I’m going to go ahead and say that this week has been one of the longest in my life. A good week… but a LLLLLOOOOONNNNNGGGGG week. I’m sorry to my friends who I have neglected this week, but ask my husband, I barely had time to take a breath. I missed you though!

School days, school days… I never knew the end of that song but I always sing “Old and rotten rule days….” I don’t think that’s how it goes, but at this point it sort of fits my mood. I don’t mean to complain, but I believe this semester is going to be somewhat of an “opportunity” for me, if you know what I mean. For instance, my first class I went to on Monday was Rhetoric. Yes, the study of symbolic expression and how people communicate. Lovely. Our professor announced a reading schedule that would take more time than I had even if his class was the only I was enrolled for. He handed out the syllabus and told us that the 1st chapter should already have been read before the first class. I looked down at the endless reading schedule and saw an assignment for Monday. Labor Day. Excuse me, sir, do you have a life? Me neither….

That’s how the day started. This whole week has been school school school. Class, work, study. No working out. No taking pictures. No posting on blogs. No fun. NO TIME!!!!! SOOOOOOO…. it’s Friday (Praise praise praise praise GOD) and I finally got my favorite toy out to play. Since I have no child, I took pictures of my mom’s puppy. Not a great model because she doesn’t listen or sit still, but I didn’t care. Just to be doing something fun was SUCH a treat! So tonight, my husband is asleep and I stayed up to play with Photoshop. Tonight, I have a collection of photos from several different days, but I wanted to share them with you all.

Last week we were in charge of house sitting for the Hammonds. Of course it was more of a treat for us than anything! Jet skis, view of the lake, time of relaxation…. love it.

Here is some jet ski action.

Couple of shots that I thought were pretty from their deck (AKA resort).

No post processing on the sunset. Still beautiful!

One day I got the pleasure of taking pictures of Jennifer’s little boy, Sam. He’s such a cute little guy!

This one has Big Boy in it! Eric and I call him HUGE boy… he has to weight like 200 lbs now! Look how big his head is compared to Sam?

And here’s Darlin. Maybe 3 lbs now. Not as big as Big Boy.

And finally, here are a couple of my niece and nephew (remember the very first day I had my camera?). Not very sharp pictures but I miss them so much and wanted to post a couple of them. Love you and miss you tons, Austin and Kenzie!

Jason and Crystal Barbaree’s daughter, Makaul, has been taking electric guitar lessons from Eric for the past several weeks. She has learned a whole lot and has improved tremendously! She plays Mary had a Little Lamb “rock style” and everything. So cute. Anyway, Crystal asked me to take a couple pictures of them while she was learning, so I did. It was cute to see how well Eric was working with her and how intently she listens to what he says. Here are a couple pics.

So… I’ve got big news. *Okay, saying I’ve got big news reminds me of something else I’ve been needing to say. WE ARE NOT PREGNANT. WE ARE NOT PLANNING ON GETTING PREGNANT FOR SEVERAL YEARS. All of the sudden, I’ve had about 10 people ask me if I’m pregnant. Either I’m getting fat or someone is spreading rumors!! I think I’m starting to get a complex. Yeah, so seriously…. yesterday I was doing a bible study at Starbucks with a couple of youth and this woman from church walked up and said “Hey Ashley! Are you pregnant?” WHAT? I couldn’t help but wonder if I was letting my stomach relax a little too much. Haha. Anyway, several people have been asking… please pass on the truth as I know it…. I’m not pregnant. Yes, we have been married for a WHOLE year now… but that doesn’t mean it’s baby time. Thank you.*

Back to the big news. Okay, so a friend of mine from high school has a sister who is a photographer. She does a lot of weddings and she’s really good. Anyway, she saw some recent pictures I took that I posted on facebook and commented how I was really catching on fast. Then she asked me if I would be interested in being a second shooter for a wedding in September. Would I be interested? HECK YEAH! So, here I go… jumping in… I know nothing about shooting weddings…. heck, I don’t know much about photography in general. I’m so excited though. She said she would let me tag along at a bridal shoot or engagment session and show me how to use an external flash (prayers for me will be accepted) and let me practice with her lenses since we both use Canon. This is going to be super fun and a HUGE challenge for me. I’ll keep you updated, but if you want to check out her website it is audraeburtonphotography.com.

Good stuff. Anyway, school starts in 6 days. Only 2 semesters left! HOORRAAAYYY!! I’m taking 18 hours and I know it will be tough semester but I can see the finish line. Praise God. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week.

Yesterday, our church had a members gathering party to celebrate the purchase of new land that our building will be built on soon. It was lots of fun getting to talk to people in our church family. I can just feel the excitement everyone is sharing, knowing that one day we will have a building, which will be a tool in helping people come to Christ. And perhaps in about 10 years, when Eric and I have our first kid (hint hint to everyone who keeps asking), he or she will come to know Christ there. Anyway, Jeremy (the pastor) sent us all out to walk the land and pray over it. I multi-tasked…. prayed and took pictures at the same time. Nice, right? Anyway, I want to share a couple pictures. They are nothing great, but the memory is so significant I thought I would post them. Enjoy.

Tonight I went to see the movie Mama Mia with one of my good friends, Jessica. We couldn’t quite convince our husbands that the movie was going to be wonderful, but we did convince them to go eat pizza with us beforehand. After we had dinner, I asked Jessica if she needed to add some shots to her “modeling portfolio.” Although she’s not a professional model, she’s beautiful and she makes a WONDERFUL model for me to practice on!! Bless her heart, she walked around with me all over the square letting me boss her around and stick a camera all up in her face and stuff. We spent the perfect amount of time shooting, then headed to our movie. Tonight was tons of fun. Here are some pictures to share.

Tonight we had youth for church and Justin (Youth Worship Leader) asked me to take some pictures of the worship service. While I had a good time, I found it pretty difficult to get good angles. Also, since I have a prime lens, there was no zooming…. so everything was pretty far away. It’s tough for me to get sharp pictures of faces from several feet away but oh well, I enjoyed it. Here are a few from youth.

After youth, several of the “adults” went to Starbucks for coffee. It seems to be our time to chill out on Wednesday nights after hanging out with the crazy youth. I mean, we are pretty crazy ourselves, but tonight I don’t think the Jr. High could talk about anything on topic. Daniel and I pretty much asked and answered all the questions ourselves. They talk about things such as giving a wedding ceremony to two rocks, pointing not being nice, giving burgers to homeless men, and why Noah wasn’t senile when he built the ark (since he was over 500 years old). SIGH. Oh Jr. High. All you can do is laugh and keep trying. Right? Anyway, so the people who made the drinks at Starbucks tonight must have put something VERY strong in them. We all had our giggle boxes turned on (Daniel is prob. laughing right now) and had MANY good belly laughs. It was so much fun and really good to have such great friends. Here are some photos from SB.

Daniel, did you drink ALL of those?

That’s all for now. Look at me blogging 2 times in 3 days.