Boston in November | A Personal Post

If you already know me well, you know I grew up in Boston, MA and moved to Jacksonville when I was thirteen years old. It was a huge adjustment and I'll be honest...I was not a fan of Florida when we came here. It was a completely different in every way and I just wasn't loving it. Of course I spent my teen years into my twenties here and it grew on me. I learned to drive here, made lifelong friends here, found my hubby, made my business. Needless to say I love it now but Boston is still my second home and I visit at least once a year to see my dad and other family members. If I'm able to make it up there twice a year I will. 

I'm usually bad at taking pictures for myself on trips or special events in my own life. I find it tedious to shoot things "for me" since I'm always working with my camera "for work". So I'm working on changing that. I made it a point this trip to carry my camera everywhere I could and break in my new 25mm 2.8 lens (which I'm pretty obsessed with now) and I'm so glad I did. Below are some of my favorite pictures taken on our adventures in Massachusetts, November 6th-10th and all of them were taken with my 25mm.  

Special moments ;)

Visiting my grandpa's grave.

Lunch with Ben, my dad and my uncle. Always fun.

The adventures of my dad making pancakes. With various hats.

Horseback riding on a three mile trail at Bobby's Ranch in Acton, MA. I've been going here since I was four and it looks exactly the same. Love this place. 

Visiting my Yia Yia's burial site.

Boston bombing site. Still under major construction. It was extremely hard to stand there in person.

Faneuil Hall in Boston

Cristy trying clam chowder (or chowdah) for the first time. She approved!

Bathroom in Harvard Square

The Preza Family | Jacksonville Family Photographer

I adore the Preza family. Jessie contacted me over two years ago just as a client (and fellow photog!) who needed family pictures and after we worked together for their session we became friends and even closer as time went on. Jessie was the one who designed our wedding invitations and all our amazing paper goods at our wedding and I'm still obsessed with them to this day. She is such a talent with photographer (I love love love her interior work so much), web and paper design as well as her venture with her hubby and kids called Salty Kidz! Such a great idea and for a good cause. Check out their website for it here: www.saltykidz.com 

Here is a quick sneak peak of a few shots I did of their family session yesterday. We didn't have ideal lighting, it was in the 40 degree range and windy but we made it work. They are such a beautiful family, that really, I couldn't go wrong :)

Our Wedding Featured On Style Me Pretty! | A Personal Post

It's hard to believe it has been a year (and three days) since Ben and I had our wedding. And what a wedding it was. Seriously, it was more than we could have hoped for and the love felt that day by one another and everyone else we love so much is just something you never forget. Best. Day. Ever. We celebrated our anniversary with a relaxing day and then dinner in St. Augustine together. To top it all off, Style Me Pretty Florida featured our wedding today on their gorgeous blog! Great way to end the anniversary week if I do say so myself. 

See our feature on SMP here:

http://www.stylemepretty.com/florida-weddings/2013/11/05/diy-vintage-wedding-at-the-mathis-house-from-the-reason/

Photo by: The Reason (www.thereasonilove.com)

Amy + Coral | Jacksonville Portrait Photographer

Amy is one of my best friends and to put it simply she's pretty amazing and I'm so grateful to have her in my life. When she wanted to do a session with her pooch, Coral - I was excited and knew both of these beauties would make for a fun and pretty session at the beach. Of course, I want every session I shoot to be fabulous but when I shoot for friends, I want it to be even more amazing (whatever that means?) for them! She loves them so I suppose I succeeded ;) 

Enjoy this little sneak preview their session!

Goodbye October, Hello November! | A Personal Post

October was a crazy month that I had to mentally prepare myself for not only for work but all the other things going on....you know in my life too. But October is now done and we are now saying "Hello, November!"

One wedding, thirteen sessions + a mini session marathon, along with all the other happenings made for a very fun filled and eventful month with amazing clients, friends, family and festivities.

So I had a thought. I want to start a monthly "recap" blog entry documenting more of my life and what is happening behind the lens. You can get to know me a bit more and see what goes on when I'm not shooting! This will only be a monthly thing! I want to keep the focus of the blog on photography and the business but thought this would be a nice little addition. 

So with that said..take a peak at what my October looked like with my many Instagram shots. I am literally the laziest person to shoot things in my own life with my camera.

 It's awful and I'm working on it ;)

Rachael and I went to go see City and Colour + The Paper Kites perfrom.

We did the Color Me Rad 5k. It was pretty rad.

Went to a Magic's Game, started planning our epic New Years Eve party (Gatsby style!) and met little Reagan who one of my past brides and grooms; Kelly + Jason (and awesome friends!) welcomed into the world this month.

I tried on my wedding dress again for the first time since the wedding last year. You know..a normal Thursday night in the Halvorsen household.

I went blonder and back to my token bangs I always get whenever it gets cooler here in Florida. Wearing these in the summer is not an option people.

I welcomed this new little one into the the WHP family. I was nerdy excited about it and will be breaking her in on our trip to Boston in November.

We celebrated Stasia's golden birthday (25 on the 25th!) and I discovered a red wine I actually like.

Amy and I did some grilling. We are grill masters. Obviously.

We celebrated our good friend, Paige's birthday and going away party for being deployed in November. We love her and will miss her so much while she's gone. She is so strong and brave.

Ben and I started off the week of our anniversary seeing Michael Bublé. He puts on the most AMAZING show. Seriously so good. Oh and he's hilarious.

We carved some pumpkins. An owl and a minion of course.

Then Halloween happened and October was suddenly over already. We did "Day of the Dead" and I attempted makeup I never have before. Milo was a hot dog yet again this year. He does not approve.