I love fresh flowers especially around the house. They add color and cheer and I like to "stop and smell the roses". Except I usually don't buy roses because of their short life span. Anyway, I have to tell you about the great bargain I found on flowers at Wally World a few weeks ago. For around ten bucks I got one huge assortment bouquet with a big aqua colored hydrangea, several huge lilies, lavender dasies, peruvian lilies, mums and more. I was able to make THREE arnagements with this one ten dollar boquet. I think flowers also give me another chance to be creative. They turned out so good (if I do say so myself ;o) I had to photograph them. I have not encountered the same assortment for that price since then but I wish they would sell it again!

I finally had a few free minutes this week to get Heather and Sean's preview on here. We had a blast on our engagement session photo safari through Centralia, MO. We started off at the beautiful Chance Gardens, then headeded to the park for some merry-go-round fun, after that it was downtown Centralia where we found a cool abandoned building, and finally we stopped off for a shake at the soda shop. Heather is so photogenic and the two of them are naturally silly so shooting them was a breeze!

My Newphew Nate lives in a suburb of Kansas City called Lee's Summit. His baseball team, the Lee's Summit Nationals, played in a tournament at Twin Oaks here in Columbia. I was happy to get to visit with him and his parents (my Brother Steven and his wife Amy). I started out just taking photographs for my Nephew and soon started receiving requests from other parents that were dissatisfied with the photographer the tournament hired to photograph all the teams. I had a great time despite the heat and even got to sit inside the dugout. I don't think I did too bad for my first sports shoot!

I love the dust cloud comming up from his glove after

catching the ball and the glare of the light.

Check out this motion blur.

They look so serious contemplating their next move.

My Nephew is number 4 running from first to second base.

Here are some nice action shots.

In the dugout.

Jubilation!

The kids were pretty much hams.

Lil' Sis' of a team member.

A few weeks ago we had a great time shooting Misty and Nick who are getting married in September. It was a beautiful but HOT day at the Botanical Gardens in St. Louis. We drug them all over the enormous grounds, needless to say the four of us definitely got our exercise in for the day! There were so many good photos I just couldn't narrow it down to a few. Here are some highlights from their shoot.

There was a cool little tower thingie that overlooks the maze.

I love the fun colors.

I think this is my favorite.

I wonder if he is whispering gibberish or something saucy.

I guess I'll never know . . .

The look on Nick's face makes me laugh.

I think he wasn't too sure about the whole dip thing at first but he totally had it.

Fun in the creek.

These next few are a little more traditional but I still like them.

Misty's smile is radiant!

There were these neat glass sculpures floating in the pond.

They make for a colorful background.

I love how the setting sun is illuminating their faces and
also highlighting the watterfal behind them.

I love the windows in the greenhouse. I think this is my 2nd favorite.

I like Nick's grin in this one. He's like, "Yeah baby!"

And finally we can all say aaawwww . . .