We’re heading out in the morning for a little quality time with Sarah’s family in the Richmond area.  Then I’m off to spend the night at my brother’s house Thanksgiving night in Richmond because I fly out to Miami EARLY on Friday morning.  I land at 10:30 on Friday morning in Miami and I’m shooting a wedding at 3:00!  But I get to hang out all day Saturday before flying back to VA that night.  While I’m a little sad to be leaving my family for a bit during Thanksgiving, I am definitely looking forward to this wedding!  I love traveling for weddings and I love exploring new areas.  I’m also anticipating a little time to myself – I kind of like traveling alone.  I’m naturally a quiet kind of guy and it’s nice to have the option to not talk for several hours if I choose to do so!

I should be finishing up the packing, but I would like to take a break…so I thought I’d blog a bit!  Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, so I thought I might reflect for a few moments about several things in my life for which I am thankful.

#1 – my family.  This might seem obvious and borderline corny, but I do think I have one of the coolest families around.  We’ve gone through quite a bit in the past few years and we’ve been running at a break-neck speed ever since I can remember.  But I am incredibly in love with my wife of 8 years, I can’t get enough of my kids, and I’m so excited to meet our new baby in June (Sarah and the girls heard the baby’s heartbeat the other day -very cool!).

#2 – health.  With all the crazy flu stuff spreading around, I’m thankful that our family has stayed healthy so far.  I’m also very thankful that our youngest daughter no longer battles eczema.  The past two years have been especially stressful for us because our youngest daughter developed severe eczema that covered a good majority of her body.  We struggled daily with her as she would scratch endlessly, cry, and ask to be held.  We experimented with every imaginable remedy to free her from her constant discomfort, but ever since we moved to Charlottesville, her eczema has cleared up 95% of the way and our lives have become dramatically less stressful and she feels amazingly better!  We’re just chalking it up to a huge answer to prayer!

#3 – Charlottesville.  I know.  I’ll never hear the end of this one.  A Hokie (Virginia Tech graduate) should never say these words, but I am thankful for Charlottesville.  It is a beautiful town with lots of great people and fun things to do.  Yes, I have had to teach myself to ignore all of those UVA signs, banners, shirts, and bumper stickers, but it’s quite easy to do.  I’m so thankful we made the move here for many reasons.

#4 – Business.  God has truly blessed us with an incredible amount of work since we moved here.  Since we moved here in August, we’ve shot 4 weddings and 3 portrait sessions.  We’ve got 4 more weddings booked for the coming months as well as several portrait sessions.  That’s not too bad considering we’ve hardly spent any money on advertising and we moved to a whole new state!  Sarah has also been getting lots of Doula clients (www.onegentlebeginning.com) and she’s already in the middle of teaching her second childbirth class.  I’m so thrilled for her to be able to use her passions and education to help couples as they prepare to have kids.  She is so gifted at what she does and she always gets glowing reviews from her clients (and their doctors!).

There’s so much more to say, but I should get back to packing so I’m not up all night…I’ve got a few busy days ahead of me!  And of course, no blog post is complete without a picture!  Here are the girls reaping the benefits of my hard work!

These past few months have been a whirlwind!  I have loved all of the excitement, the weddings, the portraits, the new blog look, the new proofing site, the new imac, the new lighting setup for receptions, the new gear, meeting with new clients, etc, but I must admit I am glad November is here!

I’m looking forward to slowing down a bit.  I’m looking forward to unpacking all of the crazy thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head!  I’m looking forward to setting goals for a new year.  I’m looking forward to playing more with the kids.  I’m looking forward to dreaming about our new little baby due next year!  I’m looking forward to coffee dates with my wife and shopping for Christmas presents for the girls!

Speaking of our girls, they have just become hands-down the cutest, sweetest kids in the world.  I mean, I always knew they were top-notch, but the older they get, the more they amaze me!  Case in point: in the middle of the night for the past few weeks, our youngest daughter Avery has been climbing up in the top bunk with Kyla and sleeping the remainder of the night there!  Tonight, I peeked in on them an hour after they went to bed and I guess she went up there right away – we’ll see how if they can make it the whole night together!

We do have two more exciting weddings this year.  The first wedding is the day after Thanksgiving IN MIAMI!!!  I’m flying to Miami the morning after Thanksgiving and shooting a wedding that night.  Everything I’ve heard about this wedding gets me excited – the people, the music, and especially the part about going to Miami!  I haven’t been there yet and I feel so blessed that this year, photography has given me a chance to fly to both Los Angeles and Miami.  Have I ever mentioned that I love this job?  The last wedding of the year is our first New Year’s Eve wedding in Washington, D.C.!  We got to meet Jill and John a few weeks ago when we were up there for a wedding and they are really cool people.  I just got their schedule tonight and it promises to be a rockin’ party straight past midnight!  Can’t wait…and a huge thanks to Sarah’s mom for volunteering to babysit for us overnight so we can sleep in the next morning!

Anyway, pictures make every blog post better, right?  So here are a few recent pics of the family!  Enjoy!

Kyla’s favorite image from our evening fun of light painting:

A picnic at Carter’s mountain with our friends:

One of my favorite shots of all time:

I’m in the process of updating the overall look of our blog…I pretty much have decided that sleep is for whimps.  In all honesty, the blog is something we’ve been wanting to update for a while.  I was never super crazy about the old layout, but it worked.  The only problem was the pictures had to be tiny!  I searched high and low for a new template that would be text and picture friendly and I found one!  I just need to tweak it a bit to make it our own.  I love wordpress for that.  Sure, I could pay someone a bunch of money to make it all pretty, but I’d rather spend that money on important things like coffee!

We’re looking forward to a quiet weekend at home…something we haven’t had since September!  October was crazy just as we thought it would be, but man was it a fun adventure!  I actually get a few weekends off here in a row which will be nice recoup time before I head to Miami to shoot a wedding on the day after Thanksgiving!  That one is going to be awesome, but so will some great quality time with the fam…which is why I’m not sleeping much.  I love the time I have with them and I’d rather do all this computer stuff when they’re sleeping.  But I am off to bed now because tomorrow promises to be full of tennis, bike rides, and jumping in massive piles of leaves!

Here’s a cool shot from Sam and Tyson’s wedding two weeks ago:

Today is my wife’s 31st birthday! I won’t tell you how old she is because she’d kill me! But I thought I’d take a second today and tell the world how wonderful she really is!

I realized the other day that come this February, we will have been together for 13 years! We’re going on 9 years of marriage and our third child is on the way. I never imagined that my life could ever be so intertwined with another or dependent on another. Sarah is a constant, steady encouragement to me. She inspires me to love more and believe bigger.

Without her constant support, I would have never pursued photography in this way. I always loved taking pictures and I thought I was pretty good with a camera, but I didn’t really believe I could make a living with photography. She has been behind me all the way and now I’m so excited and thankful that she gets to be beside me when we shoot weddings! She has become such a great photographer over the past few years and I couldn’t imagine doing all of this without her.

I could go on and on about what a phenomenal mom she is and how strong she has been through so many trials of parenthood. She is the driving force behind our daughters’ joy, and I can’t wait to meet Davis Baby #3! That kid has no idea what a great mom he/she is getting!

So, if you haven’t done so already, be sure to send Sarah a quick email letting her know how awesome she is! Happy Birthday Sarah!