Elena! (Senior)

Here are some of my favorites! There wasn't much editing to be done, she's totally beautiful and photogenic. That shiny hair, and glowing skin? All natural. We drove around town for a few hours and became such good friends we were taking Snapchats together by the end of it. Our focus was senior pictures, and when I asked her if there was theme she wanted to work off of, she casually said,

 "Well I just really love snowcones."

I hope she's as happy with how they turned out as I am.

 Thanks for looking. Xo

Windy and Jovial.

Weekly update! As is tradition on my days off...I've been playing catch-up. Back in March I spent the day with one of my favorite people in the entire world, Windy. She has a chef husband (Andrew), a beautiful curly-haired daughter (Jovi), and they all live in a cottage-like green house with their cat. Sigh.

Two weeks ago, they welcomed another member to the family, another sweet little girl named Sage, and I decided it was high time to get my butt in gear and edit some of these pictures.

If you're thinking I'm crazy for not doing it sooner, I agree. Between Windy's pregnant belly and Jovi's big brown eyes, they're a photographer's dream. Sorting through and trying to pick out 20 or 30 to work on was almost painful. 

I love these people, and this day was extra special for me. Feel free to swoon.

Last Weekend.

Another trip has come and gone, the fifth for us, and the last. 

The next time that I see Greg will be in 37 days, and we'll be packing up his Subaru and driving it back to St. George together. When we met back in November, I never assumed that we would be making this move in such a short amount of time, if ever. As much as I would like to say it's a compromise or mutual readjustment, it's nothing less than Greg giving everything for what he loves and believes in. When I'm busy trying to act "realistic" and setting deadlines or timelines, he steps in to remind me of what's important. He puts my happiness first when I can't do it for myself. So I owe this step to him.

Every-time we book tickets to see eachother, a countdown begins. Our phonecalls end in "See you in X amount of days!" Greg also likes to use fingers and toes as references. I make mental lists and plans. Places to hike, new restaurants to try, people to stop by and visit with. But so far, I've never failed to completely trash those plans, order pizza, and spend the weekend in his lap watching movies. We did a little better this time, spent Friday night getting drinks with our friends, and later talked some of them into seeing the horror flick Oculus. (Don't watch the part with the apples, ick.)

Saturday we made a stop at Nicole's because if anyone loves Greg more than I do, it's her kids. Cardon wasn't particularly fond of the mustache, but he crawled out from hiding after a few minutes to show off his Pokemon cards. We piled into my car, swung by to pick up my little sister Monique, and went to Iceburg for milkshakes and fries. (This is also a good time to bring up that Greg doesn't like fry sauce, something I intend to work on over the summer.) We spent the rest of the afternoon at the pool, watching Truman and Prentice try to wrestle eachother into the freezing water and laughed into tears when Prentice casually said, 

"oh my gosh you guys, I can't stop farting.." 

Sunday was my favorite. We laid in bed with the window open and our legs wrapped around eachother. Lucy was somewhere in the middle (of course), snoring under the covers. I got up to get a drink and noticed my camera on my nightstand. Greg had dozed off and I used the 10 slots left on my memory card to capture how sweet my life felt at that moment. 

 I miss him. 

The next morning we woke up hours before the sun was up and drove to the all-too-familiar Las Vegas airport. I was sporting my messy hair and oversized sweatshirt and he wrapped me up in his arms and reassured me over and over. "We're going to be okay, babe. This is the last time I'll ever have to leave you. We're going to be okay, I promise. Only 39 more days. I love you. I'll see you soon."

Chambers at home, being 1 and stuff.

Here it is! My first blog post. Something that I forgot to mention in my bio, is that I love kids. (I also love otters, but we'll save that for another time.)  I grew up in a big family with a mother who was very passionate about staying home and caring for all six of us. Although she had the means for it, a nanny was never hired and we never spent an afternoon in daycare. After the first four kids were in their teens, she decided she missed motherhood so much that she needed a few extra. (My dad grudgingly obliged, but he's since admitted it was a good idea.) She was nearing her forties when I was born and she had passed that mark by the time my youngest sister came along. The age gap between us and the others ended up working to my advantage, because by the time I was in fifth grade, I already had my first nephew, Truman. Now there are twelve of them that call me Aunt Danielle, and it's easily one of my favorite titles. (Followed closely by Pug Mama and Pasta Queen.) I've heard people say that being around young children is good for cheap birth control, but it didn't work out that way for me. Being a part of my sibling's lives as they started cute families of their own motivated me to do the same someday. (I'm lucky because Greg isn't even creeped out by this or any of the other creepy things that I talk about) One of the newest members of my niece/nephew clan is Chambers. He is Nicole's son and her house is only three miles away from my apartment so I try swing in a few times a week. Her kids all have blonde hair and the bluest of blue eyes. I'm always greeted with kisses and inaudible squealing and on occasion, when Cardon is around, biting. (We're working on that.) Anyway, one of the more recent benefits I've found to being an Aunt, is that I have a supply of photogenic kids to use at my disposal. And even luckier still, they love it. Yesterday while I was getting some 1 year old shots of little Chambers,  I was followed around by the rest of the gang with cute pleadings of "Danielle (Dan-dell) take pictures of me! Take pictures of me!" Nicole finally banished them to the backyard. Getting an infant to hold still and smile isn't an easy feat, but with some props and a lot of embarrassing high pitched cooing, (Nicole was dancing, too) we did it. Here's some of my favorites, and as you can imagine, staying behind the lens and not squeezing those chubby little legs was very, very hard. 

Xoxo