sweet home. indiana.

I'm back! It's been an amazing experience and I have lots of moments that I want to share with you all so be prepared for some stories and photos to come! Thomas and Sarah's wedding was perfect in every regard and I can't wait to show you everything! I'm so thankful though to have stepped off the airplane last night in Indinapolis and breathe in that cool crisp air. I was even hoping it had snowed or something! Oh well...I'm home!

off to jamaica.

Thanks to the lovely Thomas and his extremely soon to be wife Sarah, I will be walking the beaches of Jamaica for the next 4 days! If I am a little slower answering the phone or returning your emails, this is why! It's going to be tough leaving the cool winds of Indiana where I just recently HAD to pull out my mittens, for the sweet smell of the ocean air that is awaiting my arrival in Jamaica...but somebody's got to do it right?! I'll keep you updated on the festivities of the island while I'm out and check back soon for the ultra highlight of my entire year, 'the island wedding' of Thomas and Sarah. This is my last wedding of 2008 and I can't imagine a more fabulous couple than these two and I'm assured to have the best time ever with them! They are wonderfully adorable together and throwing sandy beaches to the mix can only help! I can't wait for the wedding on Saturday and I'm so excited to get there! Photos to follow...here's one I found online.

**I'm thrilled to be toting my older sister with me for the wedding. She has NEVER EVER been out of the country...I'm sorry Number 30 I couldn't take you with me...I'd pack you up and put you in a zip lock bag and put you in my carry on if I could! I love you and I'll bring you back a smokin hot Jamaican soccer player if I can find one that will fit in my zip lock bag! xoxo

derek & rebecca & lyla.

Don't you just LOVE the fall!? It's got to be almost my favorite season (sorry, I really really love the winter it's crazy I know!) with the crunchy leaves turning all goldeny yellow! When my dear friend Becky and I finally talked after many text messages, we decided to do some family photos for her. She and Derek have been married...let's see...I think it's been almost 2 years??? Am I right Becky? And they have an ultra adorable daughter who goes by the name of Lyla and you'll see her below in some of the photos! She's a happy girl and I think she had an even better time than we did trompin through the forest and playing through the leaves.

Becky and I worked together for a short while at a company that shall remain nameless...I'd hate for "her" to come after us! hahaha! One of my most favorite memories ever was when she and I got to go on a "work trip" to Pennsylvania. Everyone knows that you have a ball on work trips out of town right?! So we hopped a plane, and when we landed our boss and her ass-istant (I can't help myself! lol) picked us up and we jaunted off to have a light lunch...it turned out to be a complete nightmare as we sat across the table with our boss, whom we had nearly just met, while she and the assistant had the audacity to pick their menues up and place them open in front of their faces and in a mousy quiet voice, began to talk! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? Talk about un-professional! Our boss and the assistant--remember we JUST met, you might think they would want to, I don't know, get to know us a bit? But they proceeded to go on like it was normal, and the entire time as they were talking, Becky and I just sat there, frozen in our seats, afraid to even look at each other. It was TOTALLY one of those moments that you poke someone but hope they don't look at you cause you KNOW you might pee yourself from laughing histerically out loud and then get in trouble!!! AHAHHahhh....the good old days. You know? I quit that job about 2 weeks later and started Bodell Photography. I vow to NEVER ever be that rude to any of my clients, or any of my friends! Becky and I still laugh at this to this day, and if I ever run into "her", I'm just going to smile and tell her she has nice shoes! Then I'm going to go pray for her! (Becky...darling, that was for you! Look how far we've come!)

On with the photos...I LOVE these and I LOVE that you are so in love with your husband and girl! Shoot! That is all you need in this lifetime and it's more than ok to miss him like crazy on work trips! By the way, you are so so so so pretty in these and Derek's kind of a stud! Ha!

and then there were 5.

I have such respect for all you moms out there! After I finished photographing this bunch over last weekend, I was ready to put my feet up! All I could do was laugh because when you have 5 little ones running circles around you just forget who you are, what you are doing and you just start snapping pictures as quick as you can. Of course, I kept it together and made things quick and easy with some tickling and my histerics, and I really think these images turned out so adorable if I do say so myself. I was so inspired by some of this gorgeous light we were having that day and I seriously love the expressions that you get with kids! So even though I may have felt a smidge overwhelmed at first, when you see the faces and the smiles and how happy they are by just being able to be themselves, it makes it all worth it. Kids are magical in the fact that one minute they are laughing and the next they are crying but the second you can grab their attention, they just give you the most beautiful expressions across their face, and it's those moments that I'll gladly take these 5 today and photograph them just being kids...tomorrow, who knows? Perhaps I'll tackle 10 or 12 kiddos!

Here you go girls! I hope your mom loves these as much I do...she's not going to see this right?! AHHH! Oh, and how are the cloths...did we get the stains out? I should really send a gallon of bleach to you Julie! I'm soooo sorry! Here are Cameron, Ryan, Jared, Kaden, and little Carter, all grandkids by the way and this is for their grandma...won't she just love these!