fun fall weekend

so it's been a busy past few days, as usual, but we've had a lot of fun seeing old friends, family members and spending some quality time with the animals.

friday morning, i got a call asking if i would be willing to come out to my former school's fall festival for a reflector.com slideshow. i checked with my editor and got the all clear, so after a VERY hectic day at work (if you want the full story, i'll tell you in person) i headed over to the school for one of my favorite events. pictures are up at reflector.com if you want to check them out, and they added a pie-eating contest this year. quite entertaining! above all, it was fabulous to see some of my favorite teachers and families and to catch up with them.

this morning, i got up to do another photo job (which ended up being a total wash-out) and then helped get things ready for my step-father-in-law's surprise 60th birthday party. he was completely surprised and we had a great time visiting with relatives and friends! here are a few pictures from the afternoon's events...

the cake, of course. they went for the number candles rather than 60 actual candles.

blowing the candles out the first time...

then putting on the gag gift--the "over the hill hippie" hat for the sake of pictures. notice the long gray ponytail out the back. what can i say, they're from west virginia... :) (haha, just kidding)
one of the coolest gifts--mike is a very talented man and has been known to write songs, poems, stories and apparently, a book. he had been working a book about job searching for years and apparently had it sitting on a hard drive for quite some time. scott took it and actually got it published, where it will eventually be sold on amazon and everything. it was definitely an amazing present.

so after the party, the skies finally cleared and the sun was out. with the rain over the past couple of days, pepper had not gotten her regular walks in. i also thought it would be fun to let justin see her in action at the dog park, so we headed on over there and let her run all of her extra energy off. she got very messy though, rolling in the dirt there and running around with the other dogs. luckily, we had a neat sheet in the trunk and could wrap her up for the ride home. justin thought it would be fun to document her bath procedure.you can actually see the dirt caked on her fur here. she was a "hot mess," as we like to say at work.

and following a few minutes of protest, she's all clean (and looking quite pathetic if you ask me.)
tomorrow, it's a full day with early service for church so i can do a family shoot at noon and then face painting at the fall festival, followed by small group fellowship with chili and games at our house. whoo! i went ahead and did grocery shopping tonight (a typical sunday afternoon chore) and justin did a great job of cleaning on friday, so it shouldn't take too much work to get ready.

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