Exhausted but thankful!

Friday, Caleb and I took another half day from work to photograph another amazing wedding. The couple (Nic and Kayla - yes, her name was Kayla and she was pretty stinkin awesome) was amazing, the location was insanely cool, and the weather couldn't have been better. I love when the bride and groom make photos a priority! It makes our job so much more fun!

Their reception was so much fun. Kayla basically forced us to enjoy ourselves (and put our cameras down) when her entire family called us onto the dance floor - it made our night! So many guests thanked us for being there and paid us SO many incredible compliments. We honestly left feeling so humbled and so thankful! We headed to a hotel in Dayton where we stayed the night - since our Saturday bride would be getting ready there!

Alyssa and Nathaniel had such a beautiful wedding! Seriously everything was gorgeous. Her dress, her hair, her cathedral veil, and AH! She even made her own bouquet. I couldn't believe how gorgeous the peonies were. My pupils were replaced with tiny red hearts all day!

We got to ride around in the venue's Gator for our shoot with them and had ourselves a blast!

Sunday morning, we slept in. Kind of felt bad skipping church, but we didn't even set an alarm to wake up. It was much needed, though! Imagine my surprise as Caleb and I are cleaning the main floor, and our doorbell rings! It was my brother with the prettiest YELLOW roses!! He also brought Caleb some candy. He walked in and thanked us for being some of the most prominent people in his life. I couldn't help but cry! How thoughtful?! I'm so grateful for the man he's becoming! I just couldn't believe he was getting ME a gift even though he's the one graduating this week! Thursday can't come soon enough!!

We also spent our afternoon relaxing with Erin and Jared - playing some of our favorite board games! It may have been our last one before their sweet babe makes his arrival, so we really enjoyed ourselves!

Hope everyone had a fun weekend!

Hooray for Friday!

A few favorites from my week;

1. My brothers senior drum solo // I wrote this on my Facebook and thought I'd share it here as well;

Words cannot describe my love for you, baby brother. Tuesday night, as I and watched you absolutely rock your senior drum solo, I sat there in the stands just as amazed and enamored as everyone else. You’ve worked so hard for this, and your moment finally came. I had tears in my eyes as the entire auditorium rose to their feet in applause to congratulate you on a job well done. You knocked the roof off that place, Bran! The amount of time that you pour into the things you care about is extremely admirable, and I’m unbelievably proud of the drummer, the leader, and the man that you’ve become over the last few years. As I prepare to watch you graduate high school next week, I just wanted to take a second to let you know how much you mean to me. I’m thankful to not only call you family, but one of my best friends. 

2. This adorable boutique // a co worker took me to the cutest little boutique near work. Think Anthropologie - but actually AFFORDABLE. This is dangerous, folks.

3. Brides that I meet with who share a love of all things Disney and the color yellow // getting excited for the 2017 wedding season!!

4. Mexican Food // after a late night at Starbucks meeting a few bride and grooms, I hadn't eaten dinner and it was going on 8pm! Picked up my favorite - cheese quesadillas!

5. Free webinars // holla for free business/photography tips. Never stop learning, people!

Happy Friday the 13th, friends! ;)


I hope everyone has a fun weekend planned. Caleb and I have our first double header wedding weekend (one today + one tomorrow), but we're excited about the location of these new venues! Although I'm already exhausted, I'm happy to be pouring myself into something I love! Have a fun weekend!

You won't believe...

I'll be totally honest. The creative juices just aren't flowing out of me this week...and that means the blog suffers. However, I've been working a lot, editing a lot, and prepping a lot for this double wedding weekend! So I dug out an old draft post and updated it for some silly facts about myself that may surprise you!

You won't believe...
...how obsessed I am with marshmallow fluff...
...that I never learned how to dive into a pool, it terrifies me and I've never tried...

...how ridiculous I dance at weddings (yes, even as the photographer, not just a guest)

...the names my husband wants for our future children (Thor, Leonitus, Loki... those are no joke)...
...how excited I am to make travel plans for this year...
...that its hard for me to fall asleep without my lamb chop. Yeah, I've had him since birth...

...how many hilarious music videos we've made over the years with these goofballs... 

...how red my ears get when I'm nervous...
...that I've never broken a bone (knock on wood)...
...how many photos I still need to organize...

...the disgusting fish Caleb caught that holds the "family record"...

...how oily my hair gets just hours after washing it...
...that I've never seen "Anne of Green Gables" (that one's for you, Erin)...
...how excited I am to see my mom next week! It's been months! Yay!

...that I can't think of any new blog posts to save my life. ;) thanks for sticking around, friends! Even when I have nothing to talk about. We've got two weddings this weekend so things will be quiet for a few days,

Our free weekend!

Guys, I can't even explain how awesome our Saturday was. Knowing we had NOTHING planned, nothing on the books, it just made the day so much more enjoyable. We honestly could've slept in and done nothing all day, and it would've been AMAZING. We're so used to working 6 days a week now a days, so having an actual weekend to enjoy together was so great!! We did shoot a wedding Downtown on Friday, but it beat sitting at our desk jobs all afternoon!

In the morning we slept in, hit up some yard sales (holla for $2 board games), and got a spontaneous lunch with Caleb's parents around noon to celebrate Mothers Day!

We stuffed ourselves silly with breadsticks and then headed home for a nice long nap. When we woke up we thought we'd head out for ice cream and a movie! Civil War was AMAZING. Caleb and I are big fans of Marvel and basically every movie they put out, but this was probably my favorite! So many characters!

Sunday we heard a great message at church and got to spend most of Mother's Day with my family. We don't get to do that much (note to self: make it happen more) so it was awesome to just relax in their living room and catch up. Nanny whipped out her very own adult coloring book and let me go to town on it. Later on, I asked to see some old photos and we flipped through them for hours. It was seriously the coolest. I found a picture (see below) of my Great Grandma Peggy Lou (Nanny's mom) who I sadly never got to meet, but I couldn't get over how GORGEOUS she was! My Nanny really takes after her, too! I'm related to some beautiful momma's!

So thankful for free weekends and time with my man! Hope everyone had a fun one!

Currently {in May}

Hi friends! I can't believe its only Wednesday right now. Feels like it should be Saturday already! ;)
With another new month comes another Currently link up with Anne & Jenna!
So, currently I'm...

Celebrating: The marriage of Ashlee and Luke! Last Friday, Caleb and I made the quick trip up to Columbus to witness their marriage. It was such a sweet, emotional ceremony and the wedding details were amazing. Ashlee is a photographer so I knew her attention to detail would be amazing! Also celebrating? In 21 little days - our 3rd anniversary!! Whaaat? Time flies.

Reading: more of my Bible. Some of the verses I'm randomly opening to are hitting me like a ton of bricks. I love that feeling!

Pondering: how to better organize our bedroom and the rest of our home. Last night when we got home, the cleaning bug just hit us both and we tore our place APART. Getting rid of stuff, throwing out old containers, realizing we didn't need TWELVE baking sheets, dusting, doing laundry, etc. Caleb took care of the kitchen while I focused on our bedroom and laundry. It feels SO nice to go to bed at night with a clean home.

Sipping: less coffee, more water. I'm not even a huge coffee fan - but our office is FREEZING in the morning so I sometimes just make a cup of french vanilla (with too much sugar/cream - because is there any other way to drink it?!) to keep me warm. I'm trying to get my water intake up, though!

Going: who knows where. We're still planning where our next vacation will be...but I'd really like to get that narrowed down ASAP. I need it on the calendar to look forward to!!

Any other Star Wars fans out there? I'll be honest, I never understood the movies. But last December during our stay-cation, we watched ALL SIX in one week and they made a fan of me. May the 4th be with all of you ;)

Have a fun day, friends!

May Goals!

Another month, another goal post. These are some of my favorite prompts to write AND to read. Even when I don't reach all my goals from the previous month, its still fun to try and make them happen.

My goals for April were maybe a little too crazy for the busy month that we had planned - with a 1st birthday party, going out of town, shooting 4 weddings and attending 1, co-hosting a baby shower, lots of photo sessions and lots of after work meetings - it was hard to accomplish all of it. So instead of looking back - since I  kinda sucked at most of them - I'm going to focus on May and keep looking forward!

Run a half marathon. Okay I'm kind of cheating with this one since it already happened on Sunday...but I'm still pretty excited that this is checked off ;)

Plan a date-day with my man! We actually have an unusual amount of free Saturday's this month and I'm pretty pumped about it!!

Drop off our Goodwill box. We've had a huge donation pile building in our bedroom and its becoming quite the eyesore. We've got everything from clothes to books, and basically anything in between, so it'll be nice to get it out of the house and finally donate it!

Utilize our new gym. We just joined a new gym a few weeks ago and while we made a few after-work trips together, I'd like to step up my game. They have an indoor track with a small hill so I'm looking to use that more! I also really miss lifting!!

Drink more water. I'm typically a huge water bug by day, but I feel like I could step it up once I'm home for the night. Along with this, I should make it a goal to clean up my bedside table. It's always full of my pre-bed glasses of water! Anyone else guilty of that?! Caleb is always getting on me about it - hehe!

Use my Amazon gift card. I've had this thing since my birthday - its ridiculous. We're trying to cut back this month to pay more towards our debt, so this is a good way to splurge without any guilt! I've been eyeing this fun watercolor pen!

I hope everyone has a fun month ahead of them. May it treat you well ;) see what I did there?! This is also the month of our 3rd anniversary, so we'll see what kind of fun we have planned for that!

Third Half Marathon - in the books!

Well, I can now officially say I've run THREE half marathons! Yesterday was the annual Flying Pig Half Marathon here in Cincy and this was our 3rd time completing it together. Caleb has actually run it 4 times, he's a beast!

The morning of, we picked up my brother in law, Jared, and headed downtown. The weather report leading up to the big day was kind of scary and unpredictable. They kept saying to expect thunderstorms/lightning/rain all day. I'm so thankful to say it ended up being absolutely perfect. The sky was overcast all morning, so it wasn't too hot, and it stopped raining just in time for the race. It honestly couldn't have been better!

We got to the race just as it was beginning, so instead of getting to our designated corral, we sneaked through a side railing and jumped in an earlier one. Big mistake, these people were SPRINTING and we felt like we had to keep up since we jumped in. So the entire first mile we ran way too fast, which made us exhausted by mile 2-3. Luckily, Caleb is a good pace setter and insisted we slow down so we wouldn't die!

By about mile 4, I needed a quick break, which worked out perfectly because Caleb wanted to get rid of his jacket. It seems that every year I'm so surprised by the amount of hills in this half, even though I've done it twice before! Some of the hills are small, but most of them are huge. The views at the top are always worth it though...even when my calves are screaming.

Caleb and I both ran on and off the rest of the race, but we promised we'd stick together through it. His legs were cramping, and I had some annoying hip pain, but we encouraged each other and couldn't help but smile at all the amazing spectators the entire time. Seriously, I've never seen so many clever signs!!

One of my favorite parts of the course is passing a retirement home and seeing all these elderly men and women cheering us on - some of them had the best signs! It really makes you thankful to be able to get outside and enjoy a nice run. I was also encouraged by the multiple runners who carried heavy American flags - it made me pretty emotional!

After the most vicious hill of my life (my fitbit said I climbed almost "90 flights of stairs"), there was the sweetest group of Veterans singing in a choir. I mean!! How sweet?!?

link

We were SO close. We spotted the mile 11 banner and ran the next mile or so without stopping. Once we got to mile 12, though, we felt like we needed a break to walk. At this point, we were just SO exhausted and so ready to see that "finish swine"!!

When we rounded the corner, we knew it was a straight shot to the finish line so we booked it until the end. I always get so emotional when I cross that finish line! Seeing everyone cheering, finally making it. Just gives me such a sense of accomplishment!! We definitely took a little longer to finish than last year, but we didn't really mind. I wasn't trying to PR in this race, I just wanted to cross another half off my list and enjoy it alongside my man! That medal is always worth it!

Once we got home we relaxed for just a couple hours, made sure to stretch out our muscles so they didn't tighten up too much, then headed out for a carb filled post-race meal! 

I'm not sure which half I'll run next, or if I'll run another one at all. I do like this distance, but I may want to switch it up. I haven't decided yet. Like I said last week, I'd really like to work on speed - and getting quick for 5K's, so we'll see!

It was so much fun crossing that finish line with Caleb, though. Accomplishing things in life together is one of my favorite things. It was fun to be each others constant source of encouragement throughout the race. I love that man! Hope everyone had a fun weekend!