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My youngest daughter Tracy is very pregnant and due to have her little boy November 22nd.  She is huge and doing fine – still working at the hospital as an IC nurse.
It is very hard for me and Julie to be so far away at this special time in her life.
She has been posting images to a Flickr site that anyone can look at. The site is http://www.flickr.com/photos/spicegirl/ if anyone would like to browse any of her great images.  She just figured out away to change the settings so that anyone can download the images – even high res ones – so please bear with me as I post some personal collages.

 

We sure wish we could be with her – it is very comforting to know that she has so many very close friends and co-workers that all look out for each other.  Not many have close family up there so they all adopt each other and are truly “family” – for that I am so thankful.

She has gone through this pregnancy with her very close friend Bonita who had her little girl October 23rd.

On October 20th her friend from work – Irene,  had a very nice shower for her at a restaurant in Anchorage for all her co-workers and friends.  They took up a collection in her unit and Irene was abler to buy almost everything Tracy had registered for at Baby Depot – a division of Burlington Factory that is very popular up there.

Tracy commented on this photo with Irene:”Irene was such a gracious host. I couldn’t have dreamed of a better Shower. Although I wish my family and out of state friends could have been there.”

In the area of her new house in Palmer there are 2 other couples that they are very close with.  The girls work together at the hospital.  Candice and Angie  had a small “Tea Party” shower for Tracy and Bonita at Candace’s House September 14th – which was also so nice – look at the cute “carharts”

Rick is busy making a “greenhouse” for Tracy on their new property.  They were thrilled the learn that their old house in Wasilla sold and the couple wants to move in November 1st.  They still have a lot of stuff stored in that garage so this will hopefully serve as a temporary shed to store all that.  In the spring they hope to build a garage and Tracy will have a great greenhouse.

I am working with  1 bride who just had a baby, 3 brides who are due in November and 1 due in January – so they are letting share in their joy some. Thank you girls.

We are super busy between now and Christmas, so I cannot possibly leave now, but I will be going up to visit her for 2 weeks or so in January.  I’m really looking forward to that.

Tracy and Rick moved into their new house in Palmer in August and are really loving it.  It sits on an acre with a beautiful view of the mountains which is what they always wanted. This is quite a bit larger  than the house in Wasilla (which is sold now also) – for their expanding family.  We fell in love with this natural burl wood in our Alaska traveling in 2003 – so I know they love the banister made of this – the loft is awesome. It’s a huge dream kitchen.  The master bedroom is upstairs, the baby’s room downstairs, with room to partition off another bed room on the main floor. They have 2 baths and an “arctic entrance” -  which is like a large mud room – no one has basements in Alaska because of the perma frost. 

What great views – it has been raining a lot – so how lucky to catch a rainbow and to have clear enough skies to see the spectacular northern lights.  That is the Knik river they see. Rick took these last 2 awesome photographs.  Great Job!

Tracy and Rick moved into their new house in Palmer in August and are really loving it.  It sits on an acre with a beautiful view of the mountains which is what they always wanted. This is quite a bit larger  than the house in Wasilla (which is sold now also) – for their expanding family.  We fell in love with this natural burl wood in our Alaska traveling in 2003 – so I know they love the banister made of this – the loft is awesome. It’s a huge dream kitchen.  The master bedroom is upstairs, the baby’s room downstairs, with room to partition off another bed room on the main floor. They have 2 baths and an “arctic entrance” -  which is like a large mud room – no one has basements in Alaska because of the perma frost. 

What great views – it has been raining a lot – so how lucky to catch a rainbow and to have clear enough skies to see the spectacular northern lights.  That is the Knik river they see. Rick took these last 2 awesome photographs.  Great Job!

On October 14th Mary and Jeremy were in town for their engagement party at the beautiful Wyngate Golf and Country Club in Rochester.  We did some engagement photos just before the party began. The weather was very chilly but they were such troopers and we had so much fun.  We had our own golf cart to roam around the beautiful grounds – the lighting and the fall colors were great, they were fantastic and we ended up with a lot of awesome images.  Looking forward to their wedding  next March.

Sunday October 15th was a beautiful day for a great wedding up in Port Huron at the historic Thomas Edison Inn for Elizabeth and John.  Being right on the water by the Blue Water Bridge was awesome, the weather was great and we even had some freighters go by.  John had proposed to Liz on the bench in front of the Inn so that was so special to be married here.

This was a beautiful fall wedding for Margaret and Ian October 7th.  We started at Glen Oaks where the girls got ready. We enjoyed the romantic photographs with them and the wedding party on the beautiful grounds. We headed for St Hugo and photographed them some more on the great grounds.  The ceremony in the little stone chapel was so charming. We headed back to Glen Oaks for a great fun reception.

I am the official Photographer for the Michigan Grand Chapter, Order of the Eastern Star – a Fraternal Masonic Group that both men and women can belong to.  This week was their Yearly convention in Battle Creek – their Grand Chapter Session for the Plater-Haynor Grand Family and the Installation for the new Parks-Wheeler Grand Family.  This is something I have photographed for the last 13 years.  Faith Dew works the main production, but was also honored this year as an escorting grand page – so she was on the floor during most of the actual sessions, working very hard the rest of the time.  Steve was also helping me photograph. It was very exciting and busy and very hectic.  We had 2 laptops, a main computer, and 2 printers in our room, printing out the framed groups to sell right there and the proofing sheets. We had an area at the back of the arena to display our images and sell, thanks to the help of Pat, Lisa and Shari at the table.

Images will be online about mid-November for this 2006 session.  The images from the 2005 session are also still online and available.  Go to my main website, use the “Event Proofing” tab, click on the “list of active events” at the bottom of the page, enter your e-mail address, find and click on the event.  No passwords are needed.

Julie and Brian, with an assistant, photographed a great wedding at the Detroit Zoo for Helene and Todd. We always love the zoo and they had a great time roaming around for the romantic images. The Arctic Ring of Life was awesome – with lots of seals inside and the polar bear outside. The beautiful ceremony followed in the butterfly house and then a fun reception.

We had 2 weddings this Saturday.  I photographed a great wedding for Lea and Michael with my brother Gunther and an assistant. 
We started out at their home in Canton, and then had a beautiful ceremony at St John’s Golf and Conference Center in Plymouth. I joined them in the limo bus for a fun ride out to Waldenwoods in Highland. What a gorgeous location – even though it had called for rain all week, and it was wet at times – we had plenty of beautiful dry weather outside for romantics. The bonus was that we were rewarded with the most awesome sunset over the lake later in the evening.  Just loved it!

 

When Wendy and her mom Diane came by this week to pick up an order and work on the album design, she brought along the newest addition to her family – little Lily is 2 months and just darling.  I had to take a few images that turned out just precious. We love it when our brides have babies and will always offer a free mini session of the newborn.

Last year, around the beginning of October,  we remembered seeing beautiful fields of wild sunflowers along the service drive of Southfield Expressway in Dearborn. We always wanted to photograph some cute little kids in there – Unfortunately we heard the crop this year was not as abundant and already starting to wilt.  We quickly called some of our great loyal children’s photography moms to see if they might be up for some fun photography and were thrilled to be able to pull it off September 28th.  We found a great spot – and 4 of the cutest little kids got to roam through the maze of plants. We all had so much fun – definitely more “catching them on the run” than posing. Thanks to Cole and Lily, and to Ava and little Jack we got some very awesome images.  It is just unfortunate that these great flowers won’t be around much longer – next year we’ll start getting everyone interested – in mid September!