Their Story

{The latest installment in my Memories series}

Happy Valentine's Day! I'm not a big fan of the "holiday", but because I couldn't hold off posting my parent's love story any longer, I thought today would be the perfect day to share. :)

So, to begin at the beginning: my dad is a native Norwegian. My mom is American. My mom's family moved to his hometown just outside Stavanger in early 1969 because of my grandfather's job (he was a lifelong international rep for Pratt & Whitney, a company my uncle and aunt both went on to work for). My dad became good friends with my uncle, Karl, and spent a lot of time at the family's house because of it. Like Karl's fifteenth birthday, for example:

(Don't you just love dad's bitchin' frilly shirt? He looks so much like Lars does in this picture, it's scary. That's my mom on the left.)

My dad was one of the coolest kids in school - he rode a motorcycle, threw parties, dated as many girls as possible and charmed all his teachers while doing so.

A year later the family moved back to the States, but not before my mom told my dad, "Wait for me to grow up so we can get married, okay?"

She was ten, my dad was sixteen.

And true to 16-year-old manhood, he said, "Yeah, sure, kid."

Ten years later...

It's now January 1980. My dad and uncle have stayed really good friends despite living on different continents, and now that my uncle is getting married my dad has flown to Bombay Mumbai to be his best man (Karl's first wife is half Indian, half English).

My mom and grandmother fly in from Connecticut and my dad goes with Karl to pick them up. The way he tells it, when he saw his best friend's baby sister for the first time in many years, "That was pretty much it for me." You know it's love when someone falls for you after you've been traveling for 18 hours, right?

Which makes these photos they took of each other while they were still in Bombay all the more meaningful:

From there on out, dad courted mom relentlessly. Long distance calls (a big deal in those days!), visits, flowers, etc. He was certain he'd found The One. My mom wasn't sure yet - she was only 21, and she'd have to move to Norway because my dad had a great job with Mobil Oil, which would mean giving up riding and training her beloved Arabian horses:

But how could she resist this face?

They spent more and more time together though...

And by November that same year, she had long since caved and they were engaged!

They were married in 1981. On April 25 they'll be celebrating thirty years together. I'm so thankful for their amazing example of a beautiful and hard-working marriage. Happy almost-anniversary!!

But seriously, who gets to marry their childhood crush?

xo

Jennifer & Josh & Co.

I was lucky enough to have the chance to photograph Jennifer and Josh last month, in order for them to have some photos to mix in with their slideshow for their upcoming wedding (they're getting hitched on Halloween, how cool is that?). I met these two awesome people through Eirik and Roseann, and we bonded immediately over puppy love - they've had Pee Wee (short for Peter Weiner), a daschund, for several years now, and then brought home Philip (daschund mix) late last year. Such fun loving pups! Of course they had to be part of the session. :)

So we headed over to Fullerton one very hot afternoon and spent some time at Hillcrest Park and wandering around downtown. All they had to do to look good was smile, so they made it very easy on me.

Here's some of my favorites (to see more, go here):

Hooray for sunflare!

Pee Wee was a natural! And only a little bit of a scene stealer.

Stop. Cuddle time.

Like Jennifer said, totally 90210 right? But I still love it.

This is what happens when I ask people to give me Blue Steel:

He's got heart.

Fierce!!

I know, I'm jealous of her eyelashes too:

By that time the heat had taken its toll on us and the pups, so we called it a wrap.

J & J, I know everything is going to go perfectly for you guys this weekend, but I'm sending you happy thoughts anyways. And Jennifer, you're my hero for pulling off a wedding while finishing up your masters - good luck next week! Can't wait to see the wedding photos!

xo

Engaged!

I couldn't be happier to share that my gorgeous older cousin Sarah is now engaged!! We all love Jim and can't wait to call him a member of the family (although we basically already do). Somebody should warn him about all the nuts we have on our family tree though...

He proposed via frisbee, how cute is that?? They went to the dog park like they always do, on the premise that he'd gotten Sarah's dog Taj a new frisbee. But when Taj brought it back and dropped it in front of her, she noticed it had a photo of her and Jim glued to the front. When she picked it up and turned it over, there was the message: Will you marry me?

Then he gave the ring of her dreams, took her out to dinner and a hotel, and they lived happily ever after.

{And hopefully will let me take photos of them soon.}

The end.