The cutest kids on the block

I know everyone thinks that they have the cutest nephews and neices, but that's because they don't know mine.

4th of July

On July 4th, Charles and I hiked up Stone Mountain with Bevin and Zellyn to watch fireworks. It was raining when we got there, but lightly, so we continued on, hoping it would let up as the night went on. It let up long for a while and we watched the surrounding area's fireworks, which were definitely outmatched by several tremendous lightning storms. However, after quite a show, we too were in a pretty heavy storm. The mountain put on a short fireworks display at the end of the light show, but cancelled the fireworks show that was supposed to follow it. It was pretty disappointing that the show wasn't longer, but the fireworks that we saw were quite spectacular- the ones set off from the ground broke just at eye level off the side of the mountain silhouetting the people standing on the edge, and the ones set off from the top of the mountain showered right on top of us. The walk down the slippery smooth rock surface of the mountain was hairy, and I would have fallen three times if I wasn't holding on to a surprisingly surefooted Charles.

The "Rest" of the Summer

In July we flew to NJ twice for weddings 2 weeks apart. We stayed for a week after the first (my step sister’s) and so we were only in Georgia for 6 days and we were flying back. The second wedding was for a family I grew up with, a girl I've known since she was born- she called my parent's aunt and uncle. Since we've started photographing professionally, it has really been fun to photograph for people the we've known for a long time- Charles and Ben Greenwald were college roommates, I've photographed several weddings for people I went to high school with, my Dad's wedding, etc. It's really been wonderful.







Our new NJ wedding tradition is to photograph on Saturday, drive to the shore Saturday night, and surf Sunday morning. We hit two really great surfing weeks both times, and were able to go several mornings in a row. We were short one board, so Charles actually stayed on the beach for part of one of the sessions and let me surf with his brother and college friend Nate. It’s the first official record of me surfing, and I don’t expect there will be many more beautiful days that Charles is willing to photograph me from the beach, but I’m thankful for the picture.

June and July were as crazy as May, if not worse. My work piled up, I was working days and nights and weekends again (ah the joy of working for yourself). However, that sentence is in past tense, because now it's August. It's miserably hot outside, kids have started back to school and I have had two straight weeks now with no new jobs. So, I'm doing things like finally ordering my Dad's wedding album (which I finished designing 2 months ago) and making dinner when I can figure out what to do with meat. I told Charles today, if he just tells me what he'd like, I can try to make it. I could make great breakfasts and lunches, but dinner? I don't know what I want until, well, I want it- so trying to plan to make a dinner is really hard.

Charles started working at GMI this Monday, and being home alone all day also helps me plow through jobs. So I'm trying to catch up before my next wedding at the end of August. It will feel really good not to be so behind. Also, now that Charles is at GMI, we're not going to be desparate for me to take every possible photo job, so I'm going to try to take fewer jobs, so that I'm not as crazy. Charles has been coming home very happy from GMI. Of course he doesn't have a full counseling schedule yet or anything, but it is encouraging that he likes the place. So life is new, at least a little.

Gordy is indefinitely amusing. Charles came home the other evening and walked into our downstairs bathroom and started calling me saying he thought the toilet was leaking because there was water everywhere. Gordy also came to investigate and I bent over and picked up a very wet rabbit. He’s always hopping up on stuff- his cage, our couches, our bowflex- and several times when I couldn’t find him, I ran into the bathroom afraid he had fallen into the toilet. Luckily he was able to hop out, but I think it took several tries because there was water sprayed in every direction in the bathroom. But, at least now we know he can get out. I drew a little picture of a rabbit sitting in water and taped it to the lid with a note “please close lid” which Charles has already removed.

The only really bad thing that Gordy does (other than chasing Sandy, our houseguest) is chew wood moldings- which is pretty bad. So, I went to the pet store and thought I would outsmart my rabbit and bought a spray called “phooey” which has very little odor, but is supposed to taste terrible to animals, and therefore train them not to chew certain things. Well, Gordy was interested in my spraying, and came over to investigate, and to my horror started lapping up the wet area, hop over to the spray bottle and try to chew the spout. Hmm, phooey on me, I guess. I think I’ll take it back and let them know my little rabbit wants more.

May Madness

May was quite a month. I quit my job at Wolf Camera on May 1st and expected life to slow down a little. I have been working non-stop since the day I walked out of Wolf with little Gordo under my arms thinking he was Gerty. You see, Wolf closed their portrait studio, and customers need portraits, so when they call Wolf, they are given my phone number. Better than paying for advertising, eh? My last day at Wolf, one of our customers gave Karyn and I free tickets to a Braves game, which I wore my Yankees t-shirt to. The guy letting us in laughed at me, and we made it on the big screen for our 5 seconds, but it was only our faces at the bottom of the screen, For some reason, I don’t think they wanted my shirt up there.




























We went to New Jersey to shoot a wedding, and photographed 3 jobs in 5 days, along with visiting each of our family members at least once, and having several support raising meetings for Charles. We had brunch with my nana, which was way too short. It felt terrible saying goodbye after only a few hours, and saying, see you in July. My neice is crawling like crazy and is pulling herself up on things and letting go. She’s only 8 months, and she’ll be walking soon. It’s so much fun to see her grow. Andy our nephew is riding a bike without training wheels, and without fear it seems! Sammy was under the weather when we saw him, but he was as beautiful as ever.
























































We returned home ready for life to return back to normal, and a few days later, we found standing water in our pantry (please don’t repeat this when we’re selling our home!) because our hot water heater was leaking. So, that week, from Sunday to Thursday we had no running water in our house because we of course installed our own water heater. I was so proud of Charles. He has installed a few water heaters with his dad, but this was the first project he headed up, with me going, sure, I bet you could do it that way…I guess.