Hayli's senior pictures!

I shot another senior picture session on Sunday and have just a few pictures to give you a preview! It was a gorgeous day and I ended up with SEVERAL fantastic images!

Here are some of the first ones I have edited, enjoy!

Exciting news in my family

Last week I received a picture text from my aunt... my little cousin Levi got baptized! How exciting is that? I was happy about this news and just had to share it and the picture here on the blog. Levi is only 17 years old and still in High School but he and his family recently started going to church.

I find it such a joy that he decided to get baptized and accept the Lord Jesus Christ as his savior! Hallelujah!

God bless you all!

A little hiatus... but I am back. :)

Well blog followers (assuming I have any) I haven't posted in awhile because I have been a busy girl. Kind of.

First I have to share that I was able to go to Columbia MO, one of my FAVORITE places, for about 4 days last week. Micah was working for Payless at a career fair so I got to travel along and enjoy some leisurely days with old friends. My trip was complete with goofing around at CCH, eating some El Rancho, hanging with my BFF Jen-nay and of course attending the MU football game! It was a close game but we pulled it off... thank goodness!

Other highlights of the trip include getting my friend Courtney to practice my make-up for my wedding, seeing all my friends' new pads, going to a dance party at the Cotton House where they played the Bed Intruder song and made my night! "Hide yo kids, Hide yo wife!" If you don't know what I am talking about then go to the link... or google it. Seriously. Do it. The guys who created it are called the Gregory Brothers and they are brilliant! They also do this thing called Autotune the news... where they create songs from news clips. The last highlight of the trip had to be participating my first ever electric wheelchair/scooter drive. There was one donated to CCH and because they don't really know what to do with it, it is just sitting in the lobby charging up. You better believe I HAD to give that sucker a test drive! Things got a little crazy though... did I mention it was 2:30 AM? Or that Jenny was with me? Or that we were hyper? AND that the scooter goes like 20 MPH!! Well, one thing led to another and in the end our scooter trials ended with me riding on the scooter with Jenny and being thrown (yes! THROWN) off the scooter about 3 feet when she went to turn!!!! It was so funny, painful, but funny. Let's just say that it was a good thing we were so close to the bathrooms or Jenny may have went tinkle in her pantalons! ;)

I have other adventures to write about but I think leaving you with the Columbia trip wrap-up is good for now. Toot-a-loo!

Missing Beijing...

So you probably know this if you know me but I lived in Beijing for a bit and once in awhile I miss it. It was such a fun and different kind of experience! By far one of the things I miss is the cuisine!! Seriously, I love chinese food and always have but since living there no Americanized Chinese food really satisfies. There are several differences in the food here and the food there, just as there were several differences in what the Chinese called "American food" there and what we have here.
An example of this would be the "pepperoni pizza" I ordered from a restaurant that was actually canadian bacon with onions, peppers and raisins. Yes. Raisins. It actually didn't taste bad but definitely is NOT what we refer to as pepperoni pizza here.

Anyhow, the reason for this blog is that, even though I miss Beijing's cuisine, I sometimes get a close second. I have found a Kung Pao chicken recipe that is the closest to the Kung Pao I used to get at one of the dining halls at Renmin University (where I stayed).
This weekend my very best friend, Jenny, visited and I was able to make her a DELICIOUS meal of Kung Pao Chicken, Jasmine sticky rice and crab rangoons (even though they don't really have rangoons in China).

The rangoons I made are actually a recipe that I made up by experimentation when I was 13 and its pretty stellar.

Below are some pics of the process!! Also be watching out for my next attempt at giving myself a taste of Beijing. I am going to try to make homemade dumplings! YUM!


Here are the rangoons from start to finish:








Kung Pao chicken... BAM!





Of course the rice:



And the finished product:




The Jenny likes :)

Another day behind the lens...

I shot another AWESOME wedding this weekend and have a few days break before I shoot some more senior pictures. So many pictures!! haha BUT I love it.

This post is very short but I just really wanted to add a small preview of the wedding from Saturday.

Thanks for checking this out!

Heidi's senior pictures!

This was my first senior picture shoot of the year and it was a good one. We were able to get into my old high school to get some pictures of Heidi in the gym and then we headed to "downtown" Rich Hill and one of the parks. It was a sunny day but not too hot and I am happy with how the images came out!