A Tiny Step and A Giant Leap

I've always thought that June is such an exciting month.

Between graduations, birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, Father's Day, beach trips, bonfires, market nights, volleyball games,... it's a busy, busy month. It's kind of like an explosion into summer.

This year is no exception.

 While I've only actually attended a couple of graduation ceremonies thus far, there's actually a whole slew of young folks graduating from both high school and college - young folks I watched growing up. Young folks I used to babysit when I was a teenager myself (this, dear reader, is me having a little "Oh, I feel so old!" pity party. Meh).

Anyhow, Sarah is one such. While I didn't babysit her and I never bounced her on my knee as a baby, I have watcher her grow from a nervous 13 year-old, attending the Riverside Youth Conference for the very first time, into this cool, collected, confident young lady you see today.

It's awesome to see how God has been working in her life, and I can't wait to see what He has in store for her future.

Congratulations Sarah! 

P.S. The "tiny step"... mine. For managing to post for the first time in moooonnnths. Ack!

The Davis Girls

Confession: I've been sitting on this post for MONTHS. I've had it all loaded up and ready to go; all that was needed was to write some sort of fabulous blurb. Easy, right? And yet, I didn't. For Months. 3 to be exact. Almost 4.

How crazy is that? To make matters worse, I'm not really sure what the explanation is, other than that, well, I just sort of fell into a motivational black hole - which is of course suuuuper lame. I promise to try and do better. Just please... pretend you can't tell that all of my fingers and toes are crossed ;)

Aaaaanyhow... without further ado, I present to you: The Davis Girls! Aren't they lovely? I've known these ladies for ages now and they're all pretty awesome, if I may say so. Especially Kellie (but, well, she's a really good friend and I'm totally biased).

It was great to spend an afternoon with everyone at the park (Red Hill, to be exact) and to catch up with the whole family, who I don't get to see very often outside of facebook.

The First Look...

This past weekend, my friends Steve & Melissa got married!

If you remember, back in April, I shot their engagement photos (my first ones EVER!).  At that point, it seemed like ages till their actual wedding date!  (A long, grueling 9 month wait!).

Their big day finally came and I was happy to be on hand to document it all. Here's a first little glimpse of what went down. As you can see, Melissa made a stunning bride, and Steve... well, he was sufficiently stunned :)

Congratulations again, Mr. & Mrs Gabriel*, and thank you for letting me be a part of your special day! :)
I can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for you guys next!

___________________________________________________________________________________
*Yeah... not gonna lie. It's a bit weird calling you guys that.  Mr. & Mrs. Gabriel are Steve's parents!
** I can't post this without mentioning it.... take a look folks!  NO MORE ORANGE CARPET!!!!
(If you've visited Sovereign Grace Baptist Church in Ontario at all in the past 35 years, you know how exciting that is!)

Super Heroes & Bubbles

Once again, I find myself wondering just where the time has gone.

Thankfully, for once I'm not talking about the eons that pass between my usual blogposts -- I'm just talking about time in general.

For example, I can't believe that a year has gone by since this session with Richie, Allison, Jackson, and Ella, but here we are again, a whole year older and so very grown up :)

Last year, we set out for Oak Glenn, but weather forced us to stay a bit closer to home than we intended. This year, however, we had a perfectly sunny morning in late fall and ample time to explore the newly restored firehouse in Upland. 





Jackson, aka Jackson Boy! - giving me his best super hero pose:

Why Hello There, 2012!

So, 2012 snuck up on me.

Here I am, in the middle of the second week of a brand new year, trying to figure out just where the last four months went. I seriously have no idea.

Thankfully, I have ample proof of my whirlwindish adventures behind the lens.

Starting with....

The Elliotts!

Back in October, I had a ball with my friends, James & Michelle, their rambunctious little mob of adorable blond babies, and James' parents and sister - who were visiting from Australia. We spent an afternoon wandering around Down Town Riverside near the old YMCA building, taking pictures.

These are some of my favorite shots of the day :)

Something New...

I think I've said before that I'm really not so very experienced with formal portrait photography and that, as a result, I'm not altogether comfortable with it.

With that in mind, you can imagine how very anxious I was when my friends Sargon & Benyta asked about doing a session of maternity photos.

Nonetheless, we gave it a go.

And just in time too... their little prince, Maroeil was born a week and a half later!

(As a result of his arrival, mom and dad have yet to see any of these pictures. This is like a world premier. Oooooooh. Fancy.)

(Ok. Maybe more like a sneak peek. Either way, you get the gist.)

A Little Asside....

You know.... I'm not sure I ever made this public before.

But if you're interested, this is where all my photos used to go to live.

(Actually... I kinda completely forgot it exists. Does anyone else have that trouble? There are just too many little nooks and crannies involved with this whole internet thing and after a decade and a half of using it, I've started forgetting where I've stowed all the old stuff. Bleh.)