7 Months and Growing Big!

Today, I did my little man's pictures! He has gotten so big and I love seeing him every Tuesday. He is very busy and quick he is constantly putting things in his mouth. He is the happiest baby in the world and has the biggest smiles as you can see! His mom didn't want studio pictures and it was a great learning experience for me to learn that I need a new camera!

The shots that started it all...

I just wanted to post the pictures that started it all, the ones that let me really love photography and made me fall in love with my own work. It's crazy to see life in still images but I think about everything as how it would look on camera. It's really strange! Enjoy!

St. Charles in September

About 2 weeks before the wedding, I tracked my happy self all the way up north to St. Charles. I went to look for good spots for engagement photos for a friend of mine in the spring. I had a very relaxing day, just me before all the chaos. I also got to have lunch with my Dad at Lewis and Clarks restaurant, it was a great day over all. None of the pictures I am posting are of any of the places that I decided I would take engagement shots but they are all ones that I really love. The picture of the door and the window is what really inspired my Windows on the World book. I love the two rose pictures, there is something interesting about a shot that has one part in focus and the rest blurry. I stumbled upon the feather on the brick it was so unique and alone. There is something clean about cobblestone and I love it. Keep checking back for more shots there will be alot more coming up in the next few weeks.

Photoshop.. I LOVE IT!!

Here are some photos that I didn't post but I have edited, I absolutely love being able to color accent the photos. The first one is of a construction worker at Ground Zero and he was so hallow. He looked like he had been working there since day 1 and was just fried emotionally, mentally and physically. Drew took the picture after a big cement truck had left ground zero and they were shutting the gates. The shoes picture I took at a corner somewhere past Times Square I love! The woman wearing the shoes was straight out of gossip girl, she looked so professional and her black shoes were just eye catching to me. I have no idea who she is and maybe that is what I like about this picture, she can be any woman and every woman all rolled into one. I used a color accent to keep the shoes shiny and make everything else gray scale. I love it. The 3rd picture is what I am calling Window's on the World, I would love to eventually do a book full of them but this one I adore. There is something magical about how alive the tree is and I feel like I am looking out the window instead of into it. The MM's rock my world too, there is something antique about the black and white and futuristic about the color. I like that the reflection of the candy is black and white. I don't know it may just be me but I dig it.

Great Falls National Park

There are no words to explain the beauty of this park so I am just going to post the pictures.

Arlington National Cemetery... enough said!

Arlington National Cemetery was really interesting much better than I thought it would be. We saw a lot of interesting people's graves and I learned that I am distantly related to General Richard Montgomery and he was the guy who decided Arlington would be our national cemetery. We visited the Kennedy graves and I guess it was just before our time because I didn't feel the same emotion that a lot of the elderly women felt as they stood there crying. We were also privy to the changing of the guard at first we thought we had missed it but the guard stopped us so the new guard could come out. It was really cool to see all of it from beginning to end. Drew took about 202 pictures of just the changing of the guard I won't bore you to have to see each step taken. Side note I just learned I can spell check on here, I will be doing that more often. 2nd side note, I also type like I speak and since I don't feel as though I am being graded that is what you are going to get. There were alot of great scenic views from Arlington Cemetery and rows and rows of military graves. We learned there are 350 from the Iraq/Afghanistan wars and 293,000 graves from other wars. Oh, I forgot to tell you how we got lost before getting to Arlington and accidently went to the current Fort Meyer , we pull up and the guard is like go to the right make a U-turn and exit out of here. We make the right and it pulls us up to check point where people are opening their trunks, their hoods and all the doors so their cars can be searched. It was so creepy! It makes me so sad that they have to do that.

....more....

A few more D.C. pictures before Arlington Cemetary commentary and pictures.

D.C. Monuments

This is for Jessica just more pictures less talk.

National Archives...everything I ever wanted to see!

National Archives was amazing (I feel like I am using this word alot)! We stood in the first line we had to stand in while in D.C. waiting to see the Freedom Papers. It took us about 25 minutes just to get in the door, then they make you put all your belongings on the conveyor belt and bark orders that you barely understand. I understand they have to but all the documents sit in airtight containers on top of elevators that at any minute can be plunged into the under Earth for their protection. Anyway, there were some really awesome pictures and information about archives and did you know the second largest archive location is in ST. LOUIS?!?!? I thought that was really cool. The line to get into the Rotunda was about 35 minutes long so I waited and Drew went and sat down. Meanwhile because I am a chatty cathy I started talking to another couple and they too were on their honeymoon and they got married on the 18th. Very small world, I think although they got married in Texas. Once we finally got into see the documents the room was very dark and the Declartion of Independence was so deteriorated it just looked like yellow paper. I shouldn't say thing like that but it did. I did not take pictures of the documents, a) I was scared that I would push the wrong button and a flash would go off and they would tackle me to the ground with guns and b) I knew that my little crappy camera wouldn't do them any justice. It kind of annoyed Drew that I didn't take any pictures so when we got to the gift shop we bought a kit that has all 3 and if and when we find a house you will see them displayed in our bar. We are very excited! We also saw the Magna Carta which was out on display for a few weeks. There are only 4 copies in the whole world.

A Day at the Museum

Well, I tried to think of a funny title for Natural Museum but that's all I could come up with, before I had Visiting the Museum, real creative here. We are actually in Manassas, Virginia right now we didn't make it too far yesterday but I am a little back logged in pictures. Just to give you an idea of how backlogged, we went to Arlington Cemetary and Drew took 298 pictures. Anyway, two days ago we went to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum and I was so excited. I had convinced myself there was an aquarium there, I was a little wrong its actually down the street so we didn't even get to see it. But, the Natural History Museum was really exciting none the less and if I was about 10 years old it would be so cool I couldn't stand it. However, we did enjoy the dinasours and this REALLY COOL, did I tell you just how cool it was 3-D Imax movie. I can't remember if the Science Center has one or not but oh man, this was probably the best $8.50 I have ever spent! I wanted to try and take a picture through my 3-D glasses but the guards around the capital and inside the theater are kind of scary so I didn't want to risk anything. There was a really big Ocean exhibit that was pretty neat with a huge whale hanging from the ceiling, everything in that place is sized to scale or they have a little note letting you know how much smaller it really is. I have to admit it was all very amazing. We also found out that Night at the Museum 2 was just filmed at the Natural History Museum, so that should be fun when it comes out to know that I just saw a bunch of that stuff! Oh and while we were there we saw the Hope Diamond, going into it I thought it was going to be much larger than it truly is. Don't get me wrong for being a solid mass of diamond worth more than my life it is very nice sized! I also put up a picture of Drew in his 3-D glasses hehehe

Segwaying around D.C.

We have decided that eventually we are going to buy a segway! They are fabulous, they are electrically powered, and just a little lean here and a little lean there and you can go anywhere! We did two tours one during the day and one at night, the one at night although cold was definetly my favorite. I will modge podge pictures together and when we get home we will tell you a ton of information that we learned. The tours are 3 hours long, so you get to see a ton of the city, we cruised the mall and the museums and we saw the WWII memorial at night. It was so gorgeous! If you ever get a chance you have to see D.C. at night the capitol is so gorgeous! Oh, as we were passing the White House on our evening tour we heard all these helicoptors and the President was leaving, it was crazy loud! Needless to say we had a great time and Drew wants to open a City Segway Tour Company in St. Louis. If we do you guys all get free rides!

Hanging around town..

When we arrived in Philly we paid to do this bus tour that would allow us to jump on and off and stop at quite a few different places. We didn't use it as much as we had originally thought we would but it was an excellent way to get around the city. We swung by the Liberty Bell, its home is a big glass house so there wasn't a real reason to wait in a long line to be strip searched for a glance at a cracked bell. I know it means more that just a cracked bell but still. We also saw the oldest residence street in America, the houses are like 8 feet wide at most and the last one just sold for like $450,000. We also climbed the Rocky Steps at the art museum, while we were on the bottom some got out of a really nice white bentley and people at the top were scrimmaging to have a photo op but unfortunately we were unable to see who it was. We had a great time riding the bus and took a fabulous nap after it was all said and done.