Nice attempt. One day we'll get it right.

Well hi.

Monday night vlog! Family night! Don't count on it being every Monday... but wouldn't that be a good tradition? We'll try and stick with it, but they might fall on different days. Who knows, maybe we'll do several days a week!

Let's see... I quit my day job. These past two weeks have been not as productive as I hoped they would be. I just haven't had this much CHOICE in my time and it's hard to discipline myself. Notice I didn't say 'I haven't have this much free time' because technically I have A TON TO DO... I just.. well.. have taken to sleeping until 11 am a couple times, and staying in my pajamas all day editing... and I finally let myself watch Pitch Perfect (because before I just seriously never had the time to.. it's been sitting on my computer for months). So it's been a fun couple of weeks. I've gotten stuff done, but I've relaxed too and it's been GREAT! But it's time to get down to business (which it's perfect timing because I happen to be booked every single day this week and my wedding season is starting this weekend so time to get my bum in gear).

Anywho, enjoy our vlog. We will be posting more. And they will be less boring. And we have more exciting announcements coming soon! WOO! Stay tuned. Oh! And Carson graduates this Friday. I'm so proud of him :)

Chick-Fil-A and a New Start

Hello!

It's been far too long.

As you can see, I'm sprucing up the blog.. not quite done, but it's in the works. I've got a lot of projects to work on but I figured that the last hour of the evening before bed was ok to work on something more personal. I'm going to get back into the blogging world and hopefully make it an occasional thing again!

So, items on the desk to talk about for today (we'll get to catching you up on our life later, tonight's blog post is about today):

Today was my first day of not having a day job. Needless to say, I took a sleeping pill last night because I haven't been sleeping well, still woke up early which made me a little mad, but was able to fall back to sleep easily until 11 am. Bliss. Woke up to a text from a client needing photos early for a deadline they weren't aware of for the yearbook, and needed it by their lunch break (and their session isn't all the way done yet) so I scrambled out of bed, edited quickly, and started to send them via email (which my business email that I pay for monthly decided to put my account on lockdown, so that was fun... I resorted to my regular hotmail. Take that gmail).

Carson and I had pizza for lunch. I cleaned (wow, yes, I did some cleaning today, the house still looks like a mess, but it's a start). A load of laundry. Paid some bills. Dropped of film to the post office. Taught Watson how to stay when holding a treat to his nose (the poor dear, that was really hard for him).

Then it was time to bring Carson dinner while he was working his day job. He wanted Chick-fil-a. I was ok with that because we are getting a tax return this year (we were so worried we would owe) so I was alright with going out for food (we've been trying to be good lately and eat groceries haha). I have been once before to the one in town, when it first opened, so naturally it was super busy and people in yellow vests were in the drive through and that was to be expected. But today, there was hardly a line, so I was excited to not be bombarded with the yellow vested workers at my car door.

Wrong.

I pull up, drive around the corner, about to pull up to the sign to look at the menu, when I see the yellow vested girls approaching my car. Two were up above at the other cars, and one girl was coming for me. Why... this is so unnecessary. There is hardly a line, I can use the dang speaker box! I have no makeup on, my car is a mess, I'm in sweats... there is a FREAKING REASON I'M USING THE DRIVE THROUGH! I don't want you to see me other than at the window.

So I roll down my window and she says of course in a super nice tone, I'm not complaining about the service in any way.. they are all very nice. I just like my space.

"Do you know what you want to order?" *pause*
"Uh, no, uh.."
"Or do you need a menu?"
"Yeah, I'm going to need a menu."

Is this a test? Am I being timed? I glance behind me, a car just pulled up, I start to sweat, she continues to stand by my window watching me look at the laminated menu she just handed me. What if this was my first time to Chick-fil-a? What if I need more that .2 seconds to decide if I want the spicy chicken sandwich, or the regular? Provolone cheese, or american? This is a big decision for me!

You know what I like about Smash Burger? Every time, without fail, they ask you if this is your first time to Smash Burger. If it is, they tell you stuff, stuff you need to know. I can't remember what they told me the first time, but I'm sure it was important. This girl at Chick-fil-a was just super confident I had the menu memorized and knew what I wanted to eat. "Hi, I assume you're just like KFC, and I want a mac and cheese and mashed potato... oh, that's not on the menu? Can you freaking let me look at one then?!"

Anyways, back to the story.

She continues to peer inside my car. Like bending down in my rolled down window. All I could think about was how messy my car was, how she was probably checking that out...I need space. I need time alone. If I wanted human interaction, I would go inside and order. This was stressing me out. I ended up ordering something I probably wouldn't have originally ordered and I didn't even get dessert, which I wanted to get but forgot because she was breathing down my neck. Awkward. She wrote my ticket, told me to go to the next yellow vested girl, and took the menu back. I drove to the next girl, she then circled something on my ticket and told me my total.. I mean, how many yellow vested girls does it take to get a fast food order correct and ready?

I am so happy they are doing well here and staying busy, and I love the food, and the service is good and quick, and they are all happy and it's not like it was BAD... it's just.. Chick-Fil-A, you need to calm it down at the drive through and let your customers feel like they have time to make a decision.

End of rant.

Tomorrow is a new day, a new start. I'm going to get a lot done. Finish some seniors, missionary pics, design an announcement, finish a website, shoot some bridals (hopefully it doesn't rain on us), wedding photos, work on a couple flyers.. design a business card.. Not necessarily all in that order but those are just some on my list to do. Not to mention my own projects of blogging/vlogging, cleaning, laundry, refinishing a dresser, grocery shopping, catching up the photography blog, etc etc. We'll see how much I get to.

Jost

Oh life.

Oh gosh, this is embarrassing.

My last post was back in March! Holy Hannah! Sometimes your life goes on auto pilot and you forget about the details. That's basically what happened. My photography business kind of took off without telling me and I was seriously caught off guard. I wasn't anticipating that jump this year.. not that soon and not all at once like it was. It's been an amazing trip! But can I just say how exhausted I am? All the time? No, I'm not pregnant.

I graduated with my Associates in May, which was a huge relief. I made it! My family and 2 of my best friends were there to support me :) Carson took me out to lunch and to a movie and then my mom had a graduation party for me at her house. Big fat party!

Carson started working for his dad as well as continuing on with being a free lance reporter for KSL. We've had so many blessings and we're grateful that he's able to work with his dad and brother and have the availability for his news stories at the same time.

I have increased my camera family size! With this jump in my business, I knew it was time I upgraded some of my equipment to keep up with everything. I was able to get another body, a couple lenses, a light kit, and a medium format film camera. My hopes are for one day to shoot mostly film for my professional work. Film is SO LOVELY.

I had my first destination wedding in San Diego in July. That was quite the experience! I had Carson second shoot for me and it was an amazing time. He even liked it, which is saying a lot... he's not a super fan of weddings like I am. I'm excited for when I can finally edit it.

That's another thing... I'm always 20 shoots behind.. it never ends! Which is fantastic, but it can get overwhelming. That being said, I did not go to school this semester (which started yesterday). I had prayed and talked it over with Carson, and we felt good about me taking a break in at least something. Let's just say I'm super stoked. Don't worry mom, I'm going to go back to school. Eventually.

Carson is back in school. I'm editing and shooting my life away. Things are good. We are in the process of finally making our bedroom cute.. that included lots of painting and sanding and rearranging and money, but it's coming together! We're also going to be going to New York in November with Carson's family and then to Florida in December to shoot a wedding! Lot's of new and exciting things are happening.

Did I mention how tired I am all the time? But loving it. Truly. And my migraines aren't as frequent as they used to be, so that's a huge plus.

Oh! We got a dog! Piper! She's a white mini Schnauzer. She's a cutie-pa-tootie.

Annnnndd... that's it for now :)

Carson turns 21!

I'm a big fatty fail lately on posting... It's going to get better when school gets out. I promise.

Carson had his birthday on March 23! He turned 21... the big twenty-one! No, we didn't go out and gamble or drink... but we did stay up until 3 am the night before reading Hunger Games! We got up the next morning and I made a big breakfast for him (with his fancy pure maple syrup) and we kept reading all morning long. I also baked his cake. We then went to go see the movie Hunger Games (we were so close to finishing the book! we even read in line at the movie theater haha). We LOVED the movie. They did a really good job. Then we came home and I attempted to make fondant! It.. well.. tasted good... but it didn't come out how I wanted it to. Carson assured me it was alright and that he still loved his cake. We went out with his family for dinner to Sakura Japanese Grill. They even brought out a dessert for him and we all sang. We then went back to our house, where a bunch of his friends and my family were waiting to surprise him. It was so much fun!

Wedding photo and more!

It's been a while! I need to update this more often because I don't keep a journal and it would be nice to read back on this blog when we're 20 years down the road and read about our newlywed experiences. Life goes by so fast! It's been 10.5 weeks since we got married. That being said, I have pictures back from our photographer! I'm only posting one.. I'll have to dedicate a whole post to the pictures later. :)

Other than that, we've just been working, going to school, and loving each other. I've also been so so so busy with photography. I love it. I just finished my 3rd wedding of the year last weekend, and it couldn't have been a more magical day. I joked the whole time that I cried more at their wedding than I did my own. But for real. Their love is so amazing. Here's my favorite shot from that day:

It's days like those that make me remember how much I LOVE being a photographer. Not that there are days when I don't... I just think I get in the motions and stress from other factors in my life carry over to my photography business and I get confused. One day, I won't have school or work in the way. It'll just be me, my handsome husband, maybe a kid or two, and my camera. (Don't worry, we're having more than 2 kids).

We also sold Carson's car. It was a sad day... we could have kept it, but the payments every month were annoyingly large and we wanted to have somewhat of a savings going. Also, my car needs to be fixed, bills, and other things made is so we needed some extra money. We ended up buying him a blue scooter. It's cute! (ahem.. I mean.. it's manly honey, very masculine). We celebrated our purchase by driving to Mcdonald's after the wedding I shot to get me some food. We passed a couple people, in which the little girl yelled out that we were cute. We went through the drive through and the lady at the window also said "oh, how cute!" haha.. we had a good giggle on the way back home. We both agreed that we have a really good life and we love each other so much. We know how to have fun, even though we're poor most of the time haha.

Anywho, it's Spring Break and it's sooooo nice. Gives me a much needed break from my hectic schedule to spend some time with the hubby and clean our home! Yay!

Photos!

One more for the night:

I cut my hair, as you know. But I cut it even shorter now.

Dilemma: I got awesome photos done this weekend, but with my older haircut. SOOO.... I'll post some photos by the awesome David Terry (click his name!) and also the one I took with my webcam on my computer of the new haircut. It's the shortest I've ever had it, and the shortest it's been in like 15 years... so it's a big deal!

It was a lot of fun working with him, as well as Scott Myler (you can click his name too!) and Pete Hansen (click his name as well). I brought Ciera with me and we all had lunch at 25 Main and took photos around Main Street. It was a lot of fun getting to know the photographers as well as getting out of my comfort zone (which is behind the camera, not in front).

Here's the updated hair. David Terry joked that the photos were outdated and I needed another photo shoot now... haha. I think I'll keep this hair for a while though :)

A little more spunk to it :) Happy Thursday!

8 Weeks of Marriage Bliss!

I love Carson.

Yep, I said it.

Life is stressful. It's even more stressful if your spouse is. well. one of those unhelpful, uncaring types. (Psh, yeah that's why you don't marry those types right?) It's surprising how people can change once you get married. For me? Carson just got BETTER than he was.

And I mean, he was a pretty good guy (I married him, didn't I?)

And now that we're married, I am more stressed out than I ever have been (excluding when I was going to school with 3 jobs and planning a wedding) but Carson makes me feel like I'm the best ever. And let's face it, I can be a mess sometimes. Ok, fine, a lot of the times.

-I hardly get ready in the morning these days and he makes me feel like I'm the prettiest girl around.
-When I'm super stressed about a test, deadline, getting shoots edited on time, he's massaging my back and asking if he can get me anything.
-He makes my lunch every day and brings it to me at work so I can have it "fresh" instead of in a lunch box sitting for hours.
-He fills up the gas in my car before I go to work if I'm low.
-He never forgets to pray with me before bed, even if he plans on staying up later.
-We're selling his car so I can get a new camera. He'll be driving a scooter soon. Woo!
-He can ALWAYS tell when I'm sad or worried about something. It helps, knowing that he is aware of my slightest mood change, and is wanting to help me through anything.
-He is constantly saying he's glad he married me and that we are together.

Today, we had a couple coming over for "Guess Who's Coming Over to Dinner?" It's something our young married couple ward does. They have people sign up to "attend" or "host" and they mix it all up so neither knows who is coming over or where they're going. It's a good way to meet people in the ward. I had signed us up to host. I had to work until 3, so I had Carson get the chicken in the crock pot earlier. I had told him I could do the rest, and that we'd clean the front rooms and guest bathroom and get everything ready when I got home from work.

Well when I got home, everything was already cleaned. The dishes done, dishwasher going, chicken cooking, bathroom cleaned and counters wiped down. I was shocked! It was such a kind gesture and a load off my day. Seriously, I about cried. I don't think he knows how much I appreciate him.

It's been a good 8 weeks of being married. I'm so happy I have him.