I had so much fun photographing Josh and Emily for their engagement session! They are such a wonderful couple, and so in love. We went back to Tannery Row Artist Gallery where he asked her to marry him. It is such a sweet story and you can read about it here. Check it out! So sweet. Enjoy their photos of our day together!

Last week Chris and I celebrated 23 years together as husband and wife. I can’t believe how quickly time has gone by. I can always count our years together by our eldest daughter’s age as she is one year younger than we are married. We got her as a surprise from our Father God. We were not planning on babies for a while. Chris didn’t have a steady job and we had no health insurance. I was planning on finishing college and he was going to school for his Masters of Divinity. God of course, had His own plans, and I am so thankful. I had moved away from most of my family. I was 21 and pregnant and newly married. Yes, I was afraid and bewildered. My pastor’s wife told me something at the time  I have never forgotten. She told me  that “God never orders anything He can’t pay for.” This and her calm resolve brought me peace and I rested in that truth on more than one occasion.  The rest, you might say, is history. We got out beautiful curly haired Katie, then our Annie, and then our John. Later, at 40, I was blessed with another surprise. I was pregnant with my fifth (the fourth lost in miscarriage much earlier) child. We ended up losing him at 16 weeks gestation. We named him Benjamin and he is forever a Morgan child.

But alas, I digress from my original story of Chris and me. We met at my sister Liza’s wedding, having been not-so-secretly set up by Liza and her husband and Chris’s best friend, Mickey. I met him the night before the wedding, July 1, 1986. We were married just a year later on July the 3rd 1987. Katie was born April of 1988. God moves quickly sometimes.

There was so much to love about this man. He was a modern day Huck Finn, so simple and yet so profound in his thinking. I found peace in those beautiful blues. I loved to hear him sing and play his guitar. He was like no one I had ever known. We got lost in conversation, talking about all things spiritual, God and who He is, about Love and what it looked like (not realizing I was falling right into it), and about anything that we felt had real value. We laughed often. Our senses of humor aligning so perfectly. We walked on railroad tracks, in the rain, and through paths in the woods not knowing where we would end up. It was an adventure. He had me and I didn’t even know it. Once again, I had my own plans, but God’s plan prevailed. So thankful.

So on this eve of our anniversary, we once again had a spontaneous adventure together. We decided to go somewhere new and eat some sushi together at Ra Sushi in Atlanta. A wonderful choice! We sat outside in the evening air and enjoyed conversation and delicious food together. A dragonfly decide to join us.

Later we went exploring, just like in the our old days. We walked the streets of Atlanta and went to Piedmont Park, stopping for some refreshment at Willy’s Mexicana Grill. The light faded into the night and the city lights began to glow. We both felt free, talking about things that mattered and laughing about things that didn’t.

On the way home, he took me to my favorite coffee place, Octane Coffee. He doesn’t drink coffee. He loves me. My cappuccino had a heart in it when I got to the bottom. “How fitting”, I thought to myself and made him hold the cup for me until I got the shot I wanted.

No matter what, my heart is his. I gave it to him 23 years ago.

Our last adventure of the night was to go for a midnight swim in our pool. We lit the twinkly lights and set up candles and torches around the pool and played some of our favorite music. I got in the pool with my camera for some of the shots, and he was patient with my photojournalistic tendencies. Then we danced in water. We didn’t talk for a long time. The cicadas sang their song. It was a good night to be married for 23 years.

His eyes are still just as blue. I still find peace there. Now that our kids are nearly grown, I hope we continue our adventures together, laughing and talking, and kissing, and dancing. He is my love.

This one of the Shogren Family is very special to me. I love this family!  They are so warm and encouraging to be around. Karen mentors young women and is on the prayer team at our church, and you can always find Dan smiling and working with the parking  lot team. I always feel loved when I am around them.

I adore this picture of them  as they are being encircled with their now mostly grown children. All of them are also wonderful, each of them in their own way. This image just says “family” to me.  We need more of this! May the heritage they have created continue for generations to come.

Today was a hard day. With Valentine’s Day only a couple days away, I am feeling even more deeply the absence of my older two children. With one daughter studying abroad in Spain and another away at a school in Atlanta, I have only my almost seventeen year old son at home. I know Valentine’s Day  is supposed to be a sweetheart day, and if my husband were away, I most assuredly would be complaining about his being gone as well. For now, it is my girls. We girls just love Valentine’s Day. Let’s face it. It is our day. I have received more Valentine’s gifts from my friends, sisters, and mom in my lifetime than I ever have from a sweetheart. We just seem to know that our hearts need it. We love surprises, and being thought of in general, and Valentine’s Day seems to bring that home. But, my girls are in faraway places, so I decided to try some Valentine cookie therapy on my own. I posted that idea on facebook, and almost immediately got a couple great recipes to try from friends. So I did. I think it was helpful, playing the John Mayer genre on Pandora, and dancing in my kitchen.

Making a big mess in the kitchen, even when you are alone, is still very therapeutic, especially when it involves lots of powdered sugar and pink icing. I decided to post a few pics from my therapy session. I still miss my girls, and I realize that eventually I am going to have to come to terms with this new phase of my life. Yes, in time, I guess I will. Hopefully, it won’t be one cookie at a time.  That might bring on a whole new set of problems.:)

I am including a few other heart images I have captured this week as I am learning to play more and more.

Happy Valentines Day everyone.

I never had to pose them. We just gave them a few props and let them go. They did  the rest.

I pray many blessings on this beautiful and sweet couple and am so thankful I get to shoot their upcoming wedding in March.

Enjoy their sweet pictures~

From there we just explored. We found all kinds of delightful places in Atlanta, including an old yellow caboose in a metal junk yard. We had so much fun!

Blessings, you guys. I can’t wait to be part of your special day in November. To be continued…