Travis & Katie June 9, 2007

I had the honor of photographing the union of one of the nicest couples on June 9th.

Travis and Katie contacted me in 2005 after I had shot only a couple of weddings. Katie booked me right away and so she has to be the bride that I have "had on the books" for the largest length of time. I hope she's pleased that she took a chance on that girl that hadn't shot very many weddings 2 years ago!

Travis and Katie's day was calm and peaceful. No frantic running around, no crunched timelines, no "what seems like a disater at the time" disasters. Only friends and family that made the day that much more enjoyable. (all of this added on to the fact that St.Mary's in Ste. Marie has to be one of my all time favorite churches to shoot in, made the day really nice for me!)

I saw Katie and Travis yesterday at another wedding that I was shooting. I noticed them during part of the ceremony. They just have this happiness about them. I couldn't help but smile.

I am so happy for them and I am so honored that I had the opportunity to help them remember their day for all the years to come!

Congratulations Katie and Travis!

-a

Inspi(red)

I was shopping (imagine that!) and happened upon the Gap Product Red line. I was immediately intrigued, and picked a couple out for the kids. This product line helps fight AIDS in Africa. I'll happily donate my $20 to get a couple cool t-shirts and hopefully help some poor little kid who is suffering from such a horrible disease.

Basically, half of the profits from the sale of this line, goes to the Global Fund to help women and children affected by AIDS in Africa.

For those of you wanting to learn more about the Product Red line at Gap, please visit http://www.gap.com/ or visit, http://www.gap.com/customerService/info.do?cid=16591&mlink=36612,750355&clink=750355

If you happen to be at the GAP back to school shopping, pick out a couple for your family, and help a great cause.

I wanted to post pictures of the kids looking serious to go along with the seriousness of the cause. Getting serious out of my kids was really hard. I think I ended up with mean instead. You get the idea though. I think it still works. Fight AIDS.....AIDS is mean.

Yep, it works.

-a

Ribbit

I had an on location senior shoot in Claremont this evening, and to my delight while walking back to my car, I found a frog. or a toad. an amphibian none the less.

I knew right away how excited RJ would be. I called him on the way home and after informing him of my find, I was met with nothing less than skepticism. I was crushed. I had just known that he would be SO excited.

I pull in the driveway and almost let the frog/toad go, but came in the house without letting him go first. RJ was ecstatic. Come to find out he thought frog/toads bite, and was scared. When he found out they didn't, he couldn't wait to play with it.

So introducing "Speckle" the frog/toad, who was peacefully released in Peterson Park.

-a

I miss Steph.....

Stephanie moved to Iowa 4 or 5 months ago. Now while I've seen her since then, it's never been for very long, just a quick visit when we can squeeze it in when she's in town. When she moved, I scheduled a visit to see her and Eric and Jaiden for this past weekend.

We left on Friday and 6 long hours later, we arrived in Cedar Rapids, IOWA for a 2 day visit. The kids had so much fun with Jaiden, Rick and Eric sat and visited, and Stephanie and I did what we do best....Shopped, and Talked.

We did all kinds of fun stuff and took the kids to the park and to Chuck E Cheese's.

After we left, Rick and I stopped at the Niabi Zoo so the kids could see the animals. It was a really neat little zoo with more animals than we would have expected. That's also where we discovered that RJ's wingspan is slightly more than a Swallow-Tailed Kite, and Heidi's was just slightly less than a Peregrine Falcon. ( I just love those things!) The kids also got to feed the goats and ride a carousel.

Rodney the Rat traveled with us as well (of course). We got some great shots of him this weekend too, but my favorite was when he just insisted that he wanted to take his picture by the sign at the world's largest truck stop. Of course we pulled over for him.

All in all we had a really nice time, but the biggest thing that I realized over the last 3 days is that I really miss Steph...........

-a