Harry

This photo is mostly for Sarah so that she can see how pretty her photographs look on my wall!  Harry also decided to make an appearance.

Harry is kind of all over the place, I find myself photographing him a lot.

This is his favorite place, sleeping right next to the radiator.

Chicago

This is the coolest discovery of all time.  We were sitting in our dining room eating dinner, Justin looked to his right and said, "did you know you can see the Sears Tower from our kitchen window?".  I thought he was joking.  I got up, walked into the kitchen and behold, the Sears Tower in all it's glory.  The red light at the bottom of the photo is our coffee maker, the green/red light to the left is our microwave, the lit up building in the distance is the Sears Tower.  So cool! 

Settled

Justin & I are settled in Chicago for the most part.  Justin is enjoying his job & I've gained a lot more responsibilities with Robin that enable me to work from home.  It's nice to be so close to everything out here.  We hardly use any gas anymore.  

We've enjoyed being in complete control over the groceries.  When we were living with my parents there were 5 people in the house, sometimes more or less, depending.  Some days we'd come home and there would be a box of donuts on the counter.  We have really bad self control.  Now, there are never donuts on the counter.   

Today at Whole Foods I saw these Mission Figs sitting there & they were begging me to take them home, toss them in a pan & put goat cheese on them.  The end result was so pretty, I photographed it.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the cats have adjusted to the move.

Twins turn 1

Justin & I took a trip to the region on Sunday for Addy & Alex's first birthday party.  I haven't photographed them for a few months considering my busy schedule (wedding, honeymoon & moving) and in that short time Addy has started walking! 

Above they're opening our present, a keyboard, guitar & cute clothes (I especially liked the leopard print pants we got Addy).

Alex had the cutest shirt on.

Alex eating his smash cake.  I'll have to upload a few of Addy & hers later.

A Place for The Pots

This post is mostly for my mom.

tons of kitchen gadgets + hardly any space = hanging your pots and pans.

Next in line, brand new kitchen knives and a magnetic wall strip.

Oak Park- Day 1

We are slowly getting things together in the apartment but of course, that takes time.  I walked into the dining room (which has become storage for unopened boxes) and was struck by how beautiful the light looked coming in from the kitchen, so I took the photo above.  It's kind of fun that I can just take my shoes off and leave them in a doorway if I want.  Justin will tell anyone, the kitchen is by far my favorite room in the place.  I love our metal cabinets & can't wait to cover them in photographs.

I took this photo specifically for Julie so that she can see that we put her shower gift (envirosax bags)  to good use today.  I even folded them all back up and fit them back into the tiny bag they came in.  

My favorite purchase today was found at Costco.  Each of those giant bottles of spices was only $2.00!  

Last but not least is a photo of me in my winter wear.  I like the piles of crap behind me, that looks nice.  It snowed today a little.

Wet Paint

It looks fantastic.  Saturday is moving day.  Anyone wanna help?  Before you decide, we live on the third floor.  That might influence your decision.  

Pictures!

Hey everyone I finally finished editing the photos from our honeymoon. It's really simple, you just go to the link below and create a sign in name. Pictage doesn't send annoying junk mail, I promise.

http://www.pictage.com/573112

New Apartment!

We are moving!

Justin got a job at a newspaper in the city & will be working right on Michigan Avenue. As a result we are leaving Indiana & moving to Illinois. Saturday we're signing the lease on a cute vintage apartment building in Oak Park. It has a pretty courtyard, wood floors & arched doorways. I also love our bathroom tile, as shown above. I'm very excited to be moving to Oak Park. It's a hip little community with a an arts district, lots of history & yummy food. Not only will Justin be a short train ride to the city, but I'll be only 5 minutes driving time from the photographer I work for. This weekend we're painting. That is if we can decide on paint colors. Neither of us are used to this much freedom in deciding something like a paint color.

P.S. We're still west coasting it... in relationship to Lake Michigan... right?

Random Fun

This is the face I made every single time Justin took a photo of me.  I would be thinking in my head, "what is he doing?"... "where is he focusing?"... "that doesn't look right" and he would always have to retake it because of this face.  

I discovered on this trip that boys really like to play with sticks.... especially if they find a really good walking stick.  Who would of known?  In Forks Justin would always play with sticks on the beach & I found it funny that when we got to Portland, Jake found an awesome walking stick that he took into the car with us & on to our next location.  I enjoyed it so much, I snapped a photo.
I don't understand how you can spend time in wine country and not be drunk all day.  My tongue was a pretty shade of violet consistently by noon.  What did I do in the evening?  Oh, pick up another bottle of wine and drink it!  

Justin fixing his hair in the elevator mirror.  ha ha.

We drove on that crazy zig-zag street in San Francisco, Lombard St. I believe.  I was far more interested in all the people staring & taking photographs of us.

Jake & his moss covered beard.  I love it.

Final Blog.... or is it?

Even though tonight is our last night here, Justin & I have decided to continue on with our blog- the theme to be revealed later.  So keep checking up on it!  I'm also going to post a link to the proofing website for ALL of the photos taken from our trip, so if you feel like looking through all 43 Gigs of photos, come back to get the link.  

We are so tired & ready to come home.  We spent our day doing lots of touristy San Francisco things.  Here are some of the photos from today!  See you all soon!

Ha ha!  I love this photo of Justin striking a pose in front of the Golden Gate Bridge.

After exploring the bridge we took a night tour of Alcatraz.  It was really cool & would recommend that if you go to San Francisco, you should venture out and take this tour.  You take a boat to the island and then take an audio tour through the jail.  The audio tour is really good though & has stories told from actual inmates & officers.  The solitary confinement cells gave me super bad energy feelings.  As soon as I walked in them I had to leave.

View of San Francisco from the boat to Alcatraz.

Country to City

Not much of an update today because I haven't even taken a single photo in San Francisco yet!  Here's a photo of the ranch I took this morning right before we left.  Tomorrow we have a pretty full day but we both admit we are pretty excited to be on our way home soon.  San Francisco is nice & all, but it makes us miss Chicago a bit.  It's kinda like Chicago, but a lot dirtier.  Can't wait to see you all soon!

Beltane Ranch Beauty!

Wine Country: Afternoon Post

It was 85 degrees out today in lovely Glen Ellen, California.  You know what that means?  It was way too hot for us.  We decided to take a break after our busy morning & spend some time at the ranch. 

Beautiful view of the road that leads to the ranch.  

There are a few horses scattered around the ranch.  They are very friendly and like to be pet.  If you stop petting they nudge forward for your hand. 

This morning we went to Ravenswood, a winery that Justin & I both really love a lot.  We went on a tour & then had a tasting.  Lets just say by noon I had major purple wine tongue.  They were pouring half glasses at the tasting!  With the heat & it only being 10 AM... I got buzzed pretty fast.

Now for pretty winery photos.  I'm going to take more on the way out to dinner tonight.