This past Sunday afternoon, The Orchard Church held an ice cream social for the surrounding community. There was Miranda’s Ice Cream, several yummy toppings, and of course, me with my camera. And being that I am a children’s photographer, I took a lot of photos of the kids! These are just a few fun snapshots I got of some of the kids…

First, I have a few of my favorite of Zeke. He’s become my new buddy. And he’s a total ham…which every photographer loves in a kid!

Then there’s little sister, Ethne. Please note, her right arm is not really that big. It’s just the wide-angle lens.

Then there’s Uncle Jeff feeding little Eth.

And finally Zeke hanging out with Wyatt (his future brother-in-law!)

Even before we started this business, Matt and I haven’t wanted to use our photography to give back. One wasy we have done that is by joining the Think Pink Photography network. Think Pink Photography was started to support individuals and their families who have been touched by breast cancer. It is a charitable organization who’s goal is to celebrate life and support the cause of breast cancer awareness. It is a network of photographers who donate sessions to breast cancer fighters and survivors and money to the Eric R. Beverly Foundation.Anyone who is currently battling breast cancer or who has completed treatment in the last 12 months qualifies for a Think Pink session. Sessions are available to document the fight before or during treatment and to celebrate the victory once the cancer has been beaten. Sessions include 20 small prints and discounts on additional print orders.

If you or someone you know is battling breast cancer, or has beaten it in the past year and are interested in a Think Pink session, please contact me. I would love to talk to you more about this amazing organization and how you can get involved.

This afternoon, I took Addison to Dogfest over in West Chester to enter her into the Milkbone Spokesdog Contest. If she wins, we’ll get a $100,000 contract. Now, the odds of her actually winning…beating out thousands of other dogs all over America…is…well…one in thousands!!! But there’s no harm in trying. Cause, hey…you never know.

Here is a quick snapshot that I got of her with my point & shoot just after she was entered into the contest.

We went to Dogfest with my friend Heather and her yellow lab, Samoa. Here is a shot of Samoa.

Does anyone else find them disturbing? I thought my car was going to be lifted up and carried away the last couple of days driving on 71 North from Cincinnati toward Columbus.  Their sound is one thing. You know, the noise that is so loud that you can hear it even with the radio turned up and the AC blasting? And the hundreds of them that fly around your car while you’re driving is another. But to me, the most disgusting thing is seeing the thousands upon thousands of cicada carcasses that are strewn across the interstate. I’m waiting for the flies and the frogs to have their turn.

I realized the other day that I have done a lot of shooting lately, but I haven’t shared on here. So here is some of the latest…

These images are from a wedding I assisted on in Kentucky. The head photographer is a good friend of mine named Martha who runs a studio in Holmesville, Ohio called All Occasion Photography. She is an incredible photographer and real inspiration to me. If you ever find yourself in need of a photographer in the Holmesville area, I highly recommend her. This was her niece’s wedding…

Next is my favorite little brunette baby, Ethne. This child is an absolute joy to photograph (ironically her middle name is Joy.) And this time I got to do a few shots of big brother, Zeke, and the whole fam.

And finally, the Teboe/Morgan family. The top photo is Amy and her daughter, Mia. The second shot is Amy’s sister Jody and her two girls. Do you see the family resemblance?

Also…I just made a lot of changes to our MySpace page. So check it out and if you haven’t already…please add us as a friend.

It came to my attention yesterday that there is a new bill going before the Ohio General Assembly to ban the owning of Pit Bulls in the state of Ohio. Not just the banning of future adoptions and breedings, but banning in the sense that anyone who currently owns a Pit Bull would have to relinquish the animal to the state for euthanasia. Now I don’t know about all of you, but if I owned a Pit Bull, I would sooner move out of the state of Ohio before I would allow them to take my pet, my family member, and kill him/her just for being born. This is a violation of freedom. Seriously…where do we draw the line?

It is unfortunate that ignorance has lead people to try to put a band-aid on a giant gaping wound instead of trying to deal with the root of the problem. Banning Pit Bulls is not going to solve anything. Pit Bulls are loving, loyal, and affectionate dogs. It is cruel owners who mistreat them that turn some into aggressive, fighting machines. It is not the nature of the breed to be mean.

For those of you that agree with me, please sign this petition to stop this bill. One of the biggest reasons for this law is that there are a great deal of people who are not educated about the breed and make sweeping assumptions. Here is some very unbiased information to help you better understand this breed - the United Kennel Club breed information on the American Pit Bull Terrier.

Matt and I celebrated our 4-year anniversary last night. It was a very nice relaxing evening. We ate at this totally awesome restaurant in West Chester called Soho Japanese Bistro. We sat at the hibachi and got to watch our food being made. It was quite entertaining. And the food was absolutely amazing. I had to stop myself from finishing my plate because I wanted to have some left over for lunch today. We sat with 2 other couples. One couple had just gotten married about a year ago and was 7 months pregnant. The other couple seemed way more interested in their cell phones than the total awesomeness that was happening right in front of them. Seriously, who goes to a hibachi grill only to spend the entire time on their cell phone? Watching your food being made is half the fun.

Then we moved on to Barnes and Noble to give our tummies time to settle before dessert. Matt found this great book called The Mutt Book. It takes you step by step through trying to figure out what the heck kind of dog you have anyway!! Although we found like 10 different things that our two could be, we didn’t land on any type of dominant breed by any means.

Then we finished off our night at Applebee’s for drinks and dessert. I love me some Chocolate Martinis!

Anyhoo…it was a great night and much needed. Sometimes we get ourselves so busy that we don’t take a lot of time for each other. Last night was a good reminder that that needs to be done more often. And yay for 4 years!!!

Matt and I are very involved with a ministry called Compassion International. It’s an organization that exists as a child advocacy ministry to release children all over the world from poverty and help them to grow into responsible and fulfilled adults. We have sponsored children through Compassion now for nearly 3 years. It has been an amazing experience to be connected with a child half-way across the planet. We are currently sponsoring a 6-year-old boy from Kenya named Mamuu. He is bright, sweet, energetic, and absolutely thrilled that someone on another continent cares about him enough to make a commitment to sponsor him!

Part of Compassion’s ministry is Compassion Sunday. It’s an event that is held once a year in churches across the globe to help draw more attention to the needs of children in impoverished areas of the world. Our church had their Compassion Sunday event the first Sunday in May. While we were able to find sponsors for some children, we still have seven who are in need of finding sponsors. If you would like to see photos of these children and a little bit of info on each one, please visit our Compassion Blog. These child packets expire on June 9th. So there is a bit of urgency in this matter. If you are even remotely interested in sponsoring one of these kids, please send me an email with your address and which child you are interested in and I will mail you their child packet. And if you have any questions about Compassion or our experiences with the organization, please ask! We will gladly share.

This is a tale of 2 photographers, very much lacking in sleep, and their exciting trip to the ER at 5:30 in the morning.

After staying up working until about 2 am, Matt’s left ear decided that it wanted to become inflamed and cause Matt a great deal of pain at about 4 am. At 5:15, after searching WebMD for a diagnosis and google for an Urgent Care facility that would be open that early, Matt decides to wake Ashley up and say “I think I need to go to the emergency room.” So off they went at 5:30 to Bethesda North. When they arrived, there was only 1 other patient there, leaving them to believe that this trip might be faster than they originally thought. Little did they know… Within about 20 minutes of their arrival, 8 other patients walked in, 3 of which had far more serious conditions that Matt’s. So they waited, and waited, and waited, and waited (you get the idea.) Finally around 7:30, they are called back to room, only to wait a little longer for a doctor to come in, look into Matt’s ear for about 0.06 seconds and say “Yep! You have an ear infection.” Total time spent with the doctor: approx. 3 minutes. Total amount paid between the “copay” and prescriptions: $130. Wow! What an adventure.

And as a side note, does anyone else find it odd that the doctor prescribed Vicodin for the pain of an inner ear infection? The Johnson’s sure did!

Hope you enjoyed my story…and I hope your day started off a little better than ours!

Just wanted to let everyone know that our foster pup, Jada, has been adopted. She is now living with a nice family in the Colrain area. They have a very excitable basset hound and two kids that absolutely love her. She has a fenced in back yard to run in and I’m fairly certain that she is going to be spoiled rotten! I’m not gonna lie and say that it was easy. I started to cry as we backed out of the driveway and I’m a little emotional right now while I’m writing this. But I know that this is what’s best for her and now we can save another animal from a kill shelter and foster it as well.

So for now, it’s just the 5 of us…Matt, Me, Ivy, Addi, and Wolfy. That is until next week when the next foster moves in. I will post photos and a personality assessment once I have them.