Colorado Children and Wedding Photographer

It’s my husband’s 29th Birthday today, so I wanted to give him a shout out because he is one of my loyal blog readers.  He is also the most amazing, loving, generous, caring man I have ever met and I’m so blessed to be called his wife!

This past Saturday he went on an all day shopping furniture marathon with me and by Sunday he had all of our furniture pieced together and set up!!  He is incredible:)  I’m currently using the desk he assembled…it took a half an hour just to haul all of the pieces up from the garage, so you can imagine how long it took to put together.   I’m not very good at working with my hands, but he loves puzzles. So he worked on the desk while I talked on the phone to one of my closest friends, Bre whom had her baby last Friday.  CONGRATS Bre & Scott!!!

We are on our way out to celebrate his B-day at the Hibachi near our home in Broomfield, CO but I leave you with this picture from last week when we  were skiing on Lake  Boyd with my family.  It is really funny…note the water bottle reads “Change of Scenery”.  It certainly is a change of scenery with the beautiful view of the rocky mountains and the never ending sunshine!!  Whooo-hoo I love Colorado.  I hope to have some pics up of our new pad soon.  Things are coming together, but I’m just starting on the decorating phase so it may take some time.

Happy Birthday Baby!  I love you:)

xoxoxox

I’ve been blog tagged by my good friend Kimberly Reed and now I have to tell you 8 things about myself that you might not have otherwise known. So here it goes…

1. While on holiday in Croatia after a night of dancing I swam two miles roundtrip in the Adriatic Sea to Lopud Island. My house mates bet me a weeks worth of rent that I wouldn’t swim there. Not only did I do it, but when I got to the island (around 7:30 a.m.) I pulled myself up onto one of the jagged boulders only to fall back in the water splitting open my big toe, which began to bleed. In one of my not so smart moves, I swam back to the shore instead of walking around the island to catch the first ferry. Needless to say..they wanted to kill me, but ended up covering my housing cost while on vacation! This is by far the craziest thing I’ve ever done.

2 . My absolute favorite color is ORANGE! I’m obsessed.

3. I started my photography career at an early age. I was 3 and won a poloroid camera for posing as a belly dancer feeding an apple to a camel named Clyde during the Pittsburgh Ragata. Here is the winning photograph.  Wasn’t I cute?

4. Note the band-aid on my forehead in the image above. Prior to this photo being taken I had gotten stiches from attempting to climb up on the roof of my stepdad’s Bronco. I was following in the footsteps of my 3 brothers. However, they returned safely into the bed of the truck before my stepdad took off sending me flipping off the back and landing on my head.

5. I’ve always wanted to live in Colorado since I was 18 and came out here with my best friend, Bre to visit my brother Ryan in Boulder. On the course of the trip I lost my brother’s address and we ended up staying the night at the bus driver’s house. I can still remember his name, good ole’ Fred Palombi. My brother was at a cycling race in New Mexico and wouldn’t be returning until the next day, so there was no way to get a hold of him. My Dad thought we stayed at the Motel 6….;)

6. My husband and I just bought our first home in Colorado last month!

7. During our run to the lake this week we almost stepped on a rattlesnake bathing in the sun! We got close enough to see his tail rattle…yikes!

8. I used to be a raver in high school, but never did drugs. I just wore very baggy pants….they were so big that you could fit two of me in them!

Ok here are the five people I’m blog tagging…

Wade Kaple

Danille Gillete

Michelle

Ma5en

Scott Hodge

On a side note, I’m back from our move across country and officially set up in my new office, which I adore! So if you need to get a hold of me, just shoot me an email or give me a ring. I’ll be editing photographs this week and hope to have the Rutkoski wedding from August 4th up by the end of next week!

I’m going to apologize in advance for my delayed blog posting.  We are in the middle of packing all of our earthly possessions into boxes in an effort to move across country to sunny Colorado this Monday.  There are boxes, a bizzilion photographs, photo equipment and computers galore cluttering our home right now, but I’m pretty confident we’ll have it all packed before the movers come on Sunday!   It is amazing how much stuff we accumulate over the years.  In the mean time I’ve shot two incredible weddings over the past two weekends and I hope to have some images up by next week sometime. So if your waiting to see some shots from your day please be patient.  I’ll email you as soon as I have some up!

If your sick of watching summer time programing, I highly recommend Arrested Development on DVD.  I never watched it while it was on, but a friend turned me on to it and I’ve been anxiously awaiting for the mailman to deliver my Netflix ever since.  I’m sad to say that we finished the third season last night, sniff, sniff:(  No more Buster.  Just a warning though, it’s very addictive.

Below is an image my husband took at the wedding on the 4th in the Northside.  I think it’s pretty sweet!  To link to his blog click here.  He’s always finding really rad things to blog about.  You’ll have to check it out for yourself.    Plus, he is a great second shooter.  Ok, now back to packing.

P.S. I’ll be out of the office tomorrow and will be returning emails and phone calls when  I return on Friday.

Each year my dad picks out a hand blown glass ornament from Silver Lake glass studio to give us at Christmas time. Yesterday it was really hot, sticky and humid, just like Christmas time right? Well not exactly, however my dad has an open pool policy, so we decided to take him up on the offer and after frolicking in the water we walked over to his neighbor, Ray’s glass studio to pick out our ornament.

He makes incredibly beautiful work and I always look forward to getting a gift of one of his many breathtaking pieces. While we were there we also got to check out his wife, Elizabeth’s unique fused jewelry collection. She makes a lot of her pendants from Ray’s broken glass pieces.

After checking out her website, I found out that she also makes wedding favors! So if you want a handmade gift that your guests are sure to remember then you should definitely give her a call. She can even match your wedding colors! These two make a great team! Upon our departure from Silver Lake we headed up the hill to Young’s custard stand…they have the best chocolate ice cream ever!

This summer is flying by and I’m trying to, a midst shooting weddings every weekend, take some time out for a little R & R. We’ll be moving in 2 weeks from today so my days have been busy trying to get things in boxes, coordinating our flight schedules, editing photographs and taking my Siamese cat, Joey to the vet for his health certificate. I guess he had to get one so that he could fly with us. I’ve been practicing putting him in his little kennel each day, but I haven’t figured out how to make him feel as though he’s flying just yet;) I’ve really enjoyed this past week, as I’ve been squeezing in every last minute with friends and family. Last Sunday night we met up with some friends for couples night and went to Tram’s for Vietnamese food (I highly recommend it if you live in Pittsburgh), then Tuesday night I headed over to my best friend’s house to shoot her maternity session and she made a killer meal on the grill, Wednesday was girl’s day at the sewickley spa, Thursday my husband took the day off and we headed to the river to do a little boating. My family had a farewell party for us and everyone made it out, see the photo’s below. Friday we met up for couple’s night again and saw Bourne Ultimatum at the Southside works and dined at the new tapas bar “Tuscus”…the Sangria there is yummy. Saturday we shot an awesome wedding at Phipps and afterwards headed over to my girl, Sarah’s killer new pad for a bonfire. Whewww. Hopefully the photos will testify to the fun I’ve been having!

Here is me on a raft with my cousin Jake. I love playing this game of rocking back an forth, it’s a great ab work out too.

Then again with my cousin Zack.

Here is my uncle Ken, Wade and I watching my cousin Jake tube. During the course of the day I tubed, went skiing and knee boarding….I love boating! Thanks Aunt Dianne for taking these great shots!

Chillen after a hard day’s work. Morgan made me a sweet smore…marshmallows are my favorite!

Another fun game…I’m not sure what you call it, but I call it the hands game. Sure to make you laugh every time. Thanks Sarah for having us over and taking these rad shots with your new camera! Every time I look at the second one it makes me laugh:)

Last Saturday’s wedding was nothing short of fantastic. Nate is certainly a lucky man, as Sarah (although we’ve only spent a limited amount of time together) is certainly the Proverbs 31 women that her sister spoke of during her toast. I arrived at the church early to find Sarah, eagerly helping everyone prepare for the big day. Even though it was “her” day, her servant attitude shined through as she fastened her bridesmaids dresses and dressed the two year old ring bearer. The reception took place at Lingrow Farms, the ideal place for such an event! They had a very chic reception of appetizers and desserts. They made the appetizers with the help of family and friends…600 shishkebobs later:) A special thanks to Brent who second shot with me. Check out the sweet shot of the bridal party jumping below. Brent snapped that from above, as you can see my feet at the top of the image. Here are some things that caught my eye during the day. Check out the slideshow here!

The image on the R is Nate’s expression upon seeing his precious bride for the very first time!

I commend them for their commitment to purity, as this (L image) was their very fist kiss! They wanted to practice kissing prior to exchanging their nuptials so that it wouldn’t be too awkward….based upon their expressions in the following image I think they enjoyed it;)

We did the formals ahead of time, which allowed us to get cool images like this one with the reflection.

Can we say “GQ”…oh ya(L)! Brent took this (R) cool hands shot too!

This (L)set up was Nate’s idea. He is a graphic designer and had some great ideas for pictures. I especially enjoyed the level of detail that Nate & Sarah put into their day to make everything picture perfect, from the personalized water bottles to the homemade preserves(R).

They had their guests throw lavender at them upon their departure. It smelled beautiful!

I love this (R) picture because you can see how proud Sarah is to have such a man of integrity. They are rare these days…I know because I married one too:) Also, check out the facial expression on the flower girl…it’s priceless!

Nate and Sarah thanks for allowing me to be a part of your wedding day, I was truly blessed! May you be stronger and more effective together than you are apart! Hope your having fun in Southern California on your honeymoon!