Monday, September 7, 2009

Hillary's Graduation Photo Shoot


My baby sister is a SENIOR! I can hardly believe it! She asked me to do her senior pictures for her so we set out to do so on Sunday. We had planned to shoot them earlier in the summer when we were down the shore, but every time we planned on shooting them, the weather would not cooperate. We picked a park close to home that had a lot of interesting details. Not to mention, I had an amazingly gorgeous subject to shoot. We both had a lot of fun and below are just a few of my favorites (from the several hundred pictures!!!) of the day.













Friday, September 4, 2009

Summer time


Summer has come and gone and I can't believe how fast it went. It was the craziest summer of our lives, as I predicted, but it was so fun! We learned SO MUCH! The business has really taken off and Doug is rocking! I couldn't imagine blogging about the entire summer so I'll just post a few of our highlights and let your imagination fill in the rest. ;)

Weddings: We had several beautiful weddings that we attended this summer. Both were outdoor ceremonies and both had gorgeous days! It was so much fun to connect with old friends.

Vacations: We didn't really do much as far as a summer vacation is concerned, mostly due to the business. My Aunt had a house in Avalon so we went down a few times and hung out with the kids. We did a lot of weekend trips but that's about all. We plan on taking our vacation in December....somewhere warm! :)

Business: When I think about this summer, a few of the CRAZY times pop into my head. Here are just a few of the craziest:
1. Loading over 60 yards of mulch into Doug's truck BY HAND! (Obviously, this was mostly Doug doing the work but watching it being dumped and realizing we had to find clients for all of that mulch was INSANE!)
2. Being able to replace all of our homeowner grade equipment with professional (and much more efficient) equipment. I think we lasted all of 2 weeks with my Mom's mower. haha.
3. Watching Doug lose control of our brand new mower high up on a cliff and slamming into a retaining wall. It was like a clip from the movies where everything is in slow motion. Luckily, the retaining wall saved Doug from falling off of the 15 foot cliff. And, luckily, he was able to fix the retaining wall himself without spending too much money.
4. Having a rock get caught up in the weed whacker and breaking some old guys sliding glass door. Yay for liability insurance!
5. All of the contracts that Doug went out and sold himself, including multiple commercial accounts.

Us: This summer, Doug and I learned the meaning of "feast or famine." Some weeks we felt like we were on top of the world and other weeks we were counting the hours until the next paycheck arrived. Luckily for us, we grow together, rather than pull a part. Doug lost 30 lbs and seems stronger than ever. We came to the realization this summer, that we are not even CLOSE to being ready to have kids yet. There is a list that was created of places that we want to travel to before we start a family. We are also feeling like we are starting to outgrow our little place; however, since we do not have unlimited funds, we are focusing on traveling for the next year and then we'll focus on the house search. There is the possibility of buying my Grandparents house in the next several years so we, of course, have that in the back of our minds. I figure we have the rest of our lives to be tied down to kids and a mortgage so we should try and enjoy our time together and TRAVEL!!! We have a trip to Barbados already scheduled for December (our 2 year anniversary) and we have a trip to San Francisco/Napa Valley in the works for early March. This next year should be a great year of traveling and exploring places I have always wanted to go.