December 20, 2017
Wedding season kicked off on an amazing foot! Cat and Ben had an intimate wedding with only their immediate families at the Brown Bottle in Waterloo. On St. Patrick’s Day! Their wedding was later featured on The Babetown Collective (and this photo actually placed in Click Magazine’s “Voice Competition” in the Love and Connection category!) Such a RAD start to the year!
In April, I loaded up the car and made the 12 hour trip to CO with my kiddos (poor husband had to work) and was able to spend some quality time with my family. My Dad celebrated his 59th birthday, and my sister was able to orchestrate a meet up with some of his BFF’s from his Navy days. His friends drove in from states away; it was the best!
We spent a few days up in Fort Morgan with my sister and her husband at their new house, which the kids LOVED.
Also early in the spring: I found out this photo of my friend Beth and her family placed in the Top 100 in the Shoot & Share contest! Beth is such an incredible friend to me (a photographer, too!) and her family is the sweetest, so it was a pretty big deal to me that it made it so far!
In May I did something I always wanted to do! I rented dresses from Anna Triante Couture and set up a styled shoot for my daughters! It actually went kind of horribly (it was chilly and my youngest girl skipped her nap – she was over it before it began, really). Luckily for us, the Blackhawk hotel was super kind and let us hang out/warm up in between takes. And the fact that my oldest rocked her dress with her dinosaur mask made my life complete.
Being a wedding photographer often time means sacrificing Saturdays with your family. So when you have a weekend off, you make it count! We had a great time cruising down the Cedar River with my husband’s fam! We hadn’t kayaked (or in our case canoed) since visiting Palau in 2007! So this was a super fun treat 🙂
We battled hand, foot & mouth disease for over two weeks in June! It was the WORST. Thankfully, this was one virus he got that was unaccompanied by any seizures (which we will glady take!)
In July, I packed the Higglets up and headed to CO for a second time. This time we got to meet my sister’s new little squish! Being there for her birth was the best experience, ever.
In September I had the honor of witnessing my friends Emily & Tiffani get married in an after-dark ceremony out at Hickory Hills. It was a first for me, shooting after the sun was down with zero ambient light. I loved the challenge (and everything about their day)! You can see their blog post here.
After hurricane Irma made us cancel our Disney vacation in September, we took off for the Wisconsin Dells. We had the time off, figured we might as well try to use it! It was a great time – until our youngest landed in the ER for a broken leg. September wasn’t our luckiest month – BUT – he was in and out of his cast in two weeks, which was pretty impressive!
In October we were super blessed with another wonderful niece! We love the heck out of both of them!
We ended up taking the kids to Disneyworld the week of Christmas. Was it packed? Yup. Would we do it again? Haha, honestly, probably not. But we had a total blast! Our favorite restaruants were Cinderella’s Castle, Akershus (Epcot), and Trattoria al forno (Disney’s Boardwalk). I can’t speak for everyone, but *my* favorite ride was the new Flight of Passage. Thankfully we had a fast pass for it, because the wait time was 4 hours, first thing after the morning rope-drop… whoa.
Twenty+ weddings, two new nieces, two trips home, two kids now in school.
I’m SO grateful to friends and family that have pushed me to try and be my best self, as well as my clients who have trusted in me to capture and deliver their precious memories! I can’t count on my fingers how many times I’ve stopped and asked myself if this was even real life. I’m so happy and fortunate to get to continue doing something I love so much and I look forward to 2018! If you’ve read this far, thank you! – and I wish you nothing but love and happiness in 2018.
Be on the lookout for my favorite wedding photos of 2017 post coming in January!
This is so cool, I needs to start doing this!! It’s so neat to see a full year’s highlights! 🙂