and you can see part 2 of the series here :) Go get caught up before you read part 3!

Ok… where we we? Ah, right… we headed back to the resort to grab some lunch and change into our Halloween costumes. I am quite impressed at how quickly we were able to accomplish this. We managed to inhale lunch, run back to the room, change clothes/gather props/resist laying down and going to sleep in about an hour, and we were back in front of the resort, waiting on the shuttle so much quicker than I imagined was possible.

I had been dreading the part of the day where we took the break back at the resort, because I was afraid we would take too long, and I wanted to maximize the amount of time we spent in the park, since we only had a few days. (Funny that I was dreading it, since it was my idea to deal with lunch/halloween costumes by heading back to the resort in the afternoon anyway. I’m fickle like that I guess;)) I seriously turned into a logistics Nazi at certain times on this trip (and I wasn’t even good at it!), so I was SO glad when we arrived back at the park so quickly…

One of the reasons I was so worried about time/logistics, is because we had scheduled an appointment for Addison to have the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique experience before the Halloween party officially began. Nathan stayed with her, while Austen and I went and put the finishing touches on his costume (and then enjoyed some rides, since we had tons of extra time!).

I can’t begin to tell you how much I love my husband for taking so many pictures of Addy during the 30ish minutes that she was in the Boutique. I don’t feel like I missed anything :)

Addy’s Princess transformation…

(I love that you can see Nathan in his Goofy hat in the mirror in this one :))

Seriously, could she be any more excited?

Nathan was seriously rockin’ the Hipstamatic app…

Don’t you want to go have your hair and makeup done in a princess castle?

And don’t you want to know this amazing lady? She had so much character, and Addy just loved her.

A bit of princess makeup…

And some fairy dust to finish it all off…

And the Reveal… Princess Addison!

Worth every penny.

Our beautiful girl…

Okay… so while Addy was undergoing that transformation, Austen was also transforming :) His process was crazy quick though, so I don’t have nearly as many pictures to share…

We found a place to have his face painted (which only took about 5 minutes!), and then he slipped into a bathroom and changed into his costume. (His costume was a bit warm, so we held off putting it on him for as long as we could.)

Doesn’t he look awesome?!?

Every once in awhile I see an image of Austen, and I am just blown away by how grown up he is. This image made me happy because in it, I could see that he’s not completely grown up, but that he’s still our little boy. (Ick, cheesy mom stuff… sorry!)

We managed to make a couple of really cute kids… if I do say so myself (and don’t you dare disagree;) )

Family Halloween portrait :) (thanks again to the Disney photogs for this one…even if it is totally focused on the wrong thing. Sigh.)

Honestly, from this point on we were much too busy hopping on rides with ridiculously short lines, searching for the trick or treat spots, and eating a ton of candy to take many pictures :) You’ll just have to image us traipsing around the Magic Kingdom in our Halloween Costumes riding Thunder Mountain over and over without waiting in line at all :)

My very very very very very favorite part of the trip (not including getting to spend time with my family or watching my kids enjoy the thrill that is Disney) was the evening fireworks dispaly and the Boo-to-You Halloween Parade. I’m such a kid about this sort of thing… I just sit and stare and laugh… I probably enjoyed it more than the kids :)

(I took about a million firework shots… mine were horrible! Another great reason to be thankful for my husband ;) )

It was a truly wonderful day. We drug ourselves to the shuttle at around midnight… after having been in the park since before 9:00 that morning… and after having had basically zero sleep. Although we were tired to our cores, we were also truly content. It was a seriously amazing day.

(And I’ll go ahead and say it… my kids are rockstars… at 8 and 5 years old they rode every ride we came upon, walked for miles and miles and hours and hours, fought very little, whined very little, and seemed to love every second)

Love. I’m in love.

So really, the post should end here… with that image of my children painted and glittered and exhausted (and seriously, do you see Addy is reaching for her brother, even in her sleep?!)… but I have just a few more images from Day 2. There’s not enough for a full second post, so I’ll just do a short synopsis here :)

We gave ourselves a bit of a reprieve on Day 2. We knew the kids (and the adults) had to have a little bit of sleep before being fit to tackle another day at the park, so we didn’t get up ’til around 9:00. (If I’m being honest, even being as exhausted as I was, I still didn’t sleep much… I was still too excited about the day we had just had, and the day we had to come.) We ate breakfast at the resort before we headed over, and we finally arrived in the park at around 11:00. What we were not prepared for was the insane influx of guests who appeared to have materialized overnight. The park was packed! All Austen and Addy wanted to do was ride Splash Mountain, and it seemed like we ran into obstacle after obstacle keeping off of that ride and every other ride:( We dealt with rain, lightening, crazy long lines, and a navigator who managed to keep screwing up the Fast Passes… (yep, that’s me). It was a slightly crazy and emotional morning, but we finally managed to get it all together. The kids got to ride everything they had missed the day before, and we re-rode Space Mountain and Thunder Mountain a couple of times (in addition to all kinds of other stuff).

Fun :) (and yes, Addy still has her princess hair. It honestly didn’t move. It was still looking good the next day when we flew home!)

We rode as many rides as we possibly could for the rest of the day, and then the decision was made to head back over to Downtown Disney so the kids could purchase their souvenirs. (Austen had been dying to go back to the Lego store, and Addy was happy to choose her souvenir anywhere.) We had a flight to catch the next morning at 9:00am (and the airport was about 45 minutes away, so we knew we were going to have to get up early!) and we were already a bit tired. We ate a delicious dinner at Wolfgang Puck, found all of the perfect toys to take home with us, and finished off the night with one more treat from Ghirardelli, and we called it a night.

It was a wonderful ending to a wonderful (if slightly too short!) vacation.

Bye bye Magic Kingdom… we’ll see you again next year!

much love,

-amber

So… when we left off, we were all snoozing soundly in our teeny tiny Disney resort room. About 6 hours later, our alarms went off, and we began dragging ourselves out of the bed and into the shower. We wanted to be in the park when it opened in order to maximize our time, so their was no time for lazying around. (Honestly, I’m pretty sure I didn’t sleep much at all. I was too excited! Yep, I’m still a little kid like that :))

I was blown away by the level of enthusiasm and energy that the kids had after so little sleep and such a long day the day before. They were amazing. The kids dressed in their awesomely cheesey Disney t-shirts, and we hopped on the shuttle to head into the park. We hadn’t managed to stop for breakfast, but we figured we’d get inside the park and deal with that later. (Thank goodness for the fresh fruit vendors… we’d have been in trouble without them!)

By around 8:45, we had shuttled into the park, cruised through bag check and the front gates, and were standing in the middle of Main Street. We pointed out Cinderella’s castle to Addison, and when she registered what she was seeing, her jaw dropped open dramatically and she gasped with her hand on her heart. I just teared up now, thinking about it. I could have turned around right then and gone home and been completely content with the trip, that moment made me so happy.

(All the cool square pictures in this post and the next are courtesy of Nathan’s iPhone brilliance and the Hipstamatic app. Good stuff!)

Thankfully, that was just the first of many amazing moments :) We started by getting autographs from Pluto and Daisy Duck, who were conveniently placed right inside the gate. I can’t wait to print some of these images to put in the kids autograph books. Such a fun souvenir.

(Thanks to the Disney park photographers for these next few images.)

A quick family portrait before heading through the castle and into Fantasyland. I was seriously like a kid at this point. C’mon! C’mon! Let’s go! Let’s go!

Once we made it through the castle and into Fantasyland (while constantly on the lookout for breakfast, and deciding that the cool DisneyWorld mapping ap that I had on my iPhone was going to be basically worthless), we happened upon a couple of evil stepsisters. Addy was enthralled by them, so we stopped while she got their autograph, and had a bit of fun laughing with them. They were perfect!

The park was amazingly un-busy. I was so excited when I realized that we might not have to stand in the world’s longest lines for every single attraction. We hopped into line for our first ride, and a few minutes later we were flying high with Dumbo the Flying Elephant. I am so glad we picked this ride as our first ride, because while up in the air, the kids got a glimpse of all of the cool stuff they still had left to see. Needless to say, they were excited!

After we finished with Dumbo, we grabbed some Fast Passes to Nathan’s favorite ride, Peter Pan’s Flight, and then headed over to the Mad Tea Party (one of my favorites! although… I may be getting old, because they kinda made me queasy this time. Ack.)

As we were spinning round and round and round on the teacups, we kept seeing snippets of cool stuff. Ooh! There’s Space Mountain! Ooh! There’s Dad! Ooh! There’s the White Rabbit! And the minute we were out of the teacups, the kids were off to meet the White Rabbit. (I seriously felt sorry for whoever was inside of this costume… it was SO hot, and his costume was huge! Just look at the poor guy trying to use those paws to write with.)

I had visions of seeing all of the different sections of the park in segments… of trying to keep it all organized, so we didn’t miss anything… but I quickly realized that that was going to be a lot more trouble than it was worth, so I gave up :) From this point on, we just took the attractions as we saw them, rather than trying to stay in some kind of order. The control freak in me had some difficulty with this (I tend to over-plan, when it comes to things like logistics) but the kid in me loved it :)

Next stop was the Tomorrowland Speedway. The kids were excited about the opportunity to drive their own race cars, and Nathan and I were excited about how short the line was! Seriously, it was wonderful!

Austen and Nathan… looking adorable and excited :)

Me and Addy… looking crazy and concentrated:) (Addy saw this picture the other day and said “Why am I making that face?!”. I had to remind her that it was because she was trying so hard to be a good driver. Ha.)

At this point, it was a little difficult to decide what to do next, as we knew we were going to be taking a break to go back to resort for a mid-afternoon lunch. There was still so much we wanted to see! We finally decided to head into Mickey’s Toontown Fair so we could see the Princesses, go use our Fast Passes for the Peter Pan ride, and then we’d try to see as much as we possibly could in Tomorrowland before heading back to the resort.

We were so excited for Addy to meet the princesses. Austen was such a good sport as we waited in one of the longest lines we waited in all day… (that might be because Disney is SMART and has TVs everywhere showing movies…and there was air conditioner… and candy :) )

(The following images are a mix of Nathan’s iPhone and Disney photographers. The light in the Princess room was pretty horrible, so we ended up getting some of Disney’s shots to augment the ones we had taken) Check out the expressions on Addy’s face. She’s in love!

After we finished with the Princesses, we used our Fast Passes to skip to the front of the Peter Pan ride. I didn’t actually remember this one from when I visited Disney as a kid, so it was new to me, and I loved it. From here, we headed to Tomorrowland. Austen had been so accommodating and patient while we waited on the Princesses, so we wanted to make sure he got to do something that he really wanted to do. He had been eyeing Tomorrowland since we arrived, so he was super excited to finally go and see that part of the park.

On the walk over there, we ran into Mary Poppins and Bert. Bert tried to convince Austen that he should skip the attractions and come work with him, cleaning chimneys… Their accents were pretty horrible, but their personalities were wonderful. The kids loved them.

Finally, we were in Tomorrowland (and Austen was slightly overstimulated… Ooh! Ooh! Look, it’s something shiny! Look, it’s Buzz Lightyear! Look, it’s a roller coaster!). We headed over to Space Mountain (much better description of the ride here), planning to get Fast Passes, but were pleasantly surprised to find a super short line. We weren’t completely sure if Addy was going to be tall enough to ride, and had been warning her of that potential problem, pretty much all morning… Imagine our collective excitement when we realized she was more than tall enough! (Honestly, this sort of freaked me out. I mean, this is a scary coaster. People sit single file, which meant my 5 year old daughter and my 8 year old son were going to have their own seats and I was not going to be able to keep them safe. Ack!). We played video games and looked a cool space-y video screens as we waited in line, and I tried to be as brave as the kids were being. We arrived at the front of the line, and Nathan and Austen hopped into their seats, I helped Addy into hers (she probably didn’t need my help, but I had to be sure that her lap bar was down and locked because I’m paranoid like that) and then I climbed into my seat behind her. We realized that I could reach around and hold her hand, so I did that. We took off, and immediately, I could hear Nathan laughing, Austen saying Ohhhh!, and Addy screaming. At first I thought she was freaking out (based on the extremely tight grip she had on my hand) but soon I realized that she was just excited. After a few minutes of whirling through the pitch dark at what feels like insanely fast speeds, we pulled into the unloading station, and disembarked. I gave Addy (who was smiling from ear to ear) a hand climbing out of her car, and turned to see my husband and son laughing and talking animatedly about how much fun they had just had. Ahhh… life is good :)

We snapped a shot of the picture of the car that the kids and I were in… Things to note: 1. Austen has his eyes closed (apparently, he kept them closed most of the time on this round, but not on the next few times we rode it. 2. Addy not only has her eyes closed, but is also hiding her face (She did this through most of the ride this time, but the next time she kept her eyes open, and the time after that she rode behind me, and didn’t hold my hand!) 3. I’m grinning like and idiot (and riding fairly uncomfortably, as trying to reach Addy’s hand and hold onto my giant bag wasn’t super easy:))

I asked the kids to make their best Space Mountain faces, and this is what they gave me. Awesome.

From Space Mountain, we headed back out to ride the other Tomorrowland attractions (don’t worry, I’m not going to keep trying to detail every ride we road and what order we rode them in… I don’t think I can even keep up with it any more :)). While getting into line for the Astro Orbiter, we ran into Chip and Dale, so of course, we had to get their autograph :)

We finished off the rest of the attractions in Tomorrowland, including two more favorite attractions: Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor (so cute) and Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin (seriously one of my favorites… so fun).

At this point it was about 2:00, we had scarfed a few pieces of fruit for breakfast, and had been walking nonstop for about 5 hours. We were a bit tired, VERY hungry, and we needed to get back to the resort to get our stuff for the evening’s Halloween party. It seemed like finishing Tomorrowland was a good stopping point, so we headed out of the park, and back to our resort.

I’ll have another post soon… I have about a million images from Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party… and then about 3 images from our second day in the park :) Thanks for enjoying our adventure with me!

love,

-amber

The week was a bit insane… Monday, I headed down to Atlanta to spend some time and speak at the Road Trip stop there. That night, after a day full of lots of stressful-to-amber type things (lots of driving alone, speaking, talking to strangers) I tried to get everything prepared for the rest of the week. As I was throwing all kinds of random stuff into my suitcase, I was trying to make a major decision. (Don’t laugh. Yes, to me, this was major.) I was trying to decide it was possible for me to document this trip with my (and Nathan’s) iPhone… or if I was obligated to use a more appropriate tool- my “real camera.” On one hand, I felt a deep seated drive to beautifully document the kids first experience at the Magic Kingdom. What kind of photographer (and mother!) would I be if I didn’t do that? But on the other hand, I had recently photographed the family when we visited the Kentucky State Fair, and although I LOVE having those images… in some ways, walking around with camera in hand made me feel like I was merely an observer/documenter of my life, rather than a participant. (Plus, that thing is heavy… it killed my back to lug it around all day!) Nathan and I talked it over, and I was definitely leaning towards just documenting our trip with our iPhones. I posted about it on Twitter/Facebook, and was honestly expecting to get talked out of my decision. I was expecting to be taken on photographer guilt trips, mom guilt trips, and who knows what other horrible things. Instead, what I received was a ton of support. The decision was already made, but having so many of my friends share that they would make the same decision helped me to feel much better about choosing our iPhones as the documentation tool for such an epic experience. It was so amazing to be a participant in my life… and I love the images that we ended up capturing.

Ok… so now that you’ve had the “why are all of these images from your iPhone” disclaimer… on to the story :)

The logistics of the rest of the week continued to be as crazy as Monday (but ever so typical of the way we tend to do things). Allegiant Air was running direct flights from Chattanooga to Orlando for a mere $19 each way (um, crazy!) but they only fly down on Wednesdays and back on Saturdays. I was to speak in Orlando on Wednesday. We decided that I would fly down on Tuesday, chill with the WPPI gals that night (thanks for the fun dinner girls!), and prepare for my presentation on Wednesday. Nathan would spend Tuesday doing all the packing that I didn’t really get to, and finishing up all the other last minute craziness that came up (including trying to find Halloween costumes for Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party!) Wednesday, I walked around all morning being nervous/excited/nervous/excited, while Nathan and the kids enjoyed their luxury (ha!) flight to Orlando. I spoke just after lunch, and as soon as I was done and able to say my goodbyes (I might have exclaimed “I’m going to Disney World!” from the stage at the end of my presentation :) ), I headed downstairs to be picked up by my family. Perfect timing, even in the midst of what seems like insane travel plans :)

Side note: My husband is the master of the iPhone self portrait. You’ll notice that there will be very few self portraits of me. I’m not terrible at self-portraiting with “the real camera” but sadly, self portraits with the iPhone tend to cut off the majority of some one (and usually the someone is me) so those images didn’t quite make the cut :)

I love this image of the rest of my family in the airport at the beginning of their journey. I was so excited to see these three faces pull up at the conference hotel.

Once I was picked up, we headed toward Walt Disney World. We had booked a room in one of the Walt Disney Resorts, and we were excited to get in, get unpacked, and do a bit of shopping and eating at Downtown Disney. Disney with kids is a blast. Everything becomes an adventure… even the simple things like checking into the hotel or riding a shuttle or finding a restaurant. After a bit of deliberation, we decided to eat at the T-Rex Cafe that night for dinner… the kids were thrilled, and surprisingly, the grownups were pretty pleased as well. I only grabbed one picture of the inside, but seriously, look how cool!

After our delicious dinosaur dining experience (oh yeah, look at me, I’m alliterating;) ), it was time for some shopping. We saw a magnet store, a build your own remote control car store, a magic store,  and a sock store. We bought tshirts and socks and shorts and we looked into about a million windows. One of our final stops (and quite possibly the major highlight of Austen’s entire experience) was the Lego store.

Austen was in ridiculously good spirits after spending some quality time with an enormous Lego collection.  At this point it’s probably getting close to 10:00 or maybe even later, so everyone was starting to get a bit silly :)

After playing at the Lego store for awhile, we headed to the most gigantic Disney store imaginable. Austen still didn’t have a costume for the festivities that were happening the next day, so we were on a mission to find one.

But we kinda got sidetracked by all of the cool hats ;) See what I mean about the silliness?

We finally drug ourselves away from the exciting hat collection (but not before Nathan and I purchased hats for ourselves to wear to the Halloween party the next night) and found Austen a very cool costume (more on that in the next post :)). It was just about time to head back to the hotel and get a couple of hours sleep before Day 1 at the Magic Kingdom.

And then we found ourselves sidetracked again. This time by chocolate and ice cream… and it was SO worth it.

Addison couldn’t quite finish her enormous ice cream sundae…

But Austen managed to drain his equally enormous root beer float :)

Yum.

At this point, we made the long trek back to the shuttle… and then the long ride back to our hotel… and then another long trek back to our room. We fell into bed, happy and exhausted and excited about the adventures to come.

More soon :)

love,

-amber

Sigh.

We woke up early on Day 1 so that Addy could take a quick shower and we could blow dry and flat iron her hair. She wanted to be “cute” on the day she was going to meet her new friends. I felt a crazy stab of nervousness for her as she buttoned up her school uniform… So many social pressures already… and she’s only in Pre-First!

Hugest thanks to Nathan for taking over the camera for a large portion of this morning. It feels like I am rarely in pictures with my kiddos, and Nathan wanted to remedy that for me. I love the way that mundane activities like hairdrying and flat ironing can be captured beautifully. I love that we’ll never forget what the process of this first morning was like.

Nathan had come up with the idea of getting the kids First Day of School presents… so he had those ready for them when we headed down for breakfast. I love these images that he captured of them… they were so excited about their presents :)

Wonder where she gets her dramatic-ness?

Austen manages to stay slightly more composed… but excited, nonetheless.

Then it was time for a quick & easy (and overly sugary..eek!) breakfast.

Addy had wanted to see pictures from Austen’s first day of school… so I had pulled those out. She has grown up so much.

Final prep… and we headed out the door! (Running a tiny bit late, of course)

Addy was still so excited about her present… She was barely even talking about school at this point. I don’t think she had a chance to be nervous!

Quick portraits in the parking lot… (again, thanks to my amazing husband :))

I swiped the camera back, and stole one more image of her before we walked into the school. I was mostly needing to hide my eyes, because I was shocked by the level of emotion I was feeling.

Nervousness hit… but only a little. She’s seriously the bravest little girl I know.

A couple of fun first day details-

Quick goodbyes in the hallway. I love how lovey Addison always is. It’s so good for my heart to have snuggly loving kids.

Austen said “Only a hug!” but whether he liked it or not, he was getting a kiss. I love his face here… half smile, half grimace :)

Into the classroom she goes. She stood for a few moments looking around, trying to figure out which seat was hers. It was SO hard for me not to run in there and help her… but that’s the point, right? We’re supposed to let them figure it out on their own?

She’s a smart girl. She stopped searching, and turned to her new teacher. I love this image. It makes me feel safe. My girl knows when to ask for help… and she’s got a great teacher who will take care of her.

Major milestone successfully completed. I may have had to wipe my eyes a few times while walking back to the car… hand-in-hand with the father of my beautiful children… but at least I didn’t have to attend the boo-hoo breakfast with other kindergarten moms :)

It’s hard to watch your kids grow up. But it’s beautiful to see them become amazing little people.

I’m so blessed.

Addy… I’m SO proud of you. You’re such a big girl, and you are rocking school… just like we knew you would. Thank you for being such a hard worker. I love you so much!

love, love, love… and hugs and kisses. Lots of them.

-mom.

I finally arrived back in Minnesota, was picked up at the airport by my amazing husband, and arrived back at Nathan’s family’s house well after everyone else was asleep for the night. I’m pretty thankful for that, as I was so exhausted. I immediately climbed into bed… and had a wonderful night of sleeping.

Thursday was a wonderfully relaxed day spent by the pool, and then on Friday we got up early and headed out to the Mall of America. I’d never been, and I was super excited to hang out with the family there. We took the kids to the Lego store and then spent the rest of the time riding rides in the amusement park :)

Then it was time to head back to the house for the main event of the week – Nathan’s Grandma’s 85th birthday.

Family dinner…

While Nathan’s mom and aunt Karen cleared the table after dinner, we retreated to the living room to listen to Grandma tell stories from her childhood. I love that Addy is so snuggly and excited about spending time with them. These images are priceless to me.

Grandma was telling a story, and she got to the part where you knew she was about to get in trouble, and Addy covered her ears… She knew what was coming and she didn’t want to hear it. So funny :)

Brianna was all over the place. She’s so adorable :)

I think Grandma was enjoying being the star of the show :)

Then it was party time :) I LOVE how Grandpa takes care of Grandma. He’s so devoted to her. It’s incredibly inspiring.

I love the expression on Grandma’s face in these images with her birthday cake. She’s so happy. Nathan captured this beautifully.

Seriously, how cute are they? We were also celebrating their 65th wedding anniversary… Pretty awesome.

Again, Grandpa taking care of Grandma… precious.

Mom and Aunt Karen put together a huge scrapbook filled with cards and notes and emails from people for Grandma’s birthday. She was so surprised. Her emotional response was really sweet.

I love technology sometimes… Nathan was able use his phone to share the video of everyone surprising Grandma earlier in the week. Very fun.

Toward the end of the celebration, another cake came out of the kitchen. Dad’s birthday was the following week, so he got a little mini cake all for him. (I love Uncle Dave “helping” Dad blow out the candles in the background!)

That evening, after the kids were in bed, all of the cousins went out and watched a movie. It was a fun time. We got up early the next morning, packed up, and headed home. The return trip was uneventful, thankfully… I was ever so excited to get home and sleep in my own bed (and take a long soak in my tub!). What a crazy fun week.

There a couple of extra images from Grandma’s party in this slideshow… if you’re interested in more family fun :)

much love,

-amber

I was given a “sleep in late without having to feel bad about it” pass, and I ended up using it. I arrived at the workshop just in time to hear Garrett (the last speaker of the day) finish his presentation, and then all of the speakers took the stage for a Q&A discussion panel.

We then broke for lunch (they served macaroni… and I am convinced that it was just for me:)). Immediately following lunch, we headed back to the house where we had worked the day before, for a second day of shooting sessions.

This day was a different process. There were three different groups, and each group had 4-6 photographers. Each photographer was to have 10-15 minutes to “direct” the shoot while the others watched/waited and I stood by to answer questions/provide instruction. I simultaneously needed to make sure I captured at least *some* images of each family. It was pretty crazy, but again, the Pictage crew managed to keep it completely organized and it ran very smoothly.

Family #1- This mother was a serious rockstar. She and her kids modeled for two different groups… which was about 2 hours of being cooped up in one room. I have never seen a mom engage so well under that sort of pressure. Seriously, she deserves an award.

Family #2- how adorable are these kids?!

We wrapped up the day, said our goodbyes, and I headed back to the Atlanta airport to rejoin my family in MN. It was seriously a whirlwind two days packed with wonderful old friends, fun new people, and lots and lots of learning and sharing!

(By the way, my flight back to Minneapolis? It was delayed, making that round trip one of the most ridiculously messed up flights of my life. The best part of the story was the reason for the delay… I’d never heard this one before. They delayed the flight because they “couldn’t find the flight crew.” Hysterical.)

One last post from the Week of Insanity coming soon… and then about a million client posts!

-amber

So we arrived safe in sound in Minnesota after the kids first flight, and Nathan’s brother and uncle came by the airport to pick everyone up. I said my goodbyes, and headed straight back into the airport. I was to be flying immediately back to Atlanta. The timing had ended up being crazy, and our trip to MN coincided with my opportunity to teach at PictageU.

Unfortunately, when I arrived at the check-in counter, I found out that all flights into Atlanta that evening had been cancelled due to weather. It was 5:00pm, and I was a million miles away from the location in which I was due to be giving my presentation in less than 18 hours. My happy happy day was immediately replaced with slightly elevated stress levels… but thanks to a very friendly Delta counter guy, I arrived at a plan. It was a crazy plan, but it would at least be a way to get myself to Atlanta by 8:00am the following day.

I flew from Minneapolis to Knoxville… and then I rented a car and drove to Atlanta. It was comical… I actually drove directly past my house sometime around midnight. I considered stopping and sleeping there, but realized that I had given my house key to a friend who was checking on the cat for us while we were gone! So I kept on. I didn’t arrive at Rachel & Andrew’s Atlanta home until sometime after 4:00am. The final leg of the trip turned into a complete comedy of errors. I received a speeding ticket just before I arrived in Alanta. I found myself completely lost, 3 different times, in all different areas of the city. The best moment (sarcasm intended) was when I was sitting at a stop sign, trying to figure out where in the world I was, and suddenly this man, who had been talking to himself on the corner, apparently decided I had been sitting there for too long, because he walked over and punched the front of my car! At that moment, I was a little sad that I hadn’t just stayed in Minnesota. Finally, I arrived at the correct location, and crawled into bed with Rachel and Andrew’s hysterically needy cat to grab about an hour and a half of sleep before it was time to be on and ready to go for PictageU.

Whew. I’m really glad to get that story out of my system… thanks for bearing with me :)

So PictageU kicked off with Tuesday morning, jam-packed with teaching. Jim Collins opened up with a short introduction, and then we immediately got started. Three different speakers (including myself) presented about various different aspects of family & children’s photography.

Liana shared her awesome tips concerning pricing and business strategy. She is a financial wizard, and I truly hope everyone who was listening was taking note of her advice.

It was then my turn… I was running on pure adrenaline from the crazy travel day and lack of sleep, and I hope I was coherent :) (Thanks to Shari for this image.)

Alice Park (founder of NAPCAP) shared some of her marketing strategies. I found it to be interesting that all three of us had very different philosophies and strategies for our businesses, yet I feel like we presented a very well rounded overview of the family portraiture world. I really enjoyed hearing the different perspectives.

After the presentations, we broke for lunch, and then we headed to the shooting sessions. I can’t imagine how Pictage managed to work out the logistics for this part of the workshop. There were 30ish photographers, 5 instructors, and enough models to go around. Everyone broke into groups, and then cycled through the photographer “stations”. We weren’t working with professional models (because that’s not helpful to real life shooting in the slightest), and we weren’t in the families natural environments (a kind of big deal for me, I’m sure you all realize ;)), but the amazing Pictage crew managed to keep everyone happy and refreshed and organized. Seemed like a miracle :)

I snagged a couple of images of me shooting/instructing during this time… I don’t get a lot of pictures of me shooting, and it’s entertaining to see how silly I look when I shoot.

Andie sent me this one.

Shari did a ton of photographing during the entire PictageU event. She posted these fun images on facebook.

Here are just a few images of the models from Day 1… you can see more on my facebook page :) What you can’t tell from these images is that we are in a downstairs den (aka, darkest room on the planet), and I am accompanied by about 10 photographers who are watching/asking questions/listening to my “instructions” while I am simultaneously trying to engage with the family. It was pretty tough, but I’m happy with the results.

Family #1

Family #2- Wyatt wasn’t very excited about me at first… but his mom was a serious rockstar, and totally turned him around in record time!

Family #3- LOVED this little guy.

Family #4- Whew… what a day.

Okay, this post has gotten a bit long-winded, so I’m going to wrap it up, and post day two on a separate post.

-amber

Needless to say, the kids were excited as well. I believe I answered Addy’s “How many days ’til we fly?” question about 8 times a day… for about 3 weeks :)

The car trip down was full of “Are we there yet?”s.

Austen was too busy reading (as always) to ask any questions at all :)

The walk from the parking lot to the airport was ridiculous. Austen said to me “If the parking lot is this big, I can’t imagine how big it must be on the inside.” Love the way his mind works…

After a ridiculously long process that involved waiting much too long in the scorching sun and scrambling to find a missing boarding pass, we finally made it through security (no pictures of that process after some crazy lady yelled at me for having a camera out… even though I wasn’t photographing with it!) and began waiting on the train. Austen and Addy seriously make me laugh… they were SO excited about the opportunity to ride a train. Austen said “Up until now I’ve only ridden in cars. Now I’m going to ride in a car and a train and a plane, all in one day!”

Nathan grabbed a ton of video on his iPhone… I’ll try to grab some of it and post it soon.

They thought the train’s abrupt stops and starts were hysterical. It became a game for them to see if they could stand up without holding on. Cute.

Family self portrait while waiting on our flight to board. I love my family. A lot.

Brianna was exhausted… she fell asleep in her stroller, and stayed asleep, even in the midst of all of the airport insanity.

Once we finally got on the plane and figured out our seats, it was fun to watch the kids as the responded to the situation around them. Austen had asked to sit with us, and Addy had asked to sit with her Grandma. Austen was constantly asking Nathan to explain what this noise meant, and what was going to happen next… while Addy just wanted to be able to turn on her iPod so she could watch a movie with Grandma :)

The actual take off was awesome. I have no images because some guy yelled at me for having an electronic device turned on (oops)… but Nathan has video. You can actually hear Addison going “Wheeeeeeeeeee!” in the background. I think she thought she was on a roller coaster :)

A few random pics of the group…

And quite possibly my favorite image from the flight… Dad wanted a picture of the whole group, so a flight attendant took my camera and attempted to capture us. I think the only thing that is in focus in this picture is the seat back in front of Jeremy… and something about that strikes me as completely hysterical. Yes, I realize that’s pretty silly, but nonetheless, this image makes me laugh.

So Jeremy tried to self-portrait us… but really it turned out to be mostly just a picture of him. This one also makes me laugh :)

We arrived in MN safely, with two well-traveled kids… It was a super fun flight :)

The story does not end here… even though the blog post does. Look forward to two (or three) more posts related to the Week of Insanity… soon!

love,

-amber

When I needed a college job that would allow me the flexibility to still get my schoolwork done, Kathy hired me to work at her house. When we got married in Weaverville, NC, Kathy made the long trek with a vanload of people. When I was pregnant with Austen and we weren’t allowed to travel for Christmas, Kathy and John had us over to their house on Christmas day. When Austen was a baby, and I found myself in a position where I had to go back to work, Kathy stepped in a made that transition easier by becoming his “babysitter”. When I was dealing with a miscarriage, it was Kathy’s couch that I laid on for two weeks, while Kathy took care of me and Austen when Nathan was at work. When we’ve had car accidents or other life accidents, Kathy and John have been there to provide support, no matter the time of day or night. Kathy and John were in the waiting room while I was having both of my kids, and were within the first few to hold them. When we need a location for a party, we immediately think of Kathy. When I need someone to watch my kids, it’s Kathy that I want to call… because with Kathy and John, it’s just like calling family. We are ever grateful for the love and support of these two… and for giving us another wonderful family to call our own. JC, Laura, and Daniel are like siblings to us… and by extension, their spouses (& girlfriend) and children feel like they belong to us as well. We are very very blessed to have been given the amazing gift of being an (adopted) part of this wonderful family.

Remember Adaley?

And her adorable cousin Kaden?

Adaley loves to have tea parties with her Grandpa. Johnny is enthralled with her granddaughter, so he seems to truly enjoy them!

This is the moment when Adaley asked Grandpa to marry her… “for pretend, of course.”

While Kathy was changing Kaden’s clothes…

Johnny was being instructed by Adaley on how to dance… including the addition of a giant flower boutonniere.

Love the look on John’s face here.

Kathy… taking a rare break and enjoying her family.

Family shot… even the “grand-dog” Koko made it into this one :)

Kathy has always been awesome at making babies laugh. Kaden is no exception.

Adaley still thinks her Grandma is pretty funny, too.

Hanging out in the kitchen means you have to have clean hands… Kathy is awesome about enforcing this rule.

John thought it was hysterical that Kaden wanted to eat this tomato.

Cookies going into the oven, Adaley loving on Kaden, Kaden still trying to get that tomato back, John watching and laughing at it all. Typical day in the life of Kathy and Johnny…

Just loved this one of Kathy and Kaden… the light made me happy.

And then Adaley decided that I was a dragon (a girl dragon, apparently a very important distinction) and that she needed to kill me with her bubble wand. Oh the drama :)

Speaking of drama… check out this series of faces.

As long as I have known Kathy, she has fed babies just like this. Love it. Makes me giggle.

Adorable.

One of my favorites from the day… I love the expressions on everyone’s faces. Kaden is most definitely the center of attention.

Adaley isn’t the only dramatic one in the family…

But as soon as he got his bottle, life got way better :)

Reading time is, as always, my favorite time. Here, John is reading “Little Miss Muffet” but he gave it his own special twist.

Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet,

Eating her curds and whey,

Along came a spider,

Who sat down beside her

So she called GPM right away!

Love these people. Yep. I really do.

So excited :)

My kids were actually at the house at this shoot (due to some scheduling craziness), and when the shoot was over, they came out of hiding and hung out for just a few minutes. I couldn’t resist capturing a few images.

Funtimes! Kathy and John (and Laura, JC & Kym, Daniel & Tiff… and kiddos) we seriously love you guys. Thanks for everything. I hope you guys enjoy your slideshow!

much love,

-amber

We weren’t even the slightest bit surprised when we found out, not too long afterward, that they were engaged. We were SO excited for them, and could not wait to shoot their wedding.  We had a blast celebrating with them at their engagement party, and shooting their engagement session. I fell more and more in love with them (and that laughter I keep talking about) every time we hung out.

Love these two images of them.

Then came their wedding… which was on my birthday… March 28, 2009.  It was an absolutely amazing event, which comes as no surprise, since Morgan is such an amazing planner! It was wonderful to be with them on their wedding day… and it barely felt like work at all. I sometimes pretending like it was my birthday party, and I was there celebrating with my friends :) Morgan and Michael are wonderful at putting people at ease like that :)

Their laughter is definitely consistent, right? :)

They were so awesome to photograph on their wedding day (and so beautiful in front of the camera) that I coerced them into coming and modeling at a workshop that I was a part of. So much fun!

I also had the opportunity to photograph Morgan and the Soirees girls.. again, it wasn’t like work at all… photographing Morgan never is.

So when Morgan told me she was pregnant… I was just a teeny bit excited :) I love Morgan and Michael, and I could not wait to do what I do best… capture their absolutely beautiful real life with their new baby. Mary McKenna arrived on May 23rd, and I headed over to the hospital to meet her just a couple of days later. Of course, I had to take my camera and grab a couple of images… even though we had a session on the calendar for just a few days later. I’m going to post those for you here, and then do a second post for her newborn session!

Sweet Baby Mary McKenna!

Okay, hold on for just a minute… and I’ll share the newborn session with you as well! I hope you enjoyed Morgan and Michael’s photographic story :) Morgan and Michael… I love you guys, and I’m so glad Nathan and I have had the privilege of documenting your love. Thank you.

-amber