Trucking on...and our weekend plans

Soooo happy Friday is here again! This has been a really good week for Aus. He is now 8 treatments down and has 17 to go. We are getting there!! His side effects have been really minimal this week so that has been great. The only thing new was this metallic taste he was having (which has gotten better) but he said his mouth tasted like he had been sucking on a penny! Yuck! And now it's Friday and he has a two day break. I am really thankful his body is handling the chemo so well, because if it didn't, (which is common for a lot of people) then they would either decrease the dose or eventually have to stop it all together. Studies have shown that radiation is most effective when combined with certain chemo drugs so I am thankful his body is allowing him to take the chemo which puts him in the best possible situation for this to be effective. Another gift from God, as this could be so much worse.

We have a little Save-the-Date shoot at the beach this weekend so we are headed south tomorrow morning. We are going to Atlantic Beach (a first for me!) and I am exited to check it out. We are staying Saturday night and then plan on hanging by the water Sunday and driving home. I do feel blessed that our job gives us so many opportunities to go to the beach. We missed both of our family beach trips this summer so at least we are making it up a day here and there on the weekends. I think it is very therapeutic for us both! 

Our anniversary is on Tuesday and tomorrow (the 18th) is the 3 year anniversary of when we got engaged. We figured we would celebrate all of that at the beach this weekend too. After all, we got engaged on the beach so that will be fun...what an awesome day/night that was! 

Aus is about to finish treatment now and we are headed back home to go to work. My job has been soooo amazing with me and allows me to come with Aus most mornings. Today I will get to work about 9am and work until 7pm, so I am very thankful for the flexibility and being able to be with Aus on these not-so-fun mornings.  

Going down memory lane this morning...hard to believe this was 3 years ago!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

 

A little jibber jabber...

We got home from Myrtle Beach yesterday and finished our spring wedding rush. We now have a break...for a bit. We don't have any Windy Peak weddings in May, but we still have two to attend. We are excited to be wedding guests for a change! Still though, we won't have much of a wedding break.


We got up early and drove down to the beach on Saturday in hopes of getting some sun and a chance to play in the water. When we got there it was sunny and HOT but I swear as soon as we sat down in the chairs, opened our first beer and took our shirts off, the sun went away and it was freezing! Apparently a big cold front/mini storm was coming through. Awesome.

We still managed to have lots of fun though and went to dinner at The Chesapeak House (thanks Katie for introducing us to that one!) on Saturday night and I had the best crab legs of my life! Such a treat!

Sunday we worked all day...Laura and Ken had a gorgeous wedding at The Hilton and the weather was pretty cooperative. We manged to get a whole lot more pictures outside than I thought we would. It was suppose to rain all day and really only ended up raining right at ceremony time. Laura had reserved a tent, just in case, and she was verrrry glad she did! I'll be blogging about their wedding on the WPP blog by the end of the week.

Monday we hung around the hotel a bit and then went to lunch at Dick's. Ohhh that place cracks me up. The food is meh, but the service is definitely hilarious. Austin even got me to try fried alligator. I wasn't a huge fan. So I soaked it in ranch. 

The GoPro watching the road for us...

In other news....


Molly still won't go in her dog house. I'd say that was $150 well spent. 


This coming weekend we have two maybe three shoots and will just be hanging at home catching up on work in between. We have a maternity shoot Friday evening and an engagement shoot Sunday evening. Liss and Peyt might be coming up for a night or two and if so we will be doing a little family shoot with the three of them on Saturday. :)  Glad to have another weekend at home!


I'm *hopefully* going to Danville on Thursday to hang with the girls and visit with little Claudia again. Time to get my fix...missing them!! 

Windy Peak is doing something SUPER cool...

We are hosting a GIVEAWAY! Our first giveaway is for any potential clients looking to book a wedding collection with Windy Peak....

Our second giveaway is for any and everybody else! If you already like our page on Facebook, then you can mention us in a status, tell people about this contest and tag us, tweet about us, shar your windy peak photos, etc. If you don't like us on Facebook...then like our page and you will be entered to win! 

PLEASE e-mail sales@windypeakphotography.com and write I'M PLAYING in the subject so we know to look for your entry! 

Up to 5 entries per person...each time you leave a status about us or tweet about us you will be entered to win. 

Check out the Windy Peak Blog for additional details! 

We are really excited and I'm hoping some of my Some like it Southern followers will play too!! :)

Outer Banks Wedding

Hiiiiiiiiii friends! Hop on over to our Windy Peak blog and check out this beautiful beach wedding! Austin and I are headed to Willmington tonight so we can wake up bright and early for our wedding tomorrow. Excited for another fun wedding weekend!! Happy Friday!

Windy Peak Wedding - Heather + Andrew

We have a new post on the Windy Peak blog from Heather and Andrew's wedding last weekend. I've been so busy with our work blog I haven't had time to update my personal blog. Soon though! In the meantime, check them out here!

Windy Peak Wedding - Jenny + Drew

I made a Windy Peak post from our wedding last Saturday from some of our favorites of the day.  These two were awesome- check Jenny and Drew out here!

They did a first look...which we were super excited about! 

Aren't they sweet? :)

Just a few updates...

• Molly has been great since she had her surgery last Thursday.  Since the moment she got home she was back to her same ol' self and the only way we knew she had surgery was the 5 inch incision on her belly.  I'll be taking her stitches out in another week and she will be all good to go! 

• Sunday we woke up and headed to Cornerstone Presbyterian Church for the morning service.  Aus and I are in the process of church "shopping" to find a good fit for us + our future family.  We've shopped around a bit before but this time we are determined not to stop until we find the perfect little church for us.  We liked this one pretty well but we are going to try out a few other services before we make a final decision.

• We shopped a bit later that day (tax free weekend, holla!) and relaxed at home with Abs.  We had typical Sunday night Mexican after we dropped her off with her mom then came home and did WPP work the rest of the night.  We have been so busy.

• This coming Saturday (13th) marks the first day of our huge wedding stretch so we are preparing for that.  Tying up loose ends with clients, catching up on all our taxes and accounts and mentally preparing for these long hours. We love it though.  We do have a nice week long break in between all this madness. OBX in 10 days!

Windy Peak

We've finally finished our new blog for Windy Peak.  I'll be updating it often so check back for new posts and pictures! We also changed our logo - which you can see on the new blog and website.  I'm loving the new changes and our business is really growing.  We've got 10 weddings this year and are actually at the point of turning down business - crazy! Check us out and follow us!

http://www.windypeakphotography.com/blog

WakeMed and WPP

I've been at WakeMed for two days now and I really like it.  I've worked in the MICU (Medical Intensive Care Unit) and the SICU/STICU (Surgical Trauma Intensive Care Unit) and both have been great.  All the nurses and staff have been super friendly and helpful.  I'm feeling pretty good about the charting systems and how all the computer stuff works. I'm a quick learner ;) I will have two more days of orientation in other units so I'm hoping to have the same experiences there. The schedule is definitely a HUGE perk.  I don't have to decide what I want to work next week until this weekend - I love that!  I think I will mostly work Monday, Wednesday and Thursday every week.  I don't like doing 3 days in a row (exhausting) and I'd like to have every Friday off + the weekend. I may do a night here and there but I'll mostly work days.  I really like having dinner at home and going to bed with my hubs.

Windy Peak is doing so well! We are so excited.  We've booked 7 weddings for 2011 so far and have several in the works we are hoping to seal the deal on.  Most are late summer/fall but our first wedding of the year is in 2 weeks.  We've booked a few for 2012 also and various bridal shoots, family portraits etc etc. We are working on an on WPP blog, so that will be up and running with all our current stuff soon.  I'll be sure to pass on the link!  Remember when I blogged about how excited I was to advertise on TheKnot.com?  Well, yea, not so much.  We did it for 2 months and didn't book a single wedding.  We got several inquires, but that's really no big deal, we normally get several a week.  I'm not sure why it didn't work so well for us but it definitely wasn't worth the price we were paying.  Word-of-mouth is our biggest seller, so people, SPREAD THE WORD, and believe it or not - Craigslist!

In case you don't have it, you can visit our website at http://www.windypeakphotography.com check us out and tell all your newly engaged friends. :)

Jess

We photographed the beautiful, Jess Duncan this past weekend at a new location - a farm right around the corner from our house.  Aus and I are always on the hunt for new photog spots and one night while Aus was out on the prowl he came across this sweet man's property.  He checked it out and then went to knock on the door to see who lived there.  Turns out, this sweet sweeet old man lives there alone and was thrilled to know we wanted to use his land for photos.  He was more than willing to have us and loved our ideas.  We will definitely be back - the photos turned out awesome (if I do say so myself) I think I'll bring him some fresh hot brownies when we return!

Here are a few of my favorites from the day...

 

Jess's wedding will be over the fourth of July weekend, on July 3rd in Charleston, SC.  She is getting married in the evening at the Mills House Hotel with the reception in the grand ball room.  I've never been to Charleston and I am dying to go so I hope we can work it out in our calendars to attend her big day - I know it will be as lovey as she is!