It is so hard to believe that my oldest has traveled in to the double digits today.    I know you always here how time flies and they’ll be gone before you know it and I now officially believe them.  Cole is a wonderful kid and I’m so glad that he is  1/2 mine.  For those of you who know Cole he has a heart of gold, a contagious laugh, and is an animal whisper.  I don’t think he has ever met an animal that doesn’t warm up to him.  He is wicked smart (sometimes too much for his own good) and so very creative.  He is the kid that doesn’t mind being by himself.  In fact, it usually turns out great.  Is creative mind cracks me up because he loves to build and create things.  I can’t tell if I have an artist or engineer in the making orboth if we are lucky a very creative, artistic engineer.  Or we may just have the next screenwriter or writer of all times if you have ever read or heard one of his stories.  I always joke” It is to bad our kid lacks a personality, NOT”.

Below are some of the creations he has made lately from the school mission project, to his duct tape hat, and the ever impressive bow and arrow that actually works.  The kid made it out of bamboo, a stick, Christmas string, and duck feathers that a good friend gave him for the purpose of his arrows.   He is amazing and I am so happy to be his Momma!  He makes me proud.

Oh yeah and his new love, Flag football which he had for his 10th birthday party. I loved it and couldn’t of picked a better theme.  Coming from Michigan the Big Ten is huge.  But he wouldn’t let me get the shirts in Blue and Gold and White and Green.  He never lets me do anything :).  Love you Cole.

With Sadness the doors of Adorn Bridal will be closing soon.  After the first of  April we will no longer be meeting clients at this beautiful location.  But if your looking for fantastic deals there will be some great closing sales.  I will continue to meet with clients and to refer the wonderful people who were part of the vendor team down there.  I’ll just have to keep you updated on our new meeting location.

We had so much fun shooting Teresa in her last couple of weeks of pregnancy.  She wanted to do a classic beauty shot but she also wanted to try something a little different. She mentioned that she had heard of getting henna on your belly when your around 8 months pregnant.  Well, I went on a search and was referred to a wonderful woman, Ravie Kattaura.  Her work was amazing and she was one of the fastest artist I’ve ever seen.  I’ve seen Henna done before but never from such a talented artist and never done on a pregnant belly.  It was really beautiful and I loved the colors and glitter she added to the design.  I also loved how Joe, the dad, was all excited about getting his henna done on his arms.  We asked about the blessing and was told that the  patterns used are acknowledged to bring health, protection, and luck to the new mother and her child.  I just know that we were blessed to be part of it all and to be able to create some beautiful images of their first pregnancy together.

As always this turned out to be a fun and adventurous shoot as Tia and I lugged the bed and headboard out in to the grassy field, caused only a slight traffic jam as everyone was interested in what we were doing, and I didn’t even mention that little case of trespassing.  But the field was just to pretty to pass by.   Better yet, a client of mine drove by and yelled my name out. I had to laugh that someone even recognized us because it really wasn’t a part of town that I frequented very often.  She called later and said I saw someone with furniture in a field taking pictures and thought it had to be Jill Johnson.

Congratulations John and Pilar for your wedding being featured in Today’s Bride.  I”m so excited that it was picked.  You had one of the most colorful weddings I’ve ever seen.  Congratulations also to the great team of vendors that made this event so beautiful. Cristine Thomas and her staff always does such a beautiful job with this wedding guide.  It is one of my favorites in the area.  It is the perfect size for brides to carry with them.  If you have a chance pick a copy up of their 4 page spread in Today’s Bride at Adorn Bridal or from many other vendors and locations in the bay area.

To see more or their photos you can look at the following post on Aboutweddings.com or here in my archives.  Click on engagement or wedding.

I saw this on a tweet today from www.bridaltide.com and thought I would share it.

The Perception

How some people think wedding photographers spend their time (and how some photographers WISHED they could spend their time):

The Reality

How wedding photographers REALLY spend their time:

We clearly spend more time in front of our computers than behind our cameras, which is a sign of these digital times.

What a great wedding to end my 2009 wedding season.  Sara and Derek were awesome and it was so much fun sharing in their day.  They exchanged vows at the beautiful San Juan Bautista Golf Club.  It was a beautiful intimate ceremony out on the terrace.  Instead of doing a unity candle, they planted a tree together.  It was really different and I love how they can keep the tree potted or plant it at their house.  Like their marriage it will be fun to see it grow and I hope it will be something they can take with them in their adventures.  Another little touch they did which was very touching  was that they tied little red ribbons around their flowers in memory of Derek’s brother.  It was such a sweet and sentimental gesture.  It was a fantastic day and the couple and their party was full of laughter.  To see more of their day click here to see there slideshow and remember to leave them some love below in the comments box.

San Jose, CA Febrruary 09, 2010 - WeddingWire, the nation’s leading wedding technology company, just announced Jill Johnson Photography has been selected to receive the WeddingWire 2010 Bride’s Choice Awards™ for Wedding Photography.

The annual Bride’s Choice Awards recognizes and celebrates excellence in quality and service within the wedding industry, as determined by recent reviews and extensive surveys from over 500,000 newlyweds.

Jill Johnson Photography is among the top five percent of all vendors in the WeddingWire community, which includes over 100,000 wedding professionals across the US and Canada. Awards were given to winners across 19 different service categories, from wedding venues to wedding photographers.

“We are excited to recognize and honor the success of the top wedding professionals within the WeddingWire Community” said Timothy Chi, WeddingWire’s Chief Executive Officer. “The annual Bride’s Choice Awards program has given us the unique opportunity to highlight the best wedding professionals in each region as reviewed by brides and grooms who have utilized their services in the past year.”

We are happy to announce that Jill Johnson is among the very best Wedding Photographers within the WeddingWire Network, which includes WeddingWire and Martha Stewart Weddings. We would like to thank our past newlyweds for nominating us for the 2010 Bride’s Choice Awards.

There was a lot of Tricks and Treats as Lisa and Jeff celebrated their wedding day at the Ranch Golf Club in San Jose, California.  When I first met with Lisa and Jeff I had to laugh because they were going to be getting married on Halloween but it wasn’t going to be a Halloween theme.  I was so glad when they added just some subtle little things that made the day tie in to Halloween but it didn’t overshadow the celebration of the wedding.  Just the little things like carved pumpkins lining the walkway for guest, the life size skeletons in the bathroom, tables named after candy bars, and carmel apples for favors were just a few things that added to the days charm.

Lisa had the most beautiful champagne colored dress designed by Private Label G. It complimented her coloring amazingly, but my favorite is what she wore under her dress.  Yes,  the witch tights that no one even saw til it was time to take off the garter.  You should of heard the laughter as her new husband did the worm across the dance floor to every one’s request and delight and then she unveiled those babies.  The laughter that roared thru the place was undescribable.  This crowd was really fun and I had to especially give points to Jeff.  He wasn’t in the family but maybe an hour when he had to do something to impress his new father-in-law.  Like with many weddings there  are an abundant of different speeches and toast of champagne.  But when Lisa’s dad did his toast he handed the couple two mini bottles of tequila that they were suppose to drink.  Now a shots a shot no big deal for some but this was special.  It had the little worm on the bottom and it needed to be gone.  Both Lisa and Jeff did it to the hoots of friends and family.  I wonder if that is what gave Jeff the inspiration to worm his way across the dance floor to his bride later that night.  To see more of the fun and shenanigans of their day click here to view their slide show.

I’m sitting inside the Kirkwood lodge at the bottom of chair 5,  ironically the name of the lift is “solitude”.  Solitude is far from what the outside is like.  The wind is making us hear its voice as it howls across the resort, huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf and twirling the snow in every direction it can manage.  We are on day 3 of being snowed in here and this is the worst day of weather yet but we are still having fun.  Growing up in Michigan snowstorms are nothing, but to be honest I haven’t been in a storm like this since I was young and it can’t help but bring memories of my youth.  Just yesterday my kids dug themselves out a tunnel in one of the snowbanks.  My best friend Sherry and I use to do that all the time along with our stylish moon boots.  The boots were so huge that we use to make footprints in the snow and play “hunt for big foot”.  Thank goodness we made a tunnel because when we heard the big “bumble” we had a place to hide. Plus, it made a great place to throw snowballs from to hit the other kids.  Every kid should have at least one chance to build a snow tunnel in their lifetime.

 Even though we have woke up every morning here to either duck hunters guns or the sounds of avalanche booms it has been a wonderful get away.  The fun part for my husband and I is that our kids are getting “snow days”.  For both of us this was one of the best memories of both of our childhoods. Today was the first day the slopes didn’t open due to high winds but the kids are playing outside, throwing snowballs, and jumping off picnic tables in to huge drifts.  No matter how stressful it was earlier today with us needing to get back home nothing was worth killing ourselves.  We attempted to leave earlier today and got a mile down the road and had to stop because you couldn’t make out the ground out from the sky,   a little scarey.  You know it was bad when your husband turns the car around and you didn’t even need to nag or beg to stop and stay.  But we are determined to make the best of it.  Enjoying the beauty of the fresh powder, the warmth of the fire, the comraderie of fellow stranded guest, and the laughter of our kids will make for a great family memory. 

For those of you who ski or board the last couple of days have been amazing.  So much better then the rain we’ve been hearing everyone in San Jose is getting.  In fact, yesterday only 2 lifts were open and one of them was the one we use the most.  It was a great day.  At times it was like we owned the mountain being the only ones on it.  I loved it!  It was so peaceful and surreal and we were exhausted because of how many runs we made.  You can see how empty it was from the photo below of my boys and me at the picnic table.  Last we were so bundled up it was kind of a pain to go inside to eat so we had a snack picnic outside.  One of my favorite things is how they made snowcones out of the fresh snow and Dr. Pepper.  The kids loved it.   As fun as it has been we hope  to make it back down the mountain tomorrow.  I know Eric will have a hard time giving up his corner office but its time to get back to real life.