Soon to be parents, Lorena and Jaquail, are nothing short of beautifulness and all around great people to be around.  Lorena and I first met over coffee (Lorena had tea of course) while consulting over her upcoming maternity session.  If it wasn’t for our crazy lives and places to be, we most likely would have chatted all day.

With the temperature topping off at 100 degrees that day, we opted to get the session starting super early in the morning.  And boy am I glad we did!  With Lorena choosing one of the most beautiful locations, The Promise Garden in Pasco, I was excited to incorporate her images with all the flowers and trees this location had to offer.

Lorena and Jaquail, I was so honored to photograph your maternity session and I wish the both of you nothing but an amazing journey with your new arrival on the way.  Best of luck to the two of you!

I’m not even sure a heat wave is a well enough way to describe how stinkin’ hot it’s been here in the Tri-Cities!  We’ve managed to hang at the park in 90 degree weather and was even able to go to our church carnival at 102 degrees.  Today is a whole other story!  Today’s high is 107 degrees and I’m thinking a nice “cool” day in the house is a great idea.  Jilliann and I have been in the sun all week, don’t get me wrong our tans our looking nice for our east coast vacation, but boy that sun can sure suck every ounce of energy out of you after a week of going non stop.

And of course as always, I couldn’t miss out on some candid moments of my Jilliann having some fun in the sun.

Happy Sunday!

Sometimes when you think a vacation is the best remedy to your crazy life, you soon realize it’s just as crazy trying to make sure everything is in perfect order before aboarding a plane and flying clear cross country.  Weeks in advance I get out my notebook and label three different pages; Roxie, Leo and Jilliann.  Day after day I keep adding things to my list so I don’t forget.  It’s amazing how I can pack quickly and forget pretty much all the necessities, like underwear!  While I’m making my lists and checking them twice, crossing everything off my business “To-Do-List” and shoot two photo sessions just days before we leave, I tend to find myself more stressed out than normal and I let it get the best of me.  So needless to say, I’m taking a “stress-break” today!  Jilliann’s in school, Leo’s hunting and I’m going to The Spa.

Sometimes life can pull you in so many directions and I just need to just sit still for a little while and watch the amazing sunset the Columbia River has to offer.  It’s so calming and so peaceful. 

HAPPY FRIDAY YA’LL!!

***Thanks Mom***

I couldn’t have been more joyous to do a photo session with Grandparents and the Grandkids.  They were so much fun and I was constantly laughing.  Little Kara was an absolute doll who had many differents smiles to share with my camera.  Such a ham!!

Here are just a few of my favorites!!

Happy Wednesday!!!

Hey ya’ll!  So I thought I would start a weekly brain dump here on my blog.  I guess it’s a way for me to get everything that’s going on in my crazy little mind and put it out there for all my wonderful bloggers.

    ~ Okay, so I’ve been having this huge issue lately that has been driving me up a “mad-wall“!!  In a week from tomorrow my beautiful family and I are flying out to the east coast for a long and relaxing 17 day vacation.  I know exciting, right?  Well I have just one problem - when I was purchasing our airline tickets the gentleman explained to me that we are only allotted ONE fifty pound luggage per person.  WHAT?!?!?!  One fifty pound luggage, are you kidding me.  I just flew in March for a seven day vacation and had two fifty pound bags, how in the world do you expect to only bring ONE fifty pound bag for a seventeen day vacation.  I mean, I should be an exception, right?  Just my shoes weigh fifty pounds!  Is our economy going that quick?? Grrrrrr!!!!

     ~ Ever since my mom was here visiting, I am now an avid watcher of Jon and Kate Plus 8!  Thanks mom!! 

     ~ I am totally in love with the singer Tyrone Wells!  I constantly have his music playing in my office all hours of the day and I just can’t seem to get enough of him!!

     ~ If anyone is looking for some great summer shoes, you must go to Zappos.com.  It’s my favorite online shoe store!

     ~ I was a huge fan of “Hogan Knows Best”, they seemed like the perfect family.  But now I just can’t get over how everything went from good to really really bad.  In some way I think they are made to look worse than it really is when it comes to those news shows like “Extra” or “ET”!  It’s truly sad they way they ridicule them and I only wish they could just be left alone.

     ~ I’m a political person and I’d hate to say this but dang I’m tired of all this political garbage! :-)  Vote for Roxie!!

     ~ I need a new book for our summer vacation so please feel free to send and requests my way.  I don’t do romance novels or non-fiction.  I love self-improvement books or anything inspirational for that matter.

So there was my Tuesday’s Brain Dump!  Hope you liked!!

Happy Tuesday Ya’ll!!

These images are the last of our Oregon Coast vacation.  Considering we were in no hurry on our way home from the coast, we thought we would stop and do some sight-seeing.  Luckily we stopped at some amazing places created by mother nature herself.  You definitely had to take a step back and breathe that amazing air.  It was truly spectacular!  Washington and Oregon are definitely some great states to drive in.  From the evergreens to the mountains, it’s always breathtaking to drive through.

Hope ya’ll had a great weekend!  Happy Monday!! 

The family and I stumbled across this great little coffe shop in Oregon. They carried some of the greatest signs I’ve seen in any coffee shop.  And we’ve been to a lot of coffee shops!!  Leo and I have always been dependent on our coffee.  Wether it be Starbucks or freshly brewed coffe at home, we just always needed and wanted our coffee.  As time went on and I did some deep thinking and searching as to what was more important; coffee or chocolate,  I had to soon choose only one addiction considering they had been fighting over each other for far too long.  After being so zealous about coffee, I traded in my “need for speed” so to speak and stuck to my dear friend “The Chocolate“.  Chocolate had been with me much longer than coffee had which meant I need to stick to my “roots”.  So now I only have coffee every once in awhile.  It’s more like a special treat!  It’s like treating myself to a pair of shoes on an occasion!! Ahhhh, I love coffee!!  So I did spoil myself here at this coffee but also enjoyed the neat little signs they had!!  Way cute!!

Happy Saturday Ya’ll!!!

We were so lucky to have had the opportunity to check out these amazing sandcastles that had been built during our vacation in Oregon.  To have seen all the effort and time that went into these beautiful masterpieces was definitely rewarding.  Even after living on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi for so many years, this was my first time actually seeing sandcastles like these.  I totally enjoyed it!!

Happy Thursday Ya’ll!!!

Now that Jilliann is the “BIG 3″, I thought I would do a little photo session for her three year photos.  As much as I would love to say that my little Jilliann is a complete and total camera pleaser when it comes to taking pictures but I would be telling you a bold face lie.  She is much more interested in everything else around her to even bother looking at my camera!  I only hope it’s gets better with time!! :-)  Maybe next time I’ll have to bribe her with some candy!!  That seems to always work in any situation!!

Happy Tuesday Ya’ll!!

“The Strangers” ~ I’m not sure if I should give this movie a thumbs up or just no thumbs at all. The plot is very simple: a young couple (Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler) head out to the country for a romantic getaway, only to be confronted by an unwanted visitor at four in the morning. Though they assure the confused party that they’ve happened upon the wrong house, they don’t quite go away. In fact, they come back with reinforcements. And while there’s no rhyme or reason to their relentless home invasion, their endgame seems to be “You’re not going to live to see the dawn.”  I mean don’t get me wrong, the movie had me jumping out my seat but I feel as though this movie could have had more of a story line.

Here’s a review I saw in the NY Post:

**That first moment where the ’stranger’ emerges from the dark inside the house and stands in the background as Liv’s character goes about her business, unknowingly, has to be one of the most hair-raisingly eerie and jaw-droppingly terrifying shots in any movie. Think Michael Myers after Buffalo Bill stealth class. Yeah it almost seems pantomimic when you find yourself almost shouting out ‘he’s behind you’ for the ninth time but the terror you feel in these scenes is up there with the night-vision goggle scene at the end of Silence of the Lambs.

You can see that the creators of this movie clearly spent a lot of time thinking how can we really, really scare the crap out of our audience without resorting to the typical overused trite of the slasher era. I mean how creepy are those masks? Your mind will not allow you to erase those images for at least a few days. This film is a full blown psychological assault on the nervous system. The great thing is that the movie does not have to resort to shear violence to get the effect, but at the same time does not shy away when called upon to.

It is perhaps not quite the perfect horror. There are some annoying moments such as the occasional piece of dialogue from the ’strangers’ themselves, although the response when asked why of ‘because you were here’ is pretty chilling. In the beginning the movie claims to be ‘based on true events’ but right at the close of the credits there is the disclaimer that ‘this movie is not based on any real characters or events’. However, there are probably many stories in Wisconsin history books alone that could be easily interpreted as inspiration.**

Now do I think you should run out and see this movie in theater, no way!!  Wait for it to come out on DVD and just rent it!