Family Zoo Outing

Back in April we took a day trip to the Memphis Zoo with Rhett's family. It was a lot of fun and turned out to be pretty good weather for walking around outside! It's always a gamble at the zoo since it can get pretty hot, but it was actually pretty cool that day. Rhett and I had fun playing with the kiddos all day and just getting to spend time with family.

KP is getting so big! We just saw her this weekend and she is talking up a storm. It's amazing how quickly they grow. They are so fun at this age though!

As a photographer it is hard for me to have a husband who won't cooperate for a picture...

This was the second time the whole family has gone to the zoo together. The last time was a year or two ago, and it was equally as fun. I hope we get to do it again next year!

Have you guys been able to go to the zoo yet this year? It's a really fun Spring/Summer activity, and I kind of hope I get to go again this year! The Memphis Zoo is quite amazing, and it seems to get better each year.

Jon + Mary Margaret's Big Day

I've done quite a few weddings over the past 5ish years, but there are a few that stand out as my favorites. Jon and Mary Margaret's is one of those weddings. It's not necessarily all the little details that make a wedding so memorable, but the people involved. It helps that I shot Jon and Mary's engagement photos, so I got to know them a little before the big day. They are just absolutely fantastic people to work with!

They exchanged gifts before their first look, and both of them gave pretty awesome gifts! Mary Margaret gave Jon a pocket knife with their last name carved on it. She also gave him a gorgeous painting of the Lister family crest that she commissioned from an Etsy seller. It was amazing! Jon's gift to her was that beautiful bracelet on her wrist as well as a framed tow ticket from before they started dating. It's a really cute little story about how he told her she'd be fine to park in a particular place, but he was wrong about that and she got towed! They can look back at it and laugh now.

Those donuts were TO DIE FOR. The red velvet ones were particularly amazing, and I'm just salivating thinking about them now. I also adored their favors. Listers, Listerine...get it? So cute.

Weddings like this honestly don't feel like work at all. I just love interacting with so many wonderful people. These guys danced the night away too, I tell ya! I caught myself dancing along with them while I was shooting.

I hope you all enjoy the glimpse into this lovely wedding. I shot another one last weekend and have one this coming weekend as well, so you can look forward to a few more wedding posts like this. I hope you all have a fantastic weekend!

Memorial Doggy Day

This post really only exists for me to share more photos of my dog. He's just s'darn cute! On the Sunday of memorial day weekend, we left him in his crate for a pretty long amount of time while we were at the lake. Since he was put up for so long, we decided to take him with us to my mom's the next day. He didn't know what to think about that long car ride!

Once again, trying to lick the camera. These are all taken with my new 16-35mm lens, by the way! It nearly caused me to go bankrupt, but it's totally worth it :) I'm excited to use it at a wedding this coming weekend. Anyway, so Chipper was kind of hyper and annoying on the car ride to my mom's, but I think he just had a lot of energy to get out. My mom and step-dad have a house in the country with quite a bit of room to walk around, so I let him explore on a really long leash. I'm almost positive he ate some horse poop, so...yeah.

While we had burgers we tied him up on the front porch (beagles cannot be trusted without a fenced in yard). He had a lot of room on his leash, but he kept tangling himself up in the bushes. He's still young, so hopefully he'll get a little smarter. haha! After we ate we sat on the front porch and had watermelon. We gave Chipper quite a bit of it, and he LOVED it! I think he'd eat an entire watermelon if we let him

I had to take a photo of my mom's little gallery. She's probably one of my biggest fans, and it's the best thing ever :) I just love her!

Chipper was pretty tired after all that exploring, so he slept most of the drive home (about 45 minutes). It was the cutest thing ever seeing him cuddled up back there. He can be a real pill sometimes when he's really keyed up, but boy when he's sleeping I could just eat him with a spoon.

Lime Remix

For the past few weeks, I have been trying my best not to spend any unnecessary money. This basically means that I am buying only gas and groceries. I will have to go a little further this week and buy kitty food and liter, but definitely no clothes lately! I've never been one to buy a lot of clothes anyway, but this spending freeze has been a nice time for me to mix and match some things. I previously wore this lime Goodwill skirt with black and zebra print because I thought it looked really funky. I decided to make it a little more business-like with a white button down this time. I rather like it!

I have been wearing those tan wedges a ton lately, because they almost literally go with everything. I always enjoy wearing a belt over skirts and dresses when it looks right, and I thought this braided belt went perfectly! Skirts are always really fun to remix (blog term for styling an older item of clothing in a new way) because you can always make them more dressy or more casual. You can also make them appropriate for both summer and winter!

So, one of the reasons for my spending freeze (besides over-spending my budget in April and May) is that Rhett and I decided to go back to Disney World for our anniversary! We'll be there on the actual day of our anniversary, so I'm hoping to get a nice photo of us to frame next to one from when we were there for our honeymoon. I'm so excited! I also signed up for the Tower of Terror 10 Miler while we're there. I haven't been able to run for over a month because of an IT band issue, so I'm just really hoping I'm ok enough by then to do the race. Crossing fingers!

Carnivals and Dinosaurs RAWRRR

Carnivore on Etsy

The last time I was at the zoo, I picked up a few of their little miniature animal toys, which included this teensy little t-rex! They did a dino exhibit a while back, so I guess that's why they had them. I came up with the idea to make it a carnival scene and call it carnivore since THAT'S WHAT A T-REX IS! Maybe it's not that clever, but whatever, I like it. 

The hardest part was perhaps finding a mini ferris wheel. I found this particular vintage one on Ebay. I am so bad with reading size descriptions and actually being able to visualize it. I had no idea if this  would work, but it did! It also came with the little ticket booths, which I think add a lot to the scene. I already had the picnic people, and I decided to add those after I'd already been shooting a little. I almost always add or change something halfway through shooting that totally makes the shot. 

Overall I'm extremely pleased with this shot. It's a little more busy than most of my photos, but I think it's ok to have variety. I could see this being pretty awesome in a little boy's room. Maybe if you have two boy kids, one could have Space Jam in their awesome astronaut themed room, and the other could have this one in their prehistoric dino den! Hope you guys like it.

Zoo Run with my Ladies

Full disclosure, THIS HAPPENED IN JANUARY. I put the photos on my computer, then completely forgot about them! I still wanted to post about it though, because it was such a fun weekend. A couple of my best college friends, Emily and Miranda, joined me and we drove to Nashville to meet Libby for the Zoo Run. It's a yearly 5k at the Nashville Zoo that is just a ton of fun. We drove up the night before and stayed in Libby's brand new condo! She's like...a grown up. It's so weird. She did an amazing job with the colors in there. The blue in the living room is just gorgeous! I love the huge window in the breakfast nook too.

That's little miss home owner on the left :) Actually they both own homes. And so do I. Like I said, grown up = weird.

GAH. So pretty. 

Part of the fun of the Zoo Run is that a lot of people dress up as various animals to run it. Emily decided that they would run as penguins because we had a sort of dorm room mascot in college, and he was a penguin. Also penguins are amazing, so...

I decided to save my money and just be a cheerleader, so I didn't get to run through and see the animals. I was a little sad, but it was good that I got to take a few pictures of the girls! I also took some pictures of other random people just to practice. I always need practice with fast paced events like this! Some of my lenses are pretty slow to focus, so it's kind of hit or miss. I desperately need to teach myself to manually focus. 

And they're off!

not really a zoo animal, but Batman was there! ha

 adorable family

And they're back! Sorry, Miranda, that was the best one with both of you in it :) :) :) haha. Emily likes to sprint to the finish, so I missed her. After the run we ate some spaghetti served by the zoo, then we went to TRADER JOE'S! I always try to hit up TJs when I go to Nashville because we don't have one here or in Memphis. It stinks because I love that place.

So yeah, this happened like 6 months ago, but I guess that's not a huge amount of time in the grand scheme of things. We talked about trying to get together once a month, but that's not really working so far. We all have so much going on that it's hard to get together that often. And one of our other friends is living in West Virginia, so we don't get to see her anymore either. It stinks! As much as I enjoy being independent and out of school, I miss being able to see these girls every day. The sad thing is that me and Miranda live in the same town! AND WE'RE COUSINS. haha. The only time I see her really is when the family gets together. I guess a handful of times a year is better than not seeing them at all. I gotta be grateful for what I have. I've just been thinking about them lately, so this was a nice little reminiscing post.