Why are kids so cute?!?  When my good friend Terra announced that she and her husband, Matt were having twins last year…I was beyond excited!  I think I’ve known Terra for about 12 years.  She’s been there for nearly every life-changing and important part of both my sister’s and my life…and I can’t imagine her not being there for all of the important things to come!  I finally got to meet Grayson and Finley last weekend…as Terra made the trip with the twins (with Grandma’s help!) back to Colorado for a visit.  They are just as adorable as I expected…if not more!  Grayson is a mini-version of his daddy, Matt…laid-back and easy-going.  And Finley looks just like her momma (with the exception of her blue eyes)…but her personality reminds me of Terra.  Look out! :)

I only got to spend a few hours with them, but I feel oh so fortunate to have been able to capture some memories of the twins’ first trip to Colorado.  They’re nearly one year old and I can’t wait to see where this life takes them!  Congratulations, Terra and Matt!  Grayson and Finley are simply amazing and I can’t wait for you to come back soon!!!

Meet Grayson…

And his sister Finley…(Those eyes kill me!)

Grayson is already quite the flirt!  Watch out ladies!

Walking with Mom and Grandma…

So happy…

Grayson was cracking me up in these pictures.  He looks like such a little old man in that shirt! :)  Love it!

Finley was having fun sorting all of the leaves into different piles.

Congrats, Terra and Matt!  Thanks so much for letting me take pictures of the two newest members of your family!

Much Love,

Jessica

Click here to view a slideshow with more of Grayson and Finley’s pictures.

Click here to view all of Grayson and Finley’s pictures or to order prints.

Interested in working with us?  Head over to our website to view more of our work and Click here to contact us!

It’s been a couple of days and he’s still walking like Frankenstein…but he did it!  26.2 miles…in the cold and rain.  Un-freaking-believable!  He’s been training for the past 18 weeks for the Colfax Marathon…and I couldn’t be more in awe of my wonderful husband as he completed his very first marathon on Sunday!  Congrats, baby!

For those of you have been on Facebook…it’s true…the beard is no longer with us.  Honestly, now he just looks weird!  I’ve gotten used to seeing him with all of that facial hair and now he looks like a 12 year old again!  He might have to start growing it back.  He can’t win for trying! :)

Taking a gu-shot minutes before the race started.  He was in a great mood despite the drizzly, cold weather…

Going into the starting area…I think he was starting to get a bit nervous…

I think that Andrew had the most hard-core, amazing supporters out there!  Not to mention the awesome signs!  Here’s our friends Fitz and Mollie (left and right), my sister Heather (middle) and me at the 3 mile marker.  Oh…and thanks to Nick for taking this picture and driving us around all day!  Check out these awesome signs…seriously!  We had so many guys with beards that thought we were out there cheering for them!

Here he comes…still looking good at the 3 mile mark!

There he goes…

My sister Heather made the sign on the left!  It took her 4 hours, but I think it was totally worth it!  “Cappy” is one of Andrew’s nicknames…

Almost halfway!  This was at about 12.5 miles…still looking good!

Some of Andrew’s other loyal supporters!  His Aunt Adele and Uncle Jeff (left) and Mom and Dad (right)…and Heather and Nick on the far right!

Mile 17…yes…it’s still drizzly and cold but he looks great!  I don’t have a picture of it…but Andrew’s Dad ran along with him for awhile as he passed.

Mile 21…starting to get pretty tired now!  (I think that’s what the tongue sticking out means!)  Heather and Nick jumped in and ran with him for a little pick-me-up.

And finally…just about to cross the finish line!  HE DID IT!!!!!

A few pictures with his fans…

Our friend Greg (right) and Andrew’s sisters (I don’t have a picture of them)  made it down to watch him cross the finish line!

Congratulations, Andrew!  I love you and I’m so very proud of you!  And a special thanks to all of our friends and family that were able to make it out to cheer him on!

Love,

Jess

A few weeks ago several of our friends decided to go night skiing.  That’s right…skiing in the middle of the night.  They ventured out on the night of the Super Full Moon, a night when the moon was at it’s biggest in almost 20 years.  It was the perfect night for Andrew to head out and take some pictures of their adventure, especially since the moon was going to be 14% bigger and 30% brighter than normal!  Needless to say, it was a pretty amazing experience and the pictures turned out awesome…take a look!

I think it’s pretty bizarre that you can see all of the stars…but that there is still so much light.  If you didn’t know better you’d think that some of these were taken during the day!

I…love…tulips.

Delicate and fragile.  Bold and beautiful in nearly every color.  But perhaps the thing I love the most about tulips is their unwillingness to quit.

You see, the funny thing about tulips is that they continue to grow.  Even after you’ve chopped off all their stems they still shoot skyward several more inches.  I…love…that.

So when the world presents new and difficult challenges (and it always does)…I think of the tulip.  Instead of allowing myself to be defeated and knocked down…I try my best to learn and continue growing.

So thank you Andrew, for the beautiful gift of tulips last week.  It means more to me than you know.  I love you…always.

XOXO ~ Jessica

If you are just catching up on reading our blog be sure to go back and read the first two blog posts of this series entitled Drugs and Earplugs and Freeze-dried Food and Oreos.

So Andrew and I left beautiful San Francisco and headed for the coast.  We had it all planned out…we were going to head up Highway 1 towards this little remote state park along California’s “Lost Coast”.  We put the destination in our iPhones and Google maps said it would take about 4 hours.  About 30 minutes after getting on the very curvy and windy coast highway Andrew was starting to make himself nauseous!  So we had to cut over and get on a slightly larger, less curvy highway for the remainder of the drive up the coast.  It turns out that if we had stayed on the coast highway (and continued to drive as slowly as we were driving) it probably would’ve taken at least 10 hours for us to arrive to our destination.  We still spent many hours in the car that day…but in the end it was completely worth it.  The last 3.5 miles to our final destination were down a very steep washed out dirt road…hence the 4-wheel drive.  (It was even sketchier on our way back out!)  We arrived to our campsite and set up the tent…this is definitely the most amazing campsite I’ve ever witnessed.  Our little yellow tent was at the top of a cliff that dropped off to gorgeous black sand beaches and the soothing sound of the ocean.

After getting settled we headed out for an evening hike along the coast.  We came along this amazing eucalyptus grove and you can just barely see the ocean off to the right.  There were only a few other people that we ran into the entire time we stayed along the Lost Coast…so it was as if we had our very own beach and coastline for the evening.

Here’s me standing under one of the eucalyptus trees and Andrew all decked out for our hike.

After hiking for about 15 or 20 minutes we found a spot to access the beautiful black sand beaches.  The tide was coming in…so we didn’t have long before we had to get out of there, but I’m so glad that we climbed down to the beach because this was our amazing view…

We both believe that the ocean is incredibly majestic…so full of undeniable power and mystery.  Definitely worth taking the time to sit back and admire.

When I wasn’t taking my own pictures on our two week adventure…this is what I spent most of the time looking at! :)

After the tide started to get a little too close for comfort we headed back up the cliffs and watched the sunset.  We sat back and enjoyed the misty, ocean air…I think we even saw a whale migrating North…or at least we are going to claim that it was a whale.

We camped peacefully that evening (No bears here!) and jumped back in the car the next day to explore more of the California coast.  We headed North and ended up in a quaint little fishing town called Shelter Cove.  We ordered some fish-n-chips from a local cafe and walked over to the beach to enjoy more of the ocean.

Shelter Cove is the current home of the Cape Mendocino Lighthouse.  Twenty-five years ago the lantern to the lighthouse was transported via helicopter to Shelter Cove and the remainder of the lighthouse followed suit…positioning this 139-year old sailor’s beacon at the tip of Point Delgado.  The lighthouse’s original location, Cape Mendocino, is California’s westernmost point.

The ocean cliffs were covered with these yellow flowers…it was stunning.

From the top of the cliffs we could see hundreds of harbor seals and sea lions swimming out in the ocean.   Those little black dots are their heads bopping up and down in the water.

We hiked down to the beach and explored some of the tide pools and got up close and personal with some of the harbor seals and sea lions that were enjoying the sun.

We had originally planned to drive all the way up to Redwoods National Park…but as we continued up the California coast we were able to drive through several redwood tree groves (which was plenty for us).  We drove through a stretch of highway fittingly called the Avenue of Giants and found ourselves surrounded by acres of redwood trees.  I was amazed at the shear size of the redwood trees…

For all of you die hard Twilight fans…what does this remind you of?

The picture on the right cracks me up…Andrew was trying to look so cool! :)

We took the next couple of days to drive back to colorful Colorado…including a long stay on the Loneliest Road in America…and yes, it was quite lonely.  We had such an amazing time and feel truly blessed that we were able to pick up and leave everything behind for a couple of weeks.

I’ll leave you with a few raw stats from our two weeks on the road…

• 3650 miles
• 787 pictures
• 13 days
• 8 nights in a hotel
• 4 nights camping (this went down from our plan of 6 nights which I was happy about)
• 6 bags of sunflower seeds (Probably 95% of which Andrew ate)
• 5 trips to In-N-Out Burger  (Don’t judge!)
• 1.5 meltdowns (not bad – the full meltdown happened in San Francisco when I waited to long to eat)
• No money won playing craps (Andrew played in Vegas AND Reno…still no luck)
• Rain, snow, dust storms, blizzards, warm weather, cold weather, cloudy weather, sunny weather
• 95 mph top speed driving through Nevada
• 2 people
• 1 smelly car

Check back for some of Andrew’s thoughts and insight about our trip!

If you’ve just checked our blog be sure to go back and read Part One of this series entitled “Drugs and Earplugs” to see some of the earlier pictures and hear some more stories from our big adventure.

So I left off with the cows and wind farms outside of LA…next we headed to Yosemite National Park.  After the full-campground ordeal and mini-meltdown in Joshua Tree National Park, Andrew was instructed to call and reserve a campsite in Yosemite…so we were free of all back country camping and had access to plumbing!  (An absolute necessity if you ask me!)  We knew the weather was not supposed to be great, but we decided to go for it anyway.  It was only going to be two consecutive nights in a tent…how bad could that be?!?  When we arrived the weather was overcast and a little chilly – but at least there was no snow…yet.  We jumped out of the car as we were getting close to the valley floor and took this photo of El Capitan and Half-Dome.

Bridalveil falls – I thought it would be fitting to have this picture on our blog.  On a side note…Andrew thinks this is the most uncreative name for a waterfall.  Apparently “bridalveil” is a popular name for waterfalls…news to me!

So we pull into the campsite and got settled.  Envision me rummaging through our very messy car and pulling out anything with a scent that might attract a bear to our site and jamming it all into our “bear proof” box located just 20 – 30 feet from our tent…are you kidding me?!?  That includes sunscreen, shampoo, toothpaste, food, gum…you name it!  I wasn’t taking any chances…and I must have done a good job because we managed to stay bear free.  We spent the next day exploring the park and trying to see as much as we could before the snow came in.

We took a short hike up to the lower Yosemite falls…

As we were hiking back down the path towards our car we caught up with a young couple that had obviously spotted something in the woods.  Heart pounding wildly I quickly surveyed my surroundings and spotted the very one animal that I’d worked so hard to avoid.  Suddenly, my loving husband (and literally every other person that was on the trail at the time) decided to go off the trail to get a closer look.  I of course passed on this adventure and stayed a safe and comfortable distance away from the bear.  I was doing fine…not panicking in the slightest…until I realized that while everyone else was sneaking in to get a closer look at the bear, something else might be sneaking in to get a better glimpse of me!  Andrew must have sensed my nervousness…because he returned pretty quickly to my side to protect me.  He was able to take this picture while I was freaking out…I guess that cute cuddly bear doesn’t look too scary after all, does he?

Don’t knock the hats…it was cold.

We coped with the cold by eating freeze-dried food (the spaghetti with meat sauce is actually surprisingly tasty) and oreo cookies.  It started to snow just as the sun was going down.  Andrew decided that he wanted to head back up to the lower Yosemite falls to get some pictures of the waterfall while it was snowing, so he piled on a few more layers, his rain pants and waterproof jacket.  (Keep in mind this is where we had the encounter with the bear only hours before.)  I didn’t really pack enough waterproof clothing to join him, so my plan was to drop him off at the trail head and drive around for a little while…after all, he assured me that he wouldn’t be gone for more than about 15 – 30 minutes.  This picture was taken as I dropped him off and watched him run off into the woods as it began to snow harder.  I drove a loop around the valley floor and struggled to see the road as the snow was really coming down and finally returned to the trail head where I’d dropped Andrew off.  30 minutes roll around…and he’s no where in sight.  After telling the the nice park ranger who stopped to see if I was lost in the blizzard that “I was waiting for my idiot husband to return from taking pictures in the snow” one hour had passed.  Now I was starting to get nervous…what if that bear had gotten to him?!?  One and a half hours later…it was pitch black and my tire tracks were the only ones that could be seen on the streets my husband returned from the woods.  He could have sworn that he was only gone 30 minutes…

We survived the night in the snow and headed towards San Francisco in the morning.  I’d never been to San Fransisco…but after visiting it is definitely somewhere that I would recommend everyone should go visit!  I couldn’t pass up the chance to get my picture taken with a pirate…but he was a little stiff in front of the camera if you ask me.

We spent the first evening walking around Fisherman’s Wharf and taking pictures.

The seagulls along the wharf are very well fed and consequently huge…I’m talking the size of a small dog.  Kinda scary…

We tried to drive to the overlook where we could get a closer look at the Golden Gate Bridge at night…but we missed the exit off of the highway.  We ended up having to drive across the bridge where we found another little overlook where we took this picture.  On a side note…I think we were the only two people in the entire overlook parking lot that were not making out…sorry Andrew.  Since we’d driven across the bridge, we had to pay the $6.00 toll to get back to the other side where our hotel was.

We stayed at this funky little hotel in San Francisco called the Hotel Vertigo.  We later found out that it was where Alfred Hitchcock’s Oscar nominated thriller Vertigo was filmed back in 1958.  Don’t ask me what I was doing in the hotel lobby in the picture on the right…but yes, that’s me wearing a newly purchased San Francisco sweatshirt while in San Francisco.  Hey, I know what you’re thinking…but it was COLD!  Another side note, my parents totally had a tree-trunk table like the one pictured in the hotel lobby on the right in my house when I was a child…hilarious!

We wanted to do the Alcatraz night tour, but sadly it was sold out when we arrived so we took the day tour instead.  Alcatraz was very cool.  I would definitely recommend doing the “audio tour” if you ever have a chance to visit.  The audio tour was narrated by several of the old prison guards…and also several of the prisoners that were sentenced to serve time on the Rock.  There were many great stories of the escape attempts and the inmates…it was fascinating.

Welcome to the Rock…

That night we went out to take a few pictures of the Golden Gate bridge during sunset.

The next morning we took the correct exit off the highway and got a nice view of the Golden Gate bridge before we headed off to drive up the coast.

That’s plenty for now…but check back in the next couple of days for more pictures and stories from our road trip!

Interesting blog post title?  Yes…but it is partly true.  No – I didn’t need the drugs or the earplugs to enjoy our two week road trip together…but they did come in handy! :)

It’s been exactly one month since Andrew and I returned from our two week vacation.  Life has been a bit busy since we returned…hey, wedding season is starting!  So I thought I’d take a moment to show you some of my favorite pictures and memories from our time on the road.  We only made a reservation for one night in a hotel (Vegas) and other than that we just went where the wind blew us.  We had several places that we wanted to see…and we ended up seeing almost all of them!

We started out heading to Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah.  We intended to camp the first night in Bryce Canyon…but when we arrived we were greeted by about 1.5 feet of snow on the ground.  And to top it all off we arrived in the park during another snowstorm blizzard.  Clouds completely obstructed our views…how sad!  We couldn’t see a single thing…let alone the hood of our car.  Needless to say, we didn’t end up camping that night…WHEW!

We did have some sun as we were leaving the Bryce Canyon area…this is Red Canyon.  The red rocks were absolutely stunning against the white snow.

Somewhere in the middle of Utah we came across the city of Virgin, Utah.  We each had to pay $1.00 to get into this awful tourist attraction…but we got some pretty fun and goofy pictures while we were there!  Yes…that’s me in the Virgin Jail.

Andrew loves old Clint Eastwood western movies…so I think this was probably a dream of his…

He didn’t do as well in jail…a bit whiny if you ask me.  :)

Dorks…

It took awhile for Andrew to understand what I was going for in this series…but when he realized that I was trying to look like I was driving the wagon…he thought it was pretty funny.

We left Utah and headed for Vegas…where we had the first encounter of the trip with In-n-out burger.  We managed to eat at In-n-out five times while we were on vacation…disgusting I know!  It’s a good thing there aren’t any of them in Colorado!

We stayed in the new City Center hotel called Vdara while we were in Vegas.  It is definitely the nicest hotel room that either of us has ever stayed in!  This picture definitely doesn’t do it justice!  Andrew spent the night trying to teach me how to play craps…but we didn’t walk away winning any money!

From Vegas we drove through the Mojave National Preserve.  There was literally nothing out there but cactus, dirt and the occasional joshua tree.  I love this picture that Andrew took of the old post office in the very, VERY small town of Kelso.

After driving through the desert…we jumped over to the legendary old Route 66 for a little while where we found Roy’s Motel.  Thankfully…because we were almost out of gas!

That evening we arrived in Joshua Tree National Park…and this is where Andrew will tell you that I had a mini meltdown!  You see, about two weeks before we left for our vacation I asked Andrew if we needed to call ahead to reserve campsites for any of the National Parks where we were planning on going.  He of course said “No…there isn’t going to be anyone else out there.”  So we arrived in Joshua Tree and all 9 of the campgrounds were full…proceed to meltdown.  No worries though…we were able to back country camp that night and this was our view.  I’ve never seen so many stars in all of my life.

A small Joshua tree with a little off camera flash…

So let me explain my feelings for camping.  Imagine a 9 year old little girl who goes to girl scout camp and has her very first experience camping outdoors.  It’s the middle of the night…she just fell asleep…and along comes a curious bear.  Suddenly, all of the camp counselors grab the girls out of the tents and take them to a nearby campfire where they are told to sing campfire songs loudly…apparently this scares the bears away.  That little 9 year old girl was me…and hence I’ve never been super excited about camping outdoors!  This is where the drugs and earplugs come in handy!  My nightly routine while we were camping was to cover myself with many, many layers of clothing (I always get cold), two Tylenol PM and earplugs.  If a bear did come along, Andrew would’ve had to drag me out of my sleeping bag! :)

We survived the night and hiked back to our car the next morning…

We spent the rest of that day exploring more of Joshua Tree National Park.  This was one of my favorite spots…the water was so calm and it made for some great reflection pictures.

Show-off…

We left Joshua Tree National Park and headed towards LA where we took Katie and Troy’s engagement pictures!  We had to stop along the way and take some pictures of the wind farms…

That’s probably enough for one blog post…but check back soon for more stories and pictures from our trip!

I’ve never been ashamed to admit that I don’t know much about film (you know the way people used to take pictures.) I had a film class in high school (probably about 12 years ago) where we developed our own film and that’s when I started enjoying photography. But it wasn’t until I bought my first digital camera (a 2.1 megapixel Hewlett-Packard for $600) and 3 years later that I really got into photography. For the last 9 years I never even picked up a film camera, I bought more digital cameras and I really worked on becoming a better photographer. I had very little (read…no) interest in a film camera or film photography.

Then last week Jess and I went to some antique stores on Broadway. She thought it would be cool to have some fun looking old cameras as decorations…shelf cameras. So we bought 3 that looked kind of fun and old-fashioned. I didn’t even know if they worked but we thought they’d be fun to have. I also pulled out an old 35mm camera that my grandpa gave me and my parents said they had been looking at old pictures of me as a baby (sorry I don’t have any of those to post…maybe another time.) So they gave me another old camera, a stereo camera.

I of course jumped on the internet and started researching these old cameras; there’s a lot of good info on that world wide web. But I was amazed at all of the interesting things I learned. I learned that the 3 cameras we bought were VERY hard to find film for. But I came across the-impossible-project. Which was a group of dreamers, visionaries, crazies, who set out to remake polaroid instant film. It’s an incredible project and so far they’re succeeding. I found this interesting because one of the cameras we bought was a Polaroid SX-70 which was quite the camera when it was made almost 40 years ago. I of course had to buy some film for it. 2 packs of 8 exposures each for a grand total of $75. That comes out to almost $4.70 per picture. A little more expensive than what I’m used to…okay A LOT more expensive. So far I’ve taken 10 of 16 pictures. 8 were completely blown out, one was blurry and one was awesome. By the way that awesome picture was taken by my beautiful wife Jessica…

This fortunate inheritance of random cameras came at a great time. We’re leaving for our trip on Monday and of course we planned to take a bunch of pictures. But now I have 6 rolls of film to expose. I have 6 rolls of film with which to try and create some amazing images. I have 3 cameras that don’t have digital backs, that don’t have instant feedback, that don’t have light meters, that don’t automatically advance to the next picture. Do I think that you need to shoot film to be a great photographer…absolutely not. But I’m now convinced that shooting film will help me to beome a better photographer. There’s just something about loading a roll of film in a camera. There’s something about clicking a shutter and only relying on your eye and your instinct to hope that you’ve created something worth looking at. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little excited about the possibilities.

I also looked through old pictures that my parents have. Pictures of my grandpa who has been gone for 5 years. Pictures of my grandmother who has been gone for over 30 years (I never even met her.) I saw the emotion (and tears) in my mom’s face when she looked at pictures of BOTH of her parents who are now gone. It made me think about the weddings I’ve photographed, the families I’ve photographed, the people I’ve photographed, the places I’ve photographed. Are people going to look at my pictures in 30 years and cry (I hope so.)

Photography is an incredible medium because with one click of a shutter you can create art, memories, inspiration, history, records and so much more. Photography has been instrumental in my life (maybe moreso than I actually know) and I’m excited to spend some time with a camera and my thoughts…we’ll see what happens.

This was Andrew writing…by the way…Jess told me to sign my post…that’s what I came up with.

Andrew and I will be leaving next week for a two week road trip adventure out west! We’ve been wanting to take a long road trip for awhile…and now we’re finally doing it! We’ll be camping out at several of national parks along the way and hopefully be finding hotel rooms for the remainder of the nights. (At least that is my hope…as Andrew would probably be happier camping out every night if given the choice!)

We are truly blessed. Andrew and I fully understand that the freedom we experience in our life is not the norm…not everyone is able to just pick up and leave town for two weeks without using all of their vacation time! But this kind of freedom is new to us as well. It’s only been 8 months since I quit my teaching job and joined Andrew full-time with the photography business. That decision was hard in and of itself and one that was not made without much thought. Ultimately, the reason behind quitting my teaching job was that it was hindering us from living the kind of life we desired. Being happy, enjoying life and living it to the fullest has always been our goal…and so we took the big leap. We left behind the guaranteed income and cushy benefits for the freedom to live our life together on our terms – and we couldn’t be happier.

Unfortunately, I believe that there are many people who go throughout life without taking any “big leap”. Regardless of how unhappy they may be, or how much they long for something more…they continue on the same road – never carving their own path. They remain stagnant. I’ll be the first to admit that it’s scary…it’s scary as hell. But the end result is absolutley worth it. So many people say “yeah…but you had something to fall back on” which is only partly true and somewhat irrelevant. Never in our wildest dreams did either of us imagine that we’d be photographing weddings…but we found something that we enjoyed and jumped right in! Andrew and I frequently discuss “what’s next” in our life…in fact, I’m sure that will be a main topic of discussion on our two weeks in a car together as we explore some new places. We try to push ourselves to not be stagnant and to continue moving in the next direction…where ever it may lead.

So…if you are miserable, hiding behind a desk job that you truly hate or are sick of having other people dictate what you can and can’t do…what are you waiting for? I’m not saying that you should quit your job and become a wedding photographer, but assuredly there is something out there that you might legitimately love to do! Get moving…

We’ll try to post some pictures and stories while we’re on our trip – stay tuned!

Cheers,

Jessica

A few weekends ago we took a snowshoeing trip to Jones Pass which is off of Hwy. 40 on the Denver side of Berthoud Pass. The weather was great (almost too warm) and we had a lot of fun. If you haven’t been snowshoeing it’s a great way to get out in the wintertime and definitely cheaper than skiing. This time of year I always start to get some “cabin fever” so it’s nice to get out into the mountains.

Here’s just a few pictures of our group…

Sunscreen is important when the sun is out.

Jon and Mollie enjoying a beer at lunch.

My sister couldn’t make it down the hill without falling.

My other sister did make it down…but she also fell.

My cousin Josh made it all the way down with a smile and without falling.

Fitzy was kicking up a ton of snow, but he made it down without falling.

And of course our whole group in our long underwear. Now that’s a classy picture.