I Do!

Happy Weddingversary!

Honey, it's been the best 7 years of my life, and I wouldn't change a thing. I love you with all of my heart, and I can't wait to marry you again tonight!

We're Going To The Maslin's And We're...Gonna Get Married...

As a wedding photographer I've shared my client's special days with you, but I don't believe I've ever shared the story of my marriage to Hot Husband.

We got married on June 27th, 2001, on the beach in Jamaica. I wore a white bikini, and Hot Husband wore a white shirt and his swimming trunks, lol. (It seemed like a good idea at the time.)(Thank God our photographer shot film and I don't have a scanner, or I'd feel obligated to post a picture, lol.)

Anyway, we'd always planned to renew our vows in front of friends and family, but we lost Hot Husband's parents within 18 months of our wedding, and for a while I don't think we wanted to do it without them there. We also couldn't make any decisions as far as planning went...we never wanted it to be a "big" thing, but I did feel that I wanted to wear a dress this time. That brought up more questions...should Hot Husband wear a tux? Should the boys? Should we have a cake? Where will this all take place? How many people do we invite? Who will take pictures?

Rather than answer all of those questions, we've kept putting it off. That is, until, we bought the Charger.

See, when we returned from Jamaica I tried to get a new driver's license, but they wouldn't accept our Jamaican marriage certificate as a form of ID. I was able to change my social security card, and with that purchase 3 houses, file tax returns, open bank accounts, etc., but my driver's license still does not say Lisa Walsh. Now the DMV is on my case and won't let me register the car in my married name. After 7 years I'm finally tired of it, so yesterday Hot Husband and I went down to the courthouse and got a home-grown, USA marriage license.

Tomorrow, on our 7 year anniversary, I will marry Hot Husband all over again. It's going to be slightly bigger than our last ceremony, but it will just be the boys and Thelma's family in attendance. Her father is a minister and will be performing the ceremony in her Mother's garden. I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to wear...Thelma and I are going shopping tonight.

I don't have a photographer on such short notice, so I'm going to do the best I can. I'll be sure to post up pictures as soon as I can!

The Glenn

Hot Husband had a list of things he wanted to do for Father's Day, and it included sleeping in, having a yummy breakfast, going hiking/fishing/canoing, a possible nap, and a yummy dinner. So while he was sleeping in Sunday morning, The Youngest and I decided we were going to take him to Watkins Glenn State Park for a hike.

We woke him up at 8 am so we could head out (Sleeping in. Check.) and we stopped at Dunkin' Donuts along the way. (Yummy breakfast. Check.)

The Youngest hadn't been to the Glenn before, and Hot Husband and I realized we hadn't been there since before we got married, which also means I hadn't shot there before.

I didn't expect to get anything spectacular since it's always so crowded, and I don't have some tools I need for landscape shots with mixed lighting conditions, but I did the best I could and ended up with a few keepers. I can't wait to go back in the evening when I can get some silky waterfall pictures!

Hot Husband had prepped some short ribs the night before, so I threw them in the oven when we got home, whipped up some mashed potatoes and baked beans, and opened up the last bottle of beer for him. (Yummy dinner. Check.)

He never did get his nap, but all in all I think it was a great Father's Day.

A Blustery Day

The weather man has warned us that we may incur some damaging winds this afternoon, which doesn't seem too out-of-the-ordinary lately. It also seems to be par for the course in June. (Get it?) Last Tuesday we had a huge storm while I was working at the gym (which I missed, because the gym is in the building's basement).

So you can imagine my surprise when I returned home to see this. That's our 12x10 (or so) gazebo in the pool. See those chairs? They normally sit in front of a bar. You can see the glass top of said bar on the concrete in front of the chairs.

I'll give you one guess as to where the bar itself was.





Of course, this was also the day my peony's started to open, lol.



Please pardon the awful state of our yard, I had no intention of showing it to the world until we had it cleaned up!

Yum!

Even though my weight-loss challenges are done, I've still been trying to get in shape. One of my friends and personal trainers, Marissa, asked me if I wanted to join her when she works out with Ozzy, another personal trainer at the gym. With our hectic schedules we're only able to work out together on Tuesdays.

It's been 3 or 4 weeks, and it's been an eye-opening experience! I had him do my body fat percentage the first week, (it's lower than I thought) which explained why I was having such a hard time getting to my goal weight. It's really helped me re-evaluate my priorities and decide what's more important...achieving a specific weight or just plain looking good. (It's also taught me that doing jumping jacks for 2 minutes straight is rough, lol!)

Anyway, Ozzy recommended these homemade fruit parfaits to me one week when I was hungry, and I've been hooked on them ever since. They're soooo yummy and good for you! (Plus they look decadent in the huge glasses Thelma bought me last year.) :)

All you need to make one is low fat vanilla yogurt, berries of your choice (I think blueberry is my favorite), and some crunchy healthy cereal. Layer the yogurt and the berries, and sprinkle some cereal on top. (I use Kashi.) That's it, and you have a low fat, chock full of protein, sweet and crunchy meal that will fill you up for hours!

Enjoy!

Jillian & Nate's E-Session

Jillian and Nate are getting married on August 2nd, and will be kicking off my (much anticipated) wedding season. Last night we finally had a chance to get together for their engagement session. Ithaca is a great place for a session...there's no shortage of waterfalls, gorges, and parks. It's also home to numerous artists, and we decided to make use of many of the interesting murals that are painted on walls all over the city.


Nate suggested we head over to the inlet, and when we got there we found a beautiful pool of light. These are my favorites from the evening.


Making use of some harsh sunlight while we waited for clouds.


More yummy backgrounds.



I love this picture of Jillian.


I love it when my couple's don't question my crazy suggestions. Jillian knew exactly what I was going to ask them to do as soon as I opened my mouth, lol. (Of course, this was after the shopping cart race.)



Last, but not least...a couple of "Wild Things". I've been patiently waiting to use this location for months!


Thanks for such a great time, you two, and thanks for being good sports!

Grandparent's Day

The Youngest's school held a performance for Grandparent's Day (I'm a little late putting these up.), and parent's were allowed to watch the dress rehearsal that morning. It was his very first performance, and I wouldn't have missed it for the world, especially since he didn't have any Grandparent's to attend. (Although we told him his Grandma & Grandpa Walsh would be watching up in heaven.)

The school had volunteer's come in for kid's that wouldn't have Grandparent's in attendance, and a gentleman named Mr. Manyano came in to hang out with The Youngest. I had the pleasure of meeting him and letting him know how much it meant to us that he was there for our child when I came to help serve refreshments after the performance.

Thank you Mr. Manyano for being The Youngest's Grandparent that day!

It's A Charger

It was brought to my attention that I'd never mentioned the model of my new ride for those "non-car" people reading my blog, lol. I guess I was so excited I figured everyone would know what it was.

Anyway, the votes have been counted and it appears The Husband has named the new ride "Halle". Honey, I promise I won't steal your gift card and use it to buy myself coffee!

Thanks again to all who participated, and I promise the contest wasn't rigged!

Tie Breaker!

Thank you to all of you who took the time to enter the "Name My Nav" contest! I had fun reading through all of the suggestions this weekend! A big thanks to those of you who took the time to give an explanation to go along with your suggestion.

Some were hard to resist. "Lola" (she did catch my eye), "Carmen" (what can I say? That one still makes me laugh) and "DeeDee" (yes, I do love me some D&D!) were all great entries. In the end, I was torn between the two that seemed to fit best: Tonya Arnold's "Lexie", which I would modify to "Alexis", and The Husband's "Hal-y", with a spelling change to "Halle".

Since I couldn't choose (this has to be an unbiased contest, after all) I went to the kids at different times so they wouldn't know how the other voted. It was a tie.

Why didn't I see that coming?

Now I need you all to break it. Please cast your vote for "Alexis" or "Halle" in the comments section. Whomever has the most votes by tomorrow morning will be the winner of a $10 Dunkin' Donuts gift card!

Last Track Of The Season

The Oldest at his last track meet. This was the last leg of the 4 x 100 meter relay, and they came in 2nd place.

Jane Doe

Last night we picked up my new ride.

That fact that we traded in the Nitro shouldn't surprise anyone who's been reading this blog for any length of time. The main reason I purchased it was because it was a standard, but after 9 months of driving it my carpal tunnel's been getting increasingly worse. Could it be from shifting? That combined with the fact that Hot Husband didn't know how to drive it was what prompted us to start looking around.

I promise I didn't head straight to the Dodge dealership this time. I actually took a Nissan Altima for a test drive, if you can believe it, but as much as I enjoyed driving it I just didn't want to make the huge payment that came with it.

Saturday, after an exhausting day of looking at every car dealership with vehicles in our price range, we were looking for a more affordable Nissan when I spotted this baby out of the corner of my eye.


I was in heaven.

"So what's with the Jane Doe", you ask? Well, she's got a navigation system that talks to us in a nice, calm voice. The voice needs a name. The boy's gave me their thoughts last night: Ann, Laura, Jane (that's the ADT lady's name), but none of them quite fit.

This is where you come in. If you have a suggestion for a name for the "Voice", please leave a comment with both your suggested name for the navigation lady and your name. Leave as many suggestions as you want..there's a $10 Dunkin' Donuts gift card waiting for the winner!