Fate or Luck?

It started Saturday morning at the breakfast table with my dad laughing and planning for Bryan and I's special day. It continued with laying on my parents' bed with my mum talking about everything into the late afternoon. My friends, her work and wedding stuff. You know, girl talk. It ended with an evening dinner (gluten-free I might add!) on the deck with Bryan's stepdad, mum, sisters and us complete with wine, storytelling and a lot of laughing. The icing to my day was the gluten-free pumpkin muffins Bryan's mum, Liz, bought out that were OUT OF THIS WORLD! I soaked up the day's events wondering one question: was it fate or luck that I ended up not only having an amazing dad, mum and little brother but to become an official member to a family whom I love and hold dear to my heart of a man whom I am insanely in love with for the past six and half years? Well, I didn't have an answer at that moment, so I pondered about it the rest of the weekend.

It was watching Bryan's nieces get baptized and seeing Bryan as a proud godfather. It was holding our niece, Savannah, in the middle of the afternoon, just the two of us, making her smile. Real big. To the point where we could hardly handle it. It was eating chocolate in the corner of the kitchen, dripping chocolate everywhere and laughing with my gal and soon-to-be cousin-in-law, Kelsey, while everyone around us laughed as we made a mess in the kitchen. It was going barefoot in the grass, climbing rocks and laughing as we took our girly goofy pictures. It was watching Bryan's Aunt Kathy bring out the shower cake WITH icing and announcing it was gluten-free while hugging my future mum-in-law, Liz, and telling her she is amazing for knowing me a little too well. It was watching my dad and Bryan's stepdad, Rich, eat cake and laugh together. It was playing games with Bryan and watching him do the bubble gum game all the while knowing deep down, he was having the time of his life.

It was looking over at my mum every so often and seeing the smile and laughter on her face that was so pure that it made me want to cry a happy tear. It was watching Bryan open our gifts and with each passing gift, the level of excitement would increase until the very last one had me jumping up and down and screaming. It was glancing over at my brother, drinking his beer and talking to Bryan's four year old niece, Carley, for thirty minutes about anything and everything.

It was driving home later that night and feeling pure bliss while holding Bryan's hand. It was ending a fun evening by sitting on the back deck with Liz, B and our glasses of wine watching the lightening bugs light up the property like it was Christmas and listening to the owls. It was driving back to Kansas City, singing and rocking out to Ace of Base with Bryan. That is when I realized it. It was fate AND luck. It was fate that I met Bryan. We were meant to be together. Like two puzzle pieces that fit ever so perfectly. It was luck that I got the BEST family to become a part of and every moment I spend with them, I see where Bryan gets his best traits. So, to the man upstairs, thank you for giving me the chance to experience both fate AND luck this weekend.

Enjoy the pictures from this weekend!

Shots from the Weekend.

It's been a BIG week for me! Apart from starting my graduate program and continuing down this wonderful path I have been guided down, I am learning to juggle fun and school all over again mixed in with my photography business and wedding planning! However, this time, I absolutely LOVE everything I am doing. To say I love school is an understatement. I absolutely find everything I am learning interesting, and the information I am learning is so useful. They say knowledge is powerful, and I feel like everything I am learning in both my art history course and education courses are feeding my brain with knowledge that I think is going to stick around for a long time. With school starting, I have been on cloud nine. My friends and Bryan have even told me it shows. For a long time, I felt so lost as to what to do with my professional life. I didn't feel like I was living or given a purpose. It feels so good to be living and working hard at the things I am most passionate about! I've said it one too many times, but here I go again. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine being a photographer and a teacher so soon, but this path that God has lead me down is an amazing one. I truly feel blessed.

To all my photography clients, have no fear! I plan on continuing with photography and working it in with school. I love it too much to give it up as it brings me an indescribable amount of joy! With that said, I will be sending something to all my clients from the fall season to start scheduling sessions for the spring and summer! I cannot wait to bring my camera out more and start taking pictures with the gorgeous flowers and green trees that are going to begin to bloom in a few months!

As for the weekend, I hope everyone had a wonderful one! One of my goals while I am in school, is to go out and have more fun with our friends. I didn't do this enough while I was at Rolla, so I am going to make sure I have fun. So, to keep with one of my goals, I went out with some college friends this weekend to celebrate a friend's birthday (of course after finishing my homework for the day)! I am excited for the next few weeks coming up as I have some cute babies that are going to be debuting on this blog! Stay tuned. Meanwhile, enjoy some of my "Shots from the Weekend."

Happy Monday!

Shots from the Weekend.

This weekend was nothing short of amazing. Why you might ask? Well I will tell you. Bryan and I are an aunt and uncle to a beautiful baby girl named Savannah as of last Thursday! We received calls from Bryan's mum, Thursday morning telling us Crystal, Bryan's sister-in-law, was in labor and at the hospital already. Seven hours later, Crystal and Brad were a mum and dad, and they were blessed with a beautiful baby girl. So, after the big news of having a new baby girl in the family, Bryan and I packed our bags and headed out Friday evening to see the newest addition of the family in person.

Now, it's one thing to hear you are an aunt and uncle and to see pictures of your new niece on Facebook or through email. It's another thing to actually see her in person. I think I could have watched her sleep all day, ok who am I kidding, all week, month and year. She is THAT precious, and I am partial to her cuteness since she is my niece. If you are asking if I bought my camera equipment then you should already know the answer to that question. Of course!

After spending some time holding her, Crystal asked me to take a few pictures, so I did one better than that. I did an entire newborn session with her. Other than hanging out with Baby Savannah, Frank, Bryan's dad, Crystal and Brad, we got to squeeze a visit to my house to see my parents and brother, to my aunt and uncle's house for a delicious brunch and of course to Bryan's mum and step-dad's house to see both of them along with our other three-year old niece, Carley. As you can tell, my camera did not stop taking pictures after Savannah's newborn session. Liz, Bryan's mum, asked me to snap a few fun shots of Carley taking a bath. Did we have fun?! I can say that this weekend was just plain wonderful.

Hope everyone else had a fabulous weekend. Check back tomorrow for Baby Savannah's newborn session as it turned out ADORABLE!

Shots from the Weekend.

Try and imagine deciding where to live as newlyweds. One person wants to live in a cozy and spacious place. The other wants the city yet safe feeling. One person wants enough room to fit all their furniture into the space provided. The other wants to have a cute study or separate room to study and work in. Both are determined to find a place to call home for awhile.

This situation is not hard for me to imagine b/c this situation basically describes Bryan and I. We have been on the quest to start searching for a new home for us come May, our first home as a married couple. After days of researching online, we narrowed down our choices to two. Both were very different from the other but had some similarities. However, once we saw THE place, we knew this was going to be our home for awhile. Here is the twist. We weren't expecting to find a loft in South Kansas City! We only thought those existed in downtown KC. So, in the end, we ended up winning both ways. We get to live in a loft layout, have a deck with a beautiful view of three gorgeous lakes, feel safe at all times (this place has controlled access and we have to buzz people in to enter our building...I get to live out my dream of living like Monica and Rachel from Friends!), have a pool/sand volleyball court/beach-style pool and live close enough to the area I currently live in and love! To say Bryan and I are excited about this soon-to-be new place of ours is an understatement!

This was the start to an awesome weekend! We got some wedding planning tasks taken care of, hung out with friends and even got to see Avatar in the IMAX 3D experience-don't make fun of how hot we look in our 3D glasses (Bryan told me this was a MUST-SEE kind of movie and I have to say it was pretty darn good!). I am still in awe of how Avatar in the IMAX version is selling out every one of its shows after a month of being released in theater. In Bryan's words, "It is just THAT awesome." I think aside from finding our new home once we get married, we were blessed with some VERY exciting news. Our good friends, RJ and Laura, whom I was supposed to do a maternity session this weekend for, ended up having their precious little boy, Robert Steven Agge on Friday night. We got to visit them this weekend and see baby Robbie who is just so stinking cute! Both Laura and Robert are doing wonderful! I cannot wait to smother him with my camera and capture RJ and Laura being kick-butt parents! They are such a cute family.

Hope everyone had a warm and wonderful weekend. It's supposed to be a heat wave this week with temperatures approaching above the freezing mark, so watch out! It's going to get toasty or at least be nice enough to walk outside without it hurting. Enjoy some pictures of our soon-to-be new place and our goofy 3D pictures (don't judge!).

Shots from the Weekend.

The countdown has begun for starting school! Two weeks. Two weeks to enjoy reading, enjoy doing nothing at all sometimes, enjoy having fun with friends and family without a care in the world. I have truly enjoyed my six month vacation, and I am so thankful for having the opportunity to find myself and take control of my life over the past few months. I honestly could not be more thankful for everything God has done for me. I have said it before and will say it again, I am truly blessed.

With that said, this weekend was quite extraordinary. I had one of the BEST New Year's Eve, and it was the perfect way to start, what I think, will be one of the BEST years in my life. I spent this weekend ringing in the new year with wonderful friends and a live performance by some of my talented friends (Bryan even sang a song and he was AMAZING!), eating out at some delicious restaurants, being in good company of friends and my love, doing a newborn session for one of my past clients, finished registering at one of the stores we had started and reading/relaxing! I spent a lot of the weekend brainstorming some New Year's resolutions and here is what I came up with:

* Not to take everything so personally and let some things roll of my shoulders

* To have faith and pray more

* To not judge others and learn to look at their strengths rather than their flaws

* To stay optimistic even at the toughest of times

* To fight fair and to always stand up for myself

* To forgive and forget quicker (credit to my gal, Susie Phillips)

* To find more ways to volunteer and give back to the community

* To stay healthy

* To live life more spontaneously

* To live my motto to the fullest: Love.Laugh.Live

* To keep dreaming big

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend, New Year's and has started living by their new year's resolutions! Here's to 2010...it is going to be one heck of an amazing year, and I for one, cannot wait to see what it has in store for Bryan and I!