the Chesney family

The Chesney family is an awesome family. We met up at Walnut Street Park in Cary for some pictures together earlier this month and had such a fabulous time. Joining three generations was an adventure and as we said our goodbyes that afternoon, I knew we were coming away with some great moments captured on my camera. :)

Here's our line up of the family. We've got Kevin, Phil, Ethan, Shannon & Gus, Lewis, little Mollee, Sharron, and Merilee. This first picture is a great one of the whole fam together followed by a silly-face portrait. :) I love families that can be goofy together.


Here are some great pictures of Shannon, Kevin, and their awesome dog, Gus. I'm pleased to report that Gus did extremely well for his portraits with the fam. :) Shannon and Kevin weren't half bad themselves! haha


Merilee and Phil wanted some pictures with their little ones, Mollee and Ethan. We had some fun times on the lawn together and got some great pictures of their family and then also some fun ones of just Mollee and Ethan together. I loved how Mollee and Ethan started playing with the big leaves Merilee found.


These next two pictures are really great of Sharron and Lewis and then with their grankids joining together for some picture fun.


After we finished with the family portraits out in the grass, we took Mollee and Ethan over to the playground to have some fun, and hopefully I could capture some fun moments on my camera.

These first couple are Mollee climbing up this cable structure -- haha...I'm sure it's probably got some sort of an actual name...but I don't know what it is! :)

She was a climbing animal because she made it up to the top in just a few short minutes!


Ethan had a great time on the swings. The bucket swings were already occupied, but he didn't hesitate to jump on one of these swings! Way to go, Ethan!


I asked Mollee if I could take a more close up picture of her and she was great. When I showed it to her on my camera's preview screen, she said she didn't like it because her body wasn't in the picture...but I love this one. :) I'm a big fan of close up pictures.


These last few of Ethan and Mollee are from them playing on the slide together. They started sliding individually, but then they teamed up and Mollee would go down the slide holding Ethan in her lap. It was so adorable. You can really tell how much they like each other and how much they enjoy playing together.

the Hodgson family

I was pretty excited when Courtney and Brad told me they'd like me to take some family portraits again for them this year. Because we've been friends for so long, it's always a treat to meet up and take pictures together. :)

Another reason why this year's family portraits were a treat is that Courtney is pregnant with their second child! Little Caed has just a couple more months before he has a little sister in the house. :)

Last year we met up in September to take pictures of Courtney, Brad, and their little boy Caed and we had a blast at Fletcher Park near downtown.

This year, we waited a little longer to get some great fall color on the trees and met up in November at the farmstead and pecan grove in Historic Oak View County Park. It was my first time at the park and is now a great one to add to my list of great parks for pictures!

Here are a handful of pictures from our afternoon together. This first group of pictures is from the gazebo and the front steps of the main house at the park. It was great capturing pictures of Brad, Courtney, and Caed all having fun together.


This next group is some adorable pictures of Brad and Caed and then Courtney and Caed. We decided that Courtney's best pictures are when she's acting like a complete goofball with Caed. haha :)


These next two are cute ones with Caed giving his mommy a kiss on her nose and then her cheek. I love how Courtney turned her head to glance over at me in the second picture.


These next pictures are great ones of Courtney, Brad, and Caed together. This first one definitely one of my favorite pictures from the day.

I like the length in the picture because Brad is so tall already and Caed just adds to his height. And I love how Brad's looking at me, while Caed and Courtney are stealing a smile at each other. I also love Courtney's belly in the picture. While she's pretty far along in her pregnancy, her belly seems to be hidden in a lot of the pictures we took because she's either holding Caed or he's sitting in front of her.


I'll close us out with some awesome pictures of just Caed. He's got such great blue eyes!

Brittany & Eddie

Brittany and Eddie grew up in historic Beaufort on the coast of North Carolina and Amaree and I were absolutely thrilled to come to Beaufort for their wedding. Their wedding day was on a crisp fall day with beautiful bright Carolina blue skies. :)

All of the wedding day festivities were in downtown Beaufort, which made it such a wonderful day seeing the town. St. Paul's Episcopal Church is Eddie's family church and it dates back to 1857. The church (inside and out) was absolutely breathtaking.


Before heading to the reception at Eddie's grandfather's house on Front Street facing the water front, we took some pictures of the newly married couple together. These next few pictures are just outside St. Paul's Church, as well as sitting on one of the pews inside.


The reception was a fabulous evening at Eddie's grandfather's house on the water front. It is an amazing house and I think describing it as a house is a bit of an under statement! I heard that Eddie's grandmother used to love throwing parties at the house, so it was great to have his grandfather host their wedding reception!

Brittany and Eddie's first dance together was beautiful to watch. You could really see how happy they each were to swirl around in each others arms in front of all their family and friends. :)



The wedding cake was classic and looked so beautiful up on the porch of Eddie's grandfather's house. Even as the lights dimmed throughout the night, the cake looked amazing.

Amaree and I always wonder what's going to happen when the bride and groom cut the wedding cake. Will they play nice when feeding pieces to each other, or will they smear wedding cake all over each other?

We had our guesses about Brittany and Eddie and when it came time to cut the cake, they definitely had a fun time smearing it all over each others' faces!

The reception was a massive dance party the whole night through, largely in part to the awesome cover songs being played by tHE.DESIGN! It was amazing how packed the dance floor was throughout the evening and members of the band would jump down and mix in with the wedding guests...it was great!

Here are some pictures of each of the members of tHE.DESIGN.


I always love sparklers. Brittany and Eddie's sparklers were such a perfect way for their wedding guests to send them off to their honeymoon. Here is a fun picture of the happy couple making their way through the line of sparklers!