Our offices this month {may}

It's been awhile since we have had an, "our offices this month" post. April was wedding free, which was bittersweet. Having the month off and to able to go on a nice family vacation was great, but Paul and I are really looking forward to wedding season to get started! This month we are shooting two weddings. Both of these couples are near and dear to us, they are unbelievably sweet have made our job so easy!!! Our first wedding in May will be held at the Holy Spirit Catholic Church, this church is insanely breathtaking!

Photo credit: Henry Chen Photography. Click HERE for more of this wedding and to see his beautiful work. We will be working with Henry again in September :)

The very next weekend we will be shooting locally in Mission Viejo at the Norman P. Murray community center. I'll admit, I usually don't have high hopes for community center venues, BUT this doesn't even count as a community center! Paul and I were shocked at how beautiful and modern the Norman P. Community center was! We are really excited :) It's even better in person.

Another exciting fact about this wedding is that artist Kina Grannis will be performing a few songs at their reception! Fun stuff.

Portland in June!

It sounds dreamy right?! It is :) I've been once before a couple years ago to visit my friend Kelsey who is Portland born and raised. It was right after Paul had proposed I jumped on a plane and spent 4 days soaking up the Portland goodness. Now, two years later I will be visiting again in June. This time with a husband and to shoot a wedding. My how life has changed in just two years! We received the inquiry on April 1st. It was a great birthday gift for Paul and I remember writing back "I hope this isn't an April fool's joke! ;) Luckily it wasn't!

So we will be jumping on a plane and heading to good 'ol Portland June 10th - 12th. I'm already itching to shoot this wedding. It will be held at The Grotto and Treasury Ballroom! Destination weddings rock.

Give Bits!!

Mother's day is coming up!! Can't wait to celebrate with my moms (mine and Paul's) Here is a great idea for you all :) Give bits.



Hopefully the video works for you all..it has been acting up for me.

Brianhead (part II)

In the midst of pre-grad craziness I took some time to tan and blog this afternoon. Two of my favorite relaxing activities! Seeing as though the weather here in So Cal is absolutely beautiful this week I'm getting my tan on in preparation for grad festivities. In the meantime, here is part II of our family vacation we took last week in Utah.

All glory be to God!

We roll like this..

Hearts..hearts..hearts..

Oh man.

Jeraldo and Paully

Love these two

Silly

Brianhead 2011. boom.

We look forward to this trip each year, Brianhead with the Gilsters :) 3 full days of boarding by day and a good game of hearts by night! This trip was especially wonderful because Paul and I have been been stuck in the school + work routine for months now. It was great to getaway for a few days!! Here is part 1 of our Brianhead vacation pictures!

shredders!

Part II coming soon :) Hope you all had a blessed Easter!

Liar, Liar.

Today was a huge letdown as the car hunting continues...Since we have memorized practically every car on autotrader I resorted to searching on craigslist (which I really dislike) to see if I could find anything special. I came across a craigslist add for a white 2006 Ford Explorer, only 43k miles and apparently in GREAT condition. The price was too good to be true, (4k less than the kelley blue book value). So Paul jumped on it and called he guy, the car was still available so we made an appointment for tomorrow at  8:30am to go see it. We were both super excited, but skeptical at the same time because like I said, it was too good to be true.  The guy seemed super honest, and stated he had been the only owner of this car.

I had Paul call the guy again and ask if it was possibly a salvage title (no good!!). The guy responded that it was not, "I just need to sell the car quickly because my wife wants a Nissan Murano." However, I still couldn't believe it so I had Paul get the VIN # for the car so we could run the CARFAX of the vehicle.

CARFAX knows all! The truth finally came through, this guy was a dirty liar!!! The car had another owner prior to this dude. The last owner had the car for almost 5 years and sold the car at an auction in Nevada just a month before with an estimated mileage of 272,000 miles!! Gahhh it makes me so angry that some people have ZERO integrity.  This guy had set back the mileage on the car to 41k. It also stated the CARFAX history that when he tried to get the car smogged, it failed twice before he took it to another location where they passed it. Why do people have to be so dishonest? For some reason this really bothered me because I'm still a little frustrated over the whole thing. Needless to say, Paul texted the guy saying that we ran a CARFAX report on the car and it was not as he described it. The guy responded back, "k".

Out of the office

As much as we love our job, Paul and I are seriously looking forward to our annual family ski trip this year.  Five full days of no internet and no emails sounds glorious in the midst of school and our car dilemma for the time being. We're still contemplating if the 7D's will make the trip with us ;-) It's quite possible. "Gilster family ski trip trailer" hmmm...? I'm not making any promises, but we'll see. We are hitting the slopes from Wednesday - Sunday.  Two years ago was the first time I was invited to join the Gilster ski trip, here are some pictures..

we shred hard.

They plan the trip every year during Easter Sunday weekend. Paul's mom still makes little Easter bags and hides them in the condo for us all the find on Easter Sunday. It's the highlight of the trip :) I hope it remains a tradition this year.

God is love.

Just the reminder I needed today..

Source: thoughts-of-a-jesus-freak.tumblr.com via megan on Pinterest

car hunting = worst.thing.ever.

I feel like SO much has happened in the past three days since we took my car to get it checked up on, sold it extremely quickly, and have been car shopping ever since. Paul and I both feel like we are mentally exhausted! You all may have seen in THIS POST. That we were considering a new Honda Pilot or Toyota Highlander for our next ride. Well...after hours at the Honda dealership we decided to go ahead and take the used route once again. Honestly, I'm kind of relieved. Owning a new car feels like so much pressure! So the hunt continues!!! Thankfully Paul's parents are coming up this weekend to let us borrow their extra car for a couple weeks until we find my next G-ride. ;-) Since their extra car is a stick, Paul and I had fun this afternoon as he taught me how to drive one. 10 mins later...I was a pro. Keep in mind I was in a deserted parking lot, whatevs.

Please keep us in prayer as we search for this next big purchase, that we don't become too anxious throughout this whole process. I am so thankful that we are going on our annual ski trip with Paul's family next week. It seriously could not have come at a more perfect timing!! More on our trip later :)

Jared and I on the Gilster/Matthews/Boyer ski trip 2 years ago!

New Ride

It's been almost 5 years since I got my first car, a 2001 Ford Explorer. Dreamy right? No really, I loved this car and still do. It has lots of good memories as it got me through 2 of my high school years and nearly all 4 of my undergrad years. It's been all around a really functional car. I wish I could say it was dependable though...in these past 5 years this car has been an absolute nightmare repair wise. We've had to get new brakes, reconfigure the locking mechanism, repair numerous leaks, and fully replace the engine last year resulting in give or take 6,000 in repairs. For a FORD EXPLORER! gash. Needless to say when my power steering and brakes began to act up a couple months ago I was not excited. After putting it off for as long as we could Paul and I took it in to a brake place today (thinking we would just need to get the brake pads replaced) A couple hours later we get a call that it's going to be about $750 worth of repairs (just to get the brake problem fixed!). So I had a little fit, "I'm so over this car, when do we just say enough is enough it's not worth it anymore?" Keep in mind we also had the power steering problem to deal with..So after lots of thought and weighing numerous options we decided that we are going to sell the explorer for dirt cheap and put it towards, wait for it...a new car!! (In my best "the price is right" interpretation) We've narrowed it down to these two!

A Honda Pilot

I'm not gonna lie, having the ability to fit 8 people in your car kind of makes me feel like a mom.

My first interpretation "It's too fancy Paul, I don't think I like it" Then he reminded me of what I have been driving. He's kind of right.

Option #2

A Toyota Highlander

My choice.

It too fits about 7 people..I'm wonder how the heck 7 people would fit in there?!

So..We still havn't made any big decisions yet..I'll let you all know when we do :)