New Blog

I have been wanting to change my personal blog for quite a while now and have finally done it. I will now be posting to a Wordpress site. Join me over at www.C2drvryf.wordpress.com for the latest on our family. I started it off right with a picture of Lexie :-) I haven't done much with it to personalize it but hopefully I will have time to work on it in the next couple of months.

Busy May

Yesterday was May 1st. It is the beginning of a busy month for me as far as my photography work is concerned. I am hoping the rest of my weddings go better than yesterdays! Everything went well except for the formal pictures. It doesn't matter how much I stress both in my initial meetings with bride and grooms but also every other time that I think of it, how important it is to be on time, I very rarely get lucky and have my bride and/or grooms ready for their formal pictures. So, we wind up pushing them through between the ceremony and reception and not having time for anything creative or fun. It really is sad that the most important part (the part that will last forever) gets pushed into the background. Once again we lost light fast and I am sure the pictures will have suffered. I was rushed and wasn't able to put up supplemental lighting so the pictures will not be near what they could have been if I had had the proper amount of time. But, I am planning on sending out an email one more time to my up and coming brides requesting that they seriously consider being on time! After yesterday, I am really looking forward to next weekend at the beach. We are going down there on Thursday the 6th and staying until Sunday morning. The kids are coming with friends and I am looking forward to spending time with the family. Until then, here is a picture taken last night during lighting checks for the wedding. I love working with Savanna, she is fun to work with and does exactly what I ask her to do without her own agenda. She also has a very good eye for catching those special "moments". I love this girl!

Jack is one already!

I cannot believe that little Jack Hackett is one year old. (To see him a year ago you can go here or if you want to see him celebrate his first Christmas - this is where you want to go) We celebrated his first year on Saturday. He is such a delight! I know I say that all the time, but it is so true! Here's a few pictures from the celebration.

Jack's Nonnie made Jack his Birthday plate

Cupcakes!

Pirate Jack, cutest pirate around!

Jack and his Papa

Jack and his Nonnie

Jack's BFF, Pirate Mason

Auntie CeCe and Jack

Question

Truly, what more could you want?

Wordless Wednesdays

What a weekend!

Thursday night, my friend LeeAnn texted me and asked if we wanted a free weekend away this weekend. Well, thankfully I didn't have any sittings this weekend and I checked with Brad and he said "SWEET" so that meant we were headed to North Carolina. Lee has a friend at work that has been offering her cottage for quite some time now and Lee decided to take her up on the offer. And, she included us! It was a beautiful house in Corolla which isn't where we normally stay. It is further up the barrier islands. We had been in that area years ago, in fact the kids and I had been with the Lowmans up there in '99 when Brad was on cruise. At that time we actually saw some of the wild horses. We didn't see any horses this time, although we looked and hoped! I decided to pack light this trip and only brought Brad's little point and shoot. I was so upset when we got to Dave and Lee's and Lee told me that her daughter, Gina was coming! A weekend with Jack and I didn't have my camera - UGH!! I was not happy! I knew I would regret not bringing it, I just didn't know I would regret it so quickly! So, we got there pretty late on Friday evening after stopping at the Coinjock Marina for a yummy seafood dinner. We found the house and it was gorgeous, huge and roomy. We stayed up and talked a bit and then headed to bed. We got up on Saturday and Gina, Lee and I went to Food Lion and picked up some breakfast and lunch stuff. We went back and cooked breakfast and then took a walk on the beach. The beach was beautiful, lots of shells and of course it wasn't crowded in the least. We then just hung around the house and Jack entertained us the rest of the day. He is SUCH a good little boy! Saturday evening we ate at a seafood place and it was amazing! After dinner Dave drove us up to the upper end of Corolla and we drove on the beach. On Sunday we got up and cooked breakfast and then Gina and her family left, they live near Richmond so it is a bit further for them to drive and they had things to do at home this afternoon too. We hated to see them go, it was great having them join us. Dave and Brad went to the gym and worked out while Lee and I packed everything up and straightened up the house. When the guys got back and showered we went to a little deli that Dave knew of and got sandwiches to go. We drove back to the beach that we had driven on Saturday night and had a picnic lunch. The weather was incredible, perfect, and so beautiful. We then went back to the house and loaded the car and headed home. It was a perfect weekend spent with some wonderful friends!

Jack - ready for the beach

Guess what LeeAnn is taking a picture of!

Jack loved the duck!

riding on the beach

looking out the windshield from the back seat driving on the beach

picnic on the beach

LeeAnn and Dave

Betty and Brad

Wordless Wednesdays

Happy Easter!

We had a really nice day today. We went to church this morning and it was a great service. Matthew went to his church in Chesapeake, but the rest of us went together at Nansemond River. We don't have little kids so there was no Easter egg hunt, or dyeing of eggs but we still had a good time being together. I wanted us to eat outside and since our table is right in the sun I decided to have it ready more towards the evening when the sun isn't so hot. Brad made his incredible ribs and I made the side dishes and dessert. Ryan took me for a quick ride in his new car and it was a lot of fun although he did scare me a little bit :-) Ryan's roommates, Ben and Aaron, joined us and it was nice having them here with us. I had bought each of the kids a big Dove chocolate egg and I made the mistake of giving them to the kids before dinner. Well, Ben ate his egg and also a bunch of spinach dip and then couldn't finish his plate of food. What was so funny is that I have never seen Ben get bested by food. He can always eat more - he blamed it on me and said I shouldn't have given him the egg before dinner - I know now, Ben!!

Aaron trying to scare me into not taking his picture - yeah, not that easy Aaron!

HOTT-IE! :-)

Ryan and Ben - waiting for dinner

Roxie and Lexie

Matt - needing a haircut

Roxie can't breathe, 'Nana!

Savanna and Ryan - fighting over the spinach dip

After dinner activity

Before/After Blog Hop

I have never done anything like this before and I don't even know if I will be able to link up but I'm going to give it a shot. I've been reading a great blog called Pixel Perfect . Every week she does a Before/After Blog hop where you show an image straight out of the camera (SOOC) and then show your edited version. It is fun to look at everyone else's edits which really shows their "style". I decided to play along - here goes - this is one of my favorite shots that I took when we were visiting Washington DC back in November.

SOOC

After editing in Photoshop CS3

Cropped, a little brightening and a little bit of the patch tool to remove that little white speck under the moon. I think I also did a bit of cloning to get rid of the orange cones too. And some sharpening.

Wordless Wednesdays

:D

one more

just in case there is someone missing the dogs...

Wordless Wednesdays

Ryan's Excitement

Ryan has talked about Toyota Supras since he was 12 years old. I met him and Aaron for lunch yesterday (they treated me!!) and he mentioned that his stomach was all a flutter but he didn't tell me why and I didn't think too much about it. Then later I was trying to call Brad with my new phone and accidentally dialed Ben (Ryan's other roommate), I quickly hit "end" and tried again. Well, after not getting Brad, Ben called and asked if I had tried to call. I told him what I had done and asked him how his day was going. He said "Well, I'm working, while Ryan is out buying his dream car", I said "What did you say?", and he realized that I didn't know. So, I quickly hung up from him and called Ryan. He didn't tell me anything but said he was coming over in about 20 minutes. So, about an hour and a half later he pulls in with a 1994 RED Toyota Supra. He was so excited and I was so excited for him. He had bought the car exactly the way his daddy would have. Every question I asked had the right answer. Right down to the fact that he and Chris (his resident Supra expert) had pulled up the carpet to check for water damage from the targa (sp?) top. These pictures were taken with my camera phone and I have to say I am quite impressed, they look pretty darn good! Actually Aaron took two of them cause I couldn't figure out my new phone - still working on that!!

Wordless Wednesdays

Bell Buckle Walk

I walked downtown by myself and took some pictures around sunset our last evening there. The lighting was beautiful and it was nice to just wander around by myself. There are also two pictures of Miller's Grocery too - that is in Christiana.

Bell Buckle First Baptist Church - the church where Brad and I got married