Early Bird Special and Thanksgiving 2009

I just realized that I never wrote about my family's Early Bird Special! Okay, allow me to explain... since Kathleen was planning to spend Thanksgiving in Minnesota with her boyfriend [Brad] and his family, we had an "Early Bird Special" when they came in for a visit two weeks before Thanksgiving (11/14/09). Brad was the one who gave our special turkey day the clever title. The whole day was just like Thanksgiving! Dinner was at my parents house and we had our usual Thanksgiving spread with my dad's side of the family. The only things that were missing were the parades on TV and the Black Friday sale ads - which we replaced with just plain sale ads.
Since it was such a beautiful day outside, the boys played bean bags... a lot! As long as there was daylight they played. By nightfall most of them were pretty sore from throwing bean bags all day.

Once it was too dark to play bean bags we all played What Were You Thinking - a Thanksgiving family tradition. It was a blast! We had a lot of good laughs and, as usual, some unusual answers.

Even though we had a full Thanksgiving spread on the 14th, we still celebrated Thanksgiving at the other Kovals home on Thanksgiving day. We had another glorious meal and afterwords we sat around the table with the real Black Friday ads - another family tradition.

Once Dan and I got home we started decorating our apartment for our first Christmas as husband and wife! It was tricky rearranging our living room to fit the Christmas tree, but we managed. Our apartment looks amazing! Very festive! Thank you to my parents for letting us use their extra tree and a lot of other extra Christmas decorations!

Dan and I didn't do too much Black Friday shopping, but we did get up at 6:30 a.m. to do a little early bird shopping. We got just about everything that we had on our lists. Later that day I did the Gollwitzer family photo shoot and then I had to work at Williams-Sonoma. It was a loooong day for me.

Gollwitzer Family Photo Shoot

Today, I was honored to take some family portraits for a beautiful family! Jason and Rachel [Gollwitzer] Rose are dear friends of mine and Dan from church, so of course I was delighted when Rachel asked if I would take some photos of her family. The whole family was a blast and the little girls were so adorable! After our shoot I was so excited to start editing... so I did some quick editing this evening after work. Here are a few of my favorites:

Jason and Rachel Rose share a kiss on a beautiful fall day.

Rachel was a gem to photograph!
I don't think she can take a bad photo.

What a happy family!

A sweet Daddy/Daughter moment!

Mother and Daughter keep close to stay warm.

One of the friendliest pugs ever!
No wonder the girls had a blast when this pup was around!

Bella catches her parents as they sneak a kiss!

Another adorable Daddy/Daughter moment!

Rubbing noses with Mommy.

Grandma and Grandpa have their arms full of love with three beautiful grandchildren!

Playing on the swing set was such a blast for the girls!

The Gollwitzer women, what a gorgeous group!

Very much in love!

Such playful parents!

These couples really made my job easy, they were all so easy to pose!

So there you have it... those are just a few of my favorites from the Gollwitzer family photo shoot. I've still got many to edit, but I am looking forward to going through the rest of the photos. There are a lot of beautiful shots!

New Staff Photos 2009

We just took some new staff photos at Parker Road Bible Church. Last year we started taking staff photos around this time of year for our Chirstmas card for the congregation. It was a quick photo shoot, but here are a few that I took and did some quick editing to today.

Student Ministries Pastor, Will Peycke

Senior Pastor, Scott Newman

This last photo is a total candid photo... Will was being blinded by Scott, but Scott doesn't really seem to know it. We all had a good laugh. I'm still working on the rest of the photos, but I thought that I would share a few. Within the next couple of weeks I'll be posting our Christmas photo.

Halloween in Minnesota

This past weekend Dan and I ventured up to Minnesota to visit some family and friends. We stayed with Kathleen and her roommate [Lauren] throughout the duration of our trip. It was our first time seeing their new apartment - since they moved in mid-August. Kathleen's boyfriend [Brad] came down from Moorhead, Minnesota to join us.

It was a jammed-packed weekend filled with many rounds of Apples to Apples, shopping at Mall of America, Old Spaghetti Factory, Keys, and Buffalo Wild Wings for the Vikings vs. Green Bay football game.

In honor of Halloween we all got dressed up on Saturday before we went out for dinner. Dan was Dr. House while I was Dr. Cuddy... Kathleen was Miley Cyrus while Lauren was Hannah Montana... and Brad was Joe Dirt. Everyone looked great and we had a blast together!

Dan and I started our journey back pretty late on Sunday, so I did the driving. Dan had work early in the morning, so I wanted to give him a chance to relax and catch a couple of z's on our way home.

Before leaving, Brad couldn't stress enough how bad the deer in Wisconsin are this time of year... we were strongly encouraged to pay extra attention to the road. No doubt I saw why... there were so many dead deer on the side of the road, along with a lot of blood-smeared roads. Very disturbing. Thankfully, we made it home safe and sound.

Commercial Work

The past couple of weeks I've had some sweet freelance production work. I worked for Citibank and Office Max. All went well at each shoot. As usual the hours are long (up to 15+ each day) but the people are great and I always walk away with a great story or two. For example, I rode in an International truck for the first time (very spacious), almost took a ride in a fancy private jet (we were short on time for the little trip), and got a free, delicious BBQ dinner at Carson's Ribs! Yep, the long hours can be worth it! It looks like I'll have some more commercial work in the next upcoming weeks. Praise God!

Below is a photo of an International, not the one I rode it, but the same thing (I rode in a black one instead of red).

Dan and I are going up to Minnesota this weekend. We leave today and we will return on Sunday, November 1st. We've been planning this little trip for quite sometime now. We'll be staying with Kathleen and Lauren - along with Brad who is also making the trip into the cities. We will also be visiting with Stefanie and Thomas... and we'll be watching football with Jon on Sunday. It is going to be an amazing weekend! This will be our first "trip" since our honeymoon!

5 Years, 1KVF, & Erik and Amy's Wedding

Saturday, October 17th marks the 5 year anniversary of mine and Dan's relationship! It is also Sweetest Day... so we had a nice love-filled day. After sleeping in, we went to Long Grove to do some shopping and eat some delicious food. We also took part in our first wine tasting experience. It was all local wine so it wasn't anything special. Still fun though.

Later that evening Dan and I went downtown so that I could film a friend's CD release party. My friend, Brian (fellow video Produce, Editor, and DP), plays bass for the band 1000 Vertical Feet. They had their CD release party at Sonotheque. It was a great time and they did a fantastic job! If you attended their release party you got a free copy of their CD. They had a great turnout and everyone had a blast! Congrats 1KVF! Oh, and by the way, my left ear is just starting to recover from that musical-busting night. Good times.

Sunday, October 18th Dan and I were honored to attend our friends, Erik and Amy's wedding. The church was packed and everyone was practically sitting on top of each other. Apparently this wedding was the place to be on Sunday. The ceremony was beautiful and the reception was filled with non-stop excitement - including a special dance performed by the bride and groom. Let's face it, the reception just wouldn't have been complete without Erik busting out some Michael Jackson moves. I managed to film most of it with Dan's digital camera and I plan to put it up on Facebook eventually.

A big CONGRATULATIONS to the newlywed, Mr. and Mrs. Erik and Amy Heavey! May your lives be richly blessed by our Heavenly Father as you strive to live out your marriage in a God-honoring manor.

2009 Chicago Marathon

Sunday, October 11th Dan and I volunteered at the Chicago Marathon with my dad's cross country team. We were all downtown by 5:30 a.m. to set up the Start Hydration for the runners. It was a chilly day for the spectators, but ideal weather for the runners. One of Dan's groomsmen [Eric] was running in the race and by pure luck we managed to run Eric's parents at the 13-mile mark. We also got to see Eric run past us!

It was a nice full day for us. As usual we had a great time volunteering at the Chicago Marathon!

Congratulations to Eric and Coach Danner on completing the 2009 Chicago Marathon!