Erin's coming home!

Erin's been in Boston all week, and I'm way excited because she comes home tomorrow! Yay! Gracie and I both miss her :) Gracie is currently sitting on my lap purring. If you didn't know, Gracie is our cat :)

She'll be home for like 15 hours and then we'll hop a plane to San Fran for Brittany & Mike's wedding and then Scott & Bekah's engagement...I love SF!

A great way to blow $500

So a few days ago, my cell phone started acting strange, like when folks would call me the phone would connect, but I couldn't hear them. Unless I put them on speakerphone - kind of strange. So anyway, I call up Cingular today finally and they say oh your phone's defective, we'll send a new one out to you straight away.

I'm like "Sweet!" and then they connect me to some other tech guy and he has me check some things and it turns out they've got this moisture sensor on the inside of the phone that turns red when it is exposed to moisture. Guess what color mine is? Red. Guess what color voids the warranty? Red. Bummer. Apparently being in abnormally humid conditions can cause this sensor to turn red.

I'm so bummed out, but I'm not giving up. I stinkin' love my phone, it's so great because it's small and compact, yet it runs Windows mobile and syncs with all my e-mail and calendar automatically so I know what's going on, all the time.

Does anyone else think this is coincidental that my phone breaks the day before the iPhone comes out? Hmmm. Hopefully I'll be able to fix this darned thing :)

Kelly & Flip: Engagement

The other day I went up to Laguna Beach to hang out with Kelly and Flip, and I was going through editing their pictures tonight, and I just had to share some with you all! They are SUCH a cute and fun couple - looking at their pictures makes me just want to call them up and hang out with them!

Kelly and Flip love Wahoos and Rainbow sandals. What more could I ask for? Seriously though, these two are awesome people, and I just love how they look at each other - can't you just tell that they are so darn ready to get married!??

Thanks you two for such a fun morning - I can't wait for your wedding!!! If you're a friend of Kelly or Flip, hit them up for the link to view all their images, there are seriously so many that I just love!

First, crank up your speakers. Then:

Check out this sweet slideshow!

We're out!

Erin and I are heading out to beautiful Palm Springs for the weekend, leaving here in a few minutes! I'm so excited, not only because I love Palm Springs, but because we are celebrating our 1 year anniversary! Wahoo!

I can't believe it's been a year already, seriously. We've had so much fun, and learned so much, that the time has positively flown by. I've got the best wife in the whole world. And if you think your wife's better, well, then you're wrong ;)

We're going to be taking part in the annual marriage retreat as well, this weekend, that our church, The Rock Church, does every year. We're so amped that the retreat falls on our one year anniversary. I can't think of a better way to spend our anniversary weekend than learning about how to have a better marriage, and spending time with couples who've done this a lot longer than us! It's going to ROCK! (no pun intended).

I'm sure there will be lots of silly pictures from the weekend, I'll post some up when we get back...

PS: We're staying at the La Quinta Resort, so if you want to send us some sweet room service or massages, you're welcome to. :)

PUG!

I just found this picture on the Pictage website - from over a year ago! This was at a Pictage Users Group (PUG) meeting, that occurs every month that all us Pictage photographers in San Diego go to, hang out, and talk about photography, and such. Really, a cool time. Can you spot me?

You may recognize some of the other folks in the picture - Bronson and Jared of Bauman Photography are in the front (I went to college with Bronson. He has crazy hair).

I'm getting ready for a crazy weekend - I leave in a few minutes to go shoot Alesha & Lane's wedding here in San Diego, in Mission Bay. Then I'll go almost directly from their wedding to the airport to catch a flight to Phoenix, Arizona to shoot Matt & Brynn's wedding in Flagstaff tomorrow! This is going to be a fun weekend - I love both these couples so much, so I'm really excited to hang out with them.

Erin's coming with to both of these weddings, like usual, but this time she's going to be shooting alongside me, which is going to be super cool! She shot a bunch at Rachel & Chad's wedding in Wisconsin, and her images were stunning! She is dang talented, and has a great eye. Plus, she's my smokin' hot wife!

Can you believe it?

I never thought this day would come. Don't hate me. I got another iPod too. And a printer. Oh boy!

I'd write more, but tonight is our weekly "Stay-In Date Night" and I've got to get back to helping with dinner!

Apple's doing something right...

Yesterday I went into the Apple store over in UTC because I was about to bite the bullet, and purchase my first Mac, ever. I know. Crazy.

Anyway, they were super crowded, and I actually couldn't find someone to help me, so I decided to come back today. Before heading over there today, I called to see if they were busy, which they said they were.

They said I could make an appointment with a personal shopper. So I've made an appointment to come in tomorrow, to buy my MacBook Pro. I can't believe I had to make an appointment, kind of crazy. So, if any of my friends want to persuade me away from buying a Mac, you've got about 24 hours to do it :)

Customer service is huge to Apple, and because they don't want to rush people, and they want to make sure they provide excellent customer service, they've started doing this whole appointment thing.

Don't worry, I'm still keeping my awesome PC as my editing workstation because I still believe that that is the best solution for me, but this will become my on the road machine, which I'll use to make on-site slideshows and wedding, and stuff like that.

Dinner at the Crosby

Last night Erin and I joined my parents for dinner, and this dinner goes down in history as one of the best dinners I've ever had. Definitely in the top 5, for sure :)

It was at the Crosby Club up in Rancho Santa Fe, and right from the start it was awesome! We were greeted by an incredibly friendly wait staff, and it seemed like as soon as we showed up the word was out that my parents were there, because everybody came out to meet us and welcome us! Definitely a great start to the evening!

Our waiter was Francisco, which is evidently my parent's favorite waiter there - they often don't come unless he's there, and if you know my parents, that makes total sense. They're really relational people, and going to dinner is as much about eating a good meal as it is catching up with your waiter.

All the food was amazing, but my food was to die for. I had a 26 ounce piece of prime beef, bone in, with some garlic mashed potatoes (of course), asparagus, and some other random veggies. There's only been two other times when I've gotten watery eyes when I've bitten into a piece of steak (Once at Mortons over a particular butterfly fillet with peppercorn and the other at Rio do Gado over a fillet wrapped in bacon). This was a good piece of meat.

My dad picked out some amazing wines (Joseph Pelps Le Mistral & an Elyse Petite Syrah) which both went perfectly with the meal. At one point during the course of dinner the head chef, Luke, came out and chatted with us for about 15 minutes, and he was particularly interested in how I liked my steak - the thing was huge and you could tell it was probably the talk of the kitchen. He said that that was the best piece of meat he's seen in a long time, and he had hidden two pieces that he was going to take home and grill for himself!

It was rad getting to talk to the guy who basically invented the menu. Awesome. Our food got a little cold while we talked with everyone, and so Francisco hooked it up, and brought our plates back to the kitchen, heated the food up a bit, and brought it back out on fresh plates, freshly garnished, and most importantly - more mashed potatoes. Yes!

It wasn't all about the food and the service, though. It was really a wonderful time spent with my folks. We were out celebrating Erin's & my one year anniversary (coming up June 25th!) and so that was really meaningful, and we also got to talk a little to my parents about some of the things that have made their marriage so successful (34 years in October!). That was really cool.

If you want to know their advice, you can take me to dinner at the Crosby, and I'll tell you :)

Back in San Diego :)

We're back in San Diego after a wonderful weekend in Wisconsin for Rachel & Chad's wedding! Erin and I had such a fun time getting to know so many new people, and we had such a blast shooting the wedding! The ceremony site was seriously amazing - it was on this grassy bluff overlooking lake Michigan, and it couldn't have been more perfect.

I'll get pictures up here as soon as I can :) And I'll tell you all about the wedding!