Zoom Zoom

This morning was awesome... we met up with our new friend Joy Moody, co-fearless leader of the NJ PUG, who was in town shooting the New Haven Elm City Scooter Club's annual rally! The whole "gang" was fueling up at the breakfast counter at Ikea right before the last ride of the weekend, so we grabbed a few Sweedish meatballs and hit the parking lot to check out all the rides.

Joy chillin' on her boyfriend Don's ride:

I had to grab this one in the visor of a helmet.

What if...?

I've been a huge baseball fan for most of my life, but the last 9 years my team, the Orioles, have finished in 4th place in the AL East. Needless to say, I haven't been excited for the MLB playoffs in a long time. With one game left in the regular season, I was reading the postseason scenarios on Yahoo for the National league. The Mets, Phillies, Rockies, and Padres all still have a chance of making the playoffs with ONE game left! That's crazy! What's even more crazy is this scenario, which I don't think has ever happened since the introduction of the wild card team... I've never seen anything like it in all of sports.

What if...
Padres lose, Rockies win, Mets win, Phillies win

All four teams finish 89-73, meaning the NLDS cannot begin until Thursday. Mets visit Phillies on Monday to determine East champion. The Rockies, Padres and Monday's loser remain tied. The Rockies have the best head-to-head record among the three (regardless of whether Mets or Phillies lose). The Rockies either can choose to play a home game Tuesday and, if they win, a home game Wednesday, or they can opt to let the Padres and the East runner-up play Tuesday, with the winner hosting the Rockies on Wednesday. If the Rockies choose to play Wednesday on the road, the Padres would host the Mets or visit the Phillies on Tuesday, with the winner hosting the Rockies on Wednesday for the wild card. If the Rockies choose to stay at home, the Phillies (if they lost to the Mets on Monday) or Padres (if the Phillies beat the Mets) would choose to play Tuesday at the Rockies, then (if they win) Wednesday at home against the Padres or Mets, OR simply play Wednesday at the winner of Padres-Rockies or Mets-Rockies

My pick is for the Mets to comeback and win the NL East, and the Padres lock up the wildcard with a win.

A Bright Idea

It's really nice to finally be settling back in at home after a crazy couple of weeks of travel. Right before we left for Wales, I had a bright idea to change ALL of the bulbs in our home to compact fluorescent energy saving light bulbs. I know in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't save THAT much energy, but that's the thing about small changes... if everyone did this it would make a huge difference. If you're still not convinced... you WILL save $$ MONEY $$!!! A 13 watt CFL bulb is the equivalent brightness to a 60 watt tungsten bulb. So by changing all of the bulbs in our house we will cut the energy (used by light bulbs) by over 2/3!! Amazing!

If you want to figure out how much you'll be saving in both energy and money, check out this awesome site: One Billion Bulbs
When you login, you can record your purchases of CFL bulbs and estimate how much you'll be saving every year! Check out our savings: 16 bulbs replaced (a $25.00 investment) will save us $186.54 this year.

"Imagine the possibilities. Imagine if people all over the world mobilized to replace one billion standard incandescent light bulbs with energy-efficient compact fluorescent (CFL) light bulbs. What would that mean? It would mean that those people would save money each month on their electricity bill. It would mean they would save enough energy to light tens of millions of homes for a year. It would mean the prevention of greenhouse gases equivalent to the annual emissions of millions of cars."

So if you look to the right, on the sidebar we've started a team to replace bulbs and save energy. It's easy to join and we can track how much we've saved together!! Go here to join: http://www.onebillionbulbs.com/Group/TeamPhoto
Next time you're at Home Depot, Target, Walmart, etc. pick up 1 bulb and replace it in the one light that you use the most.

Now what should I do with all of those incandescent bulbs? Any bright ideas?

Jo & Sion's wedding

We're just about to head out of Trearddur Bay, so I wanted to share just a couple of our favorites from the wedding yesterday before we ran out the door.

Travel update

So we finally made it to Wales for Jo & Sion's wedding! Yesterday we took a nice 5 hour drive through the countryside (3 of which I was asleep in the back seat for) and arrived in Trearddur Bay. The hotel that we're staying at is right on the cliffs overlooking the Irish Sea. Yesterday I caught the last few minutes of daylight and I just sat there and watched the waves crash into the rocks.

This morning we woke up to a dreary sky and a heavy downpour outside (pretty common for over here) which forced us to shoot everything for the wedding inside. About 2 hours ago, the sun broke through the clouds! What a blessing for their wedding day!! To make the most of it we ran out onto the rocks for a couple of awesome shots with the bride and groom.

Mary and I didn't think we would have a chance to work on a slideshow (because I'm working off my SUPERsloooowww 12in. Powerbook, instead of the usual speedy 24in iMac) But we found out yesterday that there are actually 2 receptions! So we're on a nice three hour break until the next one and then that one will run til the wee hours of the morning. Soo...we get to do our first international slideshow! Good thing we brought all those power adapters!!

Here ara a few pictures (as promised) from earlier on our trip.

I love Virgin Atlantic! My new favorite airline!

SUBWAY!!!

Fish n' Chips!

Mary & the Bingham's gang

London Town

We're here! We made it across the pond and we are definitely feeling the effects of jet lag. Mary and I just spent most of the afternoon catchin up on ZZZzzs at our friend LouLou's place. We have lots of fun pics to share with you guys, and I'm sure we'll have a lot more soon, so stay tuned for that! We're off to grab some fish & chips with our buds!! Cheerio!

Spread the Love

Well, we're packing as we speak (I'm such a good multi-tasker! :) to head out the door again for a wedding we're shooting this week in Wales. But we didn't want to leave without showing you some pics from our talk last week.

Speaking for the first time was *such* a great learning experience in itself and we have so many great ideas for moving forward. But I have to say that it was our own CT peeps who we learned the most from!! Everything we talked about in our session about Spreading the Love, they demonstrated time after time while we were out there. If you knew one of us, you knew all of us and I'm so glad that everyone got to see the LOVE we have going on out here in CT. Like we said in our session, Justin and I could talk until we were blue in the face about being open & sharing, but if we didn't have amazing people like them around us to actually walk the walk then this group would be nothing. Everything good that ever happens to us, we know in one way or another is because of them, and they bless us more & more every day! We are so, so grateful for them and I only hope they all know how much they mean to us!

We also want to say a HUGE thank you to Lisa Allen & Emily Engle who have been the back bone of our group and our own personal cheerleaders out on the West Coast at Pictage. They are both just incredible people and it was so nice to finally meet them in person, even though it feels like we've know them forever! You guys are amazing!!

Ok, so before I get all weepy, here are a few shots of Justin and I speaking at our session out in L.A. Thanks so much to Brian Khang & Loren Scott for sending them to us! If anyone else has any pictures from our session please share!!

Wish us luck with airport security and our massive cases of photo equipment!!

PartnerCon Craziness!!

WHEW!! Well we are back from a CRAZY couple of days in LA and one looong red eye flight that got us here early this morning!! It feels like we haven't slept in a week, but who could sleep with all this fun going on?

Here we are with Mark from LaCour (who is hilarious!!) doing our best pirate impressions! I'd say he won!

And here we are with our rockin' mentors the Humphreys. These guys are so awesome and absolutely adorable together! (If you haven't checked out their work, then stop reading immediately and head on over! :)

We had such a blast hanging out with them and talking about our businesses and how to make some time for life in there with all that too! Thank you guys for everything! We can't wait until you can come out & hang out with us for some good ole' east coast fun!

We also had a great time hanging out with our other two mentors, Dane Sanders and Robert Evans (who has done weddings for the likes of Brad & Jen and Tom & Katie). They were both such awesome, down to earth people and they had a ton of great insight and information for our business moving forward. We feel so blessed to have met them!!

And here we are with one of our new absolute favorite people, Miss Davina Fear herself! Wow, could you find a more supportive, caring, fire-lighting person to have around you? She's the kind of person who believes in you when you don't believe in yourself...but she's so darn persuasive and passionate that she some how gets you to believe it too! It was so much fun hanging out with her & Millie (who we SOMEHOW failed to get a picture with!) and just always feeling like we could be super silly and really be ourselves! We love you girls!!

Davina's talk had all of these INCREDIBLE ideas for getting your life back when the business part has completely taken over, and the first two were to 1) get up early and 2) make your bed. Which we are totally going to start doing because like she said, I HATE having to pull the piles & piles of stuff off our bed just to get to go to sleep. Well on the plane home, Justin found this alarm clock in the in-flight magazine. Check this out...the alarm goes off, and when you hit snooze it runs away somewhere so you actually have to get out of bed to go find it!! How brilliant is that?!

And finally, here's us with our big sign from our talk! I have to tell you, it was pretty crazy walking through the airport with that thing! We're going to do a whole separate post on that and all our CT peeps as soon as I steal some pictures from our friends' blogs!

We had so much fun hanging out with everyone and we got a ton of fun pics (all with the point & shoot), so we just decided to put them all in a slideshow so you guys wouldn't have to scroll forever. Check out all the fun!!



Here are a bunch from the KISSin'booth at the Kiss Albums & Showit Party! Along with all our CT peeps, you'll also see all the fun with Shyla, Regina Holder, Amber Holritz, Corey McNabb, the adorable Joy Moody & Mike Colon. It was GOOD times!!

City of Angels

Yesterday kicked off a whirl-wind couple of weeks of travel for us. We're here in LA through Thursday to speak at Pictage's Partner Conference, and then we'll take the red-eye home to shoot Lisa & Rob's wedding at the Burr Homestead in Fairfield County. Then it's back home to pack because on Tuesday we fly out overseas to shoot Jo & Sion's wedding on the beautiful cliffs of Trearrdur Bay in Wales. whew! Crazy fun times!

Our flight out here to LA was a blast because we had a bunch of our buds Carla, Steve, Amy, and Richard with us! Somehow we all managed to fit into this shot...well, sorta:

Lon & Melissa

We got back around 1am last night from shooting the unbelievably killer wedding of Lon & Melissa at the Essex Yacht Club. These guys were just so happy together and so excited to be getting married that it was an absolute joy to be around them and share in their happiness. We were blessed wth perfect weather, perfect light, and the perfect couple! And we also had our buds Paul & Krystal along for all the fun, so who could ask for more than that!

Guys, it was such a beautiful wedding, and you two were stunning! Thank you so much for letting us be a part of it! Have fun in Hawaii and we'll see you when you get back!

Do you need help!?

88%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

We just found this quiz that determines how addicted you are to blogging on the i-stuff blog. As you can see we have a problem (and we're considering professional help). So how bad are you guys!? Take the quiz and let us know by posting your score in the comments!

"Are you one of those people that tries to convince everyone around you to read your blog? Do you dream of RSS? Do you want to know How Addicted to Blogging Are You?"

Answer 14 simple questions and you will get to know immediately How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

14 questions are as below :
Where is your blog located?
How often do you update your blog?
How many blogs (actual blogs, not individual blog entries) do you read a day?
How much time do you spend reading blogs?
How many different blogs do you post entries on?
Have you ever 'live blogged?' (where you blog about an event as it's happening)?
How do you stay up to date with all your favorite blogs?
Have you ever blown off an important task, such as studying for an exam or making a deadline, because you were blogging?
If something interesting happens to you, do you immediately think about how you're going to write about it on your blog?
What do you usually blog about?
What kind of blogging do you do?
Have you ever tried to convince a friend or family member they should start a blog?
Have you ever come up with a great blog idea while doing something completely random, such as taking a shower or watching a movie?
When this quiz is over, do you plan on blogging about your blogging addiction?

HAVE FUN!

Halloween Review

Well I have to say that on the whole I was really disappointed with Rob Zombie's take on the classic horror film(and one of my personal faves), HALLOWEEN. Taken in isolation as a just another scary movie, and NOT an attempt to remake John Carpenter's genius, this film is slightly more entertaining than one of those Shannon Doherty thrillers you find on Lifetime (and yes, that IS a compliment! Love me some LMN!) with some A+ scares near the end.

That being said, as far as remakes go, this one gets an F,F,...EFF!

Rob (Mr. Zombie, sir!) misses all the nuance of the original characters we've all come to know and love. His Laurie Strode is just some ditsy teenager lacking all the introspection and self-struggle of one Miss Jamie Lee Curtis. (Can you tell I take this stuff seriously?) His Michael Myers is just an unstoppable freight train of psychotic behavior (which is pretty darn scary in it's own right), but he lacks all the child-like observation and expression of our favorite knife wielding sociopath. All in all, the *idea* of exploring the roots of Michael's evil was a novel take, but the execution falls way short of any true Halloween fan's expectations...and Halloween purists will be down right offended! Trust me, if you're looking for a really good scare, just go add the original to your Netflix list!

Ok, with that behind us, I can still say that we had an AWESOME time going to see it! How is that possible, you may ask? Because we had one Ms.Carla Ten Eyck screaming and jumping through the whole thing for some serious added entertainment value! :)

Check out this picture Justin took of us right before we went in...look really closely now...I think someone's watching.

I'm callin' it...

Time of arrival...7:45 last night as we stood under a daunting sky and prepared ourselves for the gruesome experience that is Rob Zombie's Halloween (more on that later). It was further confirmed this afternoon as I purchased my very first pumpkin latte of the season and walked out of Starbucks into an unexpected, but much welcome, wind gust. That's right baby, Fall is HERE!

Don't try talkin to me about the last weekend of summer and blah blah blah... it's September, there are pumpkin flavored drinks abounding and WVU is whooping up on Western Michigan. That can mean one thing, and one thing only: the arrival of Fall! This is the season of pumpkin candles, scary movies, haunted hayrides, caramel apple cider, Michael Myers...AND it's the season when WE'RE GETTING MARRIED!! Oh yea, trust me, it's here!

if you look really, really close in this picture you can see my wv earrings. hahah how cool am I?! incredibly cool of course!

PS: I'm also calling WVU in the national championships this year! (They came into this game ranked 3rd in the nation according to the AP poll!) And we will sooo be there if they are!