A little more about me, and a bit of reminiscing.

If you are reading this blog, you are probably trying to learn more about two things: my business, or me.  Or possibly, both.  Generally, I just post about recent sessions or weddings that I’ve had.  Occasionally I post about a new giveaway or products I’m offering.  But today I’ve decided to show you a little bit of where I live, and the town I live in.  And I’ve had some of these pictures on my computer for months, and my family hasn’t even seen them.

A couple years ago, my husband (then boyfriend) had the opportunity to buy a machine shop in the little town of Soldiers Grove.  Heard of it?  I hadn’t, either.    I knew that I was in our relationship for the long haul, so I decided to buy a house in the area so we could be closer.  Ben and I house hunted together for a while, and we finally found this house in nearby Gays Mills, and knew we had to have it:

So we bought it.  And since I was still in school in Madison at the time, I just stayed in Madison during the week and drove home on the weekends.  Fast forward a little bit.  This past August, we were engaged, and had a month to go until our wedding.  I was done with school and working in the nearby city of Viroqua.  Some of you may remember hearing about this from the news, but Gays Mills is located on the Kickapoo River, and suffered from a severe flood.  About 6AM on the morning of the flood, we were evacuated from our house.  We were lucky enough that our house was on high ground in the village so we got to wade out of our house with only minimal flooding in our yard.  Of course, it’s a wierd thing to see boats flooding in your front yard when you are half a mile from the river!  I was nervous the whole time we were evacuated.  Not only was our house potentially facing flood damage, but my wedding dress was on the first floor of our house! 

A few days later, we finally were able to return to our house.  The water made it into our entry way, but stopped about two feet shy of entering our brick house.  Since we don’t have a basement, we were truly lucky, and fared much better than many of our neighbors who still are not back in their flood-damaged houses, even 10 months after the flood. 

So here is a short slideshow of some of the damage.  Keep in mind that when we were evacuated, we had time to grab a change of clothes, and I grabbed a camera.  So these were taken the morning of the flood before it reached it’s peak, and also the next morning when we drove back to see if we could go to our home.  Some of the pictures show the flooding, and others show the mudslides that caused so much damage.  There were homes a few miles away that slide down the steep hills they were located on, to land in the middle of the highway. How’d you like to wake up to that?

Anyway, yesterday we took our dog, Shasta, and went for a walk with one of my cameras.  We walked down to the river, and the historic dam.  Gays Mills is such a cute little town, and is well known for the thousands of acres of apple trees located up on the “apple ridge”.  Economically, it’s suffering a bit, but we wanted to get some pictures of how quaint it is.  It is so beautiful here.  Every morning I drive to work and appreciate my commute.  How rare is that?   

Ben enjoys taking landscape and scenery pictures, while I enjoy taking pictures of people, so I’m sure you can guess who took each picture in the following slideshow.  But enjoy!

 

Jess and Zeke: take 2

This last weekend, some friends of ours drove from Madison to Gays Mills to come visit us.   While they were here, we snuck in a “quickie” engagement session, right before our trip to Vernon Vineyards for some wine sampling.   You may recognize Jess and Zeke from a previous session last winter (they wanted some springtime shots to compliment their winter ones), and some of you may even recognize Jess from my booth at the Bridal Expo in La Crosse in January.  They are getting married October of 2009, and I’ll be shooting their wedding in Madison. 

But in the meantime, they love having their pictures taken, so we’ve had some fun just hanging out.  Here is just a couple of our latest session.

Riverside Park with Emily and Nick

Not too long ago, I met Emily and Nick at Riverside Park in La Crosse, Wisconsin for some engagement photos.  We thought we had the perfect date and time: late afternoon on a Sunday.  It should have been quiet and peaceful… but when we got there, we found out there was a festival going on!  However, we pulled off an engagement session with ease.

I have to say that Nick paid me such a great compliment that it’s worth sharing.  At the end of our session, this guy who hates having his picture taken actually admitted: “That wasn’t so bad”.  So Nick….  thanks for the kind words!

Later this year I’ll be photographing their wedding at the Friendship Gardens in Riverside Park.  (For those of you unfamiliar with La Crosse, it’s a pretty park along the Mississippi River.)

 

Kate, Scott, and Starbucks.

This weekend I met Kate and Scott when we did their engagement pictures in Madison.  We met up at Starbucks, and that’s when I found out that they actually met at a Starbucks a couple years ago.  So it’s safe to say that they are both pretty big fans of Starbucks.  In fact, they are even giving away coffee beans as their wedding favors!  I thought that was particularly cute. 

 

Anyway, we’d been watching the weather all week to see if it would cooperate, and aside from a couple raindrops, it was absolutely perfect.  The natural light was amazing!

 

We hit up some great locations for photos: a park on the lake, Edgewood College, and the soccer field near West Towne Mall.  We had wanted to get some at the Union and Capitol, but with the UW graduation that day, decided not to fight crowds.  Regardless, the photos are excellent (well, I think so, anyway!). 

 

Oh, and Scott graduates from Edgewood today… Congratulations!

Enjoy!

 

Dodging wind, rain, and trains: Ty and Josh

Last week I met Ty and Josh in Ferryville, Wisconsin along the Mississippi River.  We got some great engagement photos at the marina, and along the railroad tracks.  Maybe you’ll notice that in one of the pictures, we caught the train moving behind them.  It’s a pretty neat shot!

 

After Ferryville, we drove a few miles over to Lansing, Iowa to get some pictures with the really neat bridge crossing the river. 

 

You’ll probably notice how windy it was- I added in a picture of Ty with some pretty crazy hair.  And that rain!  It would start, then stop, then start again.  Luckily it stopped for most of the session, but it was pretty iffy for a while! 

 

I’ll be photographing their wedding in November at The Roth House Bed and Breakfast in Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin.  I’m really looking forward to it.  That place is seriously amazing- it’s a century old Victorian house that has been renovated to include modern amenities such as three extra bathrooms.  They did such a great job on the place that all the new stuff looks like it’s supposed to be there.  I’m pretty partial to that historic house because I sold it to the Roths back in my real estate agent days. 

 

Ty and Josh- Best wishes!  Thanks for letting me share such a special time in your lives! Your pictures are posted on my site, www.iodphotography.com, under Client Galleries.