cutting the cake. It was too yummy to wait. 

This stylized wedding shoot was a big bucket list item for me! I can't wait to dream up another!

Happy Birthday Mom!

I felt like a bad daughter. As soon as we hung up the phone confirming our vacation booking, I realized we'd be missing Mother's Day. That seemed unforgivable somehow.

But Mom didn't seem to mind. She's nice like that. And then we made up for it by inviting my parents to join us on the last couple days of our vacation. (Bonus points for me!)

It was a beautiful and relaxing week. And then we came back and celebrated again, this time for Mom's birthday.

This week's photo challenge is something about my mom that I don't want to forget. That's a really hard question. I don't want to forget anything. She's perfect.

A Fear of Mine

Do you ever wonder what you're missing out on?

Part of the curse of social media is that everyone looks like they're having a better time than you. Your friends lives look so exciting. But your life is so boring, because you know your reality. You know how  many hours of meaningless TV you watched this week and how empty your pantry is. You know how much laundry has piled up.

And so you look for fun date ideas online, because your entertainment budget is tight and you can't afford a dinner date night every weekend. (And if you haven't figured it out yet, when I say you, I mean me.)

But some of the date ideas look so dumb. Go to the bookstore and browse magazines. Put together a puzzle. Try out a new sitcom. Make dinner together.

On paper they all look boring. But some of the best moments of my life have been little moments. Not big and fancy ones. Ryan and I don't do big and fancy things that often. We do things the simple way.

I don't want to miss out on the fun little moments by thinking my entire life has to be Instagram worthy. But this takes work. At least for me, if I don't plan a fun activity (no matter how little), life slips by and we never do it.

So here are two ways I'm focusing on fun little moments in the next couple months:

- I'm trying to be more consistent with Instagram. Posting a couple photos a day means that I have to show some of the little everyday things. So my focus is to keep it real and post more than just the awesome parts of life.

- I'd like to create a mini blog series about date nights. It's not completely planned out yet, but I think I'll post a couple date night ideas at once. Four dates under $40 or something like that. Stay tuned!

Enjoy the little pieces of life as much as the big ones. And try putting together a puzzle with your honey. It's more fun than you might think.

A Milestone ~ HRC Photo Challenge

If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you probably noticed that yesterday was my birthday. And because I didn't lug my SLR around yesterday (or ask a server to take our picture on my phone), this week I'll be using an Instagram shot of my cheesecake for my photo challenge.

My big milestone day started with an encouraging church service. Then Ryan and I had steak and shrimp at Outback followed by a trip to the Cheesecake Factory bakery case. Soooo many choices. But I had tasted a bite of someone else's Lemon Raspberry cheesecake a couple years ago, and I knew I needed to have a whole piece to myself. And it did not disappoint!

In fact, give me a moment while I go grab the last few bites.

Don't judge me for eating cheesecake for breakfast. It's my birthday.

Well, it was yesterday.

Whatever.

Sneak Peek ~ Miranda Lifestyle Family Session

This week's inspiration came from an email from my client when we were planning this session. 

"We just love spending time together. Sometimes the most memorable moments for us are those in between ones.... In between appointments or while waiting for a table at a restaurant... or crossing the street... the time in between."

And so we built a whole session around those everyday "in between" times. Snuggling on a blanket, playing a game of checkers, walking hand in hand down the path, exploring the garden.

And it was beautiful. And even more beautiful, because I know that ten years from now, they'll be able to look back and remember what it was like when she was little and relive these "in between" moments.