Confessions: Random July Edition

Confession: I'm insanely excited to see what Amazon has up their sleeve for"Prime Day"! Not that I need anything, but its always fun to look!

Confession: whenever I actually wear something to a wedding that's halfway decent AND super comfy, a mirror selfie is definitely required...

the 4 is for the 4th of July... #duh

Confession: I watched this video about 7 times last night. Chris Pratt running in high heels. Bah! Did that not just make your Wednesday!?

Confession: this bride's pair of gorgeous heels for her wedding day cost her over $200...but I can't say I blamed her.  Okay, real talk. I've never spent over $60 on a pair of shoes, but these could change my mind!

Confession: I think my husband should try out for our church's worship team to sing or play guitar. Or, just serenade me more. That'd be fine, too :)

Confession: I'm kind of obsessed with Blake Lively & she could be one of the most adorable celebrities ever.

Confession: I have a not so healthy obsession with my laptop's photobooth.

Confession: I also have an obsession with my many, many excel documents. #notsorry

Confession: Caleb and I still have not solidified our Fall vacation plans. We need a beach in our lives asap! We're going to Tennessee next week with our youth group for a youth conference, but we'd also like a week off to relax near a beach...so if you find good deals, pass them my way.

Confession: Facebook is annoying me lately. I'm mainly sticking to Instagram because its more fun to stare at this adorable hedgehog all day long...tell me you clicked that link.

Confession: I'd pay a lot of money to watch my wedding day like a fly on a wall. Beginning to end. Hands down one of the most amazing days of my life. Thanks for the photo, Erin ;)

Confession: I have no plans tonight and I fully intend to flop in some sweats the second I get home. #noshame

Enjoy your day, friends!!

Our Fourth of July weekend!

Our long weekend consisted of photographing two weddings, little sleep, and lots of fun. Honestly it was such a great weekend, but I'm absolutely exhausted right now. I haven't been this tired in a really long time. Ever feel like you need a weekend to recoup from your weekend? Yeah, that's me right now...but I'm so thankful for all the fun we had!

Thursday evening we headed to Caleb's brothers place to hang out with his family...we had a blast setting off fireworks and hanging out on their front lawn for hours just laughing like crazy.

Friday I got an early start to the day and headed out to photograph the first wedding of the weekend! We knew a few of the guests (as well as the bride) at the wedding so we knew it would be a really fun, relaxed day! The bride even invited me to Chipotle with her bridesmaids for lunch! Talk about awesome?!

One of the gals from the youth group was there and we had a blast taking a few selfies and dancing the night away (yes, its a great job that I have)!!

& of course, a bride & groom selfie!

We got home, cleared off our memory cards, got a few hours of rest and did it all over again the next day!

This lovely couple hired Razzi's to come and put on a special fireworks show JUST for their wedding, so it was awesome getting to see a whole fireworks show for the fourth, even while we worked! They had multiple favors for their guests like USA cookie cutters attached to a bag of soft baked cookies (nom!!!), american flag flip flops for the tired feet on the dance floor, a photo booth and adorable Ohio shaped koozies.

Sunday, we got breakfast with Caleb's parents before they headed back home to Arkansas, heard a great message at church, then headed to Columbus to see a few friends for a bit!

I hope everyone had an awesome, fun & safe weekend!!!

Hello July!

Its July?!?! WOW! Here I am saying it yet again, time is flying. I honestly can't make a big list of goals for July, or even talk about the ones I failed at in June...I underestimated how busy we'd be with weddings and volunteering and time just got away from me!

I've got a lot on my plate this month, so I'm going to take it easy on the long list of goals and instead focus on smaller, more realistic weekly goals! Caleb and I started this in our household last summer. Every Monday, one of us would write a weekly goal on the fridge that we wanted to accomplish together in that week alone. It was always so fun challenging each other and keeping each other accountable, whether that be with a "no spend week" or a "no pop" week. It was a fun way to do something TOGETHER, and we loved that. So this week? My goal is for us to read more.

Caleb and I both love to read...so much! It's sad that sometimes we're so busy we don't make as much time for it as we should. It's too easy to flop in front of the TV after dinner and binge-watch The Office (tell me we're not the only ones!), but instead, we want to start dedicating a couple nights of post-dinner time to diving into our new favorite novel. We were sitting in our guest bedroom on Tuesday night and realized just HOW many books we've bought together since we've been married. I saw dozens that I bought that are just sitting there, collecting dust (gasp! I know!), so we've decided to make this more of a priority, and that makes us happy!

I'm excited to implement weekly goals into our lives more. We have two weddings to shoot this weekend so while its not much of a free-weekend, we are lucky to have some really awesome clients to work with!! I hope everyone has an awesome holiday weekend planned!!

2 loans down, 2 to go!

Yesterday I mentioned something very exciting happened on Saturday and that I'd fill you guys in today. A little back story first...

This is the year that Caleb and I got more serious about paying off debt. A few days into the new year we were able to pay off loan #1 (which rocked)! Then we had to pay a LOT in taxes from our first full year of (partial) self employment, and things got a little crazy. It was then time to move onto loan #2 - which was our used car we bought last Fall. We had been putting money away, and putting money away for months, and then paying bills, and paying more bills and finally, we had set aside enough on Saturday to.....
PAY OFF OUR CAR!!!!! Ceellleeebraaate goood timesss, come onnnn!

insert dance party photo!

I can't tell you how good it felt to walk out of that bank with a "paid off" receipt in my hand. It probably won't feel REAL until we see the legit title in our mailbox, but regardless...I'm a happy girl to have two loans finally paid off!

It really hit me this week how much extra income we will have once we're debt free. I know last year I spoke more about becoming debt free but its really hitting me now the kind of future we can set ourselves up for by having NO debt.

I'm also learning more and more that this is kind of a "weird" way to live...co workers look at me like I have 3 heads when I tell them I cant go out to lunch w/ them again because I only have $10 in cash to spend for the week! & you know what? I kind of love that. It's also encouraging that we have SO many people in our lives who have such amazing success stories. Remember Sallie & Perkins?! Then our friends Josh + Marie...as well as multiple couples from church. They are all living like NO ONE ELSE because they chose to live like NO ONE ELSE for a little while.

This year has been stressful, tiring, and insanely exhausting to say the least, and being in the midst of this pay-off kinda sucks sometimes, but now I'm treating it like a game. How fast can we pay off our bigger loan #3?! I want to impress myself! So now we're buckling down even more so that by next year? We'll be debt free and can have more freedom...& we can't freaking wait. Thanks for all your wisdom, Dave Ramsey!

NOW? On to loan #3!!!!

Our entirely free weekend!

Our weekend was the perfect form of recovery from our insanely busy last week! Sports Camp was a huge success...we got to hang out with hundreds of kids, be outside all week, and spread the love of Jesus! I was CRAZY tired all week so I think the little break I took from blogging was exactly what I needed, so thanks for sticking with me!

Friday after Sports Camp we went home and worked our little butts off editing a ton of gorgeous photos..two weeks ago, we ended up buying Caleb an older, used laptop from Craigslist and he's already edited an ENTIRE wedding. Not only has it been fun teaching him more about the details of the software, but it means the world that he's helping out!

Saturday was an amazing day for us. As much fun as we have photographing weddings, it was a much needed weekend off after 7 wedding weekends in a row. Something very exciting happened (more on that tomorrow!), and then the rest of the day was pretty ordinary. However, ordinary was PERFECT. We grabbed Skyline... went grocery shopping... took a long trip to the library... and went home to play video games and watch movies. It was everything I wanted our day off to be!

Sunday we enjoyed a morning full of worship and church, then I got to visit my bestie Lyndsie while she was in town! She brought me back some neat stuff from her recent trip to New Zealand and I freaking loved it. She's wonderful and I'm so thankful I got to see her for even just a quick hour!

After that, Caleb and I took a trip to the pool for a couple hours. It was glorious! We've made it to the pool a ton this year already and its been awesome to spend so much time outside. For some reason last year we stayed cooped up a lot in our living room and I'm glad we're changing our habits!

We finished our evening with breakfast for dinner (always a good idea) and a few episodes of The Office. We have an insanely busy week/weekend ahead of us so I'm just trying to take it one day at a time! I hope you guys had a fantastic weekend, too!!

Sap happy.

This week marks one of the most insane weeks of our year.  For the last few summers, we've volunteered for our church's annual Sports Camp (think VBS but outdoors/sports)....and while we're extremely exhausted from it (we're talking midnight bed times all week), we wouldn't trade it for the world.

There's nothing I love more than watching my husband be around kids, he's SO great with them. It just comes so natural to him...and I honestly shed a little tear last night watching him dance along side these kids during worship, encouraging a sweet little kid who felt left out, and even trying to teach a lefty how to shoot. I wouldn't trade these little memories for anything. I'm so incredibly thankful for that man I call my husband.

I also had a few great conversations with people in my church I'd never really spoken to. People who told me my photography is making a difference in people's lives, and how much they appreciate seeing them plastered all over FB less than 12 hours later... and that makes all the humidity and sweat  (seriously, so much sweat) worth it. I love being surrounded by people who want to GIVE so much of their time... they have no idea how much they inspire me!

Anyway, I really stopped in today to say I may be taking a quick break this week from blogging. It's been crazy and it's just going to continue that way, so stick with me! & enjoy your hump day! ;)

The craziest weekend of all!

Our weekend was crazy busy, but guess what? We survived. Weeee surviiiveeed!! Two weddings, a trip to the zoo, and the start of Sports Camp for our church! To be honest, it was insanely exhausting, and I was pretty sick the whole time (lots of congestion, feverish, etc.) but I toughed through. I decided to use a day off yesterday to recoup and while I'm not entirely better, I think I needed it!

Since so much happened from Thursday night on... I'll sum it up in a few photos. I do want to say a huge THANK YOU to all of you who wished us well and who kept their fingers crossed for good weather during the weddings because we mostly had PERFECT WEATHER! No signs of "tropical storm Bill" whatsoever! There were sprinkles in the morning but they went away and we had beautiful overcast skies for both days. Is this bride not STUNNING?!

Saturdays wedding was a great one, but they got married in the oldest church Downtown...and there happened to be NO air conditioning in the building, so we about died.

super flattering angle, we know.

We spent Sunday afternoon with my Dad at the zoo, and it was awesome. We don't get to spend a ton of time together with both of our crazy schedules so it was great. Caleb and I had never been together and it was so much fun! I love my Dad, and all his funny quirks that make him him. Including his "who's your daddy" star wars shirt... ;)

...then my dreams came true and I got to feed a giraffe!!

Then our church's annual sports camp started... I photograph it every year and its always amazes me to see these kids hear about Jesus, some for the first time! While its insanely hot and I felt gross, it's so worth it.

I hope everyone has a great Tuesday!