Winter Engagement Photos

The wedding is drawing closer (my bridesmaid Michelle P informed me on Saturday night that it was 217 days away – how’s that for a bridesmaid that’s on the ball!), and Kent is moving even further away from me in a couple weeks (4 hours – booo) right after our trip to Calgary (yay! A whole week with Kent? Craziness). I realized that we really need to do our engagement pictures as soon as possible, as in hopefully while we still live together on weekends, or before Kent gets caught up in restaurant insanity in Toronto, and works every day of the week.

Considering our town seems like the snow capital of the world, especially this year, this only means one thing: Engagement photos out in the cold and snow. I’m not sure shivering is my best look. I’ve been looking at winter engagement photos online to see what I should wear. I’ve decided that it does not look very good when couples are standing in the snow wearing just a shirt or even sweater – they mostly just look cold! Luckily, I have the most beautiful black dress coat to wear. Leah has the same one and she can attest to the fact that you can’t wear it anywhere without multiple people complimenting you on it. It’s even better that it’s a few seasons old now and still in style to the max! Hmm… I just read a suggestion that since you are the bride, you could wear white for your photos. I like the idea of wearing a white coat. Here are some other ideas I’ve seen that I like.

There’s a cute coffee shop in town where we could do something like this:

2513104004_fc100eed3d_o

Love this couple and her coat:

005

This coat is awesome as are the red boots! All of this couple’s engagement photos looked so much fun and they looked so happy. Happy engagement photos are where it’s at.

2007-12-08_j022

This couple was laughing in 90% of their photos, which I loved.

2224868489_ef43676735_o

Sledding!

proposal02

I’ll leave it at that – hopefully mine turn out just as great!

The beginning of a wonderful relationship

On boxing day mom, Lauren and I headed out to London to brave the crowds with the intention of purchasing a few things in our mind.  Mom was looking for candelabras for Mic and Kent’s wedding, Lauren was just along for the ride and I was going to buy a SLR digital camera.  I spent a few days researching cameras, as did mom and we both decided that the Canon Rebel was the camera that most suited my needs.  So we searched flyers and the internet to find the best deal.

In London we first went to a local camera store to ask them their opinion and find out their prices.  They were really helpful in telling us the many differences between the Canon Rebel XTi and XSi as well as the main differences between Nikon and Canon (in my price range).  However as it turned out they were not able to give us the best deal so we headed off to Best Buy.  They had a deal going on boxing day that included the XSi, 18-55mm lens, battery pack, extra battery and nice case and if you bought that you could also get a cheap 8 GB memory card and 55-200mm lens. BUT when we got to the store we found out that part of the deal is only available online, so I called my wonderful husband and he bought it online for me!  Mom, Lauren and I thought it was kind of funny that we went all the way to London to do our shopping when really I could just have done it on my computer at home.

january-055

The camera ended up coming a day earlier then the shipping calculator estimated and I got the camera on Dec 30!  I havn’t used it as much as I want to and I know I will use it LOTS, however I just need to get past this busy time!  Scott and I are really busy in the barn shipping pigs.

Here are a few pictures that I’ve taken-  Expect LOTS more!!

Chase infront of the Christmas tree

Chase infront of the Christmas tree

Zoomed out with a reflection in the window.

Zoomed out with a reflection in the window.

Some of the alcohol at a 50th birthday party we went to

Some of the alcohol at a 50th birthday party we went to

Can you define your life in six words?

Postsecret Book

I don’t know about some of the other fiveblondes, but my favourite website is Postsecret.com, and two of my favourite books are the two Postsecret books I own. Every weekend I (unlike most people) get excited for Sunday to roll around so that I can jump over to Postsecret.com and look at all the new secrets!

Even though I will always love Postsecret, I’ve found a couple of new sites/books kind of like it! One is Six Word Memoirs. This is a site where people post about their lives in SIX WORDS! It could be a part of their life, or something they’ve experienced, but I still find it fascinating! While I was looking at the Postsecret book on Amazon, it recommended me a book (don’t you love it when they recommend you books?). This book was called “Other People’s Love Letters: 150 Letters You Were Never Meant To See”. This is by far the cutest book EVER! It has original pictures of love letters from random people that were found in random places around the world. Some of them are even on things like cocktail napkins, and some of them are heartbreak, like the word “liar” written 183 times.
Hope you enjoyed these books/sites, because I LOVE them!
Anyone else have any books like these that they love? Share!

By the way, I should probably STOP making blog posts in order to keep away from studying. I have a feeling it won’t be very helpful to my successful university career…

Some Birthday Lovin.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my one and only boy, Kento!

Here are a few things that I love about him!

He’s always a good time:

He fits right in with the family:

He’s crazy talented at sports (first day snowboarding right here):

He is a wonderful chef and he truly loves what he does and is always trying to improve at it.

He loves to travel and always wants to see new things:

He enjoys (puts up with?) the craziness that is my family and friends:

…actually, he’s usually as crazy as the rest of us:

He’s a fine fisherman:

He is insanely talented at guitar:

His dream is to one day have a family that looks like this (pictures by Laura Novak:

BUT most importantly to my life, he loooooves me:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KENT!!!!!!!

Sunday at the fair

My Sunday at the fair was a funny one. As usual I went to the community centre to help with the registration for the baby show that my aunt organizes.  Mic and I love signing up the parents and babies so we can see all the cuteness!  This year we knew a few babies so that makes it more exciting. Scott (my husband) came up and said he wanted to pre-register a baby, for 2012 (ummm we have to wait that long?)… haha funny boy.

We had one mom register that said something a bit odd, she didn’t want to go up with the baby (she also had a 2 year old with her), but wanted her sister-in-law to bring up her baby and her SIL’s baby!  And these babies were only 3 months old.  I asked the mom if she wanted me to look after the 2 year old, but she said no, she wanted to look after him… umm okay, if you think your SIL can handle 2 babies up there, then okay!  Then my aunt talked to her and offered me to go up with the baby… and she said yes!  I felt like a fraud walking up there (all these moms went through so much, and I get handed a baby and say, okay go on up), and it was pretty funny, considering it is a small town and I knew there would be lots of talk… ‘one of the blonde girls has a kid??’  It was especially funny when I was up sitting on the stage, next to a friend when I see Scott’s parents walk in.  I gave them a little wave and laughed, and had to wonder what they were thinking.

Then when I was up there I realized I didn’t know the babies name. Luckily I was sitting next to the babies aunt, so I sheepishly asked her… umm what is this babies name? Gosh I’m a bad mother!  It was quite the experience!   My aunt took a picture so if she sends it to me I’ll try and put it up… it probably looks pretty funny. At some fall fairs, the point of the baby show is to find the cutest baby in town. Not at ours! At our fair the judges award every baby with a prize based on their looks, outfit, or personality.”My” baby won the biggest flirt award!

After all that fun was over the rest of the day was pretty normal.. as usual I took more pictures and walked around with Scott’s parents and then met up with more friends to watch the demolition derby.

Car show

Car show

Shiny chrome!

Shiny chrome!

View of the fair

View of the fair

Taking a picture of Erica, taking a picture of me... did you actually take it?

Taking a picture of Erica, taking a picture of me... did you actually take it?

A rather smoky moment!

A rather smoky moment!

Demolition derby

Demolition derby

Kate and Scott

Kate and Scott

After watching the demolition derby the fair was over.  I can’t wait till next year’s fair!

Have you ever been to a small town fair? What’s your favourite part?

A Year In Pictures

Hello Everyone! Just posting my flickr site for my picture a day for a year project-http://www.flickr.com/photos/blondelauren

This was todays picture. We had baseball practice, and it looked like a storm was slowly arriving! You can see Kate pitching, and Micaela is in the outfield!

Picture Every day for a Year!

Thanks for all the great suggestions!  I’ve decided that I’m going to do a summer theme for the first month, starting tonight at a barbeque!

I’ll post my flickr account later tonight!

Picture Every Day for a Year

So after getting my new camera:

I’ve decided that I’m going to take one picture a day for one whole year. I’m going to try to find a theme to do each month, but I need one to start off with! Any suggestions? It can be anything!

I’ve made a flickr account, and once I get a theme I’ll put pictures on it, and put the address up on here so you all can look at my super exciting life…which includes driving to Ottawa a lot, and working!

Edit-by the way, the cameras name is Sophie Dallas, because there is an SD in the type name.

Golf + Hail = Welts!

First golf game of the season, with pictures for added drama…

On the weekend Scott and I finally were able to head out with Erica and D for our first golf game of the year. There was a 40% chance of rain, but the sky was looking pretty clear during the day so we braved the weather and headed to our favourite free golf course ( free because, well our family owns it, pretty sweet!). Scott and I got there a bit early to practice our putting and chips, I was sucking pretty badly already! We got some fries before the game and headed out to the first tee to tee off at around 3:15.

[Read more...]

Spring Images

Pretty cherry blossoms at the parents house.

Scott and I went to the barn today to mow the lawn. There were so many dandelions, it was a field of dandelions. Mowing also took forever because the grass was soo long! Dandelions are fun to take pictures of because they are so bright against the grass! However if you have allergies you probably wouldn’t think that…