Laura and Matt II

And here's some more of my faves from Matt and Laura's wedding, picking up at the ceremony where I left off in yesterday's post.



This one cracks me up!

Laura and Matt

Laura and Matt's wedding was forever ago (or at least close to forever) but because they are possibly the nicest people ever, they just kept telling me not to rush myself, and I've been so busy with so many other things that I totally jumped on their offers, and I kept bumping them to the bottom of my to-do list. (That'll teach clients to be nice to me, eh!) Anyway, from all the way back in September, here we have Matt and Laura- the first post anyway- more to come soon!

I did Matt and Laura's engagement shoot about a year before the wedding and when they came to pick up their engagement pictures they had a big announcement- which was that this lil' guy, MJ, was on his way! Laura and Matt's wedding plans, (and dress choice :)) changed a lot at that point, but they still ended up having such a tender and beautiful little ceremony in Shakespeare's Garden. They got ready and did their reception at the Marines Memorial Building, and MJ was there for it all, just as happy as could be, as if he knew exactly what was going on- so so cute!


Laura found this cute tea-length dress right off the rack 2 weeks before the wedding!


And as coincidence would have it, Laura's childhood best friend, and Maid of Honor, had a little baby girl about a month before they had MJ, so the two babies had little matching-sized formal-wear.








LOVED the hot pink and lime green color scheme!!
















Pinkie-promised to their vows.




I have to cut this post short at the moment, but I'll finish putting up more in the morning.

Lisa, Bonnie and Spike

I did this photo shoot of Lisa and her babies back at the end of last year; we went over to Fort Funston, where I go all the time, but Lisa showed me this really great little forest area that I never realized was there. That place is just so full of little marvelous spots!












Lisa emailed me a picture of Bonnie before we did the shoot and I think I laughed out loud when I saw it. I did so in the kindest of ways, really, but I was just so caught off guard when I saw she had a half-kangaroo dog. Those ears!

Gotta love 'em.

Dog in the Fog

I wanted to do some pictures of the dogs in some foggy SF headlights the other night. It didn't really work out like I wanted though :( I think I need some more practice with this setting. Oh well, I still thought I'd post just one of them on this rainy foggy day today.

Chess and Family Night

One of my goals this year, as you maybe saw, was to leave work by 7:00 every night. Well, that goal is going . . . so-so, but comparatively, I think it's going great. Basically, in the past I've always worked with the goal to get a particular project done, and then if there's still time, I go do something fun. Well, these projects always, no matter what, take longer than I plan for, so I'm often disappointed. But my new plan has been that I just work until a certain time and whatever gets done, does, and the rest goes to the next day. This is a difficult approach for me since I always want to get "just one more thing" done, but it's being made slightly easier with the advent of "family night".
Monday is Family Night and I'm trying to leave even earlier on that night, like at 5:30 (holy moly!), and then Shawn and I play. I've been trying to incorporate an element of newness into our Monday night activities, having it be something we've never done before, or at least not often. So far, we have played the Wii with some friends (where I was a total maniac novice virtual boxer and accidentally stepped on their real cat's tail), we had music night on Haight St. where we went shopping for a harmonica and exchanged all our old cds for money at Amobea (btw- the guy totally scoffed at the music we were trying to turn in- poor Shawn had to be associated with some of my choice selections- and in the end he offered us $30 for about 150 cds!), we did a beach clean-up on MLK Monday, and highlighted here in this post, Shawn taught me how to play chess.

In case you don't know Shawn at all, I should explain that he loves chess. He lettered in chess in high school (and frequently uses that fact to support his case that he was in fact technically an Athlete since he lettered in it). He was team captain (hot!). Anyway, also if you don't know Shawn at all, I should explain that he is very excited in these pictures :) Sometimes it's hard for people to tell.

I, on the other hand, was not quite as thrilled with my introduction to chess. I mean seriously, who thought to put this in the "game" category. It really shouldn't be a game when you have to think that hard and remember that many things!! Needless to say, I have been kind of a baby about learning, but since I know Shawn loves it so much, I've promised to continue to give it a chance. So far, I think the farthest I've made it is like 8 moves in.

Anyway, along with becoming familiar with all the new game pieces- bishop, rook, knight, etc., our particular model of chess also comes with a Gremlin piece.