Each moment of the year has its own beauty, a picture which was never before and shall never be seen again. –Ralph Waldo Emerson
What a blessing to get up this morning to watch the sunrise with my love outside our apartment. We're desperately looking forward to sunshine—until the time is right, sometimes you just have to go looking for it. It was only 40°F, but it was gorgeous—a moment that will never be able to be repeated in quite the same way. Time spent as husband and wife is great anywhere, but this Lake Michigan home is so special to us!
Here are a few of my photo highlights...
You may have seen our previous post about being at the CONNECT Retreat in Georgia a couple weeks ago. It was CONNECT Retreat's second year in existence, and Chad and I were thrilled to be there again. It's a marriage retreat for couples in photography business together, but ends up being so much more than that. Yes, we get to rub shoulders with industry leaders and gain inspiration from others in our field, but It has truly become a community for Jesus-loving, like-minded people in business around the world and a space to share advice and experiences with each other on a personal level.
This year, one session of the Retreat was for five couples (who attended last year) to share—in five minutes—the one thing that impacts their life / marriage / business the most. Chad and I were humbled and honored to be selected. We got to use this opportunity to share about our intentional, daily focus on listening prayer and its effect on our lives. We've chosen to make God the "boss" of our business—and lives—and so we spoke on that very topic.
Since giving that talk, we've received quite a bit of positive feedback about the topic and have had follow-up conversations with others who have called this "life-changing," so we thought sharing the information here on our blog might be beneficial for others, too.
Read MoreWOW. Chad and I are feeling incredibly refreshed and inspired this week! Last week, we spent the week in sunny Georgia (where pretty spring does actually exist!) on a marriage retreat with other couples running photography businesses together. It was the second year this CONNECT Retreat has been offered at the WinShape, and also the second time Chad and I were able to attend.
We carpooled from Wisconsin with Maison Gustke and Caleb Engel (who are engaged to be married this August!) all the way to and from Rome, GA. This made our trip, hands down! We became instant friends, sharing so much about love & life. We laughed together, prayed together, talked shop a bit and made the very most of our 24+ hours in the car. It was quite a blessing to share the experience with them!
Last year around this time, Chad and I had just begun working together full-time, as Chad had only been home about 5 months. We were in desperate need of some advice on how to be married while working together, and vice versa. (You can read about our experience from last year's Retreat here.) We applied SO many great lessons to this past year and consider ourselves a whole different couple this year. It's been an amazing new adventure (of course all good adventures include ups and downs...). We were anxious for more coming into CONNECT 2014.
This year, here were our highlights:
Read MoreSome people love reading. I am not one of those people.
Why? It's really hard for me to sit still and focus on such a quiet activity. I am the slowest reader ever. Because reading is not particularly enjoyable to me, I am also highly distracted ...SQUIRREL!... when I read, so every time I take my eyes off of the page, I have to ...SQUIRREL!... find where I was and re-read the same thing over again to remind myself what it ...SQUIRREL!... said. No matter how good the book is, reading relaxes me to the point of falling asleep—after about four sentences. (No, I'm not exaggerating. Yes, this made college incredibly difficult for me.) It can also be noted that I certainly do not read fiction books for entertainment—unless I'm desperate for a nap.
In this post, I talk about the work-arounds I used to get myself to read anyway and some of my current book recommendations.
Read MoreToday is my birthday, and I'm proud to be 30. I'm in the life stage where most of my friends have either recently turned 30 or they are counting the days until they do. Usually the tone of their voice changes dramatically when they refer to this event. You know, "the big three-oh" tone. It sounds an awful lot like the tone people use when they talk about about having to complete that dreaded item on their list of chores or when they tell the story of discovering their childhood dog didn't actually run away. I've also heard about some wanting to spend their 30th birthday alone so they can cry themselves to sleep in privacy.
Over the past year, as I've been inching closer to this milestone age, I just haven't experienced that kind of dread or anxiety. That got me thinking...why not? I've compiled a list of five reasons I'm unashamed to turn 30.
Also, Chad treated me to a birthday photo shoot to capture this unashamed joy. You can check out the image highlights below, too...
Read MoreAfter a long stretch of negative temps and frigid air, we're finally starting to see some early signs of spring outside our apartment. The snow by our rocky Kenosha beachfront is slowly melting away and slices of ice crunch and creak as they inch to the shore. The sights and sounds are equally serene and spectacular.
In noticing that it was 45°F this morning, I couldn't help but run out to the lake to snap these five shots with my iPhone. It sure is beautiful! No matter the season, this view never gets old to me. It's the first day of Spring Break for students in our area... Beach day anyone?? :)
Read MoreAs of February 11, Chad and I have a niece! My sister Kendra and CJ were proud to welcome Adriana Leigh at 12:57pm, EST. We are very excited to start the spoiling as Aunt and Uncle. Monday, we got to meet the 7-day-old "Andi" at the hospital where she was born in Michigan. SHE'S SO TINY!!! Yes, I know she's a newborn, but really—she was only 3 lbs. 15 oz. when she was born. At 17.5 inches long, she's a little skinny mini!
Kendra did such a great job during labor and CJ was (and still is!) incredibly supportive. Kendra was discharged from the hospital the next day (she was up walking around right after giving birth!), but Andi had to spend some extra time in the Intensive Care nursery so she could gain her strength and put a little meat on her bones :) She's a little fighter and improved quickly. We found out that she got to come home yesterday (at nine days old)! She's up just over 4 lbs today—go, baby, go!
Being the proud aunt / photographer big sister that I am, of course I took some photos of Adriana and Kendra at the hospital. She's precious! And, with a little creative swaddling & Photoshop help, we were even able to hide her monitor cords in some of these.
I'm in love with this week-old-sweetheart and these photo highlights...
Read MoreIn the spirit of Valentine's Day, I thought it was be fun to publicly proclaim why I love my wife, Amber, so much. I thought I would put together a fun list of the top 12 (her favorite number by the way) reasons I'm excited about spending the rest of my life with her. So let's get right to it!
Read MoreWell, Chad and I are back to our regular office hours!
As you may know, we took the month of January to refresh, unplug, and dream a bit—a battery recharge, so to speak. (You can read about the decision to reverse our time for a month in this previous post.) We kept a few design projects going, but mostly we spent the month refreshing our creative ideas, relaxing, praying, reading, exercising, traveling (more on that here), asking lots of important questions, dreaming big and spending time with friends and family.
Here are the highlights and lessons we learned...
Read MoreChad and I are generally "plan it well in advance" type of people. However, after a Tuesday night phone call with our dear friends in Alabama, we found ourselves in the car Thursday morning en route to Tuscaloosa from Wisconsin.
I believe in making wise, prayerful decisions and this one was no exception, even though the turnaround was quick. I'll be honest though, Chad and I fought hard against the idea of such spontaneity as we laid all the options out on the table, thought about pros & cons, looked at our budget, weighed the responsibilities we already had lined up and even consulted another friend for advice. After asking God what he thought about our quick, unplanned trip to AL, we just couldn't kick the thought of spending priceless time with Jacob and Ashlee for the weekend. God's answer to both of us was a simple, yet profound, "Go."
This post is all about true friendship and learning to be spontaneous.
Read MoreAs creative people, we've always got fresh, new ideas simmering. You know, the 'hit me in the shower,' 'woke me up at 3am,' 'wrote it on a paper napkin' kind of ideas. They were super exciting at the time and they're logged in a pile of sketch books somewhere, but unfortunately, somewhere in the "regular routine" of life, they get lost in the mix.
Here's how we've reversed our time and turned up the heat...
There is beauty in everything if we look for it.
With temperatures and wind chills in the negative digits, the complaints about winter (in person and online) are rampant these days.
The way I see it, when you live in the northern midwest, it's inevitable that it will get cold, there will be snow, and there will be ice. That fact doesn't make it any easier to endure when it happens, BUT, it's all about perspective...
You have to see these images I captured of frost inside today!