What better way to spend part of your visit to New York City than having a portrait session in Central Park? I had never seen the park before (unless movies count), so I was super excited to not only adventure around with my friend, but also photograph someone in the amazing space. It is seriously a photographer's dream park since there are fancy bridges, beautiful backdrops, and blooming flowers everywhere. Every time I thought I had found the most awesome location to photograph Karen in, we would walk five steps and there would be another breath-taking area. If it wasn't so dangerous and probably illegal, I think we would have spent the entire night in the park. Apart from all of the fantastic statues and buildings, there was one place that Karen really wanted to find: Madeline Kahn's memorial bench. We started searching as soon as we entered the park, but quickly realized that every bench is a memorial bench or named after a donating family. We had a quick moment of defeat, but by some stroke of rare luck, we soon stumbled upon an empty bench that exhibits the faded plaque of the late great Madeline Kahn. It was pretty cool how we both felt this invisible guide to the area :). I think the best part for Karen, though was seeing The Nanny's establishing shot house and getting some very pretty photos in front of it. A lady who lives across the street even came over and...

No, this post isn't covering every single off-season weekend in the Squire household. If I went over the entire winter we've had that would be an incredibly long post and mostly just talking about how staying up to play the video game The Witness messed up our sleep cycle after a few late nights working the different puzzles. I have to thank my friend, Marlayna, for the game recommendation and subsequent obsession that Shawn and I now have :P. When we weren't busy drawing puzzle solutions, we spent a good portion of our Saturday and Sunday outside running around with our Pony pup. Thank goodness for the amazing weather, because we had been wanting to take Pony hiking since we first started the process of adopting him. We chose to stay close to home for this first adventure and went to Patapsco Valley's Cascade Falls Trail. Since Sunday was basically a preview of Spring, the hike to the waterfall was fun, easy, and I was able to take photos! (Something that wasn't fun, though, was figuring out that our little angel needs leash training.) We also got to take Pony to his very first dog park for his BFF, Benny's, first birthday party. Happy belated birthday to that adorable little furbaby :D! While these relaxing weekends are nice to recharges our batteries, Shawn and I are looking forward to the 2016 weddings and engagement shoots. I've been reading up and attending a lot of educational webinars that I know...

It's kind of funny how last weekend, during the blizzard, all Shawn and I wanted to do was be snuggled up in PJs and drink hot cocoa. But this weekend all we wanted to do was be outdoors, bundled up, and snowboard. We traveled to Snowshoe, West Virginia on Friday and met up with my best friend, Christy, and her husband, Nate. Christy and Nate live in Charlotte, North Carolina, so the last time we got to see them was for their wedding last April. This weekend trip was something Christy and I had been super excited about since we started talking about it in September. Snowshoe is a very interesting mountain with its hotels, shops, and restaurants being located at the very top. Everything we needed was all in one spot, with a spectacular view. It was - quite literally - the top of the world. The evening we arrived was right before sunset and (except for Turks and Caicos) this mountain had one of the most gorgeous sunsets I've seen. It was also super windy so I almost ended up with a frozen hand because of my need for pictures XD. The four of us got to hang out, play board games, spend most of Saturday snowboarding, and drink fruity drinks :P. A quick tip: if you are going to play Dead of Winter - the best theme for a game being stuck up on a snowy mountain - be sure to read the instruction manual at least...

This blog has been such a long time coming. I have been wanting to formally introduce our dog, Pony, for a while now. I'm kind of glad I waited, though, because over the past 7 months we have gotten to know all of his goofy quirks and build up a semi-obsessive photo collection of him.  We adopted Pony (formally known as Indie) from a wonderful organization called PapAdopters. Our journey to puppy-hood was not easy, because we fell in love with a dog on the opposite side of the country. Shawn and I had always said "we'll get a dog when we have a house", but that never stopped us from Internet window shopping different local rescue sites, or making lists of what the perfect dog would be. While Internet looking, I came across Indie's photo. Something inside me just knew, and as soon as I showed Shawn, he knew as well: this was our dog. Reading what he had been through was heart-breaking. Indie was a 2 year old Papillon mix from California. The organizers at PapAdopters told us that they believe he was in a hoarding situation with almost 200 other dogs. He was malnourished, dirty, and his tail was stained yellow from having to sit in his own mess. Our hearts broke for him and I cried after hearing all that had happened to him since no animal should suffer through that. We carefully filled out the application, and heard back the next day...

The weather here in Maryland has been completely dreary this week. We've been greeted with grey skies and rain almost this entire week and I'm pretty sick of it. That means today I am taking everyone on a photographic journey to Turks and Caicos to relive the most beautiful honeymoon that has ever honeymoon'd :P. I remember when Shawn and I were planning for our honeymoon and thinking of what we were interested in and what we wanted to avoid. The biggest thing we didn't want: a tropical place. Hahah, well, obviously that didn't stick because as soon as we read a Yahoo article about Provo Island (along with seeing the photos) we were hooked. Turks and Caicos is amazing. It's a perfect temperature all year round, the crime is almost zero, and the water is the bluest I've seen (I swear I wasn't paid to advertise the island, it just happens naturally). The main thing we wanted was a place that has a sense of relaxation and uniqueness. We found these things on the island and in the places we stayed. We were able to rent a cottage for the first half of our trip called The Ballyhoo Cottage, which was completely breathtaking with a private pool and the ocean in our backyard - perfection! The last four days of our stay were spent at the Villa Del Mar, an amazing hotel resort with the beach right across the street. Now, I have to say, Shawn and I...