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Family Photo Session… and Guacamole! / Golden Valley Family Photography

May 8, 2012

I had the best time with the Johnson Piper’s!  That is Louie, Alice and Eddie and their parents Emily and Jeff.  I am always so envious of the energy of children!  That’s one of the reasons why I love photographing children because more often then not, that energy wears off on me and I feel like a kid again!

First, Emily and Jeff took me to the nature preserve that was literally in their back yard!  I am so jealous!  Then when it was time for the kids to go in for a snack I thought, okay, get some shots of them hanging out with plastic bags of gummy treats, chowing down.  But, not these kids!  Not only did they make their own snack (with some help from Mom) they made guacamole!  I didn’t think kids ate anything that was green!  Boy did they prove me wrong!  They really got into it and Mom told me that they love to help out in the kitchen.  Wow, lucky Mom!  Once again, one of those moments where I love to be surprised!

 

 

 

Digging In The Dirt

April 24, 2012

Spring is here and it is time to get out in the yard and prep the garden for growth!  Over the weekend Tim (with his boot for his broken ankle) and I were “Digging in the dirt”.  Pulling out all of the creeping charlie and dandelions, and other random objects that we found, preparing to make way for new and better things.  I love being out in nature and working in the garden.  Nature is one of my three passions.  The other two are, photography obviously, and animals.  I always feel I have a new appreciation for life and things that are going on in the world when I am working in the garden and helping plants to grow.  Everything just seems lighter!  And a little wine always makes things go more smoothly!

However, as I am writing this post and even as I was working outside, I cannot help but to think of the metaphors of “digging in the dirt” and of course Peter Gabriel’s song “Digging In The Dirt”.  His song has a bit of a darker theme all around, yet I feel that some of the lyrics relate to my life and how I have been feeling.  I decided to only include the lyrics that felt most hopeful to me.  If you would like to view all of the lyrics you can do so by clicking on the link above.

“Stay with me, I need support I’m digging in the dirt

To find the places I got hurt

Open up the places I got hurt

The more I look, the more I find

As I close on in, I get so blind.”

Peter Gabriel

 

Some volunteer lettuce from last year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My seedlings that I will soon be planting out in the real world!

 

My seedlings that the mites and my cat Francis ate!  Fortunately they were

only some flowers that I was experimenting with and not my vegetables.

I like to think that Francis was just trying to help remove the mites,

but got carried away.

 

 

 

Vow Writing Session? or “The Man Shoot”

April 6, 2012

Back in February, when it was cold and snowy (kind of ) and before Tim broke his ankle, (I’ll share this another time) Tim and I set out to do a little inspiration shoot.  I wanted to focus on “The Man shoot” because usually at a wedding the photographs are more centered around the Bride and the Groom gets a few shots here and there.  So I made Tim model for me!  :)  I mean, he is pretty cute.  Then we were thinking, well, what could our “Man” be doing?  Writing vows, of course!  I’m always surprising my self with my brilliance!  We also decided to incorporate Tim’s love for bird watching and threw in some binocular shots.  However, when we went out to some small Minnesota towns on a Sunday, we forgot that many places are either closed or close early on Sundays and I’m just not an early riser.  We did finally come across a cute little deli in Cannon Falls, but they were closing in 15 minutes so we had to act fast!  This was at 3:00 in the afternoon!  What do people do in these small towns?!  Anyway, I did notice (to Tim’s slight dismay) that there was a winery down the street that was open until 5:00pm!  I’m such a sucker for wineries and it was super cute inside AND there was live music being played!  (Come on Tim don’t be so grumpy!)  So we ended our day at The Canon River Winery!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Witches Hat, Cribbage and Nerds! Minneapolis Engagement Photography

April 2, 2012

This must be the season of the Nerds!  I just finished up another engagement session where the couple referred to themselves as “Nerds”.  Meet Mel and Jesse, they enjoy playing cribbage and watching Battlestar Galactica, they even built a model of one of the battleships.  I love it!   Jesse proposed to Mel at The Witches Hat Tower so they thought it would be a great place to go back to and get some photos.   I love this park!  They actually open the tower once a year for people to climb the spiraling staircase to the outlook area.  It’s pretty awesome!  Jesse is in the Navy so we had to squeeze this session into his crazy schedule quick before their wedding in May.  I thought it was so great when Mel pulled out their cribbage board to use in the photos!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Movie Nostalgia

April 1, 2012

I cannot even begin to explain how excited I was to find this on Netflix Instant Watch last night!  It is so great!  It totally brought me back to my youth.  I had the biggest crush on Morgan (James Spader) ((he even sings)) and I wanted to be Frankie (Kim Richards), I mean, come on, that hair!  This movie is the 1980′s in all of it’s glory!  The fashion, (watch for the leopard onesie in the first 15 minutes) the make-up, the music, the dance moves and of course, the hair!  It is great if you want a fashion flash-back or if you are just looking for a really good laugh!  I highly recommend it!

I can honestly say now, however, that after seeing recent episodes of The Office, I no longer have a crush on James Spader.  Seriously!  What happened?  Kim Richards’ fate (also the child star from the Escape to Witch Mountain movies) appears to be even worse!  She is now on The Real Housewifes of Beverly Hills and apparently has a substance abuse problem.  It’s kind of sad.  She’s also the half sister to Kathy Hilton making her Paris Hilton’s Aunt.  Weird!

So, I’m not really sure if there is a moral to this story or not.  I guess it’s just a reminder that actors are not perfect or immortal, as some might think.

Such a classic film though!  So, grab your favorite movie snack and let Tuff Turf take you back to 1985!