For the LOVE of Photography!

Well, I recently decided I am NOT getting any younger and I better find something in life that I am really passionate about. I have always loved photography and editing programs. I almost majored in graphic design in college, but thought I should stick to an emphasis I would use, HA which is ironic since I have not done ANYTHING with Public Affairs my entire professional career. I guess when we look back there are always things we would change, oh well!

Anyways, we purchased our 1st Digital SLR camera almost a year ago. After my husband did months of research (he does this with any large gadget purchase) we decided on a Nikon D90. My best friend has the same camera and loves it. I was busy planning a wedding, buying a house and working a full-time job, so I didn't jump into messing with the camera right away. My firefighter on the other hand was kind of obsessed with our new toy!! He was reading all about how to use it. He was taking all kinds of pictures. Since he loved it so much, I bought him a 50mm 1.4 lens for Christmas and his grandma bought him the program Photoshop CS5. As you could imagine he was stoked!

The next few months flew by and I hardly ever picked up the camera. I was so fascinated with photography though as we went through the wedding process. We had booked some AMAZING photographers. You can visit there website here www.palosstudio.com. They are wonderful. So sweet and very talented.

The wedding passed and I found more time on my hands. I decided to get more acquainted with the camera we purchase. I started reading blogs, books, etc. Then I found the website Pinterest... Oh my was I in trouble. This website is amazing on so many levels. I started seeing all of these adorable newborn pictures. I have always been a tad obsessed with babies... My husband is probably in trouble haha. After seeing this I started doing some research. I found a local photographer Jen Gagliardi Photography was hosting a Newborn Photography Workshop. I was intrigued. I asked my husband if he was up for me spending the money on the class. Being as supportive as he of my dream (probably since he has about as much interest in it as I do) he said YES! YAY!

I took the class last weekend and OH MY I am officially hooked. I have found my dream job. I love photography and babies of course. I have gained the confidence to go ahead and pursue my dream. My wedding photography has even offered for me to tag along with them to learn more... What a amazing opportunity. Below are some of the pictures I have taken over the last week. I hope there are many more to come!!!

My 1st DIY Project....

Ok... So, I have been struggling with how exactly I can decorate on a budget. Being in our house a little over 5 months, I should be further along then I am. I feel like I am wandering aimlessly through all of the local decorating stores... Michael's, Home Goods, Tai Pan Trading without ANY luck. I leave each store and think to myself how on earth am I not finding anything?! I think the main problem is I am cheap and can't bring myself to buy anything I feel is over priced.

This left me with only one option. Try and make some of the stuff I have around the house work for me. Which left me taking baby steps towards DIY projects. The project I decided to tackle first was our bedroom lamps. I new I wanted to accent the room with a teal color and I knew our lamps had to go or be spruced up... I bought a can of light blue spray paint from Walmart and my project was under way. Unfortunately, I had a few stumbles along the way. I will start by showing you exactly what our lamps look like before.

Before

Ok... So after I did the prep work, I was off and spray painting. I felt like a baby taking my very first steps. I was stumbling along the way and covering myself with more spray paint then the lamp. After the 1st coat of paint, I realized I was not IN LOVE with my product. The color wasn't right, so I thought I will paint them a different color... Maybe ivory?! This caused an even bigger mess then I expected. The paint was not compatible with the original blue I painted on the lamp. Who knew paints could not be compatible?! Not ME, but I sure do know now. ;) Below is a picture of what I was left with... I was panicking at this point thinking my husband will never let me do another DIY project if I can't fix this.

During...Not LOVING what I was getting!

 

 

 

Oops!!!! That doesn't look right. I did the unthinkable and admitted I was at a loss and needed some assistance. I asked my husband to help me. He said I could sand it down and paint it again. Thank goodness. This was news to my ears. I ran to Home Depot, bought some sand paper and a new spray paint. I was in the process of recovering the mess I made. It turned out to look just like I had hoped. With new lamp shades and beautiful new paint. Our room is really starting to look more and more like what I was expected.

AFTER... SOOOOO Cute!

I am officially HOOKED. I will now becoming obsessed with revamping the little details around the house. Of course, I will still have to add new items to the mix since I have never had to furnish a entire house before, so I am in need of more materials. Anyways, it will be a fun process. I am starting to really enjoy the decorating process.

Too Close For Comfort!

When you marry into the Fire Family you are never thinking that you will be the one to experience the reality of the job. Unfortunately, this past month I got a taste of what that reality could be.  On September 3rd a typical Saturday, I received a call that shook me to my core. Being the football fan I was, I  had jumped at the chance to tag along with my friend to the USC football game for the day while my firefighter worked an overtime shift. About 10 minutes after arriving in Los Angeles (roughly a hour from home without any traffic) I saw an unfamiliar number calling me. I hesitated for a moment and thought about not answering...Who would be calling me from a 559 area code?! I answered and on the other line I heard...

"Jessica? This is Dustin Griffin... I work with your husband!" At this moment I thought... I wonder why he is calling me? He proceeded to tell me that they had an accident during a training and they were transporting my husband to the local emergency room. They said they had a wall collapse and and that they wanted me to stay calm and not drive fast... My brain began to race. I don't have a car of my own.. I am over an hour away from him, what was I going to do? My first instinct was to call my little sister. She was probably shocked to hear the calmness in my voice ( I have never been known as a clam individual) as I began to give her the details of the accident. Not knowing much myself... I knew he had a broken finger and a possible back injury. What did this mean for him? Only being 28 and so early into his career a back injury could be career ending and possibly life changing. All I knew is I needed to get to him as fast as I could. They had put him on speaker phone and he just kept saying "DRIVE SAFE." I knew he wasn't remembering it was a Saturday and that I was in LA for the football game. My little sister without hesitation offered to drive out to pick me up... She hoped into her car and drove right over to our life-long friends house (The Hartman's). They were in route to pick me up. This meant it would be over 2 hours before I was to my husband. My head was spinning... How could I get to him faster? If I could only fly... As I made call after call my good friend began to see the fear in my eyes and offered to drive my right to the hospital.

The whole ride home I just kept replaying the call in my head. Where were they training? What kind of wall collapsed on him? At a moment like this it is almost like the world stands still. I was lucky enough to know my husband was conscious and was able to communicate with me. This gave me a sense of ease while I was trying to get to him. God truly gave me strength to stay calm in a time that I didn't know what to do. It is amazing the strength and protection he can give us in a time like this.  As I began to speak to more and more people I became aware that my husband wasn't the only injury. Captain Griffin was injured as well. He had been airlifted to Loma Linda University. I was hearing he possibly had 2 broken legs. Being relatively new to the department, I am not too familiar with all of the wives. As we drove I began to get text message after text message. It was fellow firefighter wives checking up on me to see how we were doing. I was overcome with feelings of support. We haven't been in the department long and they were all lending out their love and support. I was beginning to see exactly what they meant by a "Fire Family." I was so eager to get to my husband's side. To find out what really happened?

I entered the hospital to find my sister and good friend waiting in the emergency waiting room. It was so nice to have familiar faces there for us. I quickly ran back into the room. There he was. My everything laying in the emergency room hospital bed. As soon as I arrived the doctor came into the room with was probably the best news. There were no broken bones in his back and the only injury he really saw was the broken finger and what he was saying was a bruised back. This was amazing news. My firefighter would still be able to live out his dream of working as a firefighter. Our concerns then began to focus on Captain Griffin. Being close to retirement and having bi-lateral fractures of both legs meant a very long road to recovery. Our thoughts and prayers immediately went out to his family. What a close call our fire department had during such a routine training. It was something that none of planned on happening. It was a close call and we are all so thankful that the injuries weren't worse.

It has now been a few weeks since the accident has passed. My firefighter is still on light duty and counting down the days until he can go back to work on the engine. He misses his crew and his normal duties. He was blessed to be able to get this time to heal, but will be happy to be back to work. We are so thankful for everyone that was so supportive during the days after the accident. We truly love our fire family and would not change anything for the world.

Testing My Learning Skills...

Oh my goodness.... What have I gotten myself into?! I am trying to tackle a skill I established back in college. Editing photos in Photoshop! I remembered that this semester long class on this one program was hard, but what I didn't realize that 6 years later I have NOT retained any of the information. I am searching and searching online to try and spark some sort of remembrance of this challenging yet so useful program... HELP me anyone that has a good resource. I am tempted to enroll myself into a class. I have been exploring the idea of taking a photography class as well... Maybe I should add this to the mix as well... I am starting to feel very very defeated. I will hopefully one day be back to the level I was in college!

Summer Nights

As the summer is rapidly coming to an end.. honestly how can this be?! It seems like once you have big person obligations... jobs, bills, etc the summers seem to FLY by. Either way... we have really enjoyed the summer nights this year. For some reason our neighborhood is a breeding ground for 100's of frogs. I think that is the cutest thing. They are all over the front and back yard. I just loves escaping out into the yard (I say escaping as I have to do this without Duke seeing) to watch the cute little frogs hop all around. It makes me sad to think in no time this little night time ritual will be gone until next summer is upon us. I know most people would find this reptiles to be an annoyance, but I just LOVE them.

I have to constantly keep my eyes on that little stinker of  a yorkie-poo. He just LOVES the frogs in a very different way. He wants to eat, play, chase these poor little guys. He is unbelievable sly when it comes to catching the poor little guys. He is constantly being punished for having a frog in his mouth. As I mentioned in my last post... He is extremely smart and stubborn. He doesn't seem to forget ANYTHING.... He will sit at the back door for hours waiting for his chance to go catch a frog.  Either way... I am sad that in no time these precious little animals taking over our yard will be gone.  I keep meaning to catch one and give one to my friend (I often call her wonder women). She is a mother of 4 boys 4 and under. She is an amazing mother and I know that her boys would just love having a pet frog. I better get on this fast, since summer is rapidly fading.

A Man's Best Friend!

For some a man's best friend his childhood pal or even his best college buddy. In our household it is a 6 pound on a bad day 7 pound Yorkie-Poo. Yes, he is one "big" ball of energy. Many might ask how can something so small be A.) so much work and B.) such a joy to have around the house? Well, let me try to explain... It might take many posts to truly understand all of the TROUBLE I mean joy this little guys brings to our lives...

It was roughly a year and half ago when my firefighter (just my boyfriend at the time) and I went looking at 7 adorable Yorkie-Poo puppies. It was just a spur of the moment sort of thing. We never planned on placing a deposit on a puppy that evening. Before we knew it we were sitting in a room with 7 of the tiniest puppies you have ever seen running around us. My heart was set on the smallest of the bunch. A sweet little girl. She was marked differently then the rest of the puppies. She looked like she would have a much lighter face then the rest of the crew. She was running around and would come when you called her. She was just adorable. My firefighter on the other hand was dead set on having a boy if we were to get any puppies at all. Being that he came from an all BOY house. His mother raised 3 boys all within 4 years of each other. Along with the 4 boys they had raised 3 different BOY poodle dogs over the years. After the loss of their latest dog SPARKY, who the boys still talk about! ( I refer to them as boys like they are not 3 grown men by now) my firefighter always seemed to want another buddy. Well, his wish was coming true. I utilized my strong sells skills I have obtained over 6 years in the outside sales industry. It really wasn't that hard of a sell as I could see he was becoming attached to this very loyal little boy that was sitting to calmly at his feet (I emphasize calmly as I am certain that he was pulling a fast one on us, as this was the last time this Yorkie-Poo was ever calm). No matter when my firefighter moved in the room this little boy followed him... It looked as though no matter which puppy I had my heart set on that this little guy had his heart set on my firefighter. We went back and forth with each other saying... Should we?! This is a BIG commitment. Not only in our relationship, but in our everyday lives. We did not live together and had no plan to prior to being married. Who would keep this little guy everyday? Who would be the one training him? We both new I would be keeping him and I would be the one with him everyday. Me being the softy I am this could be a HUGE problem when it came to training... We decided to take a giant leap and place an 100 dollar deposit on the loyal little buddy that kept sitting at my firefighter's feet.

It would be almost 2 weeks before the little guy was ready to come home. It was Friday evening and we were sitting in traffic to pick up our little puppy! He was just so sweet laying in my lap the whole way home. The precious little teddy bear face. How could he ever cause any trouble?! Well, boy was I wrong... Over the next few months this little face got into all kinds of trouble!!

Duke.. 6 Weeks Old! He is about as big as my hand :)

We went round and round about what his name should be... I was set on Maverick! Don't ask me why... It just seemed cute. My firefighter was set on a much shorter and rather funny name being that he was going to be SO small. As you can see... He was officially named Duke on the night we brought him home (to his 1st of many homes over the course of a year and a half). Little did we know that there wouldn't have been a better name for him. He might have weighed roughly a pound the next morning when he went for his checkup... but his personality was much larger then a pound. He was the 1st of the 7 puppies to leave his mom and I am certain that he wasn't at all sad. He never looked back. He must have known the he just struck GOLD. Being that I come for a HUGE pet family. I was just a sucker for him. He went to puppy training classes and once we (Duke & I) moved back to my mom's we even had a personal trainer come (possibly a waste of 3 Benjamin Franklins my firefighter would say). Oh well :) He has been such a fun little guy. You can often hear my firefighter call him his "little buddy" or my call him " my baby boy." No need to bother telling me that his nick name might change as soon as I as I have a baby of my own. As of right now he is "my baby." He is the smartest, most stubborn little buddy we could have ever added to the mix. He seems to fit both of our personalities and even on the worst day brings laughter to our lives. I love having this little black ball of fur running around the house, especially when my firefighter is off protecting others lives.  You will probably often hear me refer to him in my post as he is most likely getting into some sort of trouble each and every day! I wouldn't change it for the world and maybe one day I can talk my hubby into getting another one! Here's hoping :)

Duke... Needing to be groomed in this picture desperately!

A Year to Remember...

I should start by saying that I have been meaning to start blogging for WAY too long now. My initial thought was I will blog about the wedding planning process and then buying our first home. Obviously, neither of these happened since we are 4 months into our marriage and already living in our first home. So.. as many say better late then never! I will start by giving a brief recap of both of these life changing events. Here we go with the blogging...

What a year is has been for the NEW Johnson Family! It all started long before a year ago when we met through a mutual friend and soon after started on a journey that would forever change our lives. My firefighter asked me to marry him on July 31, 2010... Of course my answer was YES!!! We had been dating for 16 months at the time we were engaged. Being the typical hopelessly romantic girl, I was completely sucked into the wedding planning process. I think almost immediately the whole bride thing got the best of me... The dreams of the picture perfect wedding could now become a reality.  At one point in my life my dream job was to be a WEDDING PLANNER. As you could imagine planning my own wedding was the perfect side job for me.  I LOVED every process of the wedding planning (expect of course the waiting for the actual day to come).

In addition to planning our wedding, my firefighter and I thought why not try and buy our first home  at the same time? Being that my soon to be hubby was still living with his parents and I had recently moved back home to save money for the BIG day... We had to decide where we would be starting our lives as soon as we said the I Do's. We both came to the agreement that we did not want to waste any money on renting an apartment. This meant that we had to get on top of looking for a house. As you might have heard with the low interest rates and the even lower real estate prices we figured this was the perfect time to live "The America Dream" of owning our very own home. We started this process right around the holidays... With many heartaches and frustrations we had issue after issue with finding the PERFECT home. By "perfect" I mean the right price, location and being able to close in the right time frame. It seemed as we had every odd against us.. How could we really pull all of this off before the BIG day that was quickly approaching?! I kept telling myself, "God has a plan for us and if we are meant to own a home we will." Well, that was in fact true... We had found the PERFECT house months prior and we unfortunately a few days too late. The house had just opened escrow. BUMMER! Our agent decided that why not just put a backup offer in?! What will it hurt? With every other house we saw... We kept thinking of the house we called Purisima (because this was the street it was located on). I think just about when we had given up hope (I think which was about early to mid March). We were at dinner with our other love, our iPhone's, which I often wonder how on earth did I EVER live without an iPhone (sad I know). My firefighter looking once again at the updated MLS listings when blurted out... "Purisima is back on MLS!!!!!!!" What? How can this be? They were in escrow and we had a backup offer in. This triggered me to quickly dial our real estate agents number...

We patiently waited roughly 12 hours hear that yes in fact they had fallen out of escrow and they were accepting our backup offer. Our prayers had been answered. God did have it in his plans for us to live on our beloved Purisima house. Being that we were only like 45 days away from the wedding we were thrilled. Everything went as planned... We closed escrow on April 13, 2011. Exactly 10 days before were to be husband and wife. My firefighter was a little bummed that this only gave him 10 days to be a bachelor, as he was moving in before the wedding and I would move in after.  My firefighter quickly moved into what was our 1st home. Without me moving in yet we still managed to disagree how certain things should be... Like the infamous TRASH CAN disagreement (I will leave this for another post).

                            

 Either way we were SO excited to have one of the big hurdles out of the way... Now onto the last minute wedding details. I thought I had myself quite organized and put together. Boy was I wrong. It seemed like everything needed to be done in 2 days, while I was still working a full-time job. Fortunately, everything came together beautifully. We had an amazing wedding day. We were so thankful for our families (especially my mom) who made it all possible. It was everything we dreamed of and more. I found myself wanting the night to NEVER end. How can this day be over so quickly when I spent month and months planning?! Luckily we will forever have the beautiful pictures and memories to remind us of how we started our lives as husband and wife.

I have to say that it was quite the journey to finding the man of my dreams. It involved a lot of heartache and questions... Again, we have to remember that God has a plan for us and even though we never know what the plan is, we know that he knows best. He knew that all of those sleepless nights would be worth it in the long run. I am so thankful to have such an amazing man and companion in my life.  I cannot wait to see what else God has in store for us... It is a beautiful life and I am so grateful for all of our blessings!