A Year Ago Today...

We left the good ol' USA and landed in London...

I can't believe it's 2010 and that our London trip began a year ago today. It really doesn't seem possible that it's been that long. I have a feeling I'll have a lot of "a year ago today" moments this year. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing?

I have been pretty absent from the blog the last couple months. My pictures are here, but I haven't been. As much as I hate this lame, five-word sentence, it's really true: I have been so busy. Actually, scratch that, WE have been so busy. Here's a quick re-cap of the last couple months:

• Raising a crazy puppy! I almost made the title of this post "Pee and Poop" because I keep telling everyone that our life consists of those two things. :) I swear that the majority of Jordan and my conversations in the last month have revolved around Max and his pee and poop... clearly the foundation of every marriage. ;) Max is incredibly smart and SUPER feisty, but we love him nonetheless!
• Jordan endured his two weeks of law school finals. He was literally out the door by 7:30am and usually wasn't home until 10:30pm for the two weeks before finals and during finals. Let's just say we are BOTH glad he's done!
• I had multiple family photo shoots in December as well as my first company Holiday Party shoot -- lots of fun! I also finally got my Flat 4 Photography website up.
• We celebrated our 3rd anniversary! We went out to dinner at the Sho Gun restaurant (which I would highly recommend!), got my favorite dessert at the Mustard Seed, and then came home to watch our wedding video, drink some champagne, and sit in the hot tub. Overall a great night... and an even better 3 years! :)
• Our good friend, Marc Grow (Nicole's boyfriend), moved in with us! Even though it's a full house, Marc is a great roommate and he deals with our craziness really well. :)
• We got to spend a lot of time with our families during Christmas, which was awesome, as always. My parents got us tickets to the Gonzaga vs. Oklahoma basketball game on New Year's Eve and we had a BLAST at the game -- oh, and did I mention we got to see a player break the backboard in real life?! :) Pretty sweet!

Unfortunately, I have been horrible about taking pictures of our lives lately. That is one of my million resolutions for 2010, to get more pictures of us instead of just everyone else. :)

With that said, I did manage to get some shots of our "kids." :) Honestly, I take more pictures of our dogs than anything else... I realize I am "that person" who shoves pictures of their dogs in peoples' faces and expects them to think they're the cutest dogs they've ever seen. Sorry about that, but it's probably not changing anytime soon. :)

Look how much Max has grown! Here are Maggie and Max in their Christmas sweaters... haha! They were both pissed at me the whole time I was taking these. Seriously, how annoyed does Maggie look?!

The rest of these pictures were taken with my iPhone, so forgive the poor quality. I forgot to mention that my Mom got our family a ping pong table for Christmas -- totally random, but so much fun! We have already had a few intense ping pong tournaments in the garage...

Maggie and Max LOVE going over to grandma and grandpa's house! I love this picture because it gives you a good size comparison of the two pups. Max is now about 12 weeks old and about 7 pounds (he was 5 1/2 weeks old when we got him and 3 pounds!)

I got to see a few of my best friends from high school when they were home for Christmas. My friend, Adriane, discovered that Max has an outrageous amount of loose skin that he needs to grow into! By the way, I promise this didn't hurt him. He didn't even make a peep! Truthfully, I think he has so much skin that he didn't even feel it! :)

We were SO LAZY on New Year's Day. We had good friends over for brunch (waffles and mimosas, yummm!) and then just laid around and watched football all day in our pajamas. I think we really needed a day like that after our crazy couple months!

As you can tell, our lives have been consumed by our dogs, law school, photography stuff, and the holidays. Totally glamorous, I know. Try not to be jealous. ;)

As hard as it is to say goodbye to our amazing 2009, I think I am ready for a new year and new adventures. Nothing seems to compare to living in London, traveling around Europe, and skydiving, but I'm sure we'll think of something... :)

Beth + Megan

I have had so much support since I decided to start my photography business, and a lot of it has come from unexpected places... enter Beth! :) Beth Vercic played club volleyball with my sister in high school and they have recently reconnected and they actually live in the same building downtown. Beth mentioned my name to her boss a couple months ago because they needed some professional head shots done so I was able to do those for them, and she has passed my name along to so many people since then. Thanks, Beth!!

Beth is getting married this summer, and she decided she wanted to get some portraits done for her fiance for his birthday of herself and her fiance's daughter, Megan. Such a fun idea! So I met Beth and Megan at her loft for some indoor portraits and then we headed outside to try out a couple new spots downtown and braved the cold for as long as we could. We had so much fun, and both of these ladies are BEA-U-TIFUL!!! Here are some of my favorites from the shoot... and if you know Chris, Beth's fiance, keep these a secret because his birthday is not for another couple weeks. :)

Remember you can click on any of the pictures to see them larger if you want.

Now for the outdoor pics...

So FUN!!! Love, love, LOVE this one below...

I can't wait to hear what Chris thinks of his birthday present! :) Does anyone have any faves? I always love to hear... :)

I know I said in the last post that I was going to post something about what's going on with Jordan and I and the pups. It's in the works, I swear, so stay tuned!

Pugh Family

I had the privilege to do some family pictures of another girl I played volleyball with -- pretty sure my volleyball "family" is keeping me in business! ;) It has been so fun reconnecting with all of these women that I absolutely love!!

Lindsey Pugh, formerly Lindsey Wagstaff, went to Mead High School too, although we didn't actually get to play volleyball together until I went to Whitworth. Lindsey was a senior when I was a freshman, and not only is she a great volleyball player but she also has the best sense of humor and always kept things light-hearted on the court. Lindsey is so funny and sarcastic -- I love it! :) Linds married Ryan Pugh, who also went to Mead and Whitworth and played baseball. This family is a Whitworth family through and through! They were recently blessed with the cutest baby boy, Cade, who is just over 4 months old.

The Pughs met me down at my sister's loft last weekend to do some indoor pics since it was so cold... literally freezing. Which reminds me, if anyone has any creative ideas for indoor pictures, PLEASE SEND THEM MY WAY!! Anyway, we did most of the pictures inside and then braved the cold for a few minutes at the end. Here are some of my favorites from the shoot...

I forgot to mention that Cade has unbelievably HUGE and beautiful blue eyes... :)

This one cracks me up! Like mother like son?! ;)

Again, I just thought this one below was great. The Pughs have such a great parenting approach -- they laugh a lot and even when Cade would cry (which was hardly at all), he would stop a minute or two later because his parents weren't freaking out. I'm starting to learn that babies really seem to reflect their parents' attitudes... :)

We went behind my sister's loft, which is literally right on the train tracks in downtown Spokane for some outdoor pics. Cade was such a trooper!

I think this one below might be my favorite of the bunch! I love how he just looks like he's chillin' on the chair. :)

Right when we were about to go inside, a train came by... So of course we had to get a picture!!

Thank you, Pughs! You guys have a beautiful little family.

Stay tuned for some Tampien updates... I know it's been a while, sorry! Life has been just a little nuts lately, to say the least.