Christa Paustenbaugh

I realized when I blogged about little Miss E that I never blogged her family’s photo session – the nerve! This session was awesome and was just what we were looking for. An amazing afternoon/evening with one of my favorite families at one of our favorite beaches. And surprisingly enough we planned it in a 2 hour period! It was sunny and beautiful in the middle of rainy season, Sarah called me and off we went 2 hours later – it was actually quite fantastic.  I just love laughing and joking with them! Sean gets me going then normally can’t believe where I end up taking the conversation, but I secretly think he likes the corruption that JoyPop has instilled in our fellow member Sarah!!

We fortunately had the beach to ourselves and frolicked until our little hearts were content. We started with the most energetic of the group diving right in to the prop box and getting into quite the get up right away! Love these kiddos and that the beach is essentially their second home. All the neighborhood moms always marvel at Sarah grabbing the kiddos, a lunch and off she goes. No fuss no muss!

And speaking of Sarah, my love for her is not a secret and right now I miss her so, so much and would give anything to walk down to her house and give her a big hug. She is Mother Earth and the love for her kids shines each and every time I’m around her. Even when the kiddos are running around, screaming, etc. she is just calm and serene (on the outside at least)!!

After spending some time with her mom while she was visiting I can see first hand where she gets that calm and serene aura from! Her mom is just awesome and amazing and just sitting in a room with both of them made me completely zen. I was so happy we made the photos happen while GiGi was on the island and we got her in a few as well!

And thanks to Miss E for giving me one of my most favorite photos ever!

Thank you, thank you Forester Family! Love and miss you so much!

It’s time again for our collective of photographers to participate in the monthly Where We Live blog circle. I love “visiting” all the different areas where these women live and hopefully one day make it to many of them! I wasn’t able to participate last month since we were knee deep and one week away from our move to the states. We’ve been traveling and getting some much needed family time since then so this edition isn’t really where we live, but rather a place with lots of memories for all of us, especially my husband.

My husband’s late father purchased a hunting cabin in the mountains of Pennsylvania many decades ago. His friends would come with him for hunting season and it also became a family getaway for my husband, his siblings and his mom. It sits on a river and is just the most serene, peaceful place on Earth I think. The amazing outcome in all of this is that my father in law took this cabin on as his baby as well after he and my mother in law married 29 years ago. It has grown since then and I know my husband is so grateful to create memories with his own family here.

One of the first things we all do when we get here (and it’s warm enough) is to get the suits on, grab the tubes and float down the river. This year there was lots of rain so it was higher than usual which made for great floating and “rapids” in some parts! Although a little chilly, we always get past that immediately and just enjoy the sights and sounds of the river and mountains.

One of my favorite things to do up here is take photo walks and capture as much as I can of this beautiful place. This year I was extra eager after purchasing a macro lens in Okinawa before we departed. The wild flowers along the road provide all kinds of practice for macro work and I had nothing but time up here! I even have a budding photographer on my hands that joined me on many a photo walk! She mostly captured bunnies, but dabbled in some floral work as well.

There are also those things that have been up here in the mountains forever that you take for granted, or maybe wish they weren’t here because they’re an eye sore, but looking through a camera brings a different perspective. Maybe it’s the colors, maybe it’s the grunge or maybe just simply looking for things to photograph in a different way.

And no visit is complete without making the drive into the 3rd oldest brewery in the nation for a tour and taste of their brew. Straub has become a favorite for us, and is a special treat when we come here since distribution is limited. We introduced my parents to it this visit and I think we have new fans!
Anyone else start singing the “Laverne and Shirley” theme song as they look at all the bottles ready to be capped?!?!

Now head over to Rebeccah Parks blog to see what beauty she has in store for us!

You might remember my sweet friend Sarah and her awesome family. Because she is so kind she allowed me to not only use her as my guinea pig, but even let me get my hands on her sweet baby after she arrived in late April. Now that’s a friend I must say because I’ve never done a newborn photo shoot and she gave me free reign! I certainly did my research of course, but no amount of research prepares you for 6 pounds of baby that may or may not want to cooperate with you!

She was awesome – though I must say did make us work for these shots and wasn’t so sure about this whole sleeping while being maneuvered and photographed. Our first day was a trial run to see what might work and what needed to be changed for the next shoot. I learned a lot and just happy Sarah had 2 days free for me to come and get my baby fix and photograph this precious girl! The first shoot ended with what I intended for this antique Chinese foot bath – to put a baby in there! The owner of the Chinese antique furniture store that I worked at thought I was nuts, but I was determined to get a photo of her in there and it turned out wonderfully!

The next shoot we were more prepared and grandma was also in for a visit, which also made things more calm and easygoing. I mentioned in my other post that my friend Sarah is such a calming force for me and I saw firsthand that it’s genetic – her mom just sat and watched and brought a serene feeling for the shoot and I couldn’t be more grateful to her for that.
Sarah brought out some awesome scarves to wrap little E in and fortunately they blended beautifully with the blankets I hauled in too.

All in all both shoots turned out great and now I have firsthand knowledge of how hard a newborn shoot can be with a very easy baby! Kudos to full time newborn photographers! And huge kudos to Sarah for letting me try out some skills on her sweet baby. It’s only been 3 weeks since we moved away and I sure miss this little girl and her family a ton…

I met Loy through my good friend Chris and unfortunately didn’t have a chance to know her very well until we were both moving away from Okinawa back to the states. I definitely missed out on an awesome lady and family to get to know, but happy for the time we did get to know each other briefly. We had such a good time at the photo shoot before we both left the island and I’m secretly happy now that our first photo shoot got rained out. We had the most beautiful skies on our rescheduled date and an awesome sunset too so it all worked out in our favor!

Loy is very creative in her own right! Before we did our photoshoot she recreated some sidewalk chalk photo scenes with her kids and I was in awe – they were so adorable! She also found some great photo pins along the way and we did our best recreating one ourselves. Although it wasn’t exactly as we planned, I’m still in love with with the bubble/backlit photo of Sophie. And I’m always a sucker for an little girl, some sun and an umbrella!

Loy and her family are currently on the stateside world tour themselves and on their way to moving East to enjoy some different sunshine and beaches. I sure hope our paths cross again so I have a chance to hang out with Loy and her family more. Until we meet again!