Fact: I love Kristen

I just cannot explain how much I respect Kristen. She blows my mind away with her fabulousness. So, I am letting her "guest blog" for me today.

Hi world!

Sarah and I have been living like celebrities.

On Tuesday we worked out for 2 1/2 hours. I am training for a triathlon, so we biked for an hour.
Then, we went to the gym and worked with Sarah's personal trainer.
Sarah isn't sore at all, but I am dying!!!
My arms kill.
But, I guess she did a good job with us.... we have buff arms now
(no photoshopping at all. take that, world!):

Then we went to the totally awesome BarlowGirl home.
Dinner out, dessert in, movie and a sleepover.
Total glam.

Theeen, on Wednesday, Lauren and Sarah went in for some snazzy new hair-do's.
How stinkin' grand does Sarah look?

Basically a full-blown rockstar, at this point.

Love you Sarah!

ps. "He will have allergies. The flip-flops-with socks-look, oh, he invented that."

Eun Kyung & Greg!!

Beth, Morgan and I shot an absolutely GORGEOUS wedding on Saturday! It was pretty much a miracle wedding! The two days before the wedding the worst storms and tornadoes hit, but on day of it totally cleared up and was perfect! How amazing!
Greg and Eun Kyung are so sweet! Eun Kyung is from Korea and Greg from America, but even languages couldn't keep them apart! They are really perfect for each other and you can really see the tender love between them! The wedding was at one of the most beautiful places I've shot at called the Meyer's Castle in Indiana! When you drive onto the property it is like you've entered another world! It's amazing!
We had such a wonderful time at this wedding and even the amazing Josh Smith and his assistant Lyn were there to do video!
Beth and I stayed for the after party at Greg and Eun Kyung's house which was so fun and we made alot of friends....but the best part was they had a table FULL of sushi! I knew I loved these guys! haha!!
Check out their slideshow here!

Sarah Sarah everywhere!

I did a (college) senior shoot for my friend Sarah Newell last week with Kristen and it was sooo much fun! You might recognize her a little bit because she looks alot like her sister and my friend Bethany who's shoot I did last year! Check it out **here**! Anyways..all throughout the shoot it was hilarious because Bethany would tell Sarah to do something like put her hair this way or move this and I would do it confusingly...LOL! When I get in the zone..sometimes I get slightly spacey! haha! :) Sarah was so much fun to shoot though and was so stylish in her different outfit changes! This is her last year at The Moody Bible Institute and she just got back from a couple months being in El Salvador which is just sooo awesome!! She really got a chance to minister to a ton of people and see so many lives changed! Here is her slideshow!

Today has been a crazy day!!! The family was gone the whole day so I had the house to myself and got a TON of work done until the power went out for 2 hours because of a INSANE storm! It was the best for me though because I decided to read for awhile and then got my office and bedroom cleaned...then the power came back on for 10 minutes and then went off for the rest of the night so I went out for Sushi by myself which is fun because then I listen to the other customers conversations and I've always been a big listener so it's so fun to hear about what they are doing and what business things they're doing! I know...pretty crazy..but it's fun and you can learn so much!! Then I went and worked out for awhile and came back home and the power is back on!!! YAY!!!! Internet again! It was sooo great being away from it for awhile and NOT being able to get on it even if I wanted to! Simple living is really good sometimes!:)

The odd one out..basically just the runt..lol

So I guess there is the big game going around on different photographers blogs where they say 8 things that people don't know about them and then they tag 8 other photographers that they want to do the same! Well I've now been tagged 4 times(by Jamie Delaine, Shyla, Rowena, and Emily DeWan) so I guess they really want me to do it...lol..but as in anything else in life I really don't like doing what everyone else is doing sooo...here's my new and redone version of the game!! LOL!
8 annoying things that bloggers do...
1. Use waaay to many exclamation point!!!
2. Write how they talk rather than what looks best in print.
3. They do not know how to use periods and when they do it's always way too many.....
4. They laugh in text almost as much as in person.
5. They post multiple times during the week and feel like a complete failure if they don't post anything with 48 hours of the last post.
6. If there aren't 100,000 new comments from the newest post they don't feel necessarily loved.
7. They don't know how to use frilly descriptive words and always resort to "awesome" and "amazing".
8. They cave in under peer pressure sometimes...especially from other bloggers.

OK OK...a couple things you may not know about me(but you probably do if you read this blog at all) -
1. I ran the 2005 Chicago Marathon and finished in 5 hours and 25 minutes...pretty much the worst time in the world but I FINISHED!! :)

2. I love to dance! I'm actually pretty bad at it but I really love it and took ballet, tap, and Irish dance when I was little... Now my best friend is trying to get me into swing and I love hip hop(but am SOOOO white when it comes to that..)

3. I'm a big fan of the Disney Chanel especially Hannah Montana and High school Musical...Yeah I know how jealous you are that I can say that! ;) hehe!


4. I have never been able to decide what style I like - it's HIGHLY eclectic so I think I'm going to have to have about 5 different houses to accommodate each style! HAHA! Yikes!

5. I never went to regular school in my life and only went to a college class last year, which I taught....

6. I always told all of my friends when I was 12 that I was most definitely getting married at 18 and truly believed that I had that choice...well not so much! hehe!


7. I have never been on a date(by choice). No I'm not a nun!! lol!

8. I'm the great great great great niece of Chief Sitting Bull.










8.5 I was totally planning on being a nurse, gymnast, lawyer, accountant, actress, director, any kind of designer, architect... and of course an entrepreneur on the side during all of that too when I was little! Craziness! I'm so glad I somewhat narrowed it down..but not really! :)
Sooo... I guess I have to tag 8 other photographers?? Well...I have other friends too you know! I do have a life! ;) Let's spread this thing bigger!! :)
1. Sarah Chellappa 2. Samantha 3. Amy Nave 4. Kristen Leigh 5. Morgan Matters 6. Beth Lange 7. David Jay 8. KK 9. Andrew Barlow...Yep that's 9 people not 8...but it's all good:)

Tony & Valerie!

On Saturday Kristen, Beth and I woke up bright and early and headed downtown to shoot Tony & Valerie's GORGEOUS wedding!! So we did a double weekend which is tiring but FUN! A couple months ago I already had booked this weekend for the wedding on Friday but when Tony called and explained there wedding for Saturday and we got to talking I couldn't possibly turn this wedding down!! The wedding and the details were so incredible! They had an Asian style wedding in a super hip art gallery called FlatFile Galleries...when us girls first walked in we were floored and just kept ooh'ing and ahh'ing over every little thing! And if it couldn't get any better as far as the details go they even catered PF Changs! Heaven! They definitely have some of the best taste I've ever seen! :)
All that aside though...Tony & Valerie, they are just so incredibly perfect for each other both strong people and also some of the sweetest people who just make you feel comfortable the instant you meet them! I love it! So here is the slideshow of their amazing wedding!!
BTW...the song on the slideshow is by one of my favorite new artists, Brooke Fraser, she is AMAZING!! ! We saw her in concert with Hillsong United a couple months ago and she has such a strong voice! Check out her myspace **here**!!
Also, my friend DJ pointed out that it is alot more fun to read the post below with the decriptions from the bottom of the picture instead of the top! SOO hilarious! You have to do it!

Oh man yeah....

Well, it is officially Kristen's 18th birthday and we are livin it large!
First my mom and I sang her a very "nice" happy birthday song and gave her as a gift yogurt and cereal! She was so surprised at how generous we are!Then we decided to play a little photobooth game to show how hot we are! I think it proved our hypothesis right!
First we'll start with our lovely headshots! We got them for our bio pages on our sites! So cute!
Now for the face game and our first one is the main reason why we aren't married OR dating anyone right now....this face is our "walking down the aisle" face....so timeless.
This is after the first shocker...
This is our secret agent face..so secretive I know!!
Our "bratty little kids" look...my kids will NEVER look like this;) hehe!
and if they do they will get this face! SCARY!!
Again...another reason why we are dateless...our "seeing a cute guy" face! YIKES! ...poor cute guy:(

The ever so fashionable anorexia look....

Being proposed to....umm..yeah...
And finally the drunk look (thankfully it's Kristen's 18th birthday and not her 21st so this is somewhat not real...but who says we have to be drunk to act like it???)Our stylish hair pose!!!

Ok..so as you can see we were slackers tonight and were sooooo deliriously exhausted from the weekend that we didn't get any work done today...but slideshows are coming in the morning or sometime tomorrow!!! Yeah!!
Kristen is heading back home tomorrow to shoot a wedding this week and then coming back next Sunday and I CAN'T WAIT already!! She is amazing!!(and yes she's sitting right here...) So HAPPY BIRTHDAY Kristen!! I love you Pickle! ;)

Julie & JB's wedding!

Yesterday Beth, Kristen and I all shot Julie and JB's gorgeous wedding! I absolutely LOVE their story because they met when they were little and have been best friends and dated ever since! I always thought that it would be so cute to marry the boy that I liked when I was two...but sadly that didn't happen;) LOL! But pretty much did for JB and Julie and I think it's just incredible to be able to marry someone that you have grown up with! Their wedding turned out awesome and the fun part is that two of my other brides were there and it was sooo much fun to see them! I love my brides so much!!:) Another SUPER fun part of the wedding was the kids! They had THE most adorable little kids in the wedding ever! They had the most personality and were so much fun to photograph! We could have done a complete slideshow of JUST them! haha! Here is the slideshow from the awesome day!