spring break is almost over...

but i plan on squeezing every last minute of relaxation out of it that i can...

our easter ended up being quite nice, with a great church service, a yummy lunch at k&w (we just couldn't bear to cook anything) and a relaxing afternoon of basketball and egg dyeing.

this year we went for the less traditional "tie-dye" egg kit. this involved a little eye dropper, two pieces of material and an egg press that surrounded the cloth wrapped egg. it did produce some pretty cool effects, and we're still enjoying the eggs.

on monday morning, i began my trek across NC with a stop in durham during the day. i have been wanting to do some fun photography on my own (not for oakwood or the reflector) and a couple of the places i really wanted to photograph were duke chapel and duke gardens. so...i planned the beginning of my trip with a stop at both of these places. i will get to see duke chapel again soon when ashley and mark get married there in may, but it was awesome to have the opportunity to photograph the chapel while it was relatively empty.
after meeting my aunt for lunch at elmo's diner (yum!) i headed on over to duke gardens. i was able to spend nearly two hours in the gardens and had such a good time wandering around and stopping to photograph the landscape and some individual flowers. i've only chosen my favorites to put here, so please go to my flickr page to check out the rest.

after meeting ashley for a delicious dinner at cafe carolina, i headed on west to winston-salem where i would stay with matt and patrice for a couple of nights. patrice is in her seventh month and had not really taken any pictures since she got pregnant. i insisted that we take some, so after spending tuesday morning shopping for spring maternity clothes (no easy task, i learned) we went on out to tanglewood park (where baxter and maggie got married last may) and took some beautiful "belly" pictures. i have to say that these are some of my favorite pictures i've taken--ever--and i'm so happy with how they turned out. patrice was thrilled with them as well, and the rest of our evening was spent going through the pictures and including matt in a few.
so wednesday, we took it easy in the morning and i met maggie for lunch before i headed back to greenville. today, the majority of my morning and afternoon was spent out at ecu shooting for founder's day. i ran into several other photographers and reporters, did some networking and got some compliments on my goat shoot (linked on the last post if you missed it.) it felt great to be back on campus, even if it took forever to find a parking spot :) i'll add a link to the founder's day shoot when it's up on reflector.com
and tomorrow... it's yard work day. we're still desperately trying to grow grass in the bare patches, and we have two cubic yards of mulch in the driveway waiting to be spread on our front flower beds. fun times for us tomorrow.

that's all for now. later, y'all.

easter in greenville

it's our first easter in greenville, since we were in fayetteville last weekend for the simmons' dessert drop-in. we've been extremely productive, getting a lot of yard work done (justin) and doing another fun photo shoot (me). i had a great time enhancing some of the photos with an antique finish that played up the light and the colors. be sure to notice those :)

spring break is finally here and i am so relieved to be able to relax for the next few days. i plan on heading over to winston-salem to visit patrice and maggie, and though i had talked about going to boone, i think i'm going to wait for the summer and some warmer weather. (we're going to kentucky for a wedding in august and the route will take us right near boone, so i'd rather try going then).

towards the end of the week, i'm scheduled to shoot founder's day over at ecu (one of my favorite school events!) and a mexican culture festival over the weekend. i like shooting these different events around greenville--and i'm liking the checks, too.

we have plans for easter lunch tomorrow after church and then...our annual dyeing of the eggs. should be a good time :)

that's all for now. later, y'all.

auction is past, spring break is almost here...

so after weeks of preparation, we finally had our annual auction on friday night. pictures are up on reflector.com under their "scene around" button, but i added a few of my personal ones on flickr. the oakwoodettes were a huge hit again this year, and the marilyn monroe costumes, complete with blond wigs and feather boas, made our performance quite popular. though it was not a... broadway performance (many likened it to a drag show) it was terribly entertaining.


justin and i both enjoyed getting dressed up for the occasion. he had gotten a new suit last week in preparation for the three weddings we already have lined up for this summer, and this was his first chance to wear it. i had a little black dress that was just right for the "hollywood" themed event :)
and my photo package proved to be a big hit among the parents, too. i got a lot of questions about the work that i do and got to hand out a ton of business cards. in creating my display for the auction, i wanted to add in some baby portraits, so elizabeth (my intern) brought her 3 month old daughter by so i could take some quick shots. we only had about 5 good minutes to take photos, but they turned out well! i'm getting some great ideas for other baby portraits from browsing photos on flickr, and i can't wait to have some time to take more pictures soon!
in the meantime, we've got oakwood's family science night this thursday (i've been asked to take pics for the school) and a diabetes walk on saturday (job for the reflector). after that, we're heading to fayetteville for a baby shower, the always-fabulous simmons' dessert drop-in, and palm sunday at hay street. we're only two weeks away from spring break (woohoo!) and i've already made plans to head over to winston-salem for a couple of days to visit the very pregnant patrice (and matt, too, but he still has to work).

other than that... i'm just hanging on. i've got spring fever and honestly, summer can't get here fast enough. is that bad? that's just where i am right now...

that's all for now. later, y'all :)

been a little busy...

so it's been a crazy few weeks, and i can hardly believe it's already march. where has the time gone?

one of the reasons february has flown by has been the shear amount of work i've been doing. i reached the point where i realized that, despite how difficult it may be, i occasionally have to say no :) school has been very busy, with family fun night last week, administering some standardized tests, student art show, and all of the preparations for auction (which is this friday.) i've also been making an effort to offer some workshops for parents at school, and i have my first session on monday. below is a picture from the family fun night, where justin and i created "wanted poster" pictures for students and their families.
balancing all this with my work at the daily reflector and volunteering with the youth group has tough, because i've also been traveling a lot. two weekends ago, justin and i headed up to west virginia for our annual "winter" trip to west virginia. this is always the trip that makes me nervous, because there's always the possibility of snow and poor road conditions. however, we took a different route that took us through the southern part of WV and by the new river gorge bridge, an awesome structure. we stopped for pictures (of course) and enjoyed a fairly calm trip to west virginia without any major traffic snarls.

we were also able to get some skiing in at wisp resort in maryland, where the conditions were pretty good and not so unbearably cold like they were two years ago. we spent quality time with all of the family and grandparents and managed to squeeze in a lot for what was essentially only a two day visit (since travel time takes us about 10 hours).

this past week, i headed up to washington, d.c. with my 8th graders as a chaperone on their annual trip. we had four days in the city, and i loved being in a metropolitan area even just for a few days. we stayed in a hotel right inside the georgetown area, which had some great shops and restaurants. i got to see a ton of stuff that i hadn't seen before in d.c., including a white house tour, a visit to the senate, and a tour of the library of congress.

of course, no trip to d.c. would be complete without tracking down the steven colbert portrait in the national portrait gallery.


i was big on the architecture, so you might notice that most of my pictures on flickr are of the buildings and features of the monuments. there were just so many amazing things to capture, and i loved turning a street corner and finding another awesome building in front of me.one of my favorite shots came from the vietnam memorial on the mall.
all in all, a fabulous trip. i do love chaperoning and as long as i'm involved in a school setting, i hope to do more :)


that's all for now. be sure to check out the rest of my photos at the flickr link to the right!