Category potpourri

Destination: Funville 01.22.10

aka Spring­field, VA.

Social net­wor­king is the stran­gest thing. 

In 1998 I took my first plane trip ever to Syra­cuse, NY to visit a friend at SU. I sta­yed with him in his ‘frat house’. There I met Robyn. She was viva­cious and fabu­lous and she taught me how to drink Cider­Jack (like a champ). We sta­yed in touch via email & AIM for a little while but as with most things the con­tact dwindled.

Some­time about 5 years ago, when mys­pace was still cool, I thought I’d search her. With a very uni­que last name I was sure I’d found her and we exchan­ged OMG’s.

Mys­pace was never my favo­rite. It was too hard to do/​see/​be. Then came face­book. We frien­ded. She announ­ced she was enga­ged. I jokingly pim­ped myself out. Novem­ber 2009, I get a mes­sage, asking if I was serious and would I tra­vel to the DC area to shoot her wed­ding. In January?!

y.e.s.

So after my whirl­wind second half of 2009 I caught my breath, pac­ked my bags, and boar­ded a fight to this des­ti­na­tion wed­ding. Only I would have a des­ti­na­tion wed­ding in DC in January. I didn’t care, I was SO exci­ted. It was also the first time ever I’d taken a trip com­ple­tely alone. (yes, I was 31. sheesh)

I made it in one piece! Flight, Lug­gage, Metro, Shuttle, Hotel, Rehear­sal! (Des­ti­na­tion wed­ding fact: If the tra­vel plans inc­lude me arri­ved and sett­led by the time of your rehearsal/​dinner — I’m there & shoo­ting as a bonus!)

The wed­ding was taking place at the Mason Dis­trict Park Amphithea­ter and after a somewhat … loud & glee­ful reu­nion in the hotel lobby we hea­ded off. 

The boys

The pro­ces­sion 

The girls. 

The din­ner. Which was at a chi­nese res­tau­rant which had the best ever ‘beef candy’ I’ve ever had. Ever. I have no idea what it was but I still want it at least twice a month. 

Argh! Delinquent blog­ger stri­kes again. I know that I took this pic­ture on the left with pur­pose, there was a story. But.. uh… Bueller? 

The bride and groom. I think this is the for bet­ter or worse before and after. HAHA ;)

By the time I left I was SO exci­ted for the wed­ding. This small sam­pling of their loved ones & friends and family was so ama­zing — I could only ima­gine what the next day had to bring!

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Christmas 2009

Yay! I made it to Christ­mas. At least, that’s how it felt. Every sin­gle event that hap­pe­ned in 2009 was fan­tas­tic and won­der­ful but I have to tell you with ALL of it I was just han­ging on til the break bet­ween Christ­mas and New Years to finally start breathing for a second!

Christ­mas Eve, as is tra­di­tion we went to my parents to have a gtg w/​cou­sin Beana & her family.

Ben­ja­min was full of Christ­mas spi­rit while Nichole was just won­de­ring what yum­mi­ness the tins were full of.

Killian & Avery (Dear Killian, I’m pretty sure it was you, not your sister)

I will fore­ver and always love this pic­ture on the left. Note to self, make a print of this pic­ture to actually hang in your house. 

The last Lego advent before bed! (and my ghastly dining room walls which I just rec­ti­fied last month! yahoo!!) 

Christ­mas Morning! 

Then it was back to my parents for more family & mimosas.

And gift bags big­ger than small children!

Nothing says Merry Christ­mas like a bloody fin­ger trick.

After a whirl­wind day… a whirl­wind year! It was ama­zing to cele­brate our first Christ­mas in our new house and our first ever real tree! 

And with that, there are only 116 days left til Christ­mas 2010!

~Melis­sa­Ko­ren

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2009 a highlight reel

In the midst of it all — there were a few moments of fun here and there too! Some of these are phone pho­tos — I’m so thank­ful for FB for the ease of event chro­nic­ling! (oh my, I just made a public proc­li­ma­tion of thanks to facebook…)

In March, our friend Alli­son & I plan­ned and exe­cu­ted (really really well) a 6 course wine din­ner. We could not have done it without the fabu­lous exper­tise of our friend Annie and it was a hugely suc­cess­ful sur­prise 31st birth­day for Nichole.

In June my baby tur­ned 9 and ate at least as many ribs at the Rock n’ Rib fest. My nephew tur­ned 2! (um, I think I left my camera at home that day..)

In July I tur­ned 31. I was now offi­cially ‘in my 30’s’

In Sep­tem­ber, WE BOUGHT A HOUSE! (and moved and pac­ked and all that fun stuff)

My mom and dad tur­ned 50 in fall and threw a HUGE bash in the back­yard with a pig roast cate­red by my brother, a tent & a live band! (That’s daddy in the far back right cor­ner on gui­tar) Happy Birth­days mommy & daddy!

We found a few minu­tes to go to the Deer­field fair (our favo­rite by far!) … He looks taller than me in this photo. That is not the case. Yet.

In Octo­ber Nichole’s mum & step­dad came out from NM to visit our neck of the woods. We star­ted with the House of Blues Sun­day Brunch.

And ven­tu­red into the great north for some color and adventure.

We spent Thanks­gi­ving at Allison’s with her family (and pro­bably more wine than people… )

In early Decem­ber we went off to the Fes­ti­val of Trees for the first time — it was really cute! I enjo­yed all the dif­fe­rent sce­nes and crea­ti­ve­ness! That tree is alllllll tiny paper cut-​outs. That boy is mine, but he’s quite lovely so I like to take pic­tu­res of him.

Mid Decem­ber mar­ked Reed’s 2nd birth­day! I can’t believe how fast it all goes. He had this ADORABLE cake from Chrissy’s Cakes and blew out the cand­les when no one was loo­king. HAHA.

2 1/​2 year old nephew Killian & 6 month old niece Avery!

Lexi & Reed’s friend Abby

One more post for Christ­mas, but I think that’s most of the key points of 2009! Glad to have caught up the blog through the new year .. now let’s get 2010 caught up before it’s 2011!

~Melis­sa­Ko­ren

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Vegas baby. Vegas. (circa 05.09)

Ok.. so now that I’ve caught up in the pipe­line through 2009 I’m going to take a few minu­tes and share some of the adven­tu­res I had for the fun of it all too!

Vegas. We went to Vegas for Nichole’s step-dad’s bow­ling tour­na­ment. Let me put this out there. I’ve never wan­ted to go to Vegas. The thought of it gave me a panic attack. I thought there would be nothing to focus on and that it would be TFH. (toooooo frea­king hot).

So there was bowling…

And Terry came in 2nd on the team and … you know, not last … in the tournament. 

The Shark Reef was pretty cool…

Madame Tous­sads was inte­res­ting.. though it seems a por­tion of my pho­tos aren’t as… family friendly as I’d like to appear to be so I’ll leave you with some Hugh & Johnny ;)

But Vegas, baby? Vegas?! I’m in love. We sta­yed at the Fabu­lous Las Vegas Hil­ton (can you hear my echo-​ee announ­cer voice!?)

And I didn’t exactly focus — but I found so much to hap­pily dis­tract myself with — the colors and sha­pes and tex­tu­res and archi­tec­ture?! OMG.

I mean seriously — this is the inside of the women’s room bath­room stall at the shark reef. 

From the Bella­gio to the cons­truc­tion zones everything was something to see. 

(the beer.. LOVE sin city) 

The cho­co­late foun­tain that was big­ger than my living room… 

The food!

Vla­di­mir & Terry! 

And the LIONS. Holy crap I loved them.

It was just .. fun. Good Ama­zing Family & Fun. We saw Cir­que zoo­ma­nity & love. We wal­ked and mono­rai­led and laughed and had second break­fast of rum. It was hot, but more than that it was fun.

I never expec­ted to like it, let alone MISS it! I’m so ready to go back!

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Happy New Year!

Ok, Ok, so we’re already a 13 of the way through the month — how does that hap­pen so fast!?

It’s been a very pro­duc­tive cou­ple weeks for me; I got my house unpac­ked, my office set up, and I’m nearly caught up on my past events. 

45 give or take.

That’s the num­ber of posts I’m behind from my dif­fe­rent shoots since June. 2 weeks til my next wed­ding. Hope­fully I can fill in some blanks bet­ween now and then!

I’m very happy to announce my par­ti­ci­pa­tion in the launch of myKa­te­Par­ker­Wed­dings — this fabu­lous free resource for wed­ding plan­ning on any bud­get has set out to revo­lu­tio­nize event plan­ning as we know it! I encou­rage you all the check it out — Kate and her team are fan­tas­tic all the way! The site does require a sign up if you do too much poking around, but it’s very worth it.

I’m so exci­ted to get back to blog­ging! (And I hope to have a bet­ter régime in place for 2010!!!)

Happy Bela­ted Holi­days from me to you.

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Busy!!

Hello Blog World! I am so anxious to post all the adven­tu­res I’ve been up to, but right now I’m just trying to keep up with the adven­tu­res them­sel­ves!! In the midst of high wed­ding & por­trait sea­son we bought a house and pac­ked up and moved our­sel­ves back across the river 3 blocks. Things are Crazy to say the least but we’re slowly but surely get­ting things out of boxes and into our new home. In the mean­time I’ve been shoo­ting up a storm and you can see sneak peeks of what’s been going on over on my MKP Face­book Page!

I hope to be back with regu­lar blog upda­tes soon, but until then hello.goodbye!

~Melis­sa­Ko­ren

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We’re off to see the Wizard!

My son’s after school pro­gram put on their ver­sion of the Wizard of Oz — it was his first roll in a play and he was so excited!

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He was a munchkin…

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A flying monkey

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AND The Guard. If you ask him he’ll be sure to tell you he was the only kid with 3 roles. He even had a few lines! It was a riot.

wizardofoz-003

The kids all did such a great job with their cos­tu­mes & props. And they did the whole thing off script and a cap­pe­lla!. Not bad for an after school program!

And.. cur­tain!

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I hope he con­ti­nues with drama!

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