Saturday, May 31, 2008

Will work.... for free time...and other interesting topics.

I'm alive!! Yay! I know some of you may think that if I don't post within 2.587 days....of the last post...I've fallen off the face of the earth but I'm safe and sound in my beautiful office:) I've been home for a couple days now and this is the first time up here since then...so I have more that a ton of work to catch up on...plus two new interns coming in on Monday!! YAY! Thank GOD I just, yesterday, hired a studio manager!! That will make my life a zillion times better! :)
I had a WONDERFUL time in Nashville...I will post more about that along with the slideshow! But for right now..a verrrry long overdue post of my beautiful intern Beth, one of last years interns...and of course amazing friend too! She just got engaged about 2 and a half months ago and is tying the knot tomorrow! I'm extremely excited for her and seriously can't wait to shoot her wedding! I love her so much! A bunch of us went to her bachelorette party the other night downtown Chicago for a chocolate walking tour...where we stopped by 6 different chocolate places for some treats! And then an amazing Tapas place to end the beautiful night!
Back to Beth...and Nick to complete the pair;) They are insanely beautiful and came to model for us at the Spread the Love workshop! I waited to post these until I could get a slideshow together! Soo....here it is!! I will talk more about Beth and Nick in there wedding slideshow on Monday! :)

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Andrea and Gordon's Wedding!

Saturday, Cait, my friend Steve and I headed out to the Naperville Riva to shoot Andrea and Gordon's gorgeous wedding! I just recently did their engagement session and had so much fun with them that I knew the wedding would be incredible! Well they didn't let my hopes down for sure! Everything ran so wonderfully and Andrea was radiant while Gordon, I have rairly ever seen a more tender caring groom! I'm excited to look through all their pictures when I get home!!
Here is their slideshow! Enjoy!

Monday, May 26, 2008

Nash to the Ville...


YAY!!! Ok...WHAT a weekend! A little recap, Indiana Jones with my cousins, wedding, engagement shoot, church, pack, last day with my intern Cait, run to the airport and fly to my favorite place...NASHVILLE! :) All that in about a day and a half! Yikes! Anyways...first things first...I LOVED my latest intern, Cait Elizabeth! She is SO much fun!! We laughed pretty much constantly and yet still managed to get things done and finish the internship! If you haven't already check out her new **BLOG**! :)
Next...My cousins and I and Cait went to see Indiana Jones...and I pretty much love every movie I see...but yeah...this one not so much...so if you are thinking about seeing it...save your money and go see Iron Man instead!! Now THAT is an amazing movie:) Unless of course you LOVE Shia LaBeouf...then that's a very good reason to see Indy;)
Last but definitely not least...I'm in Nashville!! Yay! I'm so super excited to be out here and totally realized that I haven't been to my second home since September! So sad! I got in last night for a super last minute photoshoot that I have tomorrow for a book author! So that should be a blast! And just in time since next week my next two interns come in! I seriously can't wait!!
Ok...Whew..that was a lot to cover...but I hope you all are having a REFRESHING Memorial Day! I sure am! Love you all!
PS...the slideshow is coming from the wedding soon!

Friday, May 23, 2008

Jackson!

Before we started on Karen and Brian's engagements from yesterday we grabbed some shots of their adorable little son Jackson! He's almost 2 and just so stinking adorable I was laughing the whole time at how excited he got about water, ducks, balls, basically anything! So fun!! Check out the slideshow here! :)

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Karen & Brian

These two were so incredibly cute together! One thing that really stuck out to me in their relationship is that they laugh and have fun together all the time! I love it! They are best friends and I know that will carry them in a lifetime together!!
Cait and I headed out to Naperville to do their shoot and definitely shot an obscene amount of pictures of the two of them plus their adorable little boy Jackson(I'll post that slideshow tomorrow). We had a blast! Check out the slideshow here!

I'm definitely swimming in thousands of pictures right now so tons of slideshows coming up which is exciting!!

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Blogs are fun.

They are pretty much my life. I stalk 50 of them, I have 9 of them, and yet I still can't get enough! I think blogs are one of the best ways to get who YOU are out to people without just having a super refined business front! I love it! Plus it's fun! I pretty much live life through my blog...like "Oh THIS would be a perfect blog story!" with every new crazy(or uncrazy) situation! It's somewhat sad...but hey YOU read it! So I guess it's working! lol!!
Anyways...some new fun blog news is:

1. My current intern Cait just released her new blog last night!!! I'm SUPER excited for her and her new branding and blog that we've been working on! Getting the interns set up with a fancy new blog is one of my all time favorite things to do! Check her new SWEET blog **HERE**!!!


2....ALSO, I was interviewed a couple months ago for my friend Heather Paulsens blog, Emotional Purity, I posted about the book a couple weeks ago and how much I love it and am super honored to be interviewed for the blog! Check the interview out **HERE**! Warning it's long and personal! But I hope it helps some people:)
OK...I love you all!

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Krista & Doug

Wow! Well, Cait and I got back from gorgeous St. Louis late Sunday and we definitely didn't want to leave! The wedding that we shot on Saturday was unreal! Definitely one of the most fun and beautiful weddings I've been to! It was the first time I had met Krista and Doug and I'm bummed I didn't get to meet them beforehand because they are too much fun and so incredibly in love! Krista definitely couldn't stop laughing and smiling the whole day! I love it! Their wedding was flawless, in a beautiful cathedral in downtown St. Louis that reminded me of a movie set! Afterwards they set a ton of time aside for pictures which is always a blast to have tons of creative time! We rode in style all around the city in a sweet stretch Hummer and stopped at several places including, Hardees! Yes....best place to take 16 hilarious people for wedding pictures I tell you! Afterwards we headed to the Chase Park Plaza for the reception on the top floor which overlooked the whole city! Apparently it has been rated one of the top places for a reception in the city! I most definitely agree.
We had so much fun with everyone that by the end of the night we felt like we were in the wedding too! I definitely had a very hard time narrowing the pictures down...but here is a "little" slideshow of Krista & Dougs incredible day...set to Over the Rainbow! One of their favorite songs:) Enjoy

Friday, May 16, 2008

St. Louis!


My intern Cait and I just arrived in St. Louis earlier tonight! And BOY do I love this town! We are here to shoot a big wedding tomorrow which I'm super excited about!
I haven't been out here in awhile and forgot how beautiful the downtown area is!! I'm excited to go see the arch!
Tonight we just walked around and then I introduced Cait to sushi, which she had never had!! Thankfully she ended up loving it and so did I because I think it was probably the best Sushi place ever! YAY!
I'll be posting pictures of the trip soon!
I love you all!

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Andrea and Gordon!


Last week I shot a SWEET last minute engagement session with Andrea and Gordon! I met them 3 days earlier to talk over their wedding and realized that Andrea won't be back in town until right before the wedding so we worked it in right in time! These two were so much fun to document their love story! I loved getting to know so much about them and how well they fit together is amazing! I'm SUPER excited for their wedding in a week and a half!! YAY! :)

Monday, May 12, 2008

Survivor

YAY! So my first intern of the year, Cait, is in! She came in yesterday morning and got totally thrown into our everyday life.... which is not super unusual for people coming and staying at our house! Cait is SO sweet! I love her already! We totally hit it off right when we met...which was yesterday:) She's in for the next two weeks, then I have a week off then two more interns, then 3 days off then 2 more interns, then 3 weeks off then 2 more interns...then 2 more interns after that!! FUN summer! We started today by just chilling and recovering from the week but tomorrow we are kicking it into high gear and starting it like bootcamp...any of my past interns know what I'm talking about...(ie: waking up at times in the morning that should be illegal, working out, 1000 push ups...2000 sit ups...25 mile run and jumping right in on training!) Pretty exciting times! We'll see if she can survive....I'm sure she will! :)

**exaggeration may have happened at some point in this post**

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Non-stop.


That's what my life has been for the past 3 or so years.... especially in the past year. And even though a non-stop schedule is normally hectic and stressful....for me it seems to be the opposite....I absolutely LOVE it!! I live for it everyday! I guess that's how I know that I'm where I'm supposed to be right now!
Every now and then it does wear on you a bit and that is why I always take my retreats! I just finished a 3 day retreat yesterday which was WONDERFUL!! I needed it sooo much! Especially since tomorrow starts a complete non-stop run until mid-august! My first intern of the year is coming in, plus it being mother's day AND my dad's birthday!! I have weddings almost every weekend, seven interns coming in, a family vacation and traveling for work....plus my 21st birthday!! :) All in the next 2 or so months! A roller coaster ride it is!! But I like roller coasters and can never wait for the next bigger more adventurous one!! Hope you all enjoy watching the ride and hopefully I can post enough so you can watch! :)

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

The Friesen Family!

Wow...I did not even realize how many pictures I took down in the Dominican! But here is the last family slideshow from it! :)
The Friesens: the first day I met them I thought...wow they would be fun to shoot(us photographers...so violent....;). Then when I found out that they were on the the schedule for a photoshoot! I was ecstatic! It took about 3 days and hoping the rain would stop to get the shoot going! But the night before I left we found the 1 hour time slot between storms to shoot! It worked out perfect and started pouring right when we finished! This has got to be one of the cutest families I've shot! I loved them! They could definitely be models which made the shoot all the more fun! Check out the slideshow here! :)

Thursday, May 01, 2008

These are a few of my (most) favorite things....

"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things"

I totally realized that I haven't done one of these posts in awhile! I used to do them a lot more earlier on in my blog but forgot that I even did it! :) In the past couple weeks I have found things through friends and the internet that have become some of my favorite things!


1. First I will start with the one that is closet to my heart - My Family
I absolutely adore my family...just everything about them! They are what keep me going and one of the greatest inspirations to me! The family that I would like to highlight in this post are my beautiful cousins. One of my best memories of my entire life is the whole Barlow family gathering together for our big tradition.....a hootenanny.... whatever that means! As many of the 14 kids, 12 spouses, 2 grandparents, 36 grandchildren, and 7 great grandchildren as we could get together would all gather around with guitars in hand to sing the oldies - James Taylor, the Beatles, John Denver, etc. I could listen to it for forever! And now I can as my cousins gathered together in Nashville to record their new Christmas album and flew in some of my other cousins to reunite in their old harmony singing days! This will MOST DEFINITELY be sung by them at my wedding someday... whenever that will be:)


2. Second would be the music of my friend - Adlan Cruz
An INCREDIBLE pianist....I just found his music on itunes and I've been trying to find it for years and it's finally online! YAY! My absolute favorite song of his is called "Colors of Many Nations" check out his Myspace to hear it!! He came to our church several times to perform and is unreal in his amazing gift and the way that he directs the other musicians! So incredible!






3. Would be books....I used to be severely slow in reading books but lately have finished 3 in the past couple weeks which for me is pretty amazing! They all have a interesting theme too: LOVE. Completely unplanned though as they were all given to me to read! The first book is Redeeming Love, which is an alegory about the story in the bible on Hosea and his wife. It is actually a fiction which I definitely never read fiction, but everyone told me to read this so I did and in a day and a half I couldn't put it down! It's so beautiful! The second book was one I started reading years ago with my mom but just never actually finished and just met the author, Heather Paulsen, several months ago so I decided I had to read it! It's called Emotional Purity and it completely revolutionized the way I think about relationships! Everyone seriously needs to read this book! I wish I had read it earlier in life and applied it! But thankfully it's never to late! The third called Passion and Purity which was written by Elizabeth Elliot the wife of the missionary Jim Elliot who was killed by Indians years ago. The book is all about their love story and how Jim thought he might stay single his whole life... but told Elizabeth that if he ever got married it would be to her! 5 years later after much pain and waiting they got married!! Incredible story!
Check these out!! :)

4. The fourth would be my latest favorite: Kris Vallotton 
He is an associate pastor at Bethel Church out of Redding, California and has his own podcast that I've been listening to! OMG!! I can't stop listening to it! It's like listening to someone telling me my vision and purpose on every new message! Unreal! Check out his podcast!! And website!



5. Last but certainly not least is my new favorite thing to drink...I'm completely a water person...every place I go, "Water wth lemon" is the request... until I toured with my cousins a month ago and they turned me onto a runner up to water in the liquid area...an Arnold Palmer. A lot of people don't know what I'm asking for when I ask for it but it's basically just lemonade and ice tea mixed together in one glass of heaven! I love it so much!! You MUST try it sometime!! Trader Joe's sells it now but it's just called ice tea and lemonade check it out! It will change your life!! :)
Along with all of the things listed above!! I think this might just be a book! LOL!
Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into springs
These are a few of my favorite things