Josh + Brittany | Wedding | Orlando, Florida

There was so much love at this wedding. It was an honor to photograph it. This wedding was quite an experience doing this solo without J, but his mom offered to assisted me and she was fantastic! The temperatures were high, and humidity was even higher, but these love birds were all smiles and happiness. Thanks for all the fun guys. I wish you all the best Josh and Brittany! Enjoy!

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[photos by monika]

Kaitlin + Jared | Engagement

What can I say. Kaitlin is the best. She's practically my favorite and she's so silly that she always brings laughter so my soul. I love you dear! Thank you so much for coming all the way across the country to visit me. I'm so excited for you and Jared! Can't wait until your wedding. 

The light for this shoot was incredible. I've been wanting to try a morning light shoot for some time and these two were willing to wake up and start at 7 a.m. You guys rock. Enjoy!

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After a day of rafting and shooting at the range, we ran home to catch a few shots in their new t-shirts before the sunset. Jared's t-shirt says "I want to ride bikes with you," and Kaitlin's features a sweet cruiser with a basket along with some words in French we aren't sure of. J and I LOVE bikes so we weren't going to miss this opp. The bikes on Jared's shirt are the exact same as our yellow one in the garage. How sweet is that? 

Now, I just need to find these shirts for ourselves...

[photos by Monika]

watercolor popsicle cards

Last night we were talking about love languages. Words of affirmation on definitely high on my list. I love writing and receiving notes and cards. And aren't these lovely prints? I may have to get myself some and send them to you!

Happy Wednesday. :)

[finedaypress found via oh so beautiful paper]

flip

Have you been to Flip burger boutique? It's nice. Our photographers introduced us to this restaurant and we've been back a couple times. Everything's good. The decor, the food, and the dessert.

We started off our vacation going here. We met up with Jonathan's brother Chris and his girlfriend Suzie who were visiting in Atlanta. For some reason we didn't take pictures of ourselves, but maybe the food will make you want to go try it. There are options for you veggie lovers too.

dinner party from the garden

These were taken on May 25.

We eat dinner with the Coopers a lot. It's a weekly Friday night tradition. This time we called them over to our house to party. We had lots of food in our garden (and frankly I have missed entertaining since so many of our friends moved away) and wanted to have one last hurrah before we left for the Bahamas.

 On the menu was yellow squash, spinach, and basil (all from the garden) paninis. I sautéed some onions too. We topped the paninis off with mozzarella cheese, tomatoes and avocado. It was seriously delicious. And now I'm hungry.

Lovely table setting thanks to the boys.

Yum.

We finished with Publix brand raspberry chocolate chunk frozen yogurt topped with blackberries.

Delish.

Oh I love summer. Such good food, friends, and the sunshine is seriously fantastic.

freezing spinach & kale

First we picked it all.

Bags and bags.

This was a big process. The spinach took an hour. 

First we washed, then cut off the stems, then dropped handfuls into boiling water for 30 seconds to 1 minute.

After this we'd drop the spinach into an ice bath.

It was fun. The next day we did the same thing with the kale. It was really easy. I think we'll do it again in the fall when it's cool enough for spinach.

garden update

These were taken on May 25, before we left on our trip.

Blueberries! And the little rosemary plant on the right.

Our lettuces went crazy. We ended up picking all the lettuce and gave it away to people. The spinach we picked and froze them. I've had some since and it's yummy.

Cucumbers!