I thought I’d share a few scenes from the beautiful evening my girlfriends and I shared with BIRTHDAY GIRL, Cindy. We had originally tossed around a bunch of picnic-by-kayak types of ideas, but with the whole hurricane “thing” going on, we found ourselves on the Yummy Goods-inspired farmer’s porch of our friend Melissa’s home.

Note: I’m pretty sure the deck doesn’t always look like this, but trust me when I say that the inside of Melissa & Stuart’s home is indeed that yummilicious.

That’s Beth in the corner, who just minutes before these festivities had posted a most lovely blog post about ME and Cold Nose Photo – thanks Beth!

Cindy, we hope you had a marvelous birthday eve in the company of your fine friends and bread n’ cheese – and wine and that heavenly chocolate peanut butter cake! Oh, and unicorns.

This isn’t my usual bus…

I’m typing to you from the bus up to visit my friend Jessica in Portsmouth, NH! But this isn’t just any bus… First, I printed out my ticket directly from the C&J website. I arrived at the gate and was handed a bottle of ice cold water. Walking down the aisle of the bus, I turned from leather chairs to televisions (with headset jacks at each seat) to the ample leg room, and right to the jewel of it all – CUP HOLDERS. Why is this the first bus I’ve been on with cup holders? How awesome that would be in the morning for our coffees.

We start to pull out of Boston’s South Station and – what’s this? – we have WIRELESS INTERNET??

Anyway, Jess moved to Portsmouth recently while beginning an exciting job opportunity in Newburyport, MA. I look forward to getting up there, taking her dog for a walk (her other dog is home with Gary and the boys right now), and walking around town with only margaritas as a goal.

So what have you been up to lately, my friends? Are you enjoying these lovely two weeks of summer before it all disappears again? Exciting to be talking about hurricanes already…

I’ve gotta say, the photography biz just took an extreme turn for the sky in this beautiful weather (that means it’s gone “up”).  I have booked six dog gigs over less than three week’s time, and that’s not including a spontaneous session at a family reunion with four families (and three dogs) on the coast of Rhode Island! My press release was picked up for the first time today by the new BostonPetLink.com, and I even interviewed with the Barnstable Patriot yesterday. How funny, because my friends and I used to be in the Patriot for local rec and high school sports.

Gary’s been doing a ton of fishing, and we’ve been eating a ton of fish. Our garden is finally catching up and we’re seeing lots of cucumbers, tomatoes and hot peppers forming. Unfortunately, our many dog walks through the woods and ponds has led to us both having poison ivy on our hands right now – ITCH!

These photos are from the recent annual trip Eric & Jill made to spend a week on the Cape with the kids and friends!

First was the rehearsal dinner, a blended BBQ to include some of the father-of-the-groom’s most INFAMOUS grilled foods, yummy yum. I almost dropped vegetarianism right then and there when I smelled Chip’s buffalo wings. Emily treated us bridesmaids to monogrammed L.L. Bean totes (we’re so famous) and gorgeous green necklaces that she specially designed for each of us (we’ll come back to that in a sec). We camped overnight on the stunning property, and it downpoured harder than ever imaginable. The sun was shining bright when we opened our eyes on the wedding day.

The bridesmaids gathered that morning to make the bouquets and flower arrangements, and then we were off to the salon. It wasn’t until we were back at the house, Emily already in her wedding gown, that I realized I had lost my green necklace *GASP. After minor crying on my part, fast driving on Mike’s part, and sweating on Sarah’s part, we discovered the necklace was only a few steps away in the guest house. I had only brushed my teeth there that morning, but it was enough for the necklace to fall from my bag.

And then it was game time! What a beautiful ceremony and a beautiful couple!

Wait wait, there’s more! You know how you feel when you wake up the next day after an out-of-town wedding, and you’re kinda like “we better start heading back home, so tired, worn out, tomorrow’s Monday…” Well not at this wedding, no sir-ee! THIRTY-EIGHT guests rented tubes and went for a big float down the Deerfield River!! We took our own vows that weekend, and it was to include more river floating in our lives!

We’re so happy for you, Emily & Anthony! You deserve every single speckle of sunshine that shone on you that day and forever!

In anticipation of what would surely be a great hike with friends… this was us trying to dry out.

But thankfully the sun did come out and we managed to hike Pico Peak and some of the Appalachian Trail! This is Jess with her adorable little Shiloh pup.

No, it has nothing to do with sunshine or anything – don’t be crazy. June has now passed with 30 days of rain, rain, rain. Honestly, even July has sent us packing for the hills of Vermont this 4th of July weekend. I haven’t been on the boat once, but Gary’s been squeezing in some excellent fishing with pals whether rain or shine, daylight or midnight.

Heather was in town from Arizona for the last few weeks, which is always awesome. We managed to hit a couple of our regular spots to catch up and eat ice cream, but the time went fast. Here are her girls playing at Craigville Beach one evening:

The Pashbys came into town one weekend as we also kicked off Emily’s bachelorette weekend in Wellfleet and Provincetown! Drag-queen karaoke is the perfect bachelorette festivity, FYI. Highly recommended. It was great to have a bunch of our friends meet each other that weekend, all cozied around the back deck sharing laughs and that now-so-familiar bottle of Hound Dog iced tea vodka (classy). We also got to meet Otis that weekend, the adopted little boxer brother of Toro Pashby!

In the meantime, a local animal hospital is ordering up about 10 to 12 of my prints in art gallery canvas and they look incredible! Check out the first trial order  below, and you’ll see this 30×20″ vision of Brewer above your bed when you visit next. It’s so exciting to see these and to be able to start showing them to clients.

On that note, I dabbled in my first-ever family photo session on the beach for a college friend, and I actually loved it! While I don’t expect to change the business name to ‘Warm’ Nose Photo any time soon, please do spread the word to friends and family that I’m available! Click on the photos to go through to the larger portfolio.

Stay tuned for more photos from last weekend, when Gary, Eric and Jill all ran the Fairfield Half Marathon in Connecticut, and the nieces and nephew had their uncle build them a big sand box in the back yard!

I hope you all have something exciting and dry planned for the holiday weekend ahead!

But sadly, unless Gary wants to start posting to the blog himself, this post isn’t about hippies and Wal-Mart parking lots.

It was a blissful weekend on Cape Cod! I worked from home and had some great walks with the dogs at nearby conservation areas. I spent a LOT of time on my photography business and was even contacted about two dog sessions and a large border collie event in August! Check out the next stage of the Cold Nose Photo logo:

I went for runs and I rode my bike, but I didn’t do any of the planned yard work because of the insane amounts of mosquitoes in the neighborhood right now! Gah!

The only human contact I had were the lovely ladies encircling Yummy Goods in West Barnstable >HI LADIES!< and an evening out to celebrate Kim’s birthday at Baxter’s on Saturday.

It’s not to say that I don’t love my husband, but it felt really awesome to be so silent and self-scheduled for a few days! I always had things like this to look forward to upon his return:

Sunday night I drove out to Chatham for a photo session with horses! And ducks and chickens and sheep and donkeys… It was so much fun! Here’s one cool shot, but you can check out the rest over at Cold Nose Photo or by clicking through this photo to my Flickr site.

Welcome to the glorious month of June! Happy Birthday to my fellow Geminis!

The girls – myself, Sarah and Hannah – went off for about an 18- mile bike ride through the hills of Waitsfield and Warren. Sarah’s doing amazing, after having knee surgery just a couple of months ago! When we passed a tractor bringing hay down the road, I thought “this is a Vermont bike ride.” Little did I know, just a few miles down the road, we would be pedaling for our lives away from a galloping bull in rut!

(okay, maybe not for our lives, per se, but he really was chasing us down and breaking what was left of the fence!)

We had a great time walking around Church Street in Burlington on Sunday, meeting up with Dave & Leslie. The weather was warm enough for margaritas outside at Halverson’s, but one of those days when you put your coat back on and take it off again a million times. Either way, the afternoon set the mood for us to – yet again – bail on leaving town that night. We left at 4am Monday instead, and I was at the office by 7:30am. Well worth it!

Rich & Sarah smirking on Church Street:

Among us all weekend were four dogs, one cat, one adorable 8-week old puppy, and this little guy, Theo:

I’ve mentioned before how much we love Portland. We also made a quick jaunt up to Freeport where I found the need to buy two different pairs of slippers. Yes, slippers.

But the highlight might have been our hysterical photo-shoot on the Eastern Promenade of Portland this afternoon, celebrating Emily & Anthony’s engagement. Gary and I are both so honored to take part in their wedding in August! We love you guys!

We visited the Miramar Air Show, sipped cocktails in the Gaslamp district, sunned ourselves on the deck at the Hotel Del Coronado, lounged around the eclectic Ocean Beach community and took part in La Jolla’s Surf Diva camp!

I think we all ended up totally LOVING the surfing, as if I need another uber-expensive sport to love…

San Diego is a very cool place, with access to a variety of chill or trendy beach scenes. I definitely look forward to going back! Our surf coach likened San Diego to Boston – the little sibling to the big city.

I have been blessed with several incredible women in my 32 years who I would give platinum, diamond-studded halves of heart-shaped necklaces to (well, if I had that kind of money anyway). In actuality, what they have brought to my life would make a gorgeous bracelet of vibrantly linked gems.

Thanks to Facebook – the klutzy, more dorky Cupid who everyone made fun of for peeing his pants in archery class – one of those gems is back in my life and being polished off!

It really makes me think about friendships, and what an amazing impact your truest friends can have on your life. Thank you to those women who’ve provided such a good, hard, solid-packed punch as to change my journey forever.

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