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!