A little jaunt to Colorado.

I am a nature-loving girl living in a mountainless, land-locked state. So when I had the opportunity to road trip to Colorado with some of my best girls this summer, I jumped at the chance.

We ate delicious food, played the license plate game, giggled, explored adorable mountain towns, went white water rafting, off roaded [and got stuck in a freak hailstorm] at Pike's Peak and climbed everything at Garden of the Gods. 

Until next time, beautiful Colorado.

Home for the Holidays. {travel}

When you live 1,930 miles away from your "home" and family, visits are few, far between and sweet.
From the moment I step off the plane onto that famous PDX airport carpet, something is different.
The air is cleaner, the greens are greener and my heart is happy.

I spend my days in Oregon watching millions of episodes of "What Not to Wear" that my mom DVRs throughout the year, seeing all my high school friends [and their ever-expanding brood of gorgeous children], making memories with my family and exploring the natural beauty of a very un-Oklahoma-like land.

Also, I occasionally make my parents smile for the camera.

Until next time, lovely place I once lived.

Much love.

Ellerbruch/Brunner {family}

I've been best friends with Ashlee for almost 15 years now.
I've known her youngest siblings since before they could walk and talk.
I've helped out with their birthday parties.
I've gone on their family vacations.
For an only child, being around a big family can be a lot of fun.

Which brings me to the past week.
Ash's sweet dad invited both of us to go on vacation with them to Black Butte Ranch.
Of course we said yes.
And I had the opportunity to take family photos for them while we were there, as a smalllll token of my gratitude.
Teenage boys are hard to wrangle and there were bugs, cow patties and barbed wire involved, but we had a lot of fun and I'm happy with the results :)

Clarissa {bridal}

This is my college roommate, Clarissa [affectionately known as "Rooms."  Yes, still.]

Isn't she gorgeous?!
I had the pleasure of being a bridesmaid in her fabulously glamorous wedding in December 2009.
The wedding photos are beautiful, but she never had a chance to take bridal portraits. 

She wanted bridals, I needed experience taking bridals...match made in Heaven ;)

So, this brave one donned her wedding dress [and a pair of Toms] and we hiked Turkey Mountain.  No, really.
The other hikers were quite entertained by us.
 I'm a little in love with our shots...

Sweet Amanda and Baby H :)

Meet my wonderful, sweet, Jesus-loving teacher friend, Amanda.
She is my next-door neighbor at school and I feel truly blessed to have had her in my life this last year.  She makes me laugh, refocuses me and inspires me to be more like the Lord.

On Sunday, I had the wonderful opportunity to shoot some photos of her and her handsome baby boy, Harrison.  He's 5 1/2 months old and has such a sweet countenance.  It was hard to choose, but here are a few of my favorite shots from our afternoon together:

I got in on the baby-love action :)

Amanda, thanks again for being my model and letting me borrow your little guy.  Love you both!

The afternoon turned out to be so beautiful that I had to get some other shots before we left the park...