This week in the midst of sharing this literally busiest year of weddings and photography work we thought we’d stop for a second and share some of the recent things we’ve been up to as a family!
Since we returned from the 3rd trip within a month to California and immediately photographed a 10 hour wedding the next day, then had about a week to prep to head to Italy to photograph another wedding (before returning to our home only a couple hours before photographing the next wedding), we didn’t really have much energy for our favorite holiday of Halloween this year. Luckily we DID decorate the entire house with a plethora of Halloween decorations outside AND inside right before the start of October as we left for Italy, so we were the most festive on the block (literally- as usual) and got to enjoy the Halloween decor for a few weeks. For Halloween this year and for the past 4 Halloweens we opted to simply dress up and pass out candy. Though normally bombarded with about 200 kids, this year turned into an odd amalgamation of rain, horizontal wind, and snow, so needless to say we had buckets of candy for a mere 10 to 15 kids. We ended up bringing all of our excess candy to the Homeless Shelter that night.
2019: P’s + Marilyn (Manson) & Twin
This year’s costumes were Jenny as Marilyn Manson (simply her way to not have to buy any costume items), Jason as his identical twin brother’s look in high school, Coco as a baked potato, and Kevin as a Pinata. Since we adopted our puppy Rizzo a week after Halloween and we have a literal crate of brand new Halloween pet costumes that cost us only $1 post-Halloween, we figured we’d dress her up a week later since we never got a family photo from Halloween the week prior!
For 2019 Our pets were P’s: Potato, Pinata, & Panda!
2018 Rocks… and Baby Sharknado
It turns out we never shared our Halloween costume family photo last year either, so here’s 2018. We did many costumes last year including variations of “Rock,” all of us as the “Baby Sharknado” theme up while camping in Muskegon, Michigan during Halloween week, and we handed out candy as a boulder (rock) & skeleton (since Jenny didn’t think that kids would recognize her as an ‘80s version of “The Rock”:
2017: Clown, Salad, Pumpkin, Bat Dog, & Skele
And why not…? Here’s 2017. We were a creepy clown, a stock photo of a woman enjoying a salad, Bat Dog, Marco the Bunny was a pumpkin, and Kevin the cat was a skeleton. We also modeled around Halloween as a witch & clown (and below are also the images we captured of each other). Jenny handed out candy as a shark since she didn’t think kids would understand the Stock Photo of a Woman Eating Salad theme.
2016: Zombie, Jenny as Jason, Space Ship, & Banana Split… and American Gothic.
And 2016 (: We won free pet costumes at an animal event, so Kevin was a space ship, Coco was a banana split, Jenny was Jason, and Jason was a zombie. We also dressed as American Gothic (the painting… but a gothic version).
2015: Kenny Powers & A Creepy Clown… again
And 2015 (Jenny as Kenny Powers and Jason as a creepy clown). We didn’t have Kevin or Coco yet (only had 4 tiny fiddler crabs) and we lived in a rural area in Michigan, so there were no trick-or-treaters:
2014: Samara (The Ring) and A Trucker
And 2014 (Jenny as Samara from The Ring and Jason as a trucker). We were dating in Santa Barbara, California and got ready together there downtown. Jason did Jenny’s makeup and we went to hang out with some of our old classmates from our photography school since we hadn’t seen many of them in a few months since we finished up classes for our degrees (MFA & BFA) months prior:
Rizzo The Puppy Rescue!
And now a bit about our new puppy Rizzo! She like all of our other pets is a rescue mutt. She and her siblings (6 of them) were born at a shelter attached to a women’s prison in rural Kentucky a whopping 8 hours away. Within their first week of life with their eyes still closed, Heartland Animal Rescue transported they, their mom, and 2 other dogs up from their less-than-stellar conditions in Kentucky to be adopted here in Indiana (here near Michigan & Chicago, IL). Before we saw Rizzo during an adoption morning at Petsmart (Grape Rd, Mishawaka every Saturday 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.) 4 of her siblings had already been adopted (and the other two- the all black one & an all tan one got adopted within an hour after Jenny left). It was actually the day of an 8 hour wedding we were photographing, but Jenny was hell bent and determined to finally after months of searching get a dog that could keep our dog Coco occupied/ happy and also not kill our elderly sweet cat Kevin. Rizzo was the quiet and reserved one of her siblings who were all named after the cast of Grease, so Jenny thought that her temperment was perfect for our household (plus Rizzo looks like the medium sized dogs that she grew up with for 15 years)! It turns out after a month of constant play (i.e. biting and tug-of-war-ing) with Coco, Rizzo is no longer calm at all instead being full puppy at 15.5 weeks old right now. (Her siblings and beagle mom Mollie are pictured below-!)
Rizzo very quickly picked up on her name and many commands. Within a week or so she knew “sit,” “outside,” “potty,” “inside,” “eat.” “treat,” “no,” etc. and within literally two days of us getting her was running through piles of leaves, snow up to her chest, and learned how to climb steps easily (and finally how to go down them)! We’ve had a crazy time over the past month potty training Rizzo, though. We never had to potty train our elderly cat Kevin (4 years ago) or our dog Coco (3 years ago) because they were already adults when we got them and were great in the house. Rizzo loves going to the bathroom outside, got over possibly peeing again when she warmed up inside, but still has accidents every now-and-then, so she spends down time in her crate for now until the accidents seem to stop. When ready, she will totally be joining us sleeping in our bed along with Coco and sometimes Kevin-! We already have bed steps which we’d initially gotten our rabbit for him to get up to his massive cage/ crate to potty and eat in and Rizzo has definitely already practiced running up those bed steps to tumble around on the bed with Coco before we catch her (since she has had an accident up there that resulted in the whole bed/ sheets being washed).
Luckily assimilating her to our home at first was pretty easy in some ways- Rizzo got hand-me-down collars from cat Kevin, a hand-me-down crate from Coco…. then instead a small hand-me-down crate from Marco the bunny when we read that the massive (biggest sold) crate from Coco would allow her to potty in a corner (which she did). We initially gave her hand-me-down blankets and dog beds, but decided against that after a long week of daily washer/ dryer time for those items. Since her weight has literally DOUBLED within a month (making us think that her dad may have been a lab based on weight charts since her mom was a beagle and she is much above the weight charts for beagles), we did have to get her a cheap $30 travel medium-small crate on Facebook Marketplace and within days also got her an $8 “medium” chest carrier from Amazon Prime (which she’s been too bit for since we got her, but is still the easiest way to take her to Petsmart or tailgating for Notre Dame), a deoderizing spray on Amazon Prime that apparently cleans and removes smells from carpet so a dog won’t keep peeing in the same spot constantly, and a giant cheap playpen (which she literally hates, but is convenient for us inside sometimes and will come in handy when camping). We also got her a $1 Christmas shirt and $2 Christmas collar (both from Resale to the Rescue- a store whose profits go to animals), so she’s all ready for the annual family Christmas photo-!
3 More Weeks of Work Until Belated Holidays
All-in-all this has been the most exhausting autumn and year in 10+ years of photography and life, but we’re finally feeling ready to still tackle the next 3 FULL weeks of work with having gotten some rest these recent nights. We’ve even made it a point to (amidst the constant trips up and down the steps/ through the house to let Rizzo out and her 3 feedings a day) stick to work boundaries (lol we’re not going to run to edit or print a photo during dinner, while we’re asleep, while we’re out photographing clients, etc.) and have made special hours either getting tea on the weekend at the new Apothica Teas in Niles, Michigan (15 min away), seeing a movie during the day every now-and-then (i.e. once a month), and holiday market shop locally for our relatives (often locally handmade art or cool thrifted/ antique items) so that we can ship their presents to Arizona & California on time-!
We’re again too busy to travel this December, so we will be traveling to visit family for the belated Christmas annual visit inJanuary for TWO weeks- one week visiting various family members throughout Arizona & one week doing the same in California. This helps since in both states our immediate family relatives are literally hours apart and have different hours for their jobs- most being 9-5 Monday through Friday though, so we wanted to get in a few weekend dates with them. We’re SO happy to be flying out from our airport just a few minutes from our house and are pleasantly surprised with our $150 Round Trip plane tickets (though the airline only flies 4 days within January, so choosing dates was limited). Coming up we have 3 HUGE Family Portrait Sessions to capture on location the week of Christmas AND we are in the midst of printing 5 physical wedding albums that we designed, have 2 or 3 more to design once clients choose those photos, just finished printing 400 photos for 3 set of clients, have 1,000 small photos to print, and have $1,200 worth of Print Credits that we’re waiting on clients to choose photo products for for us to create within the next THREE WEEKS-!
As the work goes on we do have more Sessions to share with you-! Next week we will be sharing an Infant Session followed by the next week sharing our Christmas photo on Christmas day! After that we have the annual New Year photo to share followed by the 3 large Family Portrait Sessions from Christmas week that we’ll be sharing in January! To close out January we’ll be sharing a Best Of 2019 rewind for weddings just days after we return from visiting family out in Arizona & California-! THEN as we start Febuary we’ll be sharing our work trip to Italy… only 5 months late-! We obviously had NO time for that as we have been sharing new weddings with you all, so we’re excited to share that in the new year-! We have blog posts planned for the next 4 months, so we’re excited to start tackling all of our 2020 weddings & see how April unfolds after more wedding consultations at the start of the year-! Anywho, check back next Weekly Wednesday for an adorable Infant Session-!