Friday, June 27, 2008

Off to see the Wizard...

Not really.. but my hubby and I are going to Rancho Mirage today to lead worship for a marriage retreat and to hang out with friends and relax! It should be super fun, but I wanted to let you know that if you leave me an email, it won't get returned until Monday. Ok!! :)

Not wanting to leave you without a picture or two.. I just had to also share what we did for Father's Day. My husband is a pretty easy going guy when it comes to holidays, in that... he doesn't care if we celebrate them or not. I, however, am a huge holiday fan, and can't let one go by without some remembrance.

So this year, while Daddy was at church, we created a hallway of.. well this is where Todd and I argued.. I wanted to call it a hallway of blessing, but he thought that was lame, and wanted to call it a hallway of awesomeness. So you get to choose which hallway name you prefer, and we will move on from there. :) It was basically a bunch of notes that we decorated and hung up for him to read as he walked down the hallway.. and interactive Father's Day card, if you will. And we also made him his favorite dinner... meat! Yep, he's a man. :)
fd1

fd2


He is a great Daddy, and we just love him.

toddnkids1

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

The Schwartz Family...

So, I had the pleasure of meeting a sweet family last week. Sherri got my name from the wonderful Dan Watkins, and booked a beach photo session. She lives in Missouri, but was out here on vacation.

Sherri and her boys were one of the easiest family's I have worked with. The boys sat and posed themselves.. I didn't have to tell them to change a thing. They made my job soooo easy. Thanks guys!! Here are a few of my favorites from the day.

Great to meet you guys!!

schwartz042
schwartz033
schwartz031
schwartz025
schwartz017schwartz010

Saturday, June 14, 2008

The staff huddle I have been longing for....

So my husband works at a great church and though there are many reasons why it is a great church, I am only sharing one with you tonight.

Since Journey has been around, Mike Burns, the senior pastor, has taken the current staff for a mini retreat somewhere in the desert. He does this to build the team, provide a rest for the staff, and communicate where the church is headed. In all the churches that Todd and I have worked at.. Journey is the only one that does this. It was sooo needed. I took my camera, but was having such a great time relaxing that I didn't get it out much.

I did happen to capture a few pics from our last night there. Mike took all 40+ of us to Kobe, a Japanese steak house ala Bennyhana's...meaning, the crazy chef cooks your food at the table and does fancy tricks and such. I am all about the experience and had way too much fun. :)


Here is the chef pouring a lovely ginger sauce into our little bowls.. I just liked the way everything was lined up.

huddle1


Here is our teaching pastor and wife, Ed and Linda looking in awe at a fancy fire trick.... Oooooooo....

huddle2

We were all sitting in groups of 6, and we kept hearing the occasional sad "aww.. man" coming from the other tables. One of the tricks the chef does is to pop a piece of shrimp into the customers mouth with his spatula. I am proud to say that all of our guys caught them.. There were no aww...man's at our table! And seeing as how you probably get out much more that I do, you probably already knew all this.. but I didn't... Let the simple girl live a little!! :)

Here are Rod and Jason looking lovely! And for the record, my man also was on the top of his game.. but he was too close for me to photograph...

huddle4

huddle5

A close up fancy fire trick... I am easily impressed. Oooooooo.. oh wait, I already said that.

huddle3

Tara took a snap of Todd and I, and seeing as my husband doesn't like his picture taken, I am always happy when we get something... anything... even grainy, dark, ones like this. I am rocking my glasses, after trying very hard to be super cool all day with my Hollywood shades...but my contacts were starting to glue themselves to my eyeballs, so out they went. I am sure the 108 degree weather didn't help....

toddnsarah

Thanks so much Mike. You don't even know how much we love being back in the family!! :)

And for all you couples whom I photographed as we were waiting, send me your email in a comment, and I will forward your picture to you.

And.. if you work at a church that doesn't take yearly retreats as a staff... get on it!!

Friday, June 06, 2008

Random thought time....

I am woefully behind on posting. I have a few sessions to get up, but the end of May and the entirety of June is turning out to be extremely busy. So, I thought I would kick off the weekend with a Random Thought posts... I know how you all love those!!

-We finally got a kitty. My man has wanted one for a very long time, and 2 weeks ago he picked up a fluffy, gray tiger striped beast.. I mean kitten. It took us a while to name him and we settled on Buster, realizing later as we were watching the second season of Arrested Development that we had named our kitten after the crazy brother. Such is life in our house. And the name fits as our kitten/beast/predator of walking feet is completely pyscho!!


Here is the beast! He is ferocious.

buster1

-Last week I fell as I was doing something very dangerous... walking... yep. Don't try that at home. I actually slipped on Buster's food plate and my arm caught the corner of the stove. Nothing hurt at the time, but now I am sore all over.. and it's been a week... I probably should have gone to see a chiropracter!!

-School is out for us, and without the structure of homeschool... and by structure I mean in the most free-spirited, relaxed way... my kids are already claiming boredom. My new favorite phrase to them is... "Wow...I think you forgot about being grateful for all the wonderful things you have... and if complaining continues, said wonderful things will be taken away." So far... it works. But I am going to be really stuck if I actually have to take away wonderful things because then they will be realllllly bored. I love it when my discipline backs me into a corner. That is some good parenting.

I should write a book.... ;)

-I am getting partial highlights today... just thought you would want to know. It has been years since I have had my hair professionally colored... and I don't mean that it hasn't been colored. Oh yes, it has been lots of different shades of brown. There was the lovely shade of Olive Green Brown when I went too ashy with the color. The was the Burnt Orange Brown when I tried to color over a bad highlight job that I gave to myself. :) So now, I am trusting my hair to Emily Benitez who does a fabulous job!! And maybe if you are lucky.. I will post some pictures.


Here's a random pic of my kiddos. If you have seen my hallway canvas, you know I have a great shot of the 2 of them.. but that was 2 years ago. I am constantly trying to get another shot of them for another canvas.. and have yet to attain that shot. I will prevail one of these days...

toddnhannahmay1

Friday, June 27, 2008

Off to see the Wizard...

Not really.. but my hubby and I are going to Rancho Mirage today to lead worship for a marriage retreat and to hang out with friends and relax! It should be super fun, but I wanted to let you know that if you leave me an email, it won't get returned until Monday. Ok!! :)

Not wanting to leave you without a picture or two.. I just had to also share what we did for Father's Day. My husband is a pretty easy going guy when it comes to holidays, in that... he doesn't care if we celebrate them or not. I, however, am a huge holiday fan, and can't let one go by without some remembrance.

So this year, while Daddy was at church, we created a hallway of.. well this is where Todd and I argued.. I wanted to call it a hallway of blessing, but he thought that was lame, and wanted to call it a hallway of awesomeness. So you get to choose which hallway name you prefer, and we will move on from there. :) It was basically a bunch of notes that we decorated and hung up for him to read as he walked down the hallway.. and interactive Father's Day card, if you will. And we also made him his favorite dinner... meat! Yep, he's a man. :)
fd1

fd2


He is a great Daddy, and we just love him.

toddnkids1

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

The Schwartz Family...

So, I had the pleasure of meeting a sweet family last week. Sherri got my name from the wonderful Dan Watkins, and booked a beach photo session. She lives in Missouri, but was out here on vacation.

Sherri and her boys were one of the easiest family's I have worked with. The boys sat and posed themselves.. I didn't have to tell them to change a thing. They made my job soooo easy. Thanks guys!! Here are a few of my favorites from the day.

Great to meet you guys!!

schwartz042
schwartz033
schwartz031
schwartz025
schwartz017schwartz010

Saturday, June 14, 2008

The staff huddle I have been longing for....

So my husband works at a great church and though there are many reasons why it is a great church, I am only sharing one with you tonight.

Since Journey has been around, Mike Burns, the senior pastor, has taken the current staff for a mini retreat somewhere in the desert. He does this to build the team, provide a rest for the staff, and communicate where the church is headed. In all the churches that Todd and I have worked at.. Journey is the only one that does this. It was sooo needed. I took my camera, but was having such a great time relaxing that I didn't get it out much.

I did happen to capture a few pics from our last night there. Mike took all 40+ of us to Kobe, a Japanese steak house ala Bennyhana's...meaning, the crazy chef cooks your food at the table and does fancy tricks and such. I am all about the experience and had way too much fun. :)


Here is the chef pouring a lovely ginger sauce into our little bowls.. I just liked the way everything was lined up.

huddle1


Here is our teaching pastor and wife, Ed and Linda looking in awe at a fancy fire trick.... Oooooooo....

huddle2

We were all sitting in groups of 6, and we kept hearing the occasional sad "aww.. man" coming from the other tables. One of the tricks the chef does is to pop a piece of shrimp into the customers mouth with his spatula. I am proud to say that all of our guys caught them.. There were no aww...man's at our table! And seeing as how you probably get out much more that I do, you probably already knew all this.. but I didn't... Let the simple girl live a little!! :)

Here are Rod and Jason looking lovely! And for the record, my man also was on the top of his game.. but he was too close for me to photograph...

huddle4

huddle5

A close up fancy fire trick... I am easily impressed. Oooooooo.. oh wait, I already said that.

huddle3

Tara took a snap of Todd and I, and seeing as my husband doesn't like his picture taken, I am always happy when we get something... anything... even grainy, dark, ones like this. I am rocking my glasses, after trying very hard to be super cool all day with my Hollywood shades...but my contacts were starting to glue themselves to my eyeballs, so out they went. I am sure the 108 degree weather didn't help....

toddnsarah

Thanks so much Mike. You don't even know how much we love being back in the family!! :)

And for all you couples whom I photographed as we were waiting, send me your email in a comment, and I will forward your picture to you.

And.. if you work at a church that doesn't take yearly retreats as a staff... get on it!!

Friday, June 06, 2008

Random thought time....

I am woefully behind on posting. I have a few sessions to get up, but the end of May and the entirety of June is turning out to be extremely busy. So, I thought I would kick off the weekend with a Random Thought posts... I know how you all love those!!

-We finally got a kitty. My man has wanted one for a very long time, and 2 weeks ago he picked up a fluffy, gray tiger striped beast.. I mean kitten. It took us a while to name him and we settled on Buster, realizing later as we were watching the second season of Arrested Development that we had named our kitten after the crazy brother. Such is life in our house. And the name fits as our kitten/beast/predator of walking feet is completely pyscho!!


Here is the beast! He is ferocious.

buster1

-Last week I fell as I was doing something very dangerous... walking... yep. Don't try that at home. I actually slipped on Buster's food plate and my arm caught the corner of the stove. Nothing hurt at the time, but now I am sore all over.. and it's been a week... I probably should have gone to see a chiropracter!!

-School is out for us, and without the structure of homeschool... and by structure I mean in the most free-spirited, relaxed way... my kids are already claiming boredom. My new favorite phrase to them is... "Wow...I think you forgot about being grateful for all the wonderful things you have... and if complaining continues, said wonderful things will be taken away." So far... it works. But I am going to be really stuck if I actually have to take away wonderful things because then they will be realllllly bored. I love it when my discipline backs me into a corner. That is some good parenting.

I should write a book.... ;)

-I am getting partial highlights today... just thought you would want to know. It has been years since I have had my hair professionally colored... and I don't mean that it hasn't been colored. Oh yes, it has been lots of different shades of brown. There was the lovely shade of Olive Green Brown when I went too ashy with the color. The was the Burnt Orange Brown when I tried to color over a bad highlight job that I gave to myself. :) So now, I am trusting my hair to Emily Benitez who does a fabulous job!! And maybe if you are lucky.. I will post some pictures.


Here's a random pic of my kiddos. If you have seen my hallway canvas, you know I have a great shot of the 2 of them.. but that was 2 years ago. I am constantly trying to get another shot of them for another canvas.. and have yet to attain that shot. I will prevail one of these days...

toddnhannahmay1
 

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