My Kind of Family :-)

Picture this: a loving husband and wife with two beautiful............dogs. Is that just the best family set-up or what??? Ok, fine, so maybe I'm just a little biased! ;-)

Meet the T family. Aren't they the cutest?? I had such a great time meeting them and taking their family photos. T's, thank you so much for the opportunity!

Bailey: "I'm Not Amused!"

Bailey loves people. I mean, she REALLY loves people. And she loves her Mama a lot. She doesn't like to be blocked away from people (me) by doors or any other type of barrier. I had a few different clients at the house on Saturday and one couple had two Beagles (pictures to come soon!). To keep the Beagles focused on my camera and not on our attention-seeking dogs, I put Bailey and Kelsee in the basement with Will. (NO, Will is not required to stay in the basement! I know you were thinking it!!!) When I was finished, I came around the corner to find this pathetic creature peaking through the cat door (the owners of this house had a cat)....

"Uh, Mom, I can see you. Why am I banished to the basement? What did I do?"

"Seriously, Mom, I want to be with you. Just look at my sad puppy dog eyes."

"I am not amused by you and that thing you are holding that flashes a bright light. I'll climb through this hole if I have to!"

:-) Happy Friday! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

It's So True -- They Do Glow!!

T came to my home studio on Saturday for a maternity session and she brings to life the saying that pregnant women glow. Isn't she just gorgeous??!! T, it was such a pleasure to meet you and I'm so excited for the little life that is about to come into your world. I wish you and your husband the best and I can't wait for the opportunity to meet and photograph your new bundle of joy! :-)

Happy Valentine's Weekend!

The video I made for my honey. Note for all you employees out there reading this blog during work :-).....there is music on this video!!

Song: Our Kind of Love by Lady Antebellum --- an AMAZING album, by the way, I highly recommend you go buy it!!!

Big Announcement and the Business Plan

Will and I have had quite the eventful last couple of months, but we are excited to finally share our news. Will has been offered a new job in Denver, CO and has accepted the position. We are so, so, so thrilled about this new journey in our lives. We are excited for SIGNIFICANTLY less traffic, the incredibly beautiful mountains, an abundance of outdoor activities for us and the dogs, and being within driving distance to virtually all of our family (sorry Ryan and Katie, Seattle will still be quite the haul!!).

There are many things about the D.C. area that we will miss terribly, but mainly our amazing friends that have become our family away from home. We have spent many holidays, birthdays, special events and on and on with our D.C. family. We have been so blessed by the amazing people in our lives here and I have no doubt that they will be friends for life. I certainly hope that frequent Denver ski vacations are in their futures!! :-)

For my incredible clients:

-- I will continue to book clients until 2 weeks before our move date, giving myself time to finish all client work and get the house packed and ready for the move. Tentatively (as the move date is not yet final), my last scheduled session will be Friday, March 5. If you've been considering setting up a session, now is the time to do it!

-- (In my best infomercial voice) BUT WAIT! If setting up a session in the next month doesn't work for you, there is another option. I will be returning to the D.C. area periodically for weddings that I have booked, etc. I will post those dates on my photography website (www.photographybyjourneys.com) and on this blog as they are approaching so additional clients can book sessions while I am in town. Stay tuned for those dates!

-- I will most definitely be taking my photography business with me to Colorado, so if you have friends and/or family out there, please spread the word!

Okay, so now for pictures. We have found a house and currently have it under contract. I hesitate to say it's "our" house because until the papers are signed at closing, you can never be certain. With that said, I did take a few pictures of the house and surrounding area while we were out there in January. Out of respect for the privacy of the current owners, I won't post pictures of the inside of their home, but here are a few others....

So this is it! I won't lie, for us, it's pretty much perfect. The house is amazing with a great kitchen for entertaining (and heaven knows, we love to entertain!!). It has a nice community feel, but still plenty of open space on 3 sides of the house. There are MILES of hiking trails right near the house -- the dogs will be in heaven....and maybe we just might enjoy them too!! ;-) The basement is completely unfinished, so we are already starting to make plans for finishing it. And probably best of all, it's a 15 minute commute to Will's work!!

The house sits at 7500 feet. My daily run with the dogs will probably have to start with short walks until I can get my "sea level" lungs adjusted to the altitude. I got winded just walking up the stairs when we were viewing the home....sad, but true. This is the beautiful view standing in the driveway.

The interstate is conveniently about 3 miles from the house. Headed west, and under an hour and a half away, are fantastic ski locations like Winter Park, Copper Mountain, Breckenridge and Vail. Sure am glad Dad taught me to ski on the ginormous "mountains" of Illinois -- Colorado will have nothing on me!!! ;-)

Blizzard 2010

As if you haven't seen enough pictures of white from me already, here are even more! I'm not positive, but we're guessing that we've gotten over 2 feet of snow between yesterday and today. Although beautiful, the weight of the snow is pulling branches and trees down. The photo below (right) is the very large tree in our backyard that is now suspended over the street, held up only by another tree in the yard.

Left: beautiful tree in our front yard Middle: Thank goodness Bailey's brown, or we would have lost her out there! :-) Right: Same fallen tree

Superhero Kelsee bursts through the snow drift to rescue her sister! ;-)

Left: Bailey has a little more trouble conquering the drifts than Kelsee does Right: Kelsee attempts a u-turn...more complex than usual

Me and Kels -- Bailey refused to join us for the picture. She was too tired of the high snow by that point.

Kelsee posing with the ever popular "snow on nose" look.

Girls running under downed tree. Maybe not the smartest thing I've ever let them do.

And my favorites. I think Kelsee got confused and thought she was swimming...

Where Exactly Do We Live???

The last time I checked, we live in Washington D.C. (or close enough). And we don't get much snow in Washington D.C. Until this year!!!!! No kidding, since we've lived here the past 8 years, I can remember only a few snow falls....and those were pretty lame snow falls for people hailing from Illinois and Montana. :-) This morning we woke up to a gorgeous sight. The sun was shining brightly on the new 3-4 inches of snow that we got overnight....and this was on top of the 5-6 inches we got this past weekend. (Expecting more snow this coming weekend and again next week.) What is happening?? ;-) I love it.

The sun was melting the snow in the trees and some fell right on Kelsee's face as I took this shot (hence her closed eyes). Hahaha. :-)

The fight for the tennis ball...which is pretty funny in deep snow because they have to dig for it every time one of them drops it. Which, as a side note, I don't think Bailey minds much because she's discovered that eating snow is her new favorite thing to do. She sticks that short little nose down into the snow, comes up looking like Santa Claus and then licks it all off. It's like a huge water bowl everywhere we go!

The Many Hobbies of Wyatt

9 months!!!! Can you believe it?? Wyatt is growing up before all our eyes!! We just did his 9 month session on Saturday. We had planned an indoor session, but when we woke up to 5-6 inches of new snow that morning, we decided to do some outdoor shots as well!!

Daddy's little pilot. "Stafford Control, this is the Blue plane. Can you please tell the Red, Green and Yellow ones to get out of my way? Over."

Left: Aunt Stacey's little apprentice. Right: "Look Mom, NO HANDS!!"

My personal favorite. Tex Junior. Auntie Ash, are you proud??? :-)

Left: Complete cuteness. Look at those toesies! Middle: "Howdy, little lady" Right: More snow fun with Mom and Dad!!