Monday, June 30, 2008

Sara and Tod...

are engaged! The flooding found us having to re-schedule this session...just in time for skeeter season! Luckily the location was mostly sidewalk. We were fine until we ventured into the grass...the skeeters were definitely flying the friendly skies!
Check out this image...there was no way to avoid the grass with a view like this though!

One of the best parts of what we do is that we have been able to catch up with old friends and Sara and Tod fit that bill! I went to high school with them! It was so fun to see them again and witness their love for each other in full action. There was no coaxing additional bear hugs or kisses out of them! In fact, I'm pretty sure, I heard Tod say, "can we do that again?" more than once! Right on, totally, absolutely, please show the camera more of the good stuff! Thank you for having so much fun with us!


Thank you guys for braving skeeter heaven with us! We can't wait for engagement session v2.0 in Okoboji! Bring on more of the good stuff! You guys are totally 100%, no doubt about it absolutely adorable!!

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Pesky squirrels...

have found their way into our transformer TWICE in the last 24 hours!! Both times, we were hard at work and suddenly heard a loud boom followed by silence in our house. Both of us just sat and looked around for a bit until we put the pieces together and realized we had no power.
Let me tell you, this girl is addicted to power...addicted! I roamed aimlessly around the house and everything I thought I should do....involved power in some way, so I continued to roam aimlessly.
I'm not sure I should share this next story, but I am still laughing about it so I have to share.
Eric was sitting on the couch reading, when I walked up to him it looked a bit dark to be reading without light. So I asked him if he would like me to turn some light on for him and I headed for the switch. In his most sarcastic tone he said, "are you serious?" I said, "yes, I am willing to do something nice for you Mr. Sarcastic, do you want me to turn the light on?" To which he replied "are you serious" again. I said "YES! Do you want light?"
...and then it hit me. DUH!!! The only reason I am roaming around aimlessly and even noticing that he may need more light for reading is because WE DON'T HAVE ELECTRICITY!!!
I guess it's times like these that really make you appreciate what you take for granted! I LOVE me some electricity...so squirrels stay outta my 'hood and go take another neighborhood hostage with your antics!
P.S. Thank you Ames Utilities for calling to tattle on the squirrels and for getting us up and running in good time!

Film festival...check


The Interrobang Film Festival was yesterday and we were there for the opening at 10AM. The documentaries were the first to show and we made it through the first 2 without any technical problems. Wouldn't you know it, as soon as it was time for Eric's documentary to show, the technical problems came and didn't want to go away. The projectors were not used to being on for long periods of time and they would stop and the audio would keep going or the projector would play and the audio wouldn't work. It was one problem after another!
They finally announced that they would close the theater for a half hour to get equipment switched out. So everyone left. We stayed around and like 3 minutes later they told us the theater was running again!! Not joking! Needless to say, we were the only ones there to watch.
It was a bummer but it was all out of our control. Eric's students' films had a much better viewing and the room was full and people were laughing so we were very happy after the mornings disappointment!
Thank you Abby, Jared, Erin, Mike, Mindy, Missy and Mark for coming to support Eric! Seriously, we loved seeing you there and thank you from the bottom of our hearts! You'll have to come over for a private viewing rather than an Interrobang viewing!!

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Licht family...

On Sunday we got to hang out with a whole lotta Licht family on the farm!! If you've been reading the blog, you'll know that I have a slight obsession with barns, so I was so excited when we were invited to the family farm to capture the whole family!
For this post I am going to post the images that I'm guessing nobody knew we captured. :) Licht family you know we got the whole clan all set up in the flower garden and on the tractor...but I wanted to share some of the fun surprises we captured! I'm in the SURPRISE kinda mood tonight!
I don't remember what was said or done, but all the pointing and giggling totally makes my heart happy and brings a huge smile to m face!

I love this one because it not only is an adorable picture of little miss Paula, a little piece of Eric and I is included in this image as well...can you spot it? Paula is wearing my shades and you can see Eric's reflection in the shades as he is taking the picture!

The kids pulled the wagon out just as we were getting ready to leave. I had NO idea the kids has been holding out on me all along! At the beginning of the shoot, we had a team meeting with the kids(no parents allowed!) and we created a pact. I realized that I left out one important piece in that pact....to have the kids show me ALL the cool things on the farm! I learned my lesson and was so glad we were still around for the wagon fun!

This one is just p..r..i..c...e...l...e...s..s.. I LOVE everything about this...it is just too sweet for words! That is one proud grandpa!!

Thank you Licht family for inviting us to your farm! It was so fun to have all of you start throwing out ideas for the pictures, you guys are awesome! There will be more surprises to come when your gallery is posted! We will be in touch soon!

Sunday, June 22, 2008

{Alyssa} 2009 KandE Senior Model

We had another totally awesome model shoot this weekend! And when I say awesome, I'm telling you it was 3 1/2 hours worth of awesomeness! They drove 3 hours to get here, so we thought we couldn't be out done by the drive...no way!! We had to go longer! :)
This shoot was just a blast because Alyssa, her mom and grandma were up for anything so we took them on a little tour 'o Ames. We went everywhere!
When they showed up for the shoot, they popped the trunk to show me the closet of clothes they brought along. This was the first thing I saw...I think I told her she was my new best friend for bringing this! LOVE IT!!

One of our stops was a basketball court because Alyssa is quite the little stud on the court. We heard reports of the newspaper and TV taking a particular liking to her! :) I wish we were closer and could witness the action in person this fall! They brought her home and away jerseys...and the home and away shoes to boot! Not kidding...she has a different pair depending on the location of play! AWESOME!! (The new best friend thing still stands!)

Alyssa loved the idea of close-ups...and we LOVE to do close-ups....beautiful, just beautiful!


Alyssa, Lisa and Betty - thank you for coming to spend time with us to capture these images! I know the 5AM wake-up call was grueling, but once you see the whole gallery, I think you'll soon forget about that alarm clock! :) Alyssa you were such a trooper, the number of clothing changes you had was awesome! I'm still not sure how you accomplished all that and were still lookin' mighty fine until the very end! You rock girl!!

Friday, June 20, 2008

Film Festival!


This is the message Eric received yesterday! Eric's documentary was selected to be played at the Interrobang Film Festival! If you are in town next weekend be sure to stop by the festival at 10AM on Saturday for the documentary.

The other exciting news is that 4 of Eric's students' short short films were chosen to play as well! They will be playing at 4PM on Friday and 11AM on Saturday. One of his students was the overall winner in his category too...how sweet is that?!? I am so excited that all the hard work has paid off for all of them in a big way! Hope to see you there!

Here is the link for more information.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Little Miss Zoey...

is one year old!! It has been about 7 months since we saw her for her last session, and my has she grown! She completely, totally and absolutely 100% stole my heart this time! As soon as her dad brought her up to me she put her arms out like she hadn't seen me in forever and missed me all those months (this is my story and I'm sticking to it...yes, she missed me!:) Of course I happily took her out of her dads arms and had to talk with her a bit before I broke the news that we had to do a quick change in location. The flood made an ugly mess of the park we had planned on. But the new location was beautiful and worked out perfectly!
I LOVE this image!! Her expression is just priceless and it makes me smile every time I look at it. If you could put a caption on this image what would it be?


This picture totally cracks me up because her dad tried (and tried SO hard) to get these shoes on her and she was having NONE of it....shoes were just not her thing during the shoot. What better place for shoes than on her feet? On her hands of course! I couldn't resist this image because they were totally cute pink sketchers...i think they just look as cute on her hands as they did on her feet! :)


Green polka dot dress coming at cha....LOVE IT!!


I think that I will start referring to Zoey as the greeting card little girl. She has the best expressions and I think this one might take the cake! Honestly, don't you think Hallmark could come up with some great greeting cards with her expressions...just priceless!!


Zoey, you were such a joy to hang out with! I am so glad your dad brought you even though your mom had to be coaching softball...I hope she enjoys the surprise sneak peak! I can't wait to see you next time and maybe you'll even be able to say my name by then!! I know you'll remember me again! :) You stole my heart and I'm pretty sure you're capable of stealing it again!

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Ben and Darci are married!


Despite all the flooding leading up to their wedding on Saturday in Des Moines, there was nothing that could keep this celebration from happening! Their wedding and reception was at Sticks, which is a totally rocking place! Who would have ever guessed that a warehouse could be transformed into such a beautiful place to hold a wedding? Everything about the location was perfect, we loved every second we were there capturing everything on video for them!
While I was cruising around town with Darci as we were going from getting her hair done to getting her make-up done, we realized how small this world really is! Darci came to us after a co-worker of hers recommended us as we captured their wedding last year. Darci booked us after talking on the phone with me so we never met in person until this past Monday when we met to talk about the details of the wedding day. So prior to this conversation, our only connection was her co-worker. Well that didn't last for long! As we continued to talk in car going to get her make-up done, we soon realized that Darci's cousin was my softball coach when I was 10, back in NW Iowa! No kidding!! Small world!

Let's get back to the wedding...it was the perfect setting under a tree outside of Sticks with all of their closest family and friends there to celebrate with them. It was simple, perfect and beautiful! To give you a little idea of how simple and laid back it was, they walked down the aisle as husband and wife to Bob Marley's, "Three Little Birds"....loved it!! If that didn't set the mood for the evening I don't know what could!
Darci and Ben, we loved being a part of your day! You and your wedding party were a blast...I could not stop laughing! We are so excited to get your video to you! We'll be in touch soon!
"Don't worry about a thing. Because every little thing is gonna be alright!"

Monday, June 9, 2008

Lakefront property!

That's right Mr. Assessor, come on over and show me how much the value of our house has increased in the last 24 hours! We have lake front property baby! What? The lake has to be permanent, not because of a flood? Shoot!! I guess we missed out on that windfall!

(this is the field looking southeast from our house)
The good news is that we have stayed relatively unaffected by all the water. Even though it is close to us, we are on a big enough hill that we are staying dry and the sump pump has cob webs in it!! Yay!! I HATE cob webs, but if that means the sump is dry I'm a happy girl! :)
I talked to some neighbors up the road today and they said that the floods of 1993 never even made it to our property line, so I hope that stays true for the floods of 2008!

(This is the baseball field to the east of our house. That yellow line is the top of fence to the field!)
This video is a little glimpse at how we spent the evening of our fifth anniversary! I know you are all jealous! :) This video totally does not do the weather justice that we drove through on Saturday night. The rain was hitting so hard that we couldn't even hear the thunder much less hear each other . We hydroplaned once and I thought we were headed straight for the ditch...yikes!!

Sunday, June 8, 2008

{Samantha} 2009 KandE Senior Model


Watch out, the 2009 seniors are coming at cha!! We had our first 2009 KandE Model shoot this weekend, and what a blast we had! When we met Samm, she had on killer white heels and her friend Kelsey with her to be on hair patrol. Actually, I think Kelsey was along for a good time and I just gave her the job of hair patrol...nice of me huh? But check out Samm's gorgeous hair and we were dealing with some major wind...I knew we needed 1 person dedicated to hair alone! :) The wind totally worked to our advantage though, it was like we has a constant studio fan, it was totally rockin! Thanks for your help with hair and the sun blocker Kelsey!

Alright, back to Samm...she's a totally awesome tennis player and cross country runner and when she's not in tennis season she's still practicing at the indoor court! Talk about dedication! We went to the tennis court to get some shots and had Eric toss her the tennis balls to hit back at us. Her dad warned us she had a mean return and would tip the camera over if she hit it. No problem we said, bring it on! And she TOTALLY brought it! I was the perfect target in the middle of court and she hit the bull's-eye on my arm! Thanks for taking it easy on me, I know you weren't hitting with all you had (lucky me!) :) It was a lot of fun though, we love these kind of sessions!

Thank you Samm for being up for everything we suggested! You are awesome, fun and beautiful and we wish you all the best as you begin your senior year!

Friday, June 6, 2008

We made it!


We finally made it to the sign! Everytime we are out there we always say we want to get there but always find ourself too tired to get there. Not this time!! We chose the worst day as it was SO windy...and you know what wind in the desert means right? dust storms!! I don't think that my eyes and nose will ever be the same again, but at least we can say that we made it there and we have a self portrait to prove it!
It's a miracle we even got a decent shot as this is an out take and what most of them look like! Check out that hair!! I told you it was windy!


Another self portrait in the limo as we cruised up the strip...


"This is Vegas...Vegas works for tips" is what Vegas' dad told us as he practically shoved this nasty thing in Eric's hands...glad he chose Eric and not me!! I was happy to take the picture!


Eric captured this of me on the night we took the big cameras out to play. :)

We stuck with the little point and shoot for our little self portrait game...we couldn't quite bring ourselves to carry the heavy ones all day everyday!

And just because I love the dancing water in the Conservatory of the Bellagio, I had to share it with you! I can't wrap my mind around how it works, but it looks so cool!

"The Rock" sighting...

We noticed on Monday night that there seemed to be a lot of activity around our hotel, they were running a lot of power cords and bringing in large moving crates among other things. When we went down to the casino level on Tuesday we were greeting by this sign:


After investigating a bit more, (because if you know me, I couldn't just ignore something like this, I had to check it out!) we realized it was "The Rock" who was the actor! We continued to gawk from above and were amazed at how much time it took to do a little 30 clip of the movie. There seemed to be ALOT of downtime between takes. I couldn't imagine being one of the extras or one of the actors in the a heavy costume!

Here are some short clips of what we saw...(The Rock is in the brown leather coat)





Apparently this movie is a take off of the the Disney show from years ago. I was not familiar with the Witch Mountain series, I'm curious, were any of you?

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Vegas v3.0

v1.0 2003 - Honeymoon in Vegas
v2.0 2004 - First anniversary in Vegas
v3.0 2008 - Five year anniversary in Vegas

We love the place and we're not even gamblers! We just love everything else about it. I can't even begin to count the number of miles we walk each day, but we have a blast each time we're there!

This trip was very interesting to say the least. The good news is that we FINALLY learned from our past mistakes there!! One of them being wearing flip flops to walk all those miles....for Vegas v3.0 we wore tennis shoes and Keens everyday!! No more flip flops! Is this a sign of age???? Yikes!

Here's a few quick highlights of the trip and I will follow-up with pictures in later posts.
*Stomp Out Loud
*watching "The Rock" as he was filming his new movie "Road to Witch Mountain" for 3 days at Planet Hollywood
*limo ride up the strip....less walking (our feet and legs were shot by that time!)
*finally making it to the "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign
*no flip flops! (oh wait did I already mention that?)
*staying at Planet Hollywood...totally rockin' new hotel on the strip...you gotta stay there!!
*relaxing!! We even took a day to sit at the pool...something we had never done before!
*self-portrait tour! We had many people ask us if they wanted them to take our picture...nope, we were on a self-portrait tour baby! Fun times!