4th of July City Blast

This 4th of July goes down in the books as one of my most favorites ever! To finish off our awesome day Joe, Brandon and I headed down to the Puyallup Four Square's City blast Celebration... to what we thought was going to be some jumping on bounce houses and a firework display...

Once the first band started to play, I realized that we were in for a treat! There was a ton of great performances to watch and get into and even some awesome give-a-ways! Lexy even won a dinner for 2 at Red Robin for it being her Birthday!!

After all of the great performances by bands, clowns, break dancers and stunt men, Pastor Roger took the stage to remind us all that "Freedom is not free".

And what 4th of July would be complete with out a fireworks display? This celebration is going to be a new tradition in our home and we are all ready looking forward to next year!!

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Celebrating with a SPLASH!!

After the boys' naps we headed down to Orting to enjoy the company of the Patsey's!! Can you believe that we actually attempted to keep Owen and Brandon out of the pools for our visit? Silly parents!!!
Both Brandon and Owen were ready to celebrate the 4th with a splash! They started out being bashful and ended up going for full dunks and jumps off the top of the slide... Crazy kids!!









I could not help but notice this sweet little boy admiring the "big kids" from over the fense. He was just adorable!




After the boys dried off and we ate dinner we headed down to the fair grounds to finish up our day at CITY BLAST! Those pictures I will post tomorrow ;)

Let me just say good bye with a big "Choo Choo!! " from Bubba and I!!

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Happy Independance Day

Happy 4th of July people!! Isn't it great to live in a country that is able to celebrate our freedom however we choose?! This year my Mom, Joe and I chose to do it by partaking in the first annual Puyallup Four Square CITY BLAST 5k!! Let me tell you... I am no runner, but when my pastor mentioned this in church a while back Joey and I exchanged glances that silently said "Oh Baby, it's on!!"
Showing up was intimidating! I just kept going "Oh my... Look at those legs" as I realized that these other participants were truly the "real deal"


My awesome step dad, Tim filled in as 'photographer for the day'... Thanks a million!


Even my brother was there to help take care of Bubba...Thank you Tony, your help was so appreciated, Brandon just loves you!!


Here we were after gearing up in our awesome t-shirts, before we got all hot and nasty!! ;)


Hello!! Can you imagine this crowd coming at you? The turn out was awesome, I am looking forward to hearing all the stats on how many people actually raced!

The let the crazy running guys go first and then us joggers, followed by the walkers. I was able to watch Joey from a ways back and I was so excited to see him running and keeping with the pack! Needless to say he finished first out of us 3 coming in at 23 minutes and 20 seconds!!
I must say not only am I super stoked and proud of him, but he looks HOT in this photo!!
I was next to come in at 35.50! My goal was to come in under 40 minutes and just be able to say that "I did it", so shedding that five minutes off of my time was exhilarating!!
From here on out every picture of me I am bright red!!! I don't sweat, which is crazy but I do over heat and it takes me a while to go back to normal.
This next part of my day was my favorite!! My mom has been super diligent in her trainings and has been finishing up 3 miles on the treadmill in about 43 minutes. I decided to go wait for her about a half block before the finish line and I saw her coming in at about 39 minutes. She had her head set in and she could not hear me at first, but I was cheering her on and running along side her... she took off the head phones and heard me yelling "Come on Mom, you are going to beat 40 minutes!!" I saw that spark come into her eyes and a glow come across her face! Then I was afraid that she may not make it and made her aware that she only had ten seconds and BOOM she took off like lightning crossing the finish line at 39 minutes and 54 sconds!!! Woot Woot!! My mom kicks some serious "arsky"!!
This was mine and Joey's first race and I think that my Mom has not ran in one for over 20 years. Proud is an understatement of how we all felt towards eachother!


Time for some celebration photos!!
I am almost certain that there are going to be more great photos of today to come, after all it is only nap time and we still have a day of BBQ and back to City Blast for a family fun night followed by a fire works display! Happy birthday to America, Vee Ann and Lexy!!

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Josh and Danielle: Engagement session part I

WARNING: This is a long one ;)

Meet my friends Danielle and Josh who will be getting married this upcoming fall!


To say that I am excited to be shooting their wedding is an understatement not only because they are so much fun to be around but they just happened to pick one of the coolest wedding locations ever... the super awesome Red Barn Studios!!(Eeeks!!) Josh and Danielle's love for God, each other and life is infectious and I believe that these guys have the tools and know how to make their marriage last forever!


To go along with the barn-country theme we decided to shoot the first installment of their engagement session out in the fields of Orting. Aren't those boots on Danielle great? They are going to be tucked away under her wedding gown, so you can better believe that my camera and I am going to be all over those boots on her special day!!









I know that I am a dork, but I think it is so cute how tiny Danielle is compared to Josh and I really wanted to show case it! Doesn't she just look like she feels so safe and happy in his arms?






We finished up our session in the woods and headed down to the river just before sunset. The same place where Josh gave Danielle her engagement ring!!





Danielle's entire face lights up when she laughs especially when she is focusing in on her sweetie... BEA-utiful!!











Muah!!



We finished the night off perfectly with some great pizza and a bon fire.



Thank you Josh and Danielle for choosing me to hang out with you guys and capture those priceless moments of love between you. I am looking forward to our second part of this session... down town and all dolled up (Danielle-Style!)

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Patsey Family session

Remember Owen?


It has been a while since I got to chase this lil' man around in the fields behind his house (also known as my favorite place to take pictures!!) Owen's energy is contagious to say the least, can't you hear him laughing here?!


Our goal for the evening was to get a couple great family shots... With Owen's energy and Derek's craziness, Michelle and I had our work cut out for us!! And I say craziness in an endearing way ;)





I don't have to prompt this little man to show some love for his Mommy, he gives her flowers when ever he sees them and tells her about how pretty they are!!



Last time I tried to shoot this family in the fall, Dad ended up working late and missing out on the photos. I love this next one of them!




Last but not least we tried to get some shots of Mom and Dad.



In all honesty if I posted my favorite shot of Michelle and Derek on here... Michelle would kill me!! But really we were having such a great time trying to "set the mood!" Ha Ha!!




This is the best "romantic" shot of them... If I were only a photo shop genius I would close his eyes for you, Shell!



This family and mine are pretty tight and they sure are a huge part of our lives. I love you tons and hope you like your pictures!

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Kathy and Aaron's love story

Nothing makes me more excited than when all of my editing is finished and I get to present my work to a client through a slide show! Eeeeks! This one was a little tough though... How to narrow it down to just 71 images?? I chose to use the song that Kathy and Aaron had there first dance to, Jim Brickman's Love Of My Life, a classic romantic number that really portrays any great love tale. However, I was finding that not all of my favorite images were "fitting" to the song or the story of Aaron and Kathy that I was wanting to portray.
I had to leave out fun images like these...



I love the sassiness of this one...

the steaminess of this one...

the preciousness of this little girl and her daddy. I tried to get her for a smile for quite sometime before I captured this one...



But I think you will agree that images that the remaining images make up a beautiful story of Kathy and Aarons special!!! So with out making you wait any longer CLICK HERE to see Aaron and Kathy's slide show!!

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blog under construction

I must confess... I love blogging and sharing my photos with everyone, but I am not a fan with how my blog site looks overall. So it is time for an overhaul!! I made a few changes so far, but none permanent... we shall see!

Love Steph

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