Bethany

This is another one of my favorite young women. I can't believe these girls are getting ready to graduate high school this upcoming year. I swear, I blink and the world revolves another trip around the sun. Time just goes way too quickly! Bethany, I had such a fun day with you and your "best friends". Have SO MUCH FUN your senior year!

10 Minutes to Practice

One of the wonderful things about being here in the United States again for a few weeks is that I was finally able to get my new camera...a Canon 5d! (And OH was it worth the purchase!) I have been anxious to use it ever since I got here last week. But jet lag, catching up with Kevin and old friends, church and a host of other things have kept me away from giving the 5d a whirl. Last night Kevin and I decided that today was the day. Tomorrow I have a senior photo shoot and I needed to practice and see if using the 5d was going to work or if I needed to use my old XT that I'm used to shooting with (even though the pictures from today's shoot turned out beautifully, I think I'll still probably use both, just to be sure). We decided we'd do it after dinner.

When we went into Buffalo Wild Wings, the sun was shining and it was a gorgeous day. When we came out, rain was blowing side-ways!!! and the trees were blowing all over the place. When we were almost to the hotel, the sun came back out. I found a building with this cool-looking blue sign and we pulled over for the quickest photo shoot of my life. 10 whole minutes of photography later, we were back in the car and on our way to a friend's house for some board game fun. Here are a couple that I liked from today's practice. I'm hoping they look alright here online. The pictures I've posted from my desktop at home look a little different on this laptop here in the hotel.

Greg and Eva (and their family)

Another fun family shoot in Bury. We had a lucky bought of sunshine and it only sprinkled a little bit during the photo shoot. What great luck! You just never know what you're going to get here in England! I have to say, I'm loving the red (or in the daughter's case, strawberry blonde) hair on the women in this family. I've always wanted red hair. Every time I see long, flowing red locks...I get total hair envy!

Jo

Jo really should have been born about 100 years ago. She's got this amazing vintage style, natural beauty and would have really rocked a hoop dress. I told her that men would have been falling all over her! As it is, I'm sure men are falling all over her anyway. This woman is AMAZING! She's a black belt at martial arts, a mom, a devoted wife, gives voice lessons...and now added to the list...she's beginning a musical career recording music for composers....and I'm sure I haven't even TOUCHED on half of what she can achieve. She has some great ideas for her portfolio. We took a couple of head shots...but spent the majority of our time playing with her fun vintage hat for her portfolio cover. We were going for an old fashioned movie star look. (I think she could have been an old fashioned movie star. Like I said, she should have been born about 100 years ago). I couldn't get over her EYES! Love, love, love her blue/green (I think that's called hazel???) eyes. Just amazing...and the netting of her hat really brought the focus right to them. (And, of course, I considered stealing her nice little vintage hat...but then I thought it might ruin our friendship.) :) Thanks, Jo for the photo shoot today! You're gorgeous!

Meatless Spinach Lasagna

Another day, another recipe. We've been on a veggie kick here lately. We tried this dish (though I realized later that I didn't totally follow the directions) on Monday. It made A LOT of food. So, be prepared. If you're going to make this lasagna...invite a crowd over for dinner. We gave it an 9 on the "do we want to eat this again?" scale. It was GOO-OOD! (And yes...I do take every opportunity to use my blue Burleigh china...in case you're wondering why it's in every photograph of food I take. It makes me happy.)

Ingredients:

1/3 cup butter, cubed

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

3 -3/4 cups half and half

1 cup heavy whipping cream (I didn't say this recipe was good for your hips...just yummy)

3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided

1/8 tsp nutmeg

2 cartons (15 ounces each) Ricotta cheese

1 pkg (10 ounces) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry

1 medium zucchini, grated

3/4 cup shredded carrot

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp onion powder

12 no-cook lasagna noodles

2 cups (8 ounces) shredded, part skim mozzarella cheese

1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs

1 tbsp butter, melted

Directions :

In a large saucepan, melt butter. Stir in flour until smooth; gradually add creams. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Stir in 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese and the nutmeg.

In a large bowl, combine ricotta cheese, spinach, zucchini, carrot, salt, onion powder and remaining parmesan cheese.

Spread 3/4 cup sauce mixture in a greased 13x9x2 inch baking dish. Layer with four noodles (noodles will overlap slightly), half of the ricotta cheese mixture, 1 cup sauce and 2/3 cup mozzarella cheese. Repeat layers. Top with remaining noodles, sauce and mozzarella cheese. Combine bread crumbs and butter. Sprinkle over lasagna.

Cover and bake at 375 (degrees F...for my British friends who might crank their centigrade ovens to 375 and burn the house down) for 55 minutes. Uncover (dish will be full); bake 10-15 minutes longer or until bubbly. Let stand for 15 minutes before cutting. Yields: 12 servings.

Anyway, Enjoy!

Friday's Group Shots

Here are a few of my favorite "group" shots from the entourage on Friday. I took some sister shots of Katrina and Carly, and some best friend shots of Katrina and Emily. It was fun to get them together and watch them make eachother laugh, poke fun at each other and just goof around. I loved it!

Emily

So, Emily came along on the shoot I had with Carly, as did Katrina, Carly's older sister. I was going to make a post that was titled "The Rest of the Pictures" with all of the fun group pics and single pics I did of everyone that was crammed into my car yesterday...but Emily was so darn cute, she deserved her very own post. So Emily, this one's for you, girl! You look GORGEOUS! Holy cow! And after this shoot...I TOTALLY want some Converse. Red ones. Really bad!

Carly

Meet Carly. I took some pictures of her sister earlier in the year and some photos of Carly today. I'm pretty sure this family was endowed with perfect skin, perfect hair and ability to just look good in high wind, rainy weather, sunny weather...whatever. These girls just look good no matter how the camera is pointed at them. Carly was super fun and ADVENTUROUS! The girl even walked through stinging nettle in her high heels to get to one of the locations. Talk about brave! Stinging nettle totally hurts (I know from painful personal experience). She just brushed her legs off and kept going. I was amazed! And we even had a close encounter with a van full of men in turbans out in the countryside who were almost leering at us. Scary at the moment...funny now that we're safely back at our own homes. Enjoy the pictures!