Where's LuLu?

VEGAS!!!! For now... I am actually sitting in the Vegas airport because I was not using my head when I was booking my flight to Denver the other week. In my mind, saving $20 was worth a layover, however, I was not realizing that I was flying OVER Denver to get to Las Vegas to sit for two hours in an airport. Yep... go ahead make fun of me. 

So here I sit in the Las Vegas airport waiting for my connecting flight which is now delayed by an 45 minutes.... actually wait... they are giving an update... over an hour! Oopala!

To top it off... I convinced myself that I'd win BIG sitting in this airport and it would all pay off.

The result: -$12

That is almost how much money I was trying to save when booking this flight. Again... someone smack me!

I also managed to forget my camera cord to transfer pictures as I'm taking this weekend in Denver/Vail.  So I wanted to apologize in advance for the lack of posts coming up over the next few days. 

Right now I'll leave you with a little piece of Vegas while I'm here :)

That's right... WHEEL.. OF...FORTUNE (or misfortune for me tonight!)

Have a great 4th of July weekend I'll be back soon!  If you're as lucky as me you'll have Monday AND Tuesday off which I am THRILLEd about!

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Oh No He Didn't....

Last night I had happy hour with some of my girlfriends at Cafe Trio located right off the plaza with some AMAZING wine deals.  Half price bottles/glasses of wine ALL night! One of my friends, Kim, brought along her cute baby boy, Parker.

Of course after the wine gets going with us we decided on some photo opts.  Who could resist getting a picture of Parker... let alone doing this....

*No babies were harmed in the taking of these photos :)

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I See, You See.

This week's I See, You See was given to us by my friend Sarah, who is currently living in Portland, OR.

We were chatting last week online and I was asking her creative ideas for a "I See, You See" post and she mentioned silhouettes.  I would have never thought about that.

So this week's theme is: Silhouettes

For mine... I struggled quite a bit since it has been cloudy every day around dusk when I actually get around to having time to taking a photo.  I started to freak out when I realized I didn't have a photo to show you all after Megan sent me hers YESTERDAY. Right when I was about to give up hope I get an email with her "silly wet" photo (as she calls it - tough time saying it which is hilarious), and decide there is no going back now!

We were at our company meeting this morning and I sat there thinking of my options for a silhouette picture before it was too late. Then when Megan and I were looking out on the tarmac she brought up the fact we could maybe make it work.  Genius Megan said let's grab some people and we'll get yours right now! So I did :)  My kind co-workers  (Bailey, Erica, Jahna, and Megan) were kind enough to help a gal out!

So here is what I got:

Hey a girl can try, right?

Megan had a LOT better of an idea of how to make a silhouette work for this theme.  She happened to be visiting Lake Sullivan in Minnesota this weekend with friends and this is what she had to say about her photo:  I spent a few days with some amazing friends and my husband relaxing in a nice lake house and on the dock.  The view was beautiful and I found my silhouettes in the trees against the backdrop of the lake.

She's a beaut! Don't forget to check out her lake gear over here!

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Weekend Saviour

That would be the BF, Walt.

After a long overdue weekend of relaxing and taking it one day at a time for the first time since early May, I was STILL pooped! But in a good way of course. Hitting up the pool, having date night, running some errands here and there, and brunch with great friends I was living the life I've been missing for the past couple of months. Things have been very hectic and it's been hard to just take a moment for myself and relax.  I have loved all the weddings and festivities I've been to lately, but man it sure does feel good to be home.

To top it all off, the BF offered to cook dinner for me last night which was just the cherry on top.

What was for dinner you ask?  Teriyaki chicken, zucchini, and pasta with marinara. YUM.

Now we all know I am not a photographer for the Food Network, but look how yummy Walt's meal looks.  Trust me it was just as good or even better than it looks. 

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Home Sweet Home

Not mine.... but Angela's.

Today's post was a request by a good friend of mine, Angela.  I wrote about her engagement back in January, and since then her life has gotten more and more hectic/fabulous.

After the engagement Angela and her fiance Matt Shaw (for some reason I always call him by his first and last name) have sold Matt's house, are in the process of closing on their new house together, and getting ready to sell Angela's house.  I imagine my stress and multiply it by 10. All of this stuff is un-treaded waters for me and it sounds like a lot of work! Angela is handling it all pretty well though.

For some time now, Angela has been asking me to take a picture of her street name which is located on the sidewalk.  It it representative of how long her block has been around, her very first house she bought by herself, and the life she has grown to have living there. I, of course, was happy to help her with this request.

On our way back to from the plaza yesterday, I had the BF help me with the mini-photo shoot. Pulling limbs back and giving me suggestions of different angles.  Eventually though, he told me there were only so many ways you can take a picture of something on a sidewalk so we ended the photo shoot.

Here was the favorite of all of them:

I wasn't content with just the photo itself, so I opted for a little photoshop fun when I stayed in last night. Here's what I ended up with the Smudge Stick filter.

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Wedding Bells - Round 4

And when I say round 4, I mean this is the fourth wedding in 2011.  Four down, four left to go.

This past weekend I went to a wedding in Lawrence, Kansas.  The wedding itself was at Potter's Lake, which is right on campus and has beautiful scenery all around.  The reception took place at Abe & Jake's Landing, which is typically a bar, however, it turns into a HUGE reception hall for weddings and other events which is the great thing about it.

I've known Shelby and Cody for EIGHT years! Geez it seems like it was just yesterday when I met them both in my dorm my Freshman year in college. Cody threw for the KU track team that I was on, and Shelby was a diver on the KU swim team.  I remember seeing them flirt and giggle in the hallway and eventually that little flirtation grew into a relationship our Sophomore year Summer. I always knew they'd end up together, it was just a matter of when.  After many years of waiting, Cody finally popped the question! Now here I am writing about their great wedding!

The first few pictures were taken at Potter's lake, I was using my Canon G11 since my new camera hadn't arrived yet (after breaking the EOS 10d  at wedding #2).

Shelby's Mom walking her down the aisle

Shelby and Cody saying the vows they wrote for each other

Their 1st kiss as Mr. and Mrs. Roberts

Now onto the reception.  I opted for more dancing at this wedding then taking pictures, so I decided to show you two of my favorite things about this wedding.

The first thing.... the guest book.  Shelby's sister painted this gorgeous guest book and all the guests dabbed their thumb in green ink and placed their imprint on the bare tree limbs to turn it into a tree.  This was something new I'd never seen, or even heard of before.  What a GREAT idea.  I am in love with it and thought it was so clever and now they can display it in their home for all to see. If you notice the "R" in the left hand corner it's their monogram that was included on all the wedding invites.

The other thing that I loved about the wedding was the groom's cake.  Of course the bride's cake was beautiful and so yummy, however, the groom's cake was truly representative of him. He has been training for years to be a trainer and now is doing what he has always strived to do and took it a step further and made the groom's cake a barbell weight! Cute, right?

I actually really love the lighting on the cakes for this picture too.  Love when I "accidentally" get a great photo!

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One Step at a Time

The other day, Megan asked me if I could help out with her fashion photo at the nearby railroad I wandered to here the other week.

I feel like I almost have this weird obsession with railroads ever since I took that last picture.  They seem to make photos look so much more interesting.

While we were out for our short photoshoot on the railroad, we started messing around with different poses and I really wanted to get one of her walking down the railroad track.

Of course when we were in the midst of getting some cool photos, some random guy in this old junkity car pulled up to us and told us that we were on government property and we weren't allowed to be taking photos on the railroad.  Whhhhhhhatttttttt? We both were kinda stunned that A) some random guy who looked like he could use a shower was telling us that we weren't allowed to be taking pictures on the railroad B) that people aren't allowed to take pictures on the railroad tracks... anyone ever heard of this?

Of course after we wait for him to drive away and pretend to put our cameras away, we run right back onto the tracks to shoot a few more photos.  HAHA random guy! We fooled you!

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I See, You See.

It's that time of the week again!

Our theme:  CLOUDS

A little background on mine... This weekend when I was recovering from wedding #4 (which I will soon post pictures after I look through them all and get them looking how I want them), I went to a nearby lake called Lake Lotawana with some friends.  It's a smaller lake, and 45 minutes away so was perfect for a day out in the sun and relaxing.

On my way back I noticed the clouds were looking amazing and immediately wanted to get a picture of them.  Of course I was driving so couldn't reach my Canon G11 in the very back of the car, so I opted for a iPhone photo (I know... scary ME of all people driving AND taking a picture with my phone - the BF wasn't too thrilled). In my first take it was perfect, and just what I wanted!

So here is what I got, with my iPhone.  I altered it a bit using the iPhone app "Camera +" which I highly reccomend if you use your iPhone for a lot of pictures.  You can change the filters on the photo, crop it, add a frame. It's amazing and I'm in love with it.  Basically acts as my handheld camera these days.

Here is what Megan saw.  She got hers yesterday when we were doing a railroad photo shoot for her blog that you can check out today on her blog as well as tomorrow for my photos I got!

I'm loving her leading lines with the railroad tracks.  That was one of the things were were taught in our photography class this Spring and looks like she's really got the hang of it!

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It's a Girl

I patiently waited for my friend/co-worker, Sarah, to spread the exciting news on Friday before putting this post up!

She got some great news last week that her ultra-sound, which reveals if it's a boy or a girl, was getting moved up and that she would (hopefully) know the sex of her baby even sooner than she thought!

She told me about this on Thursday afternoon and I was SO excited for her. She mentioned she'd be in the office later in the morning so right when the clock hit 11 a.m. I was getting more and more excited!  Megan and Erica swung by my desk and we decided we would surprise her in her cube.  While we impatiently waited, staring out the window looking for her car to pull up, Megan made a little welcome sign for her which would reveal her surprise!

The result (as if my post didn't already give it away):

I was a dum, dum and forgot my camera! So bear with me with the quality of the photo, but doesn't Sarah just look so darn cute!!? We are all SO excited for her.  She was really hoping for a baby girl and she got exactly what she wanted :) P.S - just adds to the fun that she wore a pink shirt too!

Congrats Sarah -We can't wait to meet her!

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Just Dance.

The title of this post symbolizes two things for me today.

1. I LOVE to dance. I don't do it well at all, however, I just love to dance/or spaz out whenever I get the chance.  One big thing that I love about all these weddings is the chance to dance and have the time of my life with my love of my life! If I could pick my favorite moments with the BF it would be dancing at weddings.  I feel unstoppable - and kinda like a spaz - but it's just so much fun!
2. I stumbled upon this post on "yep, they are all mine" and fell in love with the pictures she posted about that took place in NYC by Jordan Matter Photography called "Dancers Among Us." I am drooling over how amazingly awesome these are! Check more of them out here.

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Wedding Bells - Round 3

That's right, round 3 of 8 like I mentioned last Friday.  They have all been so different but in great ways.  This was actually another one of Walt's good friends from the KU golf team that was getting hitched.

They've been dating for as long as I have known them, so at least five years....

Their names are Kelsey and John and they are so cute together. She is the smallest cutest girl (woman) and he is hilarious.  Together they make a perfect couple.

This wedding took place in Norman, OK in a church, followed by a reception at a nearby restaurant.  My favorite part: THE FOOD.  It was amazing and I have never seen shrimp so big in my entire life!

Now for the good stuff.  The photos.  Seeing as I was busy canoodling with everyone I hadn't seen in a while I only got a few great shots at this wedding.  But I still wanted to share them with you. Happy viewing.

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Habitat for Humanity

This week several members of our company volunteered for Habitat for Humanity. I'm sure majority of people know what that is.  But to refresh your memory.  This nonprofit is executed primarily by volunteers. There aren't many "paid" employees.  They get a group of volunteers, whether it be companies,  families, church groups, a random volunteer from here or there and build a house for a family in need.

I've done this volunteer project several times, and really do enjoy it. This time around we were actually the first group of volunteers on this project and so primarily worked on flooring (well the men did), while the women worked on removing boulders (well large rocks) from around the house. I'm STILL sore from lifting rocks all day!

To keep this short and sweet I'll jump right into some candid shots from the site.  You may notice that our good friend Megan was out there with me too!

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I See, You See.

It's that time of the week again.  It's "I See, You See" time.

This week's theme is: LOVE

After we determined the theme last week, everywhere I looked I wanted to catch "love" in a photograph.   I was being overly picky majority of the time, and I didn't really feel like using the wedding photos I took (which I will show you later this week).

What I felt like was true "love" this week was seeing my mom and my sister this weekend.  I love them SO much. Seeing as my mom was not having it with the pictures this weekend, I opted to take a photo of my sister, Katie, and her "love" Harley. You remember Harley don't you?

My sister loves her dog more than ANYTHING, well other than her family, but basically Harley is her child.

Any who, this is what I saw:

And this is what Megan saw when she was visiting her friend and her new little babes. Mother and child.   Can't show love better than that can you?

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Bosa. Bosa. Bosa.

My friend Angela "Bosa" from work is so incredibly sweet, funny (I mean hilarious), and accident prone.  She is probably on the top of my list of the most accident prone friends I have.

Coming back this weekend she was having some problems with her eyes which she wasn't thrilled about.  Then on her way back from running some errands she discovers that she has a flat tire..... She asked if I could follow her to a gas station to fill up after work and I of course agreed.  When we were headed out of the office her tire was all the way on the ground! No way she was going anywhere.  We of course had ZERO idea of how to fix a flat tire.  Sad I know. Between Bosa, Bailey and I we were hopeless. We immediately called Matt (our other friend from work who had JUST left) and he was so sweet to come back and help us. We got as far as removing the new tire from the back of the car and taking out the equipment  to fix the flat tire by the time Matt got there.

Matt saved the day! He just jumped right in and got to work.  Not to mention he had helped me do the same thing with my old car less than six months ago ;) So a big THANKS goes out to Matt for being awesome!

Oh wait it gets better.... Bosa then went to go get her tire patched after we found two nails shoved into the tires to find out that they refused to patch them and told her she had to get new tires.  Wah. Wah. Poor Bosa.

Love you Bosa - Wishing good luck for the rest of the week!

Now onto my job while Matt was hard at work. Picture taking. Hey.. I needed a picture for today, right?

Matt Fixing the Tire.  I experimented with CS5 filter "Photocopy"

Bailey (left), Bosa (upper right), Matt (bottom) hard at work. Here I experimented with the Cross Hatch filter

Not going to lie... I experimented with ALL of the filters and was cracking myself up as some of them turned out pretty whack! Oh.. it's the little things in life that amuse me.

Hope you had a great Monday friends! Can't wait to show you the "I See, You See" photos tomorrow!

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I'll Be Right Back...

 I'm heading to Norman, OK with the BF this weekend for wedding #3 (that's 3 of 8 if you are wondering).

We are heading out in a few so wanted to tell you all to have an amazing weekend. I'm sorry I didn't have time to get a picture for today and won't probably get one back up until Sunday night or Monday.  I promise after I get a break from these weddings I will be much better on the weekends!

MWAH!

Goes Megan from ChasingDavies!

We were talking yesterday about "red" as our theme for our "I See, You See." The idea of bright red lips for a picture came up, but I thought it sounded like it would be better served as a full on post for today so I had more time to mess around in Photoshop.

Immediately after taking the picture outside the airport fence by our work (weird sounding I know, but we literally walk out the doors and the private airport is right there), I knew I wanted to highlight the red lips by turning most of the picture black and white.  The question was do I simply just want to do red lips  OR take it a step further and use some of the fun Photoshop tools?

You shall see.

Here is what I started with:

From here, I first tried what I initially thought about doing.  Turning down the saturation and popping her red lips using the eraser tool in PS.

Then I decided to try out the Sumi-e filter on the picture and popped the lips again and decided to also add in the color from her shirt since it matched perfectly with the red lips!

Then I was having a little too much fun with PS as you can see and decided to try one more filter.  The diffuse glow filter.  Ever tried it?  I kinda like it!

So what do you think? What's your favorite of all of them?

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Choo Choo

Yesterday afternoon I was feeling a little restless at work so opted to go out for my lunch break. I attempted to  get my license plates (which the dealership so conveniently LOST when I got my new car only putting one instead of two of my old license plates on my new car- Missouri requires you have one on the front and the back). After being told I didn't have some of the paper work I headed back to work and since it had really only been 20 minutes since I left I wanted to do a little site seeing near the office.  There is this road that veers off near my work and I have always wondered what was back there.  Well it was time. I wondered back there and came to find it was nothing TOO interesting. A few businesses here and there and then there were a few railroad tracks.  After driving past the second railroad tracks I thought I could possibly get some cool pictures of them. 

This is what I came out with:

 What do you think??

I See, You See.

Apologies for the delay in my post tonight.  I idiotically signed up for the mile in our Kansas City Corporate Challenge months ago not remembering that the races all start at 9 p.m. Then I got suckered into the 4x400 (once around for those not familiar with track) which was 30 minutes AFTER running the mile. Needless to say I'm EXHAUSTED! After running track my whole life through college, getting back on the track for this stuff still makes my stomach do back-flips and want to throw up. Heck I even jumped when the gun went off.  Guess I will never learn....

Onto the more important topic for this evening.  Our weekly "I See, You See."

Our theme this week: RED

I know, I know. We are REALLY going to get better at coming up with more creative themes.  Next week we are planning on "love" as our topic. Unless one of you fabulous readers wants to suggest something else which Megan and I would be SO thrilled about.

But for now, how about you take a peek at what we came up with this week:

This is what I saw:

Here is what Megan saw (it's her BLT sammy which looks yummy!!!)

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Age is Only a Number

To most people... but to my dear friend Tricia it's adding another pill to her medicine carry bag ;) For years Tricia has been battling arthritis and she is only 26!!! Crazy stuff.  Even having arthritis she still managed to swim all four years at KU (University of Kansas NOT Kentucky). Knowing that she is a medicine junky, well not really... our friends Kelly and Kate got Tricia the cutest little medicine carry case from Coach.

As for me, I knew IMMEDIATELY what I wanted to get Tricia for her birthday. A Jodi Picoult book.  The NEW one called "Sing You Home."  I remembered it recently came out and was praying she hadn't read it yet after I decided on what to get her.  To my surprise, she HADN'T read it. WAHOO!

So this post is to wish my good friend Tricia a HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Cheers to many more to come!