Wedding Fever

Four days til the wedding of the year! I've been spending some time checking out other wedding photographer's websites lately, and it's making me excited to be a part of a wedding again. This time though, I won't be taking the pictures. "Always the photographer, never the bridesmaid" is how it's been lately. But not this weekend! One of my best friends of all time, Kierstan, is getting married and I get to be a bridesmaid. Yay! I'm excited to have that honor and get to be a part of Kierstan and Nic's special day. I'll plan to post some pictures from the event next week with an update!

Lutsen

On Friday, we met up with family at Sir Benedict's Tavern...our favorite place to eat in Duluth. From there, we traveled up the North Shore to Lutsen to stay at Caribou Highlands. I just love the North Shore. If they built a Target in Grand Marais, I would move up there. Anyway, the guys all went fishing out on Lake Superior with Capt. Tom of North Coast Charters. The girls went to Grand Marais to do some shopping. And guess what they have in Grand Marais? Another Sivertson gallery. I just love that place. Anyway, we had some good clean family fun. I wish the weekend was longer so I could have time to do more things while in Lutsen.

Two Harbors

Josh and I stayed at a hotel in Two Harbors on Thursday night. It started to storm just as we were walking to the car from the aquarium, so we headed to our hotel. On the way there, we saw a giant tree that had blown over and fallen right on the hood of a car driving down London Road! The people were okay, but were stuck in the car. Pretty scary. Anyway, so we got to our hotel room, and I opened the curtains and found a big graveyard! It was just like that commercial for hotels.com or whatever except for the creepy guys in the graveyard. It was pretty funny. When the storm cleared, we ate some dinner at Betty's Pies (yum!) and then took some pics down by the harbor. It is just so pretty there.

Aquarium

Last week, Josh and I took a couple days off of work and headed over to Duluth to celebrate our anniversary. We did the typical Duluth things...stroll through Canal Park, eat at Grandma's Saloon, check out my favorite gallery (Sivertson) and we decided to check out the Great Lakes Aquarium. They had an exhibit on seahorses going on. We were pretty happy that we paid the money to go. We had a lot of fun looking at the fish, taking weird pictures, touching lake sturgeon and learning about fantastic seahorses. I was excited to get a picture of myself with a moose...even though it was fake...it was the closest I'll get to seeing a real one I'm afraid. If you're in Duluth, go check it out for yourself!

Hello New Shoes, Bye-Bye Blues?

I believe myself to be a shoe person. Whenever I am in a place that sells shoes, I must look to see if there is something that catches my fancy. And of course, there is usually a pair or two that I assure myself would be fantastic on my feet. But alas...they don't have my size. Or alas...they don't have the right color. Or most likely, alas...they don't fit!
I have a hard time believing that I have such disfigured feet that shoes should not be expected to be made to fit them. I have normal feet. They're not huge, nor are they tiny. They're not really narrow, nor are they very wide. So why is it that only skater shoes feel tailored to my foot? (Side note...my all-time favorite shoes were my blue Etnies...so comfy, yet they look particularly silly with a dress.)
So many lovely shoes to look at on the shelves, yet I know how the story goes. They feel fantastic in the store, they don't hurt when you wear them around the house, and then as soon as you take them to the streets, your feet are crying in pain. Why does this happen every time? My tried and true brown shoes are looking past their prime...way past. So I am on the hunt for replacements. My advice: if you find a fantastic pair of shoes, spend the extra money upfront and buy two pair! I wish I did.
Today I put on a fabulous looking pair of fancy new brown wedges. They looked great. But by lunch time, I could barely stand to have them on my feet. Why oh why did it happen again? I am convinced that fancy shoes are parallel to point ballet slippers. They look beautiful on the outside, but are evil foot-destroyers on the inside. I just don't know how the ballerinas do it. Do other women just have feet so calloused that it doesn't hurt to wear feminine shoes?
For now I will keep to my marshmellow-like Croc-wannabes and flip flops until I learn the secrets of bearing the pain of beautiful shoes.

P.S. I still love the optimism of Paolo Nutini's "New Shoes"

Some like it hot

It is one heck of a cooker today...it was 101 degrees at 5pm. I saw people in their yards wearing swimsuits. It's not often that people in my neighborhood are walking around in swim attire.

As soon as I got home from work, I took a look at my newly blossoming lilies...and they looked so sad. They seemed to be gasping for water. So, before I even changed out of my work clothes I was out there with the hose, making sure my flowers were watered. Then I was thinking that I must be a little crazy since I was neglecting my own health to make sure the flowers didn't wilt. (True, it is not too physically straining to water plants, but it doesn't take much to get overheated when it's hotter than a sauna outside!)

Since my backyard did not come equipped with a cool, refreshing pool, I think I will stay inside my comfy air conditioned house tonight.

Street Fair

Yesterday was the beginning of the downtown Fargo Street Fair. My Street Fair experience started with First Presbyterian's "Jazz at the Street Fair" out on the steps. We offered free jazz and lemonade and we had an okay turnout. We'll see what today brings. After work, Josh and I went to the Street Fair with Jenny & Brad. We possibly spent the most time in the food area. The cheese curds were good and my chocolate/marshmellow shake was delicious. Josh and I found some cool artists with displays, and some we would like to take home with us if we only had some extra cash. A few extra "Benjamins" would have done the ticket. Anyway, Josh's "favorite" part was when we saw a lady that had two little dogs wearing sunglasses and one had a feather boa. Poor little dogs. Somehow we ended up spending three hours at the fair. Luckily I spent less than $10 total. Just leaves me money to save up for the "Great Minnesotan Get-Together" (actually, "Eat-Together" is more like it) later in August.

Reflections on a Thursday

It's such a gorgeous day today! And I'm stuck in my cold drab office. Gives me plenty of time to think random thoughts.

Today I was surfing the net and stumbled across some My Space or Facebook (I don't know which) pages of people from my past. Or maybe it is better put past life. It's really fun to see pictures and notes about what people are up to these days, but it also makes me feel awful inside. I'm so out of the loop! It's been so long since I've been in any loop that I might as well be living on a deserted island. I'm lost in the Bermuda Triangle called Fargo/Moorhead. It's so hopeless that people have stopped searching for me, they've written me off like good ol' Amelia. (I found her...she lives next door!)

Rubber cement is a somewhat nasty smell, but it conjures up fond memories of yearbook pages strewn all over the house. Having pizza picnics on the livingroom floor in the middle of the winter because our dining room table was always full of picture clippings and drying pages. Getting to have my pretty face plastered all over my elementary school yearbooks because my mom was the yearbook lady.

I am fairly certain I am being followed by an undercover agent. He wears blue shorts and rides everywhere I go on a bicycle. Sir, if you're reading this, I have found you out. Now tell me what you want to know and leave me alone.

No matter how incredibly busy I am, all I want to do is either take a nap or run screaming out the doors at 3pm. Today it's running screaming out into the sunshine and warmth.

Funnel Cake still makes me want to puke. (I wonder if my blog will get bumped up to a PG rating since I just said puke?) I'm sure to many others it is full of greasy goodness. But to me, it says getting sick after too many rides at Valleyfair. I'm glad I didn't eat cheese curds that day. I would not want to go most of my life disgusted by those magical blobs of batter and cheese.

Lindsey & Joe

A few weeks ago, Josh and I took engagement pictures for a very cute couple named Lindsey and Joe. We are looking forward to taking pictures for their wedding in September! I thought I would share a few of my favorite photos from our recent session with them. Joe seemed pretty embarrassed to kiss Lindsey in front of the camera (or maybe just us!) but not surprisingly, the "kissing" pictures turned out to be some of the best!

Anniversary!

Today is Josh and my third anniversary! The past three years have gone by so fast. Maybe this year I'll finally get our wedding pictures printed.

Female Priest!

I just love sharing cool news. Here's another awesome story I read today...it's about Rev. Diana Cabigting who is believed to have become the first female Liberal Catholic priest to celebrate mass in a Minnesota church. How fantastic!

Look at this guy!

A guy traveled almost 200 miles on a lawn chair tied to a bunch of helium balloons! This is the most fabulous news story I've seen in a long time. Check it out here.

Celebrate!

Celebrations for today:


Happy 2nd Anniversary Megan & Bud! Thanks for your postcard from Como Zoo!


Happy 23rd Birthday Aly! Let me know if you're ever in town...say at Scheel's for example.

Have you seen my sunglasses?

They're pretty fancy, they're pretty brown,
But now they might be found lying on the ground.

Another year, another pair of sunglasses missing! Darn!

*Ten points to anyone who knows the above song reference.

Happy Fourth of July!

Hope you're all having a fun and safe fourth of July! Here's a cute picture from our day in Brainerd at the lake. Now back to work bright and early tomorrow! (Well, I don't know about the bright part, but early indeed).

Here's a fun Independence Day quiz to test your knowledge on the subject of the day. :)

Cabin Weekend 2007

Another weekend at the cabin! This time, we were there with our college friends that are now far dispersed. We got to spend some time "swimming" (mostly laying on the big mattress-like raft...and some real swimming too), boating, and playing Wii and Guitar Hero. We each got to make our own "Mii" (Dan and his Mii shown here) ...some had a frighteningly close resemblance...some not quite. We got to use the "Aqua Glide" again...which was great fun, but made us all a bit sore in the arms from holding on so tight. No trip to Battle Lake in the summer time is complete without a stop at Granny's Pantry...so we of course got some ice cream. And happened upon the flea market. (No lady, we're not going to buy that "WWII hat" from you for $35). I was sure that I was going to be burnt to a crisp today after "swimming" for so long, but so far it doesn't appear to be so. Anyway, enjoy these pictures of our fantastic weekend at the lake.