Splat | Tyson & Caitlin

Nicknames can be oh-so-endearing...the one I happened to get from a big brother of mine happened to be "Squirt." Typical eh? I didn't necessarily want to be left out of the name-calling, so somewhere along the way, I started calling him "Splat." Lol, it was all out of love, and it's not gonna be too long now before Splat will be happily married to Caitlin =P

A bit ago, I got to meet her...she'd gone to school with Tyson years ago, but as the story would have it, they didn't really like each other that much. In fact, the way my brother relayed it, the eye-rolls of annoyance would flip on whenever she came around...particularly because she'd show up at his work with a gaggle of friends and torment the poor kid until he smiled. << apparently wasn't his favorite past-time for a spell. Lol, of course my brother smiled, but the loud and boisterous type, he'd usually take in smaller doses.

And now? I've never seen my brother so happy; that sounds so cliche, but it's true. They reunited through mutual friends/family and voila! Wuv!

Prime example: Tyson would aaaaaallllllwwwaayyyyys dodge cameras if he could. He hated having his picture taken and would usually duck behind his hand or raise a soda can just in time for the shutter to click (much to the exasperation of Barbara, the self-appointed camp photographer of our youth).

I was more or less thinking that's how this shoot was gonna go =P But when he was smiling away with no real thought towards the camera at all, I knew it had to be cause of the girl ;-) She's just completely tugged out the quirky and cool side of my bro =D We'll get a chance to bond on an Everglades trip in a couple weeks. SO PSYCHED!

Caitlin, you're awesome and I can't wait to get to know ya more.

Welcome to the fam! Love you both!

We started in downtown Asheville =)

For anyone who knows me, notice the clip on his pocket. Yup folks, he's the reason I carry a Benchmade ;-) He outfitted our fam with 'em...hahaha tools of the Musgrave clan...



Of course, he'd take my instruction to point at something they liked....differently...






Then we headed to the fields!












To the trails ahead! =)

Cassi + Eastern Orthodox Craftsmanship

Aaaalrighty, quite the odd combination, but I'll get to that, no worries.

Cassi is a student-worker for my mumsy and a very good one from what I hear ;-) Besides heckling me in the lunch-line, I'm pretty positive she's awesome at her job =P But she's also one of the most happy students I know from the academy...got to know her a bit through her sisters (one of which I went to school with and shot her Guys and Dolls themed wedding).

We set out for her senior pics and got to talking about location when I remembered a place my sister-in-law told me about. We got there and asked permission from the super-friendly couple...little did we know we'd have the most perfect location that happened to have EVERYTHING we were looking for...field, pond, church, barn...the sun was in the perfect spot and we got to shootin' =)

It wasn't long before we were laughing our heads off about Pirates of the Caribbean and Robin Hood: Men in Tights or whatever else we could come up with:

I do believe at this point, we were laughing and imitating Davy Jones...

At the time of the outfit-change, we were invited to check out the building...Now about this location, it turned out to be the sanctuary for an Eastern Orthodox church! And the couple happened to be the pastor and his wife. They were taking down Christmas decorations and insisted that we take a tour; this place was insanely beautiful!

Even down to the bathrooms, lol...the craftsmanship of the place was incredible. There's not one nail in the structure!

He told us of the icons that were painted in a technique called egg tempera...where the yolk is extracted and combined with ground pigment. The stuff is quite permanent (he likened it to how hard it is to get it off when a house/car is egged, lol)...but everything within the icons has a deep traditional meaning, or just meaning period. For instance, if you see the shades of red on the Bible, that actually came from the red clay they dug up when they broke ground for the foundation. Pretty savvy, eh?

Had to admire the talent and care that went into it! We finished up the tour, did an outfit switcheroo and got back out there. Is it lame that I really liked those chairs?

Aaaaaaand FAVORITE!!

Twas a pleasure girl!! Now I expect no grief in the lunch-line! ;-)

Cousins | Shari & Emily

So I've always kinda thought it was more or less awesome when cousins did shoots together. Being one that didn't really grow up with cousins my own age, it's always a fascination =P And crazy coincidence, the girls' assistant dean here, Emily, was about to get a visit from her cousin, who was none other than an acquaintance I'd made the year before, Shari!

Shari happened to be one of the student missionaries on the island of Majuro when I went back to visit! I'd served a somewhat rocky year there as a missionary from 07-08, and went back in the summer of '10 to see my kids graduate =) The SMs there took me in like family and I seriously had the time of my life with them. Seeing my students and having the fantastic company of all of them was just insanely great for my soul. And as any past SM knows, there's that common thread that gets woven into you when you come back like war veterans and can strike up any conversation with any SM.

ANYhow, I was super stoked to do a session for them...it was pretty awesome catching up with Shari, and it was really cool to get to know Em better =)

Hahah, they definitely kept it interesting...

Lol, inside joke...







Very cool story about this blanket (the quilted one)...Emily's grandmother made this for her for when she first went off to academy. She made one for Shari too when SHE went off to academy, just in different colors. How cool is that?







Another of their favorites (and mine too, not gonna lie...I totally would've partook, had it not been freezing out, lol), mint chocolate-chip ice-cream! They both love it and apparently make enough of a habit eating it whenever they get together that they wanted a picture with it =P

It's been a pleasure, beautiful ladies! Had a BLAST!