Terrific!!!

Today was the end of an extremely busy week and I really really enjoyed it! I booked 3 awesome weddings that I'm soooo looking forward to!! I also got together with tons of my friends which was so awesome! :)
Anyways, the other day when I was at the model shoot at my friends farm. There was this girl there who was engaged and is getting married next year. She was explaining to us that her name is Tara Huble, but when you pronounce that fast it sounds like terrible!! Well...the absolutely adorable thing is that her new last name is going to be Fick which will then make her Tara Fick(Terrific)!!!! I thought that was one of the most amazing stories ever!
Well, I hope that you all have an awesome week!!
Ps. The picture above is from a party that I was at this week with a couple of my old friends and some new ones!! It was a blast!!

My new job!

Yesterday was such a great day! My friend DJ stayed over at our house because his flight to Detroit was cancelled. We were kinda sad that it was cancelled but WAY more excited to have him over again:) It is always so awesome when he comes over! He's such a blessing!

Anyways, yesterday afternoon I did a model shoot with my friend Christine Stahl who is an incredible makeup artist! We did this shoot for all of our portfolios. The model Emily was so great! I hardly had to do anything! The stylist was so amazing and really had an eye for what we were looking for! I REALLY enjoyed this shoot! Soooo much that maybe I'll get into fashion photography too!! Who knows! I'll get a slideshow up ASAP!!

Sweetnesses

This has been such an amazing and crazy week! I've been traveling everywhere non-stop...but I like it! Thank God for ipods!! :) My sister Olivia just had her "Pink" birthday party on Tuesday and it was seriously the cutest thing ever!! It made me want to be a little girl again! hehe!..I think she got like 6 pairs of dressup shoes and dresses! She just turned "free" so she's feeling pretty special now:)

Today I got together with my friend Debbie and she has the cutest little girl Brooke who is just a big ball of joy!! It's so adorable! I took some pictures of her the other day so here are some pics of two of the cutest little girls ever! And I don't think I'm just biased either! :)

Lemonade?

Yesterday Natalie and I were on our way to the store and we saw these guys sitting on the side of the street and at first I thought they were just sitting in there front yard tanning or something! LOL! As we got closer we saw their sign!!! This is one the the funniest things ever!! On the way home we stopped to get some to support fellow lemonade standers…LOL!! I remember when I was little I would ALWAYS do lemonade stands whenever I wanted to buy something! So I always like to support people when they have these;) hehe! Just never expected this!!!! It looks like they should have started this idea a little sooner since I think they are all going to college in the fall!! LOL!

OMG!!!!!!

Wow!!! What an incredible weekend!! My family(aka my sister Natalie and everyone else) pulled off a surprise birthday for me!! I was so surprised!!! I had two appointments yesterday afternoon and they both called and canceled so I was like "Whoa! That's weird!" Then my friend Debbie came over and we were going to go shopping and to get pedicures, for some reason my mom kept stalling me asking me to help with the baby and put together a bouqet?? hehe! We were about to leave and Debbie goes "Oh! Why don't we edit some of those guys pictures from the DR?? So your mom can take a shower!" So we worked for awhile and my brother called me downstairs to help him with a project...I was being a jerk and am like "Nah, just chill!" hehe! Finally they got me down there and a whole bunch of my closest friends jumped out!! Oh man!! I didn't know what to do at first!! lol!! What a surprise! I can't believe they pulled this off! We played games, sang, went out to dinner, laughed, all the good stuff;) I love my friends so much! I couldn't believe it! My friends DJ (Came all the way from California!! He's so incredible!! :), Jake, Mark, Sarah, Debbie, Rebecca, and Jenny(I'm still working on her getting a blog!! ;) were all there!! We had such a fun time! I LOVE you all so much thanks for making yesterday such an amazing day! Here is the **slideshow** (these are pictures from my camera...I'll have to get some from everyone else..especially the crazy ones we made in photobooth!!)
I hope everyone has a awesome weekend!!! :)

Back in Action!!!!

Hey guys!!
I made it back safe. It was such an amazing trip and I can't wait to go back, but I'm really excited to be back home too!
I'll hopefully get a little video from the whole trip up in the next couple days...I left my power cord in my aunt's suitcase so I can't turn on my laptop until Sunday..so I'll get one up once I get that:)
Above is a picture of the whole group that I was with down there!! They are awesome! :)
I have so many projects to finish up this week I think I need like 10 employees!! hehe!!
On Wednesday my friend Debbie came to church and we just hung out afterwards it was so much fun! We have been friends since we were born!! It's so awesome! Debbie just started an incredible **blog** check it out! I have really been encouraged by it!

Last journal entry from the DR

Hey everyone!!

I can’t believe how fast this week went by!! I really feel like I just got here, yet we got soooo much accomplished!! We did 17 senior shoots in all! 11 girls and 6 guys. We finished the last four shoots today and had to cram them all in in 4 hours because of the lighting! But it turned out incredible!

This morning we went around to all the houses and showed the girls their slideshows and they were seriously so excited! It was so cute! After we watched every senior slideshow possible they asked to see more of my wedding work!! Hehe! So I got a couple wedding bookings today! LOL!

For lunch my aunt took me to an authentic Dominican restaurant for rice and beans which was VERY good!! What an experience! I brought my camera and everything to take pictures of the place…and low and behold when I press the shutter button it says “no CF card” Man!! Well I guess I’ll just have to come back again!! Lol!

This afternoon we did three more guys…and it was so cute because they were so nervous!! But they made it through great!! Once they got the hang of it!

I did one last girl tonight and it was as the sun was setting so we didn’t have much light…I was finally able to use my One Light Workshop techniques again!! I was soooo excited!! Can’t wait to show you all the pics!!! Yeah!!

I’ll be home tomorrow afternoon!! See you all soon!!

Love,

Sarah

Happy Birthday Oli!!

Wow! I can’t believe that it’s been 3 years since my mom had my sister Olivia! We thought my parents were done at five…but!! Hehe!! Along came the announcement of Olivia! After my parents hadn’t had any kids for 5 years it was a huge surprise and I have no clue what life would be like now without her!! She is such a huge blessing to everyone around her and just pours out love!!...oh and can’t forget that she is just soooo stinkin cute too!! Hehe!!

Love you Oli!!

(Thanks to KK for this incredible picture!!!)

Today was a great productive day! I layed around all morning made slideshows for all the photoshoots that I’ve done so far down here! Whew!! Took a lot of time but thank GOD for Showit Web! This afternoon we started all the guys shoots. We did three guys today and it was a blast!! We had so much fun! It was hilarious because all the guys just got back from climbing up a mountain for 5 days so one of the guys was on crutches because he fell off part of a cliff and another guy had a big gash across his face..but they were cool and were awesome sports about the whole thing! This was the first time that I’ve done seniors shoots for guys…I’ve really only done it for a couple of my girl friends..so this was new for me..but I think I’ll do it more often now;) hehe!!

Here are some shots that we got at the end of the shoot! I had them do some jumping shots and the guy, Brian, who hurt his foot wanted to do a jumping shot too so he did it on crutches!!! Haha!!! It was awesome!!

Well off to editing… Love you all so much!!!! I’m REALLY loving it down here and the people that I’m meeting but I miss you all so much too so that is why I’ll come home….soon ;)

Sunday 7-16-06

Hey lovely people!!!

Today was an awesome day as always! We went to church which was so cool! It was so different than any church that I had been to! Everyone is very involved and they all take turns singing, teaching, and praying! It was so incredible! I really enjoyed it! At the end the have everyone that is celebrating a birthday come up…so since my birthday was this past week I had to go up…and there goal is to embarrass you! It’s hilarious! You just have to say your name, the age that your turning, and a funny birthday story! My aunt told the funny story…lol… She told the story of when I was born she was the first person that I saw! My mom had a home birth and my aunt was watching it and as soon as my head popped out she screamed cause she wasn’t expecting it!! She was sooo scared for weeks that she had traumatized me and scarred me for life or something..LOL! After that the whole church prays for the birthday people which I thought was so neat!

This afternoon we were just going to chill but we looked outside and saw that it was great lighting for pictures so we headed down to the waterfall were a whole bunch of the kids were..we were going to do some shoots down there but it was soooo misty that my camera would have been soaked by then!! Lol! We grabbed one of the girls from yesterday that we hadn’t finished shooting and took her up to the campus to shoot! It was a lot of fun! Especially when she brought her horse out to shoot too!! Cowgirl in the Caribbean!! Perfect!! Hehe!

Here is the **slideshow** from yesterday when we went shopping! Craziness!!

I love you all!!

Sarah

Ps.. Oh yeah for all of you who read my Dear Natalie blog, I’m so sorry I haven’t written for awhile! It takes some time to sit down and really think of what to write! I’m working on one tonight! So hopefully a new post will be up tomorrow!!

Another Journal Entry :) 7-15-06

Today was such an awesome day!...but isn’t every day?? This morning my aunt wanted to take me to the town because Saturday is begger’s day there and everything is CRAZY! We first started at the supermarket to get breakfast, an ice cream bar and potato chips…believe me you would get this if you saw everything else there…lol!!!!

We just drove around town and people watched! Which is seriously so much fun! I had my camera out the window the whole time with my wide angle lens on just shooting constantly! So I have way to many pictures to edit but at least I took them! The driving down here really freaks me out, people don’t stop at stop signs and there is no such thing as a traffic light! My aunt just laughs so hard because I’m always like “OMG”!!!! Lol! I guess I just have to get used to it! …And I though Chicago traffic was bad!

This afternoon we finished the rest of the girls shoots! It was so much fun! The two girls that I did were great! One wants to go to into photography so we had a lot to talk about! And the other wants to be a pilot and fly over Antarctica! Wow! What an aspiration! The shoots went great! Even though it rained most of the time! Thank God for umbrellas!!!

Tonight we headed over to one of the staff members house for a party! It was great! And it was my second birthday party The people down here are seriously so nice and very genuine!

I have completely finished all the girls pictures and they are ready for Pictage! I had to edit each one down to 50 which was sooo hard but we did it!! Yeah!

I’m really loving it down here!!

Love you all!

Ps..I'm actually posting this today...Sunday, cause we lost internet connection right when I was about to post last night. I'll get a slideshow up from yesterday hopefully tonight:)

Journal Entry…I can’t remember what number. I’m getting too old.

I had a great birthday today! Thank you everyone for the letters, pm’s, and messages! You all are the best!

I got up really late almost in time for lunch(wow I should do this more often!) We went down to the campus for lunch and my aunt got everyone to sing happy birthday and it was so hilarious! They just kept singing it!! My aunt said that is the longest happy birthday they’ve sung so they must like me…well that’s good cause I love these girls!! They are so nice and I would love to get to know them better!

This afternoon Maggie their dog had her puppy…yeah I know singular!! We don’t know if she’s going to have anymore..but she had an adorable little black puppy. My aunt and uncle had decided to keep one of the puppies so this looks like it will be the one they are keeping! lol! The funny part is that since it was born on my birthday they are naming it Sarah! What a present!

Today we just chilled after the huge day yesterday! My aunt and I just talked for a couple hours and it was great! She is so easy to talk to! I love it!

Tonight we had dinner and then cake! The cake was sooo cool! It was a checkerboard cake!! I got everything coconut for my presents! A coconut necklace, belt and..another necklace! They are VERY cool!!

After dinner I got to talk with my family on the phone which was great! I miss them! After cake I just sat out at my favorite spot, the porch, and watched the lightening and listened to James Taylor! Hard life I tell ya!! Hehe!

Being 19 is great! No more saying I’m 18!! It’s felt like I’ve said that for the past 10 years or something!! Lol!

I love you all so much!

PS…oh yeah…that last picture in the slideshow with the cups under the aluminum foil is the way to keep ants off the cake overnight!! Genius!!
Pss. Oh yeah..In the slideshow, it might look like I was crying or something..but I just kinda got red eye from rubbing my eyes..I guess I'm not supposed to touch my eyes or mouth down here cause of all the things going around...oops!! hehe!:)

Journal Entry – Day 2

Whew!!! What a day!

I woke up this morning…unfortunately breaking my sleeping in habit..at 6am!! I set my alarm but I think I slept through it I was so tired! The reason we had to get up so early was because we had to do a…..PHOTOSHOOT!!! Yeah!! My aunt went down and picked two of the girls up at 6:30 and brought them up to the house to get ready! We started with the easiest ones first(they didn’t have to straighten their hair…LOL)

I was still asleep for the whole first shoot so I’m actually not sure how I got any pictures…but I think we might have been able to salvage a couple;) LOL! The girls were so sweet and I love getting to know each of them and their personalities! It’s so much fun!

We shot around and found some incredible places to shoot including the town! Which-side note- BTW remind me next time I come to the DR to NOT have red hair or WHITE skin….these men are CRAZY!!! Wow! ...I guess the whiter your skin the more prominent or rich they think you are....soo I guess I'm VERY prominent...LOL!

After the first shoot we decided to head back to the house and we were just going to do the next shoot at 5pm! Then it started getting overcast so we grabbed 3 more girls and did a photoshoot with them! They were HILARIOUS!! Oh man! I didn’t have to tell them hardly anything! They had the poses down! It was great!

After that shoot we had lunch which was soooo good and super healthy too because it was just fruits and vegetables! Hmm!

After lunch we had tons of energy so we were like “Let’s just grab two more girls now and then 3 more tonight and finish all the shoots today!!” Right after we decided that it started pouring rain…sooo we went up to the house and SLEPT!!

Tonight we did 3 more shoots which means we only have 3 more of the girls in the next 2 days! Yeah! I’m so excited! This was a super awesome day and I’m staying up for the next 7 minutes until I turn…..yeah…I’m not saying how old I’m turning….that’s for me to know and you all to figure out …..wellllll I’ll give you all a hint because I like you so much…it’s between 1-100....and somewhere around 19!!! Yeah!

I hope you all are having an awesome night sleep as I’m posting this…because I don’t know if I will…because there’s a home birth happening here right now!!! Sooo exciting!! No…It’s not my aunt …or me…or my cousins…or even my uncle!!(whoa..I need to go to sleep…) it’s their adorable dog Maggie who just went into labor!! Can’t wait!!

…oh yeah..sorry I can’t post any of the pictures from the shoots today until I get release forms…that’s how they do it down here!! Can’t wait to show you all!!

LOVE YOU!!! - Sar

1st full day!! Yeah!

Hey guys!!
I’m sitting in my bedroom at…..um…I think it’s around 11pm…
We had a full day today of…. RESTING!! Hehe! I loved it! I slept in until about 10(Man…I’m getting good at this sleeping in thing!) lol! Then had breakfast, which was an experience in itself because I had cereal!! Yeah!...well it wasn’t the cereal that was the experience, it was the milk! Because everything is so humid and hot down here it’s just hard to buy good fresh milk that isn’t spoiled! So they buy milk that is “nuked” as my aunt says. I guess it can just sit on the shelves for years and not get bad! WOW! Yum!
Around lunch we headed down to the campus to meet everyone! And it was so great! Everyone was sooooo nice!! We’re doing all the senior girls shoots and they are seriously freaking out, there so excited! Hehe! Next week we are doing the guys because this week they are all up on a trip in the mountains…and my aunt said she is going to watch me veeerryy closely around the guys.....!! HAHA! …she said she’ll let me know which ones are OK;) LOL! My aunt’s the best! So don’t be surprised if I show up back home with a husband…JK!!
Later today we headed down to the town and boy was that interesting!! We went to a couple different stores and I wish that I could’ve just walked around with a paper bag on my head…..cause I guess I stand out a “little” bit with my red hair or something! I was laughing sooo hard! Oh man! “Guy just put the groceries in the bag! Do I have something in my teeth??” LOL!
We got back home and just crashed the rest of the day! It was awesome! And we’ll need it too…because tomorrow we are doing 5 of the 17 shoots!! Yeah!
Here’s the **slideshow** from today!!
I’m actually typing this…um I guess last night! Cause I’m posting this tomorrow afternoon since I don’t actually have internet access on my laptop…so yeah! I guess I’ll keep doing this until I get access!
I miss everyone! Love you all so much!!

Hola yo es en la Republica Dominicana!

Hey guys!!! I just arrived in the Dominican Republic!!! WHOA!!! CULTURE shock!! Hehe!!
On my way here I had a crash course in Spanish from the guy I was sitting next to on the plane!! Telling me how to say everything!!...including things that I don’t really want to say… LOL! It was seriously hilarious!
We drove up the mountain from the airport which took about 45 minutes and it wasn’t any big deal except for the time that we almost ran into some boulders because they don’t have detour signs…and also when some car blew a stop sign…hehe!! No big deal!!
We got to my aunt and uncles house which is at the top of the campus they run and it is huge!! It’s a nice big house that overlooks the town! It’s awesome! Can’t wait till the morning to see the real view! Well when my aunt was giving me the tour we walked into the bathroom and something crawled right in front of my feet…so of course I jumped and screamed!! Lol! It wasn’t anything really just a cockroach the size of a quarter! Hehe! Then we walked into my aunts room and they screamed…so I screamed not sure why I was screaming yet…but I look up on the wall and there’s a frog!!! Ahh!! At first we thought it was a harmless tree frog, but once my uncle was chasing it out we found out that it was a Sucky frog…you can’t look into its eyes otherwise it jumps on you and slimes all over you…!! Fun stuff!!!
On the way from the airport my aunt let me know the rules…
1. No flushing toilet paper! They just don’t do that in this country! No septic system to handle it!
2. Don’t drink the water. As my aunt said you’ll have more than Jesus living on the inside of you!
….just got back from attempting to go to the bathroom but decided otherwise because there is a nice big cockroach guarding the door....
This trip is going to be a BLAST!! And I actually am really excited about it!!! I’ll just be a little tougher when I get back!! HEHE!!
Can’t wait to post some pics and videos!! Once I get my internet to work I’ll get them up!! Yeah!!
Love you all!!!

The cover!!!!

Yeah!!! I just found this while looking at the BG's message boards!!! It's the cover for their new Expanded Edition Cd!! I'm sooo excited because I did the photography!! :) The cd will be out in August so keep an eye out for that!!
I hope you all are having a great day! Sorry if I haven't been able to keep in touch with alot of you! I have been cramming for this vacation getting last minute projects finished! Whew! Can't wait to leave! I love you all!!

JuliAnna, my sister NOT my daughter! lol!

I did a little photoshoot of my sister JuliAnna a couple weeks ago! Here is the **slideshow**
I need to start taking more pictures of my brothers and sisters! They're all getting so big! Wow!
Oh yeah...for those of you who don't know I do have a sister that is 2 and a half months old! It's a blast! But I figured out that I'll be about 40 when she is 20! Yikes! hehe!

Happy belated 4th of July! hehe!

We had an awesome 4th of July! First we got to sleep in!! YEAH!!! I was so excited because I never get to sleep in and normally never can but I was so wiped out that I did! We headed over to the Glen Ellyn parade which has been a tradition for a long time and it always alot of fun! The biggest highlight of the parade is the Jesse White tumblers! They are seriously incredible! They do all the huge jumps and flips right on the street! It's awesome! After the parade we went over to our friend's the Bustins house. We had not been to their house in years! It was hilarious because my parents actually had my first birthday at their house and alot of the people that were at that party were at this one! It was crazy! We had such a blast! They just renovated their whole house and it's incredible the vision they have for this place! They want it to be like a retreat center for people coming through town. Everything in the house is so personal and they've even named every room!
After the party we headed over to our friends the Ludwicks to go watch the fireworks! It was an incredible show! The fireworks are crazy because they are synced with music! It's pretty cool!
Here's a little **slideshow** from the day!
Yesterday we moved my whole office area from my bedroom to the upstairs laundry room which wasn't being used...since we have two! lol! It is probably going to be one of the best things I've done for my business! Separate my personal life from my business!! YEAH!! :)

I'm guilty!!

I was just reading my assistant Mark's blog and he posted a great new post on thinking big and us being limited by our small thinking! It's great! **Check it out!**
...ps..oh yeah that friend he is talking about in the post is me.....Guilty! lol!
BTW that killer picture above, he took with a disposable camera!!! WOW!

Kelley and Jeff - So awesome!!

I just got back from an incredible wedding at the Oak Brook Hills Resort! It was such a beautiful wedding! Kelley and Jeff have been dating since senior year of highschool!! They are so cute together! I got to know Kelley's family a little bit today and they were seriously so nice! I can't believe this is my job! I LOVE it so much! :)
The ceremony was beautiful and outdoors!! Yeah! It was super windy...but hey! That all adds for some great memories! We had a blast!
Check out the **slideshow here**
...so this is my first and last wedding of this month!! This has been an incredibly busy wedding season and I can't wait to get all the events up onto Pictage! I have to get them allll up in a week and a half because I just found out that I'm going to the Dominican Republic for a vacation/photoshoot!! I can't wait! I'm going down to do 9 senior shoots for the school that my aunt and uncle run! I'm so excited because I'm going to be there for my birthday too, which will be a blast!!! Yeah! I'll be posting more about that trip soon!! :) Love you all!!!!