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!