Douglas Robert DeEsch III & Company

The day after Christmas I flew down to meet Brian and his family in Charlotte. His sister, Laurie lives down there with her husband, Doug and their son, Trey. I was so excited when she asked me to take Trey's 9 month pictures while I was there! Trey was so much fun and was being such a good sport about the whole shoot, probably because his mom LOVES to get his picture taken and he is so used to it by now! I was really lucky to get so many great pictures, Trey is very photogenic so it was hard to get a bad picture of him. Here are a few of my favorites from the day:

My Very First Wedding Vendor Is...

of course a photographer! Ever since I found her webpage, I knew I wanted Kristen Gardner to be my wedding photographer. Her pictures are so natural and never "over edited". She has a fresh style which I really like. Here is her website: http://kristengardner.com/

One down, five thousand more to go!

The Moment We've All Been Waiting For

We're engaged!!!

You would not believe how many people keep saying "Haven't you BEEN engaged??" No, no we have not. Brian and I have known we would be getting married for a couple of years now but it was a team effort to wait it out and allow Brian to finish school, and we couldn't be happier!

It was such a blessing to receive so much encouragement from our family and friends, we didn't realize how many people cared about us, haha! It has only been 36 hours and I have already had such a great time, but I am also EXHAUSTED!

Anyway, I thought I would share with you the one piece of photographic genius we were able to capture right after he proposed, get ready to applaud:

I was happy to atleast get this picture!

Enjoy a few of these fun pics of the most beautiful ring! Its my new favorite accessory :)

The First Snow!!

On Saturday morning, Lauren and I ventured out to Old Town Manassas to enjoy the Christmas parade! It was so fun (read: it was so cold that my smile was frozen on my face) to enjoy it in the snow! Old Town looked so beautiful and magical! We then headed over to Trinity (Lauren's church in Old Town) to thaw and enjoy some coffee. Enjoy these pictures of the parade and the snow!

I can't take credit for this picture, Lauren took it. This is the front of her church.

Lauren loving the snow on the train tracks!

This tire mark looked like a heart, so cute!!

Life from Death

I know that these pictures aren't very "beautiful" but I had an inspiration from something I saw yesterday! This osage orange (and yes I had to google what the heck this thing was) has been sitting on our deck for about a month now. By pure coincidence I snapped this picture when I was testing out my new zoom lens, and I'm so excited that I did because I am about to tell you my Eureka moment!

So as this osage orange is on our deck, it not only sits there but it also rots. Its getting disgusting and brown and its skin is sagging, just like anyone else who ages, haha. And I keep thinking, why don't we throw this thing away? Its so gross and and isn't very aesthetically pleasing. Lets just say it: its dead. But of course I'm too much of a wimp to throw it away myself. So it continues to sit and die. Until one day...

Yesterday morning I came downstairs to start my day with a nice cup o' joe (or 4) and saw two little squirrels dancing/flirting on the deck. I watched them for the 25 seconds that my coffee was heating in the microwave and looked closer and noticed that they were feasting on the dead osage orange!! My first thought was "Yuck" - its like eating at a restaurant, these squirrels have no idea what could be wrong with this food. And then the more I thought about it, the more I realized the beauty in what had happened. How many times do we label something as dead? Our church, our family, even our spirits. And then someone gets down to the core of the dead thing and is surprised to find life and sustenance from a rotting osage orange? Sometimes it is good to let something go if the life has gone out of it. But just remember that sometimes those dead things can secretly have life way deep down inside, it just needs a little shredding, yikes!

**Apparently osage oranges are used to keep spiders away - like poison. I hope the squirrels survive**