Hey everyone! Just a quick update…
We are really busy but looking forward to a few things coming up. A visit from Jacky (Mark’s mother) comes out in Oct. from FLA. Looking forward seeing her! Going to learn Pickleball something she loves to do out there! We also traded in our gym memberships and bought bicycles and LOVE our road trips. It keeps us sane and its something we are enjoying cause the gym just wasnt working out for us and it was a financial drain!!!~

Also, we are starting up a book group where we are reading, One Month to Live. It’s a what would you do differently if you knew you only had 30 days left? Should be a very interesting Thursday evening for the next 30 days~

On the business side …
we have alot going on this month…for those who are curious where they are in the que. We are down to 2 weddings left to shoot for this month. 

Update edit:
 
Pearson Wedding- in editing… beginning stages of slideshow process
Featherston Wedding- downloading…in edit stage
Weddings - Featherston 9/13 (D0NE)Ferrari 9/20 (DONE)Ransom 9/27 (DONE)
Albums and products delivered-Egide
Baby Belly & Family Shots-Audra’s-downloading…in edit stage
Albums enroute from Italy- Didier-ARRIVED TODAY! omg SO BEAUTIFUL!!!!
Albums in Italy-Tomchick  Ronan (arrived and gorgeous! Italy did good!!)
Albums in process of approval-Lewis (Approved and ordered)
Album pending approval this week- Fournier
Albums pending for lists-Gregory, Vanderpost
Appointments with new clients 
Appointments with our bride and grooms getting married this month for their last planning meeting-(D0NE)

We have finished our August/September weddings and looking forward to finishing up all the editing and album design in October…we have several slideshows coming within the next couple of weeks and and an engagement session to shoot for one of our 2009 weddings. Since we have no weddings in the month of October we can get to work on the beautiful images we have taken in August and September… we edit in the order of the date we took the images.

Thank you and congratulations to all our brides and soon to be parents!

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Custom Wedding Invitations 
go check it out…

Hope you are all doing well and anticipating a restful/fun week!

~~God Bless~~

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EDIT:

Did anyone catch Oprah today?Are you as upset as I am? Of course you are!!!
 It was about child and baby molesters, rapists and online predators. The drugging, raping and video taping of their escapades and sharing them all over the US and beyond. I know it is not a pleasant topic and I didnt want to watch it but I did. We need to do something this is just wrong! A million times wrong!!! We dont have enough manpower to catch these guys! Not enough cops or money to hunt these predators down.

 Here is a link to a video on her site.

http://www.oprah.com/dated/oprahshow/oprahshow_20080911_predators

 As a mother I am sooooo blown away by this! Please go to her website and find out what we can  all do. You will not believe the amount of child/baby predators that are out there and the lack of help to catch and arrest them. I am sickened, madder than he**, ovewhelmed and stunned beyond belief…why do we not hear these things???? Please check out Senate Bill 1738! Send a letter to your senators now! There are 3 days before they leave their offices for a break. You can do it online at the above link. Dont forget do it now while you have it on your mind. 

Well we are all caught
up on the first half of our weddings this year!! Jim and Marni mark our
end to the summer weddings. What a classy couple they were, too. We
truly enjoyed their laid back casual but formal feel they displayed
through their taste and their personalities. The “reveal” up on the
hill was a wonderful moment and segued nicely into having the formals
right there afterward. We met so many really nice people! We loved
witnessing your wedding and how much you are loved!

I look forward to working on your album! 

Here are a few teasers from the slideshow. To see the full slideshow, scroll to the bottom of the post!

One of the shops we walked by as we looked for a place to eat before the concert. Murphy’s is a cool town…

Okay more coming later but for now here is Matt and Michelle’s beautiful wedding presented in their Graphi Art Book

I am so behind in my blogging! Lots of work is chuning away here but it takes free time to post the work up so it comes in spurts, I know! I wanted to put up a few personal posts to just keep you lovely friends up on whats happening with us…I have 2 more personal ones coming but here is the first of 3. We do have a life…lol…I think!

Recently I took Mark to The Ironstone Winery Ampitheatre in the Gold Country for his birthday. I bought tickets and gave them to him on his birthday which was back in May but the concert wasnt until the othe weekend. It was just the two of us and we so enjoyed just relaxing and not thinking about the business just a pit stop in the busy season to say Hello to each other! lol

Anyway we saw The Steve Miller Band and Joe Cocker. It was awesome! We really enjoyed Joe Cocker. Steve did alot of new stuff and it kind of dragged the momentum of his set. HE really should of started with one of his major hits. But I can imagine artists get tired of being known for their old stuff but hey there were alot of us boomers there who wanted to reminisce! Anyway it was fun. I am posting some of the shots of the first day. And No we didnt break the rules and sneak a camera in so no shots of the bands, sorry. : (

Here is one of our breakfast companions. He came out when I threw him a blueberry. He was totally into it1! Better be it was organic so it was good for him and better for him than some of the junk he probably gets from the balconies of previous visitors. So cute!! You cant believe how many were there it was quite funny to watch them all running here and there looking for the blueberries and the toasted oats I was sharing with them…

Here is Mark getting his shots

Tomorow I will post the othe half of our trip…also we have some albums that I just finished designing and are being prepared in Italy as we speak! Those will be posted up too so be sure to come and check those out!

Hey everyone!! How has your summer been?? 

Sorry we have been so busy that we havent been visitng around. As most of you know it is that time of year when you rarely see you friendly local wedding photographer…lol!

But seriously we realized we needed to get a grip on some things! We got SO busy that our business was taking over our lives. We love what we do but we love and need to have down time, too! So we made some modifications to our business.We set up some business hours (new concept for Mark!) and made some modifications to our wokflow. We set some realistic roll out time schedules… So with a realistic work flow and hiring editing help (our son Brian) we think we  will be able to work and breathe and enjoy life once again! It is not easy to keep work and home schedules from melding together so you have to be intentional!

With that said we are soooooooooo grateful for the work we have and do not begrudge any of it. We just came to a realization recently that we needed to assess and lighten up Mark’s load so he wasnt carrying too much of the load and after tuning 50 this year we want to make sure he doesnt! So we will be giving ourselves an anual check up as a family and as business owners and even individuals!

“Photography to the amateur is recreation.
To the professional it is work, and hard work
too, no matter how pleasurable it may be.”
                                      – Edward Weston

God bless and hope you are all keeping cool and enjoying your summer!