NEW BLOG LAUNCH!!!! (#95...check!)

Ok---don't waste any more time looking at this post. Go DIRECTLY to my brand new blog!!

www.melissajill.net

Flagstaff Fun

We're back from Flagstaff but I wanted to share some fun shots from the trip. Sarah brought her yellow lab, Cyrus, and I brought Dixie. We all packed into Ryan's 2 door Honda Civic--Sarah and Cyrus in the back, me and Dixie in the passenger seat and Ryan driving. It was cozy! Cyrus is like 85 pounds of dog or something crazy like that. He liked to put his head up by Ryan and watch the road while we were driving.


And when he wanted to rest:


Pretty cute.

We stayed up in Flagstaff at Sarah's dad and step-mom's house. It was so relaxing and Dixie had a great time. Sarah's dad has a golden retriever named Wesley so Dixie had two huge playmates:


I've had Dixie for a little over a month now. She's turning out to be such a great dog! She's already grown about 3 times as big as when I got her. I couldn't resist sharing a few cute shots:



Yesterday we took a boat out on Lake Mary and enjoyed the beautiful weather. The dogs had fun running around. Check out how beautiful it was:



Everybody getting settled on the boat:


Sarah and Ryan:


Dixie's first boat ride! She's looking a little wind-blown :).


I love this one with Wesley's nose in the lower right corner:


Me and my sweetie:


We had such a fun weekend! Thanks Bob and Jean for your hospitality!

Ryan & Sarah's engagement shoot

Last night I got to shoot Ryan & Sarah's engagement shoot in Flagstaff, Arizona. I feel so blessed to be here--it's perfect weather and I feel like I'm on vacation or something. Plus Sarah & Ryan are friends and I really enjoy spending time with them. This is the Sarah, by the way, who designed my website. She's super-talented.

Downtown Flagstaff is where we spent most of our time and there were tons of fun places to shoot. We started out where every good engagement shoot should--at a huge mural of a cow painted on the side of a building.


Being goofy:


Sarah & Ryan are perfect for one another. She admits to being more pessimistic by nature whereas Ryan is optimistic. They claim they balance each other out. We saw these shirts at two different stores across the street and had to shoot a few shots with them:


Here's a close-up in case you can't read them:


This is totally unrelated to the shoot, but as we were walking around we came across this newspaper distribution-thingy (what do you call these things anyway?):


Ok, now down to the serious business. Check out how gorgeous Sarah looks here. I love her eyes.


Ryan's not bad looking either :).



More cute photos:









We had fun by the railroad tracks which were surprisingly busy:





I played around with a slow shutter speed to get the movement of the train as it passed by:




At the end of the shoot Sarah and I got Ryan to take a shot of us.


Oh--and this was my first shoot using my new Shootsac by Jessica Claire. It worked great! Here's me modeling it although I also had a black sweatshirt around my waist so it doesn't show off the bag that well:


What a fun shoot! I wish I could stay in Flagstaff all summer...

When it Rains it Pours

So the flu is gone. I'm feeling better which I'm thankful for.

Yesterday the ladies who clean my house were over and while reaching to clean a window, one of them put her weight on my desk and broke it causing my 21" monitor to fall and break along with a few other things. Ahhh!!!!! Why does everything happen all at once!?!

I took my monitor in to the friendly guys at the Apple store and they are hooking me up with a new foot for it (basically a plastic part that helps it stand up) for $100. Thankfully the monitor itself is alright. But the desk is being held up temporarily by some album boxes and now I'm in Flagstaff for the weekend :).

I'm here with my friends Sarah and Ryan who are getting hitched in August. Sarah's dad lives up here and we thought it would be a fun place to do their engagement shoot.

So hopefully bad things really do happen in threes and my grandpa's heart attack, the flu and the destruction of my office are it for me this week :).

Update

Thanks for your prayers everyone. My grandpa is stable. It turns out he called 911 and was taken to the hospital where he had two stints put in an artery that had a clot. Unfortunately, he did sustain some heart damage and we're waiting to find out if he's going to ever have the surgery that was planned for Friday.

My parents flew out to Florida yesterday. I prayed about flying out too but didn't feel a peace about it. And now I have the flu! So I guess it's good I didn't go. I'm pretty sure this is the flu that my relatives had in Minnesota while I was there--it's been about 10 days.

I promise I have more fun things to blog about but they'll have to wait....

Please Pray!

If any of you are pray-ers out there, please pray for my grandpa. My mom just called and my aunt is taking him to the hospital--he is having a heart attack. He is 75 and lives in Florida. A few weeks ago he was having a routine appointment and they found blockage and he was scheduled to have bypass surgery this Friday.

Thank you!

#55....check!

55. Go camping

I just got back from an awesome weekend camping up in the Show Low area. I grew up camping quite a bit in Minnesota and some in Florida but I think the last time I was camping was back in college in Ensenada, Mexico. So I put this goal on my 101 in 1001 list because I really enjoy getting away and soaking in nature.

Some of my close friends--Erik & Marisa Spletter--who have 3 kids just got some camping equipment and are planning to do a lot of family vacationing camping-style. And they invited me along! I was excited because not only was I going camping and spending some time with friends, but I also got the chance to cheer Erik on as he did an Olympic triathlon (quarter of the length of an Iron Man). But I'll get to that in a minute.

The top photo is the view from our campsite. Can you believe how beautiful it was!? Erik & Marisa just brought along their five-year-old, Karina, and left the other kids with grandpa and grandma.


Karina is quite the rock climber for her age!


Marisa enjoying the view:


Erik and Karina checking out the sunset:


This is what it looked like from where they were standing:


On Saturday, Erik did his triathlon and it was super-fun cheering him on and documenting the race. He completed the 1500 meter swim, 20-some mile bike and 8-some mile run in under 3 hours! I can't even imagine trying this but he's done it a number of times!

I love this shot of the race starting:


And this was total luck, but I caught Erik giving us a thumbs up as he swam past!


Here he is heading out on the bike:


And starting the run:


And finally crossing the finish line:


A congratulatory hug from Marisa afterwards:


Way to go Erik! You're amazing!!

The only bummer about the three nights we spent out there was that there was a fire restriction in effect and we were only able to have a campfire one night :(. So I felt a little jipped about that. But we kept ourselves busy with some fun games most of the time:


And I turned my camera over to Erik for one fun shot of me and Marisa:


Thanks so much for the fun time guys!! I can't wait to do it again sometime!

In other news, my email is back up and I have a bunch of emails waiting for me in my inbox from when I was gone. I'm not sure if I'm missing any so if you don't hear back from me in the next day or two, try resending. Thanks for your patience!!