On Sunday, I drove out to the Gilbert, Arizona home of friend and fellow photog, Gretchen (of Gretchen Knoblock Photography). She’s a super cool and a VERY talented wedding and portrait photographer that I met through a class this past year. I actually second shoot with her for Michelle & Drew’s wedding back in October. When we met, Gretchen was pregnant with her second kido – a baby girl.  About four weeks ago she and her hubby Tory welcomed adorable miss Ava into the world :-)  I was so excited when she asked me to come out and do some newborn pics of her new little gal!

I arrived to find Ava all decked out in pink – classic “it’s a girl!” fashion of course! So cute :-) (And of course super mom Gretchen made all the matching letters on the wall.)

Gotta love a sleepy baby . . .

Don’t you love the content little smile on her face?

I call this look “JAZZ HANDS”

The whole family pitched in to get Ava ready for her close up – what a team!

A couple shots of beautiful Mom and Baby

And the shoot wouldn’t be complete without a photo of the whole adorable family: Tory, Kody, Gretchen and Ava

Thanks for the fun afternoon Knoblocks!  It was great to see you guys and to have the chance to meet little miss Ava :-)

On Sunday, I headed out to Phoenix to the home of Penny and Robby. Being the loving “pet parents” that they are, they asked me to come out and do a photo shoot of their two year old English Bulldog, Lola. When Penny first called me, she said that the reason they wanted to have professional photos taken of Lola is that she never seems to STOP MOVING so their photos of her never turn out right! From the moment I arrived, Lola lived up to her reputation. She was FULL of energy – in fact, when I leaned down to say hello she pretty much knocked me over! It was all in good fun though and we did manage to get some good shots despite the constant movement. Here are a few of my favorites:

I quickly discovered Lola’s best feature – her tongue . . .

You can see Robbie’s shoes in the bottom left corner of this next one – doesn’t it look like she’s intentionally sticking her tongue out at him?  I laughed out loud when I saw this one – hilarious!

It may look like she’s sniffing around on the ground, but I think she was actually hiding from me.  Like a little ostrich trapped in a bulldog’s body.

A few more favs:

LOVED this one. Don’t be deceived – she only LOOKS tired :-)

It took a little coaxing, but I did finally get Penny and Robby to be in a couple of shots.  Here’s the happy little family!

Thanks guys!  I really enjoyed meeting all of you.  One last parting shot . . .

This past Sunday marked 10 years to the day that Ryan first asked me to be his girlfriend back in high school.  (That’s right, high school sweethearts – you can all say “awww” now.)  So we’ve officially been a couple for a DECADE.  How crazy is that?  It sounds like a really long time, doesn’t it?  To me it really doesn’t feel like it’s been that long at all!  All the memories of the early days of our relationship still seem so fresh.  Our first real “date” took place on Valentine’s day, 1998.  We hung out at Ryan’s house and watched Air Force One, starring Harrison Ford.  And we held hands . . . how cute are we?

Our “dates” these days have taken on a new and interesting twist – we bring along our cameras!  We started our day together on Sunday with lunch at Dilly’s Deli (a long time favorite of ours), and then we headed out to Tempe Town Lake to take some fun photos.

I decided to play around a little with the sun glare in the background for this one:

Then it was Ryan’s turn.

Then we headed down to Mill Avenue for a little variety:

<

While I was shooting this . . .

Ryan was shooting this . . .

In this business, sometimes you’ve gotta get down and dirty to get the shot!

Probably two of my favorite shots of the day:

Once we ran out of light, I had to resort to window shopping :-)  I totally love this shot that Ryan took of a shoe display in one of the windows!  Can you say “product shot”?

We finished off our night with dinner at Z-tejas (yummy!)  It was a great day!  We don’t have a lot of weekends off to spend together so it was really fun to have the whole day for just the two of us!

And of course, I can’t write a post about our decade anniversary, without at least one blast from the past . . .

This was our first high school prom :-)  Actually, it’s kinda of strange, but I know the exact date this photo was taken – April 25th, 1998. Exactly six years later, on April 25th, 2004, we became man and wife.

It’s been ten years and we’re still just a couple of crazy kids in love!  My prayer for all of you is that you may be as blessed in love as we have been these past ten years :-)