aww. this place i keep mentioning...

silver bay.


i left stillwater the monday after the wedding & spent the entire day either in line so i could try to get a seat on the next flight or on a flight. my second day of being 26 was not so good! but i knew that very soon i'd be back at silver bay & on lake george & none of it would matter.

my bestfriend sarah, flew up to meet me for a week. we hadn't seen eachother in such a long time- so we decided to rent a car & do a little road trip through vermont. which is my favorite state, ever. here's a few pics from vermont:

it's such a beautiful place!



back at silver bay. sarah & i at the top of inspiration point. one of my favorite hikes.



carolyn, the personnel director of silver bay, my old boss & one of my favorite people from sba, took us out on her boat to watch the '2nd of july fireworks'. it rained. the 4th got rained out as well, which is a bummer because their fireworks show is known as "the best 4 in the north!"


a few sweet pictures from silver bay & hague, the next big town (and by big i mean maybe 200 people live there.)






a very exciting yard sale.


then sarah flew home :( & i had a day all to myself. it started to get rainy & cold- and the hoody my mom bought me for my b-day present came in handy! i love silver bay when it storms. you can watch it come from the north. i was so excited for bryan to come the next day- not only was he finally going to meet this place he's heard me talk about for over 7 years, he was going to see it with lots of weather! (he's a meteorologist & we dont' get much more than sunshine in az.)

here's one of the storms


it's such an amazing place. almost like stepping back into time. there are only a few phones on campus for the guests (usually around 800 people on campus during the summer) & one computer. no t.v.'s! you spend your time doing things i imagine my grandparents doing when they were young: shuffle board, scrabble, reading books, painting, hiking, swimming, canoing. it's wonderful & peaceful. i hope to alway be able to take my (future) children there every summer.

i had a great time playing shuffleboard, b/c it's something i could beat him at!!


my grandmother loved playing scrabble. i grew up watching her play it. it's one of my favorite games... we got a few of the young emps (college aged, summer employees) to play with us. gregs helping bryan cheat... & i only mention it because he claims he won...



bryan became obsessed with the archery center- he was pretty good at & after trying all week he made his goal of getting all five arrows in the red or better.


i hit a bullseye on my first set of arrows, but it was downhill from there.


one morning we stopped to have breakfast at this cute cafe. i don't remember what i had, but it was yummy. i was too busy loving the quaint little building & all of the little details.


it was so relaxing.

bryan has now passed the silver bay test & we can continue this relationship :)

i'm back in phoenix & missing silver bay something crazy -especially since it's 114 degrees. we had our first monsoon storm last night & haboob which is a wall of dust that covers the city very slowly, it's really cool-

i had three great weeks of exciting adventure! now i'm at home for a few more weeks before i head back to ky for a wedding. karl & lorinda's. karl was the best man at a wedding i shot three years ago. i can't wait to see him again & meet his bride!

cool people doing really cool things...

one of my managers, brad wingate, at rei is doing this incredible bike ride from vail, co to hannibal, mo. it's 850 miles in 8 days -which let alone is impressive but on the way he's climbing places like juniper pass which tops out at 11,000 ft. he's doing this to raise awareness for ovarian cancer. his beautiful wife died from it in 2005.

please check out their blog & educate yourself on the early signs of this cancer. it's the 5th most common cancer in women...

here's their site: cyclequest

fun pics from mn

(i only need 1 more state to have visited 3 new ones & then i can check off #20 on my 101 list. i wonder which other new state i'll visit? hmmmm....)

my sister, stephani & i flew in a day early to play... we had so much fun exploring three new towns: st. paul, stillwater & hudson, wisconsin. each town had its own funkyness to it. ( i love finding new small towns with unique, non-chain stores) we bought 2 beautiful vases from a ceramicist in stillwater - carl erikson! check out his work, he's fabulous & we both splurged on a new dress... not like us at all :)

here's a picture of stephi & me after the wedding, celebrating my birthday:



here's a picture of our fancy schmancy bathroom at the lowell inn- which is where all the wedding guests stayed. It was a really cool unique hotel in stillwater.


this is most of the silver bay crowd... we all worked at the camp together in college.


here's sissy rae doing the "dancing queen" with jefe' (doug's brother).



stephi & i with dougy...



& i wanted to post two more pics from the barbecue the night before the wedding...


awwww... they are so cute!


there's so much more to that area, i didnt have any time to do outdoorsy things... so i've decided i'll definately be back. plus katie & clint emailed & said they want me to come back once they get pregnant again- so hopefully soon i'll get another weekend to photograph & explore. let me know if you're interested in a portrait session & i'll keep you posted about when i come for a visit!

mike & lisa

tied the knot on june 30th! they got married at silver bay where they met two years ago. silver bay is this amazing ymca resort in upstate new york. it's such an amazing place that i better not start on how special it is or this post may even be longer than my save the world post! but click on the link up there if you'd like to check it out, which i highly recommend.

anyways. back to the love birds, mike & lisa. mike is goofy & lisa has this awesome laugh. almost every picture i took of them they were laughing. they are both very passionate about music & teaching. i had such a great time hanging out with them & capturing their love.

thanks for letting me tag along guys!!


done!


they got married in this adorable chapel on campus. lisa has spent many hours inside this chapel playing (wonderfully) on the piano.


dancing on the dock of the bay. wasting timeeeeeeeeeee...




the babies at this wedding were adorable!



mike & his buddies "borrowed" the jazz band's instruments to play a few songs for us. his niece & nephew are his biggest fans. well, lisa might fight them for that title- but it'd be a close match.




if you'd like to see more of their wedding click here.

worthy project.

this is definately a project worth donating to...




please take a second to check this out.

throughtheireyesafrica

two amazing photographers jessica claire & david jay are donating their time & expertise to help these children out...

new resolution...

upon my return to phx (it's only 104 degrees today -phuey!) from my vacation/ work trip in the beautiful adirondack moutains in upstate new york ... i've decided to dive head first into this thing thats been hanging on my conscience. the earth. and what i can do to help it. whether you believe in global warming or not we should do everything possible to keep it healthy. right?

so for the past few years, -but aggressively the past few months i've been researching what i can do without durastically changing my lifestyle or my check book. here are a few that i've done so far:

have lots of plants inside & outside your house to help offset carbon dioxide. they're working hard to keep us breathing healthier air, so collect lots of these puppies!

change your light bulbs to energy efficient led light bulbs... they last a lot longer and use way less energy. definately worth a few extra bucks upfront since you'll be saving monthly bill-wise & repurchasing new bulbs less often.

this is astounding:

it is estimated that 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year. 1 million bags used per minute. PER MINUTE! the epa says 380 billion of those are discarded here in the us. less than 1 % are actually recycled (as much as horrible plastic can be). i know i have a whole cabinet full of these things. so i recently purchased these awesome granite gear bags. you can find them here at rei. they are a little expensive & i have purchased others & even cloth bags for far less, but again worth it. this is something we do a lot- bryan & i probably collected 30 bags a month for grocery shopping for the 2 of us... that's a ton of bags.

another crazy statistic:

in 2005 americans used & discarded 14.4 billion disposable paper cups for hot beverages. if you put those cups together end-to-end, they would circle the earth 55 times. and with our continued growth of coffee-to-go consumption, that could increase to 23 billion cups a year by 2010. thats enough to circle the world 88 times. so, use a thermos- take it with you to starbucks, even buy their plastic reusable coffee cups- whatever it takes to make your 'morning pick me up' safe for the environment. also, instead of buying a new plastic water bottle or gatorade everytime your thirsty - buy a nalgene for $8. this also saves us a ton of money- water is now free instead of $2 a pop.

i just signed up for a sapling membership at greendimes.com for $36 a year they will work to stop the junk mail that fills my mailbox & ultimately my garbage can. plus they'll plant a tree for each membership every month! at our house we get several copies for past residences, so i added their names to our account as well. here's a quote from their website:
"We researched dozens of direct mailers and literally thousands of catalog publishers. We contact them on your behalf and make sure that you STAY off of their mailing lists. This will stop most of the credit card offers,(bc who needs more of those?) catalogs, and other solicitations that you don't want." How great is this?

so there's my tips for the week. my goal is to continue researching how to be a better human being & post them here. i think it's really easy to be respsonsible it's just so overwhelming... hopefully this will help!

i'll post mike & lisa's wedding hopefully tomorrow, plus some pictures from the vacation- it was busy, but an awesome way to spend almost 3 weeks!

doug & molly

doug is a great friend of mine from college- i worked at this amazing ymca camp, silver bay association in upstate new york, for 3 summers... i made several great friends during this time, but dougy has always been one of my favorites :)

on june 23rd dougy got married!!!! molly, his fabulous bride is from stillwater, mn, where the wedding was held. it was 4 days full of activities: basketball, golf, tennis, luncheons, rehearsals, barbecues & brunches. i admit i was pooped afterwards- but loved every second of it.

stillwater was such a neat town. my sister, stephani and i (she also went to camp for a summer) even got to venture into wisconsin for a day. two new states checked off my 101 list! we didn't eat any cheese but found some awesome galleries & boutiques. i'll post our adventures later...

thanks for a great weekend campbell's & rarig's. i had such a great time!!


molly & her day practicing... this was so sweet to watch my eyes definitely teared up.


the boys.


cute moment! they make eachother laugh, a lot -which is such a joy to watch.


molly's uncle had this great old car & even a chauffeur hat!


stillwater looking purty in the background.



they even practiced their dance- it was awesome.

for the 3rd "last dance" everyone surrounded them & i thought this was a great, moody picture.


if you'd like to see more pictures from the wedding day just click here!