I’m not gonna lie, I’m a cold winter weenie. So I love hot summers and days at the lake. I’ll take a heatwave any day to weeks of those Northern blizzards. All winter long I’ve been whining about the cold and dreaming of beaches. Well, ladies and gents, summer is finally here! I’m excited for picnics, outdoor movies, smores by the fire, floating the river and family reunions. Blue Bell ice cream, Capri Sun coolers, lemonade, strawberry shortcake and loads of Parker County peaches.

Ava and I were excited to realize it was time again for outdoor doggy baths. She’s also pretty excited about camping and swimming in the lake too.

Summer just doesn’t get any better than this.

This is Ava’s “I’m so cute, I’m smiling for you, I’m so stinking excited, did you say cookies?” face. Is she too cute or what?

Happy weekend everyone!! xoxo Brandy and Brandon

LOVE this look.  Our brides are too cool!!

Ha ha ha!  Bring out the photo booth glasses!!

“The Torment” returns!! (if you’re wondering what the heck I’m referring to here’s a hint: check out Jaime and Meng’s wedding post.)

As it turned out, it didn’t rain at all.  The guitar player arrived and music drifted through the air, mixed with that romantic scent of flowers in a garden.  Her mother ended up with a new dress, close family and friends gathered in a small corner of Fuller Garden and two amazing people said “I do.”  It truly was beautiful.  Perfect one might say.

LexAnne and Barrett, we wish you many years of happiness and thank you so much for inviting us to be part of your special day.  We hope you had a wonderful relaxing honeymoon, and can’t wait to see you again.  xoxo – Brandy and Brandon

Gorgeous cake by Sublime Bakery.

Joe T Garcia’s, always yummy!

Bella Pop (Brandy and Brandon) with the newlyweds!

Yes, we have a tendency to act goofy and pretend to be sculptures and so do our brides and grooms (remember the McNay Art Museum – San Antonio?)  Obviously, if you’re into that kinda thing, we’re your kinda photographers. :)

Today’s lifestyle is fast, instantaneous, technology driven.  While I love connecting with my friends and family instantly on Facebook, email and text messages – there’s always a special place in my heart for that envelope peeking out between a pile of bills and junk mail.  When I see a special note card, my heart flutters.  We LOVE getting things in the mail:  our client’s wedding invitations, engagement announcements, just because and then those special thank you notes that remind us why we do what we do.  That’s the moment when we’re feeling the love and couldn’t be happier.  It truly makes our day.

Not that it matters because today’s post isn’t about us or my lack of desire for coffee – it’s a story about a guy (named Peter) who loves Starbucks and the girl (named Sky) who worked at one.

Peter stops by Starbucks every day. From what I’ve heard, he’s running a record. So one day Peter visits a Starbucks and there’s this beautiful girl. It’s safe to say these daily coffee runs start to coincide with the girl’s schedule. Eventually the girl starts telling her friends about this cute guy who stops in every day. They say he must really like her or his coffee. As it turns out, Peter liked both.

And that’s where it all began.

Sky and Peter, we wish you many wonderful years filled with laughter, love, and Starbucks! Thank you so much for inviting us to be part of your day and we can’t wait to see you again soon. – xoxo Brandy and Brandon

On our last day we drove to Slidell, Louisiana and met up with the fine folks at Cajun Encounters Tours. Which by the way, we highly recommend.  With sunblock and mosquito spray in hand, we boarded boats aptly named “Gator Bait” and took to the swamp.  It was quite an adventure.  We were excited about finding gators.  The gators were excited about hotdogs and marshmallows.  A drunk lady tried to “call the gator over” by shaking her hand over the edge of the boat.  Yes, little Spicy (that’s what our captain called him) was quite excited.  Bummer, Spicy didn’t get a handout.

This post also features the first ever video taken with one of our 5D Mark 2 cameras.  Yes,  I finally took the time to learn how to use this fun feature but I still need to figure out how to export and keep the video in HD (or just better quality, because it looks better than what shows up right now.) This was also my first time to play with iMovie to edit the video and add music.  Too much fun!  I have a feeling we’ll be sharing lots more videos of our crazy adventures as well as Bella Pop behind the scenes.  Woot!

Spicy!!

My favorite picture.  Ever.  Spicy was so excited about that hotdog, his tail is sticking out of the water.  Reminds me of Tick-Toc in Disney’s Peter Pan.  (Love Tick-Toc!)

We picked up sugar cane at the gift shop and I got excited to see a kitty.  As it turned out the ladies at Destrehan once had a white cat named Sugar.  Sugar eventually disappeared and another white cat showed up, so they had good humor and named her Splenda or “their Sugar substitute.”  She was such a sweet kitty and I got to pet her (since I missed my kitties so much I was quite excited… though Brandon, did he miss the kitties as much?  I say not so much. ha ha!!)

Splenda, your Sugar substitute.

Spanish Moss.  Love this stuff.  Did you know it is actually hundreds of individual little plants that grow and get nutrients from the moisture in the air?  It does not hurt the trees.  They used Spanish Moss in all kinds of stuff:  insulation for walls, upholstery, beds.

A view of the bousiallage in the interior walls…

A view into the attic, to show you the original Cedar posts used to build this plantation.