moving.

Actually I'm not a fan of moving but I am happy to be in our new place. We have a new home-studio in downtown St. Augustine. After lots of renovations we are finally in! We thought it would take 3 months but it ended up being 6. It was a labor of love and I'm so happy with the new location. Now we just have to get unpacked and set up.

Also since I last updated a few other exciting things have happened.

1. Jay had a big birthday! I won't say exactly how old he is (he was not excited), but I think you can figure it out. I invited some of our friends from Miami and Atlanta over for the occasion and we had a beach weekend celebration. We grilled, we boogie boarded, and before we knew it we said goodbye. But it was SO much fun!



2. We went to New York City!! It was my first time there and Jay had only been there as a little kid (doesn't count). We know two couples that live in Brooklyn and we got to spend a couple nights with each. In 5 days we got the grand tour with highlights that included: the statue of liberty, dinner at the Meatball Shop, giving and getting "keys to the city" in Times Square, hotdogs and rides in Coney Island, shopping in Chinatown, walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, a surprise Cheesecake for Jay at Betty Bakery, and lots of subway rides. We also walked our butts off! On our last day we took a bus to PA for my cousin's wedding and more fun with family. I'm including some pictures below from the NY trip... way more to come on facebook!









And on another note, I'm very excited about some new paper products I ordered for the studio tonight: Post-it notes and custom address labels. The address labels are from one of my favorite printing companies VegasColor.net. I've also used them for other mailing labels which turned out perfect. I'll post pictures when they come in. I will also post some pictures from the many family portrait sessions from this summer. So much to do, so little time!

Our new anniversary portraits.

Every year I like to have portraits done somewhere around our anniversary time. I loved our wedding pictures so much (thank you to the amazingly talented husband and wife team Krystal and Matt with Verve Studio) and figured why should I only get to have that kind of fun once?! Notice I say "I" - Jay does not look forward to them like I do... but he is a wonderful husband and tolerates them for my sake.

About a year after our wedding we had my best friend Amber (Amber Sycz Photography) take some portraits of us for our web site when we went down to my hometown for a visit. We dressed all businessey so we would have a professional look for our bio page and did the session at a nearby business park (just a coincidence, it was a cute Key West-looking area). The pictures turned out so cute and I had a lot of fun getting dressed up and being in front of the camera for a change.

When our 2nd anniversary rolled around it wasn't convenient to see Amber again so we hired another (local) husband and wife team, Kara and Jeremy from Kara Pennington Photography to shoot our portraits. We just focused on us which made them more of an anniversary tradition. The pictures turned out beautiful - I used them all over facebook and our web sites.

This year Amber came to St. Augustine for a friends wedding a few weeks ago and we convinced her to take some time out of her vacation to do some portraits of us again. Not only did we want pictures but she did too. She and her husband had their first baby 9 months ago and it was time to do some family portraits with their handsome little boy. Jay also filmed the session with his new Nikon D300s - video coming soon (soon-ish). Amber's birthday is coming up on July 4th and I am hoping it will be done in time for that... shhh, don't tell her though.

So the tradition lives on - the Neumarks would be proud (Jay's parents); they love traditions. We had portraits done for our 3rd anniversary. This year we decided to incorporate our new house since it has been such a big part of our lives the past several months. It's 100 years old and we have been doing lots of renovations before we move in! We have a lot of life and love ahead of us in this house - and we can't wait to get started.

my grandmother.

My grandmother (Grammie) passed away a week ago today, mother's day. She was a generous and kind woman who left behind a family who loved her dearly. She had three children (mom mom and two aunts), three granddaughters, one grandson, their spouses, and a local community in Pennsylvania that will miss her. It was sad to hear that she passed but also a relief. She had been struggling with Parkinson's and dementia which made her last months a struggle to even communicate. She had told her family she was ready to join my grandfather in heaven and we are happy that her physical struggle is over.

On Tuesday I baked Grammie's cinnamon buns in her memory. I packaged them to bring up to Pennsylvania and share with my family. We also made recipe cards to set out at her funeral. Jay and I flew up for her funeral on Wednesday and stayed through last night. We actually had a great time having dinner, laughing, and reminiscing with my family. My grandmother will be missed by her family and friends but we have great memories of her life, well lived.

The Love Project

Moon Dogs

I saw a moon dog over my house the other night. Did anyone else see it? I don't know much about them, would you be able to see it from miles around?

I made a panorama.

My family's holiday card.

Every year my family takes holiday pictures to put in our Christmas cards. I'm an only child - so we'd rotate the pictures: just me one year, then all of us the next. When Jay and I got married, he became part of the pictures too.

The photo is almost never something standard, we try to be a little creative. Some years have been more out-of-the-box than others. One year when I was about 5, my mom painted a sheet with a Christmas tree and cut out a hole for me to be the angel on top. My dog, Rebel, was a reindeer laying in front of the painted backdrop wearing strapped-on dog antlers. Another year my mom painted a sheet depicting a rooftop with Santa at the chimney. She cut out holes for my dad to be Santa, while my mom and I were dolls peeking out from his toy sack. The photos using painted sheets for the scene were my favorites. It was a little hokey, and that's what made them great.

It's been a while since we've done a painted sheet photo. Now, we try and come up with ideas that are a little less hassle. When my parents are in town for Thanksgiving we take the picture, and the last couple years I've designed the card around the photo. This year we went with "mistletoe" for our theme. Here are the three photos that made it: our final card design...