(seniors) tory

tory is lovely. and beautiful. (as you can see from the pictures!) and smart. and just fantastic! we got up bright and early to do her senior portraits, which ended up being a great idea because the light was soft and gorgeous. :) it was so wonderful wandering around in the woods with her, hearing about her summer and her goals and thoughts for senior year and beyond. it's so strange to think that a year ago, i was standing in her shoes, and i'm so excited to see what God's going to do in her life over this next year! i know she's going to do an awesome job as a senior, especially as nhs prefect (represent!!). so without further ado, here's tory!

life is fast

it's late(ish), but i wanted to write a post becaause i need to write more posts!  life is so full and fast...i love and i hate it at the same time.  people have been asking me what i've been doing this summer and honestly, i can only remember 4ish major happenings off the top of my head, the rest is just a blur of busy days.  not that that's bad...i've absolutely loved and cherished all the little (and big) moments i've been blessed to have with my family and my friends. :) (love you guys!) i've just been struck recently with the immensity of life.  i'm on the brink of a huge change and although i'm scared to death of what's coming up next, i'm also excited out of my mind to see what God has in store and how He's going to just be His incredibly mind-blowing self.  yay!  i have exactly 23 days until i leave and i want to cherish and live completely in every single second of them.  and then continue to live fully and completely in every single second of every single day from that point on.  life is such a huge blessing and i'm completely overwhelmed by mine.  the big stuff is so important, but here's to the little details that make the journey so much deeper and incredible.  and because posts are so much better with pictures, here's a moment i caught of one of my little buddies blowing bubbles....so much love!!

// as a segway off of that whole life is crazy busy thing, i have 6 senior portrait shoots to do that i'm super excited about!! yay!! so stay tuned for more beautiful senior-ness to come soon... //

(seniors) elisa

elisa.is.gorgeous.  it's the absolute truth.  seriously, absolutely no lie.  just look at the pictures and you'll be thinking, "wow, this girl is so beautiful!"  elisa is one of the most naturally pretty people i've had the pleasure of knowing.  we did a lot of laughing during our portrait shoot, which was absolutely fabulous.  personally, i'm a huge fan of laughing.  my sister once upon a time sent me this graphic that  said "not being able to finish a sentence because your laughing so hard about the ending."  there is the possibility that might happen quite often...but i just love laughing!  anyways, there was a lot of laughing in our time together because she's just so wonderful and apparently, i'm just that funny (as proved by my senior shoot with sam)!!  in actuality, it was probably so laughter-y because ashlee (aka my sister, elisa's bffl) came along for the ride and to make the portrait shoot even more fun and great!  so, thank you elisa for being so fab and drop-dead gorgeous and laughter-y.  and thank you ashlee, for being so lovely and entertaining and laughter-y (oh and shout out to ashlee because it was her birthday on the 4th and she is now a full year older! represent! hehe).  you both are simply wonderful and i think we got a little bit of gorg-type action going on here. ;)

(seniors) sam

i don't tell good jokes. at all. actually, i can't tell jokes. tired smiles need laughter to brighten them up, so i tried my luck today... "uuumm what did the living room...say to the...bathroom...??" "uuh i don't know tori, what?" "uuum...nothing! ...because they can't talk!" yes. it's true. that was the exact dialogue.  so sam, i apologize for my lame--actually non-existent--joke-telling skills, thank you for your sympathy laughter.  but despite my super fun jokes, we had an awesome first senior portrait session!

sam loves history.  you'd know that from 10 minutes of talking to him, and he definitely incorporated special historical sites in our adventure.  he's also the school yearbook's junior editor (represent pubby!), and i've had an awesome time working with him over the past couple years taking pictures, editing copy, and going insane. haha  he was comfortable in front of the camera even from the beginning, which was awesome for me and i think shows in the pictures!  enjoy!

sam was, as usual, super prepared with a bunch of options for what to wear and accessories.

this one is so sam...

this is sam's "attitude"...we had fun with that one haha

showin' of da bling! ow ow!

gosh the light on the library steps was incredible...

this one's my absolutely favorite!

he's meant to be a model...showing off the book drop haha

i'm thinking future politician? it's definitely a possibility...

we had a little bit of difficulty getting on and off this wall...whoopse...

aaand just to prove my excellent joke-telling skills, here's his reaction to a particularly stunning joke...