A Big Farewell to 2008 and Hello to 2009

We wish everyone a very happy ending to 2008 and start of 2009. We hope it is your very best year yet and we look forward to hearing about all the new things that happen in your life!

Mexico Trip and Christmas

Things have been crazy at the Hill house over the last month. Here are a few of our big activities:

Wedding in Playa Del Carmen

We were asked to do photography at a destination wedding in Playa Del Carmen on December 13th. We left the DFW Airport on Thursday December 11th and got back on Sunday December 14th. It was a fun and tiring trip. We flew into Cancun and rode on a tour bus for 45 minutes to get to Playa Del Carmen. The driver got very close to obstacles and structures in the road but somehow managed not to hit anything. We arrived at the resort in one piece.

We stayed at the Gran Porto Real Resort which was right on the beach and was very nice. They gave us our room keys and we headed up to our room. Rebecca inserted the key into the door, swung the door open and found an older man in boxer shorts standing in the room. After slamming the door shut, and the little man sticking his head out asking if we needed something, we headed back down to get an unoccupied room. The rooms were nice and we had an ocean view if you looked past the swimming pool. We ate at a very tasty Italian restaurant that night and walked around the shopping area. The resort was all inclusive so our food and drinks at three restaurants were included in the price.

On Saturday morning (December 13th) we went on a snorkeling tour of their coral reef. It was pretty cold that day but the water was warmer than the air so it was tolerable. We did see some pretty sea fans and acropora as well as pretty fish and a sting ray. One of the guides caught a sea turtle and we got to take pictures with it. Saturday evening was the wedding out on the beach. During the ceremony while running for the best shot, Darrin broke his middle toe. He finished the wedding and even did family portraits afterwards on the broken toe. We joined the family for dinner and then went to find a bandage to wrap the toe. By that time it was a real nice purple. Darrin has broken a toe at two weddings and in both cases he wasn’t wearing shoes so it may be a new rule that Darrin wears shoes at weddings.


Christmas with Family

We celebrated Christmas a little early with Darrin's family. We all gatered at Duane's house on December 23rd for pizza and gift exchanging. It was a fun time and we enjoyed watching Casie and Ryan's excitement over the gifts they received.

I had to work Christmas Eve and then on Christmas morning we drove to San Antonio to see my family. We all gathered at my parent's house. It was a small group of my parents, grandpa, aunt and Darrin and I. We ate and played some 42 before my grandpa had to get home. Then we went out to the movies and saw Bolt---very funny....the hamster is really cute.

We jumped into the day after Christmas shopping frenzy at the outlet mall in San Marcos for a little while. It was fun and we found some great deals. We headed over to Kerrville that afternoon to see my grandpa and enjoyed Thai food for supper that night.

Saturday, we (My parents, Darrin and I) drove up to Abilene to see my brother Jonathan and his wife Lauren. It was nice to see them--we took them out to lunch and went shopping together. Jonathan just started a new job as an Assistant Manager at Walmart. He is in the middle of training and is enjoying it. I think he is going to do great.

Sunday we went to church with my parents and ate a quick lunch together. Darrin and I spent several hours driving around San Antonio picking up his Christmas Presents. They included, many coral frags, two clams and two sea urchins as well as some corals from an aquarium store. He was of course very happy. We ate dinner with my parents and headed back. We got all of Darrin's new purchases into the tank and headed home. We are both tired but enjoyed our weekend in San Antonio. It was nice to have a full 4 days with my parents and family.

Avalon

Avalon is doing great! We have 11 weddings booked for next year and we got two calls just today about coming out to see Avalon. We purchased 53 more strands of lights to decorate the trees and deck as needed during weddings at Lowes this weekend. They were 99 cents each and quite the bargain. We also bought a whole lot of bulbs.....I wish we would have counted how many bulbs we have already planted but it would probably be safe to say it is over 300 and we bought another 200 or so. So we will have lots of flowers in February and March (hopefully) for our wedding in March.

We hope that you are doing great and had a wonderful Christmas!

Very Happy Thanksgiving

Darrin and I had a great Thanksgiving. We spent Thursday with Darrin's family at his brother Duane's house. It was a fun time of feasting and talking. We had enough food for a week it seemed. We split up to get caught up on our sleep or clean our house (which is what I worked on). Then a few of us met back at Darrin's parent's house for ham sandwiches, green bean casserole and whatever else we could fit in.

Friday we slept in and ate a late breakfast and went to Lowes and Produces Coop to buy a few things we needed for the birds and Avalon. We went out to Avalon at 4:00 to shoot pictures of Nancy's family. Nancy is our office manager at the Studio. We had fun with her crazy family and joined them for dinner at Wings N more afterwards.

Saturday we got up early and headed down to San Antonio to spend some time with my parents. We stopped at a few pet stores to look at their saltwater fish and corals and a few garden centers to look at their bulbs. We were a little depressed to realize that Lowes had a much better selection than any of them had.

We had two fun days with my parents eating and catching up. They were getting ready to go to Big Bend for 5 days so we were jealous but hope they have a great time.

We are headed to Mexico in 10 days so I guess we get our break pretty soon. We have a wedding at a resort in Playa Del Carmen on December 13th. They are flying us down there and paying for all our expenses. They are not paying anything for the wedding photography but I think a paid for vacation is a pretty good price.

I hope each of you had a very Happy Thanksgiving and are looking forward to a very Merry Christmas. I know I am. I need to get our decorations down this week.

Be safe and blessed!

Avalon and other stuff

Things are going great with us. We had two appointments to show Avalon on Sunday and one appointment to book our 7th wedding for next year! Yeah! This week so far we have three appointments to show Avalon and several other inquiries that may become appointments. This is one of our busiest weeks for appointments out at Avalon. No complaints from us :)

We are working on a new flower bed out at Avalon right now. We are adding dirt and will put plants in soon. We will add rock later when the funds become available. The plants and flowers are really looking good out at Avalon right now. Everything is enjoying the cooler weather including Darrin and I as we work out there. It is amazing to look at pictures from May and see how much the plants have grown in just 5 months. Some have more than quadrupled in size. The wildflower field is in its fall mode with waving grass and feathery weeds. It actually looks quite nice this time of year.

We had a large wedding on October 11th out at Avalon. They did a really nice job decorating and everything looked very nice. We did the photography at the wedding and enjoyed working with the couple and families. One interesting thing....we don't allow people to use confetti at Avalon for the obvious reason that it would be in our flowerbeds and grass for years. So two weddings so far have found a "confetti" of sorts that is biodegradeable. It basically disappears after it gets wet. Vanessa's confetti was little white hearts and looked very pretty when the threw it.

Hope all is well! Be blessed this week!

Near the end of the craziness...

We are near the end of our crazy month! Yeah! We started with Hurricane Ike and the time put in at work to help evacuees and the other counties without power in our region.

Then we had to get ready for the Bridal Show on September 21st. We had two tables--one for Studio One and one for Avalon. We did the normal large pictures and albums for the studio. For Avalon, we put out a silver tea set and flowing fabric and flowers to hopefully make people think of garden tea parties and pretty landscapes. We never take pictures of our booths (we should) or I would post some here.

Then we headed down to San Antonio early on September 27th to sell birds. We made a little money but Darrin traded a lot of birds and got many many new ones. One funny story from that weekend: We traded for some more Green Singers. They are a pretty bird that is similar to a canary. They are yellow with grayish stripes on the head and back. We got a pair before and they have just been sitting in the cage staring at us. We got home Sunday evening and started unloading the cages from the car. We put the cage in the bird house that had the three new pairs of Green Singers and as soon as one made a noise, the male we had started flying like crazy around the cage and singing at the top of his lungs. He sounded like a much bigger bird--it was really loud but it was pretty. His female friend seemed to get jealous and started chasing him around the cage trying to peck him. It was pretty funny. We have put them all in a large cage together so maybe they can find more suitable mates.

Then to on October 4th we had a wedding here in College Station. Everything went very smoothly for it.

On October 9th we had a booth at the Meeting Planners Showcase here in College Station. It is basically a trade show where people who plan events come and see what vendors have to offer them to help with their events. We had a 8 ft x 10 ft booth and we put in a table with china place settings and a large centerpiece with flowers. We also had some garden furniture and two large urns with flowers. We wanted it to be pretty and standout among all the other booths with the black drape and tablecloths. People said it was pretty.

We have a wedding out at Avalon tomorrow (Oct 11th) and that will be the end of our craziness for a little while.

We did manage to go to Round Top Antique Fair twice in that crazy time. We found an aluminum decorative bench with two chairs and a table and a cast iron table with two matching chairs for Avalon. We will use them to continue adding more garden sitting areas and flower beds. We want guests to be able to stop and enjoy the landscaped flowerbeds and other garden areas of Avalon.

I hope you each have a wonderful weekend! Be blessed!

Hurricane Ike....

Well....we aren't going to make it to Fort Worth due to Ike deciding to pay us a visit. They keep changing the projected path but it really doesn't matter too much when the storm is as big as this storm is. We are going to get rain and lots of it. I definitely do not mind the rain at all....it's the wind that I don't want.

Darrin and his Dad and some guys are out cutting down some old and dead trees around Avalon today to keep them from falling. We have one at the house that they are going to try to do as well. Otherwise, we should be good. They were predicting hurricane force winds here but now it is just a watch and we'll probably just get tropical storm force winds (~50 mph).

A friend of ours from Houston is going to stay with us this weekend so I have a feeling we will just be hanging out and watching movies or something. Thank goodness we didn't have a wedding scheduled out at Avalon.

I better get going. Take care...

Yes...we are still alive...

Hard to believe that it has been almost 6 weeks since my last entry. I guess we have been a little busy.

Avalon is doing great. We put a rail around the deck before our August wedding and it looks really nice. It provides a backdrop for the flower beds. Some other Avalon news (sorry, no pics this time):

• We stained the wood floor inside again to get it a little darker and it now has three coats of polyurethane on it to protect it and give it a little shine. It looks very pretty and hopefully will last for a long time.
• Keith came and helped us lay out new flowerbeds around the gazebo area and along the wall. These flowerbeds will add hideaway places near the gazebo and will "guide" guests to the pathways instead of cutting across the dry creek bed.
• Darrin bought several new flower pots and a bench to go in front of the wall. It looks very pretty there and will provide great photographic opportunities.
• We have one wedding in October and one in November out at Avalon. So far we have 4 weddings booked next spring/summer.
• We have a booth at the Bridal Association Bridal Show in September and at the Meeting Planners Showcase in October. We hope to get lots of appointments at both events for future weddings and parties at Avalon.

We went down to Galveston this past weekend to do a family portrait session and an engagement portrait session. We enjoyed having a couple of days away from everything just relaxing. The only bad thing was Darrin couldn't get any oysters....he had been really looking forward to them since no local restaurants serve them anymore. Apparently fresh water got in the beds and they were not any good. Very sad for Darrin.

We are headed to Fort Worth on Saturday for a bird show. Hopefully we can sell a lot. Thankfully, Hurricane Ike has changed direction and is pointing further south now. If he had kept his course to Houston, it may have made our trip to Fort Worth a little interesting. We would have appreciated the rain though....

Have a great day!

Sandwiched in the middle of weddings

Howdy! We are busy in our wedding season. We have had 8 weddings since May for the studio and 3 for Avalon. We have three more weddings and one is at Avalon before the middle of August. So we have been chasing ladies in white dresses all summer. We are really looking forward to a break in September.

We are both doing well and staying healthy. Darrin has been working a lot out at Avalon. A railing has been installed around the deck at Avalon and it looks really pretty and will keep guests from walking through our flower beds. We have had some trouble with some flowerbeds getting too much water and plants not doing well so Darrin has been replanting and adjusting the watering system all summer.

We just got the latest Bridal Magazine yesterday and it looks awesome. We were able to get ad space on the back of the magazine and hope that this increases Avalon's visibility. There is also a very nice article about Avalon in the section titled "The Most Beautiful Places to Marry in the Brazos Valley". We have a bridal show September 21st to get ready for and it looks like we will get a booth at the local meeting planners showcase where we can meet local meeting planners that may need space for corporate meetings and retreats. Hopefully that can open a different area for Avalon to be a part of---especially for Monday-Friday during the day.

Last night I went over 170,000 miles in my car. I have had my Cavalier since late 1998 and have been very pleased with it. Darrin's Nissan Pathfinder is a 1997 with ~287,000. We would love to get 300,000 on it.

Well, I had better get busy. Hope you have a wonderful week!!

Avalon Photos and Such...

Good Friday morning to everyone! Things are staying busy for Darrin and I. We are trying to get ads and articles ready for Avalon and Studio One for the local bride's magazine. We are also in the middle of our wedding season for the studio and are designing albums like crazy. Darrin has been booked for an evening shoot most days as well.

We really need some rain out at Avalon. Darrin found a crack in the wildflower field that is about 4 inches across. We put some small stone gravel on the ground under a metal gazebo in the wildflower field and the ground is so dry you can see the cracks in the gravel and it is really falling into the cracks. Looks like we had an earthquake out there or something. We are installing a watering system for the crape myrtles that should make them a little happier--most of them are blooming or are getting ready to bloom. We are dragging water hoses around and setting up sprinklers to make sure we don't lose any of our new trees or grass.

Here are a couple of shots of Avalon:

This is one of our brides that got married near Shiner, TX but did her bridals at Avalon--






















This is a picture of our sign with the house and gazebo in the background...

















Work is going well for me. We are currently working on updating our Community Plan that was written 5 years ago about criminal justice related issues in the Brazos Valley. Very exciting. Our bioterrorism/public health grant, which has been the main source of my salary, is getting cut in half for the next grant year. This starts August 1st and means that I will be spending even more time on Criminal Justice to cover the other half of my salary. But it is interesting so that is okay.

Darrin has been working setting up some new stuff in the bird cage that we hope will improve production and health of our birds. We went to visit a friend who is a fellow finch breeder last weekend in Gatesville and his set up is quite impressive. He gave us many new ideas. We got a new timer for the lights...apparently the other one got fried because we had too many lights on it. Darrin has also installed some black lights that are supposed to provide some of the nutrients the birds normally get from sunlight in the wild. So now our bird cage really glows. He has also added some nutrients to the cornbread food that he feeds them a few times a week. We'll see how all of this helps.

As far as our schedule for the rest of the summer:

• June--This weekend we have a wedding here and then next weekend we will go see my parents in San Antonio and do some relaxing. We were planning on going to the Antique Roadshow in Dalls but did not get any tickets.
• July--Booked solid on Saturdays with weddings for the studio and we have one wedding and one bridal shower out at Avalon. That will be our really crazy month. May was like that too with 4 weddings out at Avalon.
• August--We have two weddings for the studio and one of them is at Avalon. My brother also turns 30 (really makes me feel old....).

I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Our wedding tomorrow is thankfully shorter than most(About 7 hours total....2 hours of photography before wedding and then 5 hours for wedding and reception). It's the 10-12 hour weddings that really wear us out.

Take care and talk to you soon!!

Vote for Studio One and Avalon!

Vote for Studio One (Best Photographer) and Avalon (Best Wedding Location) in the "Best of the Brazos" survey.

http://www.bestofthebrazos.com/

Voting is open until July 14th!

Thank you!

Rebecca

Busy Month...

Wow...It has almost been a month since I last posted here. It has been a really crazy month for us. Here are just a few of the things we have done since I last posted:

1. We had four weddings out at Avalon in the month of May. They all went really well. We did the photography for only two of them. Two of the weddings were 200+ guests. We have one wedding in July, one wedding in August, one wedding in October and one in November out at Avalon. So at least we have a little break right now.
2. The studio is getting into it's busy wedding season. We had four weddings in May. From June to the middle of August, we only have two weekends without a wedding. Several are out of town and such so we will be getting in some travel time as well.
3. I went to Galveston for three days for work. It was nice to relax and get away. The only bad thing was that Darrin couldn't come with me.
4. Darrin surprised me with a party out at Avalon on my birthday (May 25th). My parents came in and we had many family and friends there. It was a lot of fun and a good surprise.

That's all that I can come up with right now....My brain is a little sleepy this morning so I am sure I will come up with some other things later. Hope you have a wonderful day!

Rebecca

Pictures of Avalon

Here are some pictures at last of Avalon...This was a wedding we had out there on May 3rd. They had a Hawaiian themed party because the bride was originally from Hawaii.

Here is our beautiful gazebo...

Here is part of their ceremony...

Here is view of the side of the deck...

Here is a view of the main part of the deck at night...

They put the lights across the open area of the deck and I thought that was really pretty. As long as you don't have any really tall people there... :)

Well...hope you have a great day!

Busy Week

Hello! We are nearing the end of a busy week and I am very glad! Darrin has been busy with Texas School of Professional Photography all week and was the editor for the Dark Slide (the daily newsletter for the school that is full of funny pictures and quotes). So he was busy from morning til late at night. I think I saw him every day for at least a little while so that is good! :) I have been feeding the birds for him and that is a good hour or two of time. But I enjoy them.

We had our sorority party out at Avalon this past Friday. They could not have alcohol at their party because they didn't meet all the regulations given out by their executive offices for the party (Apparently the security officers had to have a $1 mil liability policy and they couldn't find any commissioned officers with that kind of policy. We require off-duty commissioned officers in our contract for events where alcohol is served). But they still had their party. One of the guests was arrested and taken to jail for hitting his girlfriend. That was the only excitement of the night. We showed up Saturday morning and walked in the facility and found it to be very clean and smell very very good. They did such a good job at cleaning it. We told them they could have an event out there anytime they wanted to. We also had a bridal shower that Sunday that was very pretty. It was designed as a tea party and looked great!

We have a wedding this weekend and then two more at the end of the month. I will try to post some pictures soon. Our plants are getting bigger and are blooming in the flower beds and our roses look great.

Otherwise, things are great with us. Hope your weekend goes great!

Updates at last from us

We are both feeling better and back to normal. That sickness was no fun....I am glad it is over.

We had a small wedding out at Avalon this past Saturday. It was our first event since October and it went well. They did lights in the trees and decorated the tables very nicely. There were about 50 guests. We have had some trouble with them getting the place clean in a timely manner and getting all their stuff. They are supposed to be out and done by Sunday at noon but there is still some of their stuff out there today. We have a sorority formal there this Friday night. That should be interesting :) and then a Bridal Shower on Sunday. Then in May we have a wedding at Avalon on the 3rd, 17th and 24th. Darrin is doing the photography for the one on the 17th and we are actually going to be out of town at another wedding on the 24th so that will be a busy day.

The Texas School of Professional Photography is next week. I am not taking a class this year (I have taken a class the last two years). Darrin is working as a wrangler with one of the classes of course so he will be busy all week. We have a friend staying at our house all week so I have been busy cleaning. Our extra room was my "green house" for the winter so it needed some cleaning for sure. The cats were very excited to be able to investigate that room since they have been banned from it all winter. They love eating my plants and then throwing up .....and they keep doing it again and again. Gotta love the cats and their love of green.

We signed with a real estate company to list the studio as for lease---we'll do all the paperwork which cut down on the cost but that will hopefully reach more people than our large sign has. Getting the studio leased would be very helpful. We have been doing a lot of shoots out at Avalon this week....bride, engagement, family shoot, etc.

Hope you have a great rest of your week!

Sickness in Hillville

It has been a week of sickness for Darrin and I. I am just finishing my antibiotics and Darrin just started his yesterday. This chest cold that we both have had is a really bad one. It zaps out any energy you have and really makes you feel bad. For those who know Darrin well----he was in bed all day Saturday--that's when I know he is really sick. Hopefully Darrin will start feeling better in a couple of days. I am still feeling fatigued and I got sick last Sunday.

We did make it to Round Top on Friday. Darrin was not feeling well but insisted on going. It was wet and cold. We went to one of the shows we usually pass up because it is $10/person to get in. We decided to check it out this year because we had met one of the vendors at an Antique Show in Houston and he said he had photography equipment that he would bring to the show. Darrin was not impressed with his photography stuff---it was all in really bad shape and missing large parts of it. The only thing we bought there was lunch. We drove down to the large sale near Warrenton and walked around a while. Darrin started feeling really bad so we went home. Hopefully we are well for the show in October so we can really enjoy it.

Otherwise we are just trying to keep up. We have a few things to finish up and clean up at Avalon before our wedding on April 19th. The studio is staying busy. Darrin is booked solid for evening sessions for the next few weeks. We rescheduled the ones for this past weekend and yesterday. We may need to reschedule today's sessions too depending on how Darrin feels. The birds are doing okay. We did some work this weekend to improve the circulation in our bird house and hope that will keep some of them from getting sick.

Hope you have a great week.

Sick but doing better

Howdy from College Station. Hope you are doing well. I have been sick for a few days but I am doing better. I had a chest cold that grabbed hold pretty hard for a couple days but seems to be getting better pretty quick. So that is good news. Something is going around the office because there are several people out sick today.

I was in Austin and Round Rock for a conference Wednesday through Friday. It was good---but my manager was sick the entire time so we didn't make it to the outlet mall like we had planned so that was a bummer. But I did get several good nights of rest so that was nice.

Darrin and I went antiquing in Round Top on Sunday and go back again this Friday. We bought some urns and stands at a really good price for Avalon. It made me really happy last night when the bride who is getting married in two weeks said "It is so beautiful out here!!" It has been a lot of work and we really appreciate it when other people see it and appreciate it too. This month we have a wedding on April 19th and then a sorority party for 250 on April 25th. The sorority party should be interesting. But they seem to be responsible and they are going to be bused out to Avalon so we don't have to worry so much about drinking and driving with them.

I'd better get going. Please keep Jonathan, my brother, in your prayers. He is looking for a new job. Just pray that the right one would have the doors open wide.

Have a great week!

House wiring

I forgot to mention the excitement that we had this past weekend, the night before Easter. We had just finished taking showers after spending the afternoon at Avalon. We were getting ready to eat a dinner of leftovers when the electricity went off in half the house. We thought we had a fuse out or flipped but when we checked them, everything was fine. That is when we noticed a funny smell and saw a small stream of smoke coming out of the breaker box. We called Darrin's Dad and started taking the cover off. The smoke was mostly gone by then. Darrin's Dad found the cause of our smoke and loss of electricity. A critter of some variety had climbed into our large fuse box (looks like the things in monster movies that the scientist flips on and the monster wakes up) and got fried. The fuse he was next to was broken in half. We got a new fuse on Sunday and everything seems to be fine. But it was exciting for a few minutes.

Birthdays and other fun

It has been a couple of weeks since I last posted. I keep meaning to take the time to post but then something else jumps in and takes that time. Oh well.

The last couple of weeks have been good for Darrin and I. March 10-14 was Bunny Time at the studio so Darrin was chasing bunnies and 2 year olds around trying to capture cute pictures of them. We didn't get chicks and ducks this year. That was just fine with me because I always had to clean their cage and they stunk. They were adorable but stinky. The bunny is not much better but at least we only have one. He is already gone. Yeah!

Avalon is looking beautiful. I will try to post some pictures of it soon. We put in a hundred or so plants on Friday. They look beautiful in the flower beds and really help it look more finished. Our wildflowers are starting to come up and we look forward to a great season this year. Darrin's Dad is working on the well house and the irrigation guy is getting our watering system all set up. We have a wedding April 19th at Avalon so everything has to be cleaned up by then. Then we have two weddings in May. I don't think I will know what to do with all my free time when Avalon is mostly finished and is just in the "maintenance" stage. We will always have something to do out there but at least it will be mostly finished.

Darrin's 39th Birthday was on Friday the 21st. We went out to eat for sushi with some friends that night. Darrin got a Anthony Bourdain cook book, a few movies and some Transformers peel and stick decorations for the wall.... :). We went to Houston the next day and had Dim Sum with some other friends. It was nice. For those who don't know, dim sum is mostly a Chinese meal where ladies walk around with carts and there are different food items on the carts. You can select what you want from each cart and each item has a price. It is mostly dumplings, meat dishes and noodle dishes. There are also unique things like chicken feet, tripe and other things that they serve that I don't even know what it is. But what we do get is really good and it is fun.

I had better get going. Sorry for the long post. Hope you have a great day!

Snowing in the Brazos Valley

We woke up to snow this morning. It is not accumulating on the ground but the cars and roofs had an inch or so. It was really pretty. The flakes were big and some were drifting down and some were blowing around because the wind was really blowing. This is only the second time we have seen snow since I moved here in 1998. The first time it didn't accumulate but this time there was at least an inch on my car.

It is so pretty and is already melting. Too bad.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Birthdays and Anniversaries

We have a birthday and an anniversary this week in my family. My Dad turns 60 this week and my brother's 2nd wedding anniversary is this week. Time is really flying. It is hard for me to believe that Jonathan has been married two years already. And he turns 30 in August....yikes. Makes me feel old just thinking about it.

We just finished unloading all our equipment. We had a nice short wedding today. I appreciate the receptions that don't last 10 hours like the one before this wedding did. It gets pretty boring after about hour 3 or so. Especially when you don't know anyone---and you are hired help so it's not like you can just get in there and party like the guests. Although, Darrin and I did dance several times at that 10 hour reception and the bride came up to us and said she was so happy we were joining in the fun because it made it feel more like a celebration. okay. Then later on she pulled me out onto the dance floor to dance with her. I have only seen this bride once before at her bridal session. She was an interesting but very sweet bride.

Hopefully this week will be a little less crazy than last week was. The conference was better than I had expected. It is a conference on school safety. They had a few break out sessions and one of them was on how the media is teaching our kids to kill (I think that is the title of the talk). It was pretty interesting and scary at the same time. He discussed the recent school shootings and the research that has been done on the shooters. Then he discussed how in 1965 there were groups going to congress saying that the violence in TV was too much---and think how much worse it is today). He made a case for not letting a child watch any TV, videos or movies til they are at least 6 years old. He was especially against video games. He says they are training our kids to shoot. I would like to look into his research a little more.

Anyways....I hope you have a great week next week. I definitely plan on it...

Regular Week...

This week was pretty normal. It was a short one since we had Monday off for President's Day. I have some new responsibilities at work that have kept me busy. Our Criminal Justice Planner left the COG and our program manager isn't sure what she is going to do as far as hiring since we have some other programs possibly on the horizon. So I am now working with Criminal Justice. This week I have been helping people with their grant applications. I'll be doing that for another week or two and then we will have our scoring meetings in March and April to prioritize those applications. Then the work is pretty much done for the Criminal Justice end of things so it should be pretty easy.

I am heading to Corpus Christi this Sunday for a conference on school planning and safety. It should be pretty good. I'll get back Wednesday afternoon. Darrin's not coming with me so I guess I am abandoning him for few days. I think he'll be alright.

Hope you have a great weekend!!

Such a nice vacation...

We had a really nice vacation last week in Big Bend National Park. We stayed in the lodge in the Chisos Basin so we weren't really roughing it with a bed and a heater. We hiked every day and got to see many different areas of the park. Big Bend is very diverse with lots of mountains, deserts and the Rio Grande river.

We did one hike that was 2.5 miles one way. It was uphill most of the way. We were carrying Darrin's 4x5 camera (It makes a negative that is 4 x 5 inches) and tripod so that made the trip a little hard. But it was fun. Darrin said I was trying to cash in on his life insurance but I think he enjoyed the hike no matter what he says. I took a couple of pictures and will post them when I get the CD from Darrin.

My Dad was still feeling pretty bad so he mostly relaxed the whole week. But he thinks the best place in the world to recooperate is Big Bend so he was enjoying himself anyways.

Darrin is working out at Avalon a lot right now. The studio has been pretty slow lately so he has been building some steps for the gazebo out of concrete and brick. They are looking very nice and match the brick pathway leading up to the gazebo. We have to get all our projects done before our wedding in April. Avalon will really look nice then.

I hope you have a great rest of your week.

Calm after the storm

This week is the start of our calm after the storm. Sunday we participated in the Brazos Valley Bridal Show here at Reed Arena (on campus of Texas A&M). We had a booth for Studio One and a booth for Avalon. The booths were right next to each other so that helped. We got there about 7:30 am and were finished setting up around 10:30 or so. I think that is a record for us. It tends to take us a while. This year one of our employees was able to help so that is what made the difference. We set up one of our gazebos in the Avalon booth and had lots of white drapey fabric and flowers and plants--felt kind of like the outdoors.

We had a great response to the Avalon booth and lots of questions. I wasn't at the Studio booth for any length of time so I am not sure how they did but it seemed to be busy over there sometimes. The show seemed a little slow compared to previous years. But we still had a lot of positive responses to Avalon and a few calls and emails afterwards so hopefully that trend continues this week.

We are getting ready for our trip to Big Bend next week. Keep my parents in your prayers....my Mom came down with the flu last week and just got over it and it seems my Dad has it now. They are going with us to Big Bend and will need to get their strength back up. I am sure they will be feeling better quickly.

We are looking forward to getting away from everything for a while. Our room does not have a TV, internet or a phone and I am not sure if our cell phones will work or not. So we really may be out in the middle of no where. Sounds really good right now.

I hope you have a great day!! Keep in touch!

Rebecca

NIce long weekend...

We had a nice long weekend. I wish I had more Mondays off. It is so nice to realize on Sunday night that you have a whole extra day until you have to go back to work. Oh well...end of the fun.

Darrin and I are taking my parents to Big Bend February 4-8th. Should be a whole lot of fun. We are really looking forward to it. It is so relaxing there...and yet you usually wear yourself out physically walking. I wore my hiking boots again today to get my feet used to them again. Of course they had about an inch or two of mud on them. It was really muddy out at Avalon today. We were picking up the tons and tons of brick bits, mortar and sand that the brick laying people left. We worked on it most of the day. My shoulders and back do not like me very much right now. But it all looks so much better now.

Well...I'd better get going. Have a blessed week!!

Finally my first post...

I have finally started my own blog! I have been reading several friends' blogs for a long time and have finally taken the plunge. I love keeping up with my friends by reading their blogs and wanted to offer my friends and family the same opportunity with us. I probably will be a little sporadic with posting here but will try to hit the highlights as we go.

Darrin and I are currently getting ready for a Bridal Fair on January 27th here in College Station. For those of you that don't know, Darrin opened a photography studio in College Station (Studio One Photographics http://www.studioonephoto.com) about 14 years ago. In April 2006, we purchased 7 acres of land just south of College Station and have been working on it for the last year and a half. It is an outdoor wedding facility named Avalon (http://www.avalonweddingsbcs.com). We have a booth for both businesses at the Bridal Fair and are hoping to get a lot of interest in Avalon.

Other than that, life is normal. We have two cats (Bahgeera and Moggie) and no kids yet. We own a house here in Bryan and two duplexes that we rent out. I am a bioterrorism preparedness planner at the Brazos Valley Council of Governments here in Bryan.

Guess that is enough for now. Talk to you later!!