- Our most exciting event was probably this---On January 17th, we went with Brian, LaNell and Zack to Austin on Saturday night to see a concert--They drove and then dropped us off at the house. We got back really late. We unlocked the door and opened it and heard a series of loud noises on the counter. Bahgeera (one of our cats) greeted us at the door so I knew it wasn't her. I was getting ready to yell at Moggie (our other cat) when Darrin turned the light on and a possum was staring at us. He was sitting on the counter with his front legs resting on the toaster. He hissed at us when we stepped closer. We called Brian and LaNell and asked them to come back. Brian is on crutches and we thought that might be useful so we didn't have to get too close to him. They came back and helped get him out. They opened the window by the sink and basically shooed him out. He jumped about 4 feet and was not very happy about it. The whole time they were getting the window open and stuff he was hissing and drooling right into the toaster. Tasty! (We actually have used the toaster after careful cleaning--we figured it gets really hot in there so it must kill everything).
We think it is a possum we named Krispen and have been watching outside. He hangs around the bird cage. I am sure he is eagerly waiting for the june bug season--they congregate on the screen door of the bird cage when we have the light on. He was actually rather cute but Krispen needs to stay outside and not come inside. He didn't mess with anything except walking all over stuff in the lower cabinets and leaving dirty possum prints on stuff.
- We also got our 14th wedding booked for Avalon and are waiting on the 15th to get her retainer money together. So that is excellent news for Avalon! We get regular calls from brides asking for information and have had regular appointments to show it as well. It is looking rather dead out there right now since the flowers have all died back. We are planting hundreds of bulbs this weekend so March will really be beautiful out there with the bulbs and plants coming back.
- Darrin has been working really hard putting in new flowerbeds at Avalon. We are adding a few around the gazebo, well house and near the seating area of the gazebo. These flower beds will add additional photography places and be a nice area for people to hang out in at weddings. I have been painting shutters to put on the windows outside. They are a very pretty shade of green --Basically this color. We will be hanging those in the coming month.
- We have been helping our friends, Brian and LaNell put up a storage building on their property. It has been fun and neat to see it's progress over the course of a few weeks. We (Darrin mostly :) ) helped with the framing of the house and then the painting of the primer. We had many hands to help with painting and that makes the job faster and more fun. Darrin was super fast with the roller and did a great job! Zack even painted and did a great job too.
- We had one wedding to photograph on January 10th. It is the first of two weddings we have booked this year for the studio. Things have really slowed down at the studio this year. That is why it is so exciting that Avalon is going well! :)
- I am currently putting all the tax information together for our 3 businesses. I love January! :) Everything seems to be coming together fairly easily this year which I am grateful for. I had to do the employee pay stubs, taxes, etc by hand this year since we stopped using Quickbooks and started using Successware which is a great management software for photography studios but it does not have a employee component. Since we only had two employees for the entire year, it didn't make any sense to pay someone else to do it. I did the end of the year stuff and everything balanced! yeah!
- Darrin is on the board for the Professional Photographers Guild of Houston. He will be attending the monthly meetings again and doing the print competitions. Go Darrin!
That seems to be the biggest happenings in our lives this January. Sorry for the lack of posts for the month....maybe this long one makes up for it... :)
I hope you have a great weekend and start of February. It is so hard to believe a month is already gone in 2009...
