I can't believe it! We came onto the blog a few weeks ago to see what our last post was and it was a year ago!! We've been blessed in our business, but last year was insane for us. From January 1, 2013 to today (May 17, 2014) we actually photographed 124 full weddings! It was a whirlwind of a year both professionally and personally in our lives. We're going to do our best to recap and catch you up on a few milestones!
In April 2013 (while at a wedding) I received a devastating phone call that my mom's health had taken a nose dive and she was on life support in a hospital in Tennessee. For many of you, you know my mother was the one that handed me my first camera at the age of 5 (she got me my own because she was tired of me taking hers). My mom was an incredible landscape photographer and my life growing up. Bill and I were told that she had only days left and they were essentially keeping her alive so that I could get to the hospital to say goodbye. What actually happened is a completely different story and truly something out of a fiction novel. My mom pulled through and made it out (that is making a very long story very, very, short). Yes, she will kill me for posting this photo, but I don't care...I never thought I'd see my mom smile again but at this moment there she was breathing on her own and smiling at me.
Onto some more uplifting things...
We went back to my home state, Ohio and ate as much food as possible!
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| Thank you Marion's Piazza for being so good that Bill and I can NEVER find pizza as good in Florida! |
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And Skyline Chili for helping me to explain to my Floridian husband that chili was not actually meant to be made with beans!
We bought a pop-up camper! We live in the city and we love being within walking distance to so many great restaurants and stores but we have to get away from our hectic life...so we decided to buy a camper! We love it so much and our sweet little doggie, Jenny LOVES being with us on our adventures.
Also, the whole thing with my mom and the struggle of life really brought Bill and I to a grinding halt. We knew there was more to life and we started going to church again, regularly (actually many of you don't know that our first time "out" together was to church). I finally relinquished my fears and was baptized last summer! It was overwhelmingly amazing and healing and my life hasn't been the same since!
Then...the greatest thing ever happened. After 8 years of dreaming of being parents together we became pregnant!
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| Yes, we announced it like this. We went and bought a baby shirt at the Magic Kingdom (we met at Walt Disney World) and shared our happy news with the world! |
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| Here he is at only 11 weeks. This was our first photo of our little man! |
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Here is the ultrasound from only 16 weeks...we went to verify our suspicions that we were, in fact, having a boy. Do you think he knows Mommy and Daddy are photographers? He turned over his right shoulder and gave us a smile that even had the ultrasound technician gasping over. This was when we found out we were having Walter "Walt" Alexander Bolen!
So do these photos look familiar?? If they do it's probably because you saw them somewhere! Like your local news, the Huffington Post or even Good Morning America! Yes, one of our super fun engagement sessions at Disney went viral and became the talk of the internet for a few weeks when Winnie the Pooh decided to photo bomb Elizabeth and Seamus' shoot! It's become known as the "Peek-A-Pooh" session! So since we got pregnant, you'd think that would slow us down, but it really hasn't! We've crossed off a few more things on our checklist. We opened our dream studio in historic downtown Mt. Dora! We wanted a place where our clients could come and meet with us, not a busy or hectic coffee shop. We wanted a place that we could bring Walt and even Jenny so that is what we did. It's been our dream to have space in Mt. Dora...from it's eclectic antique shops to funky art galleries, we knew it was home from the start! And since I've been shooting a lot of boudoir sessions we knew we needed inside studio space as well. So we found storefront on the first floor of what used to be, the old Mt. Dora hotel and then rented studio space on the 3rd floor that will be used for babies and maternity sessions and of course, boudoir shoots!
So we plan on not booking as much. It's been hard for two work-a-holics to turn down as much work as we have, but we really want to focus on a select number of events a month. We want to have more time for studio shooting, play time with Walt and camping! We're certainly not going anywhere, we're just streamlining and working smarter, not harder. It might be harder to book us now that we've said we're only taking a certain number of events each month, but our health will benefit greatly! |
So, in the meantime...keep checking back. We plan on posting a lot more on our blog...wedding stories, life stories, whatever happens really! It should be fun! |
