Yesterday, Phillip celebrated his last day of “being in his twenties!”  That’s right! This morning, I woke up with a 30-year-old man in my bed!  I guess that means that we’ve got to grow up now.

This weekend, we also celebrated our TENTH anniversary.  We spent some time thinking about what we’ve been through in a decade’s time, and it’s really astounding, at least to me!

10 years ago, two 19 year olds got married, then proceeded to:

-Move to Germany, with the US ARMY 

-Learn to live like adults, paying bills and buying groceries REAL fast! 

-Travel all around Europe, on a seriously small budget! 

-Give birth to one little red headed baby girl, in a hospital where few people spoke English; and it was a wonderful experience.

-Meet new friends from all over the world, especially some really amazing Germans. 

-Phillip went to protect the innocent in two different fronts/ Becca & I stayed & prayed every day that he was deployed. 

-I flew home through NYC, 7 months pregnant & with a two year old in tow on Sept. 9th, 2001. 

-We were able to be together again one month later for the birth of our sweet baby boy, Riley.

-Phillip moved us back to America, landing in Virginia for a year! 

-After leaving Virginia & the ARMY, we made it back to Moultrie! 

-Phillip got a job with Southern Powder Coating, and started putting himself back through school! 

-I was struck by a lightening bolt and realized that photography was my calling! :) 

-We each lost a grandparent, and held each other up through those hard times, and others. 

-Phillip switched to bartending, and graduated with not one or two, but THREE different degrees, all while feeding the family, and helping me grow our business. 

-The business was blessed, &  started growing so fast that we needed to hire employees, and move into a new studio.

-2 years later, we bought and moved into an even newer studio! 

All those years were filled with lots of memories… fun, frightening, crazy, silly, wonderful, sad, exciting, amazing memories, and I cannot wait to see what we fit into our next decade together! 

Happy birthday & I love you, Mr. V!! Thank you for sharing your journey with me.  <3

Oh!! Thank goodness, the leaves are finally changing colors around here! 

This morning, Becca & I were coming in for a few hours of work at the studio, and we saw these giant piles of lovely yellow leaves all over the ground in front of our studio!  It took us about 2 seconds to decide that we should sweep as many as possible INTO the studio, and take some fun photographs of her playing in the leaves! 

~*le~sigh*~

 Operation Smile Is gonna be SO happy!! 

Still in 1st place, by about 150 votes:

Currently in 2nd place:

Currently in 3rd place, only separated by about 20 votes from 2nd!! 

The top three are still CLOSE together in votes, but there is still time! 

Voting ends tomorrow at midnight!! 

If you called the studio this week, you may have been surprised to hear a baritone voice answer the phone, rather than Rachel’s sweet alto sounds…

Well, the truth is that Renee, Rachel, & I have been in incredible Charleston all week, and my poor husband has been left here to take care of the studio, AND our rowdy kiddos! 

(He did a pretty danged good job if it, too… the studio is still standing, and there are no new holes in either of my kids!) 

We were there for an intimate photographers’ conference, where I was one of the speakers!  It was really a super fun, beautiful three days away, so of course, we forgot the cameras more often than we remembered them, DOH!  

Thankfully, we DID bring a camera for our boat tour of Charleston Harbor, provided by one of our fellow photographers, “Capitan” Kip, who was VERY brave to take four inexperienced sailors out to sea! 

This battleship aircraft carrier was so huge… it was really hard to even understand size of it. And THEN we moved in close to it!

 

Here’s brave Captain Kip and our worthy Skipper, Rachel!

Castle Pinkney: Once a fort, now a place that smells about 1000X worse than it looks.

We had a picnic here in a small creek, crammed full of small shrimping boats that had come in for the night.

Capt. Kip, looking like a salty sea dog… 

The setting sun made the ocean change colors, from carrot orange…

To powder pink…

And finally, to an inky teal, with a sprinkling of full moon.

~*le~sigh*~

Thank you to all of the photographers involved, and especially to my Phillip, for holding it all together while we were away!
*kiss*

Most. Fun-loving. Couple. EVER.
Really!!

I love working with these two! The laugh at each other, and with each other non-stop! It makes you happy, just to be around them! *meep*

These gorgeous eyes…

…come from these gorgeous parents! 

Ella Grace is a little model, I swear! 

Her mommy even MAKES a lot  of her clothes, like the pretty dress she wore to come visit us!  

What kind of kid has wheels like this? 

One that has a grandaddy with a car like this:

(Several of them, actually!) 

Cute little buggers, though! 

Lookit those eyelashes! 

Hey guys! People have been voting and raising money for Operation Smile like mad all week! One week left in voting, and here are the standings! 

Currently in 1st place:

Currently in 2nd place:

Currently in 3rd place:

The  top three are CLOSE together in votes, but everybody is still in the race!  One more week! Time to call up all those long lost cousins, and demand that they vote! 

Good luck everybody! 

Who on earth has ever heard of Chocolate Chilli Cashew Biscotti?  Rose and Black Pepper Thumbprint Cookies?! How about mouthfull sized chunks of handmade Chocolate or Caramel Marshamllows?!  

I don’t know if it’s the rapidly approaching holidays, but all of these goodies are sounding pretty good to me these days!

(Hey! I’d be buying them for ~*gifts*~)

 This Brooklyn, NY shop, Whimsy & Spice, whips up all manner of exotic and yummy treats, and will even ship them to you giftwrapped! 

The best news is that I found these guys browsing in this amazing Foodcrafters Marketplace, a collection of food artisans of the highest order… just LOOKING at all the cheeses makes me kinda wanna pass out!  Happy eating shopping for others!!!

Oh! P.S… Honey Lavender Shortbread. Need I say more?!

Funky, classy, quirky & cool Nicole & David had an awesome wedding out in Leesburg last month. Their horse ranch setting was incredible… quiet and picturesque, with rolling hills, stunning trees, and brilliant October blue skies!
Nicole was simply radiant all day… as cliche as that sounds, she really was!

Congratulations, Nicole & David! We know that your life together will be amazing.