Charleston 2015

Cole and I went down to Charleston, SC to visit with some of my mom side of the family the day after christmas and I just recently have gotten a change to edit the photos I took while I was wondering through downtown Charleston. Here are a few of my favorite photos.

Looking back at these photos has me so excited for mine and Cole's up coming trip in a few months. We haven't been on a trip on our own since our honeymoon and we haven't been to Charleston (aside from this last trip) in several years, and it is one of our very favorite towns. I am excited to explore, visit some of our favorite places, eat at places that are must haves and try some local restaurants/dives we haven't been to. 

Hectic Lifestyle

Cole and I are currently caught in a whirlwind of life, lots of traveling the past few weekends. Between working full time, trying to keep the house picked up and clean, we are in the midst of painting a large portion of  the house, and attempting to keep up with laundry, I am a little behind on editing photos and updating posts.

Last Wednesday Cole and I trucked it all the way across NC to head to the Outer Banks to meet up with my family to spend the rest of the week enjoying the ocean breeze with the whole family and exploring with my sister and her family.  I am excited to write up a post all about that, and sharing a bunch of photos from that so be on the look outs for that. If you want a sneak peak check out my insta profile @staceylconner . I hope you all are having a wonderful week, I will catch up with you soon.

Life Update {I'm Back!}

So my last post was literally almost six months ago...and that was not by choice! I have had the same laptop since Junior year of high school, aka it was a dinosaur, and in February it officially bit the dust, and succumbed to a virus I think it had been fighting for a while! So unfortunately my blog got put on the back burner...cause I honestly had no way of posting, unless I used my phone which would be all but impossible.

So instead of just purchasing a cheap replacement computer right away, I decided to hold off, and put away a little bit of money as often as I could so I could splurge and buy myself a good computer I could use for my blog and my photography editing.  And as you can see I am back in the blogging world, which means I have made the leap, and bought myself the computer of my dreams!!! I just about had a stroke because I spent that much money at one time, but I am so happy I made the purchase! I am beyond excited to jump head first back into photography and blogging!

Stay tuned, cause I will be continuing to update the blog with all the fun things that haven't been shown/discussed on here over the past 6 months....I am such a failure. ha,

5TF (Post #7)

This week has been a weird week...it was pretty uneventful. Well lets get started with the 5 big things for this week.

1. Snow...jk

The weatherman hyped up that a winter storm would hit South Carolina (actually, the whole south) Wednesday night. Were we live was supposed to get a "ton" of snow....which in the south is considered around 4"-8". Well we ended up getting maybe a maximum of two inches, all of which was already melted by the time I got off of work Thursday. So unfortunately playing in the snow was nonexistent.

2. Dusk and Cali turned 7!

Dusk and Cali's birthday was this week. For those of you who are new to the blog. No my husband and I do not have children, at least not human ones. Dusk and Cali are our fur babies. My parents dog had a litter of puppies when I was in high school and I kept Dusk, and I gave Cali to Cole for his birthday. Now our sweet little babies are SEVEN years old!! It is crazy, that they have been a part of our lives for so long, they have brought so much happiness and laughter to our lives. I wish we could keep them young forever, thankfully they still act like crazy hyper little pups. 

3. I miss dance...

This past weekend my mom and I surprised one of my really good friends (she's literally like my little sister) at her dance competition. I am so glad we went, and it was awesome to see her dance again...I haven't seen her dance in at least 3 year. However watching all the choreography that weekend really has me missing dance. I miss choreographing, and I wish I had access to a space to dance and choreograph in. 

4. Breaking Bad

Cole and I started watching Breaking Bad last weekend, and from the first few episodes we weren't sure if we were really that into it...but this week we have been watching it non-stop. We are really bad about binge watching shows...so this is the most recent choice. (Our last show we binge watched was Bates Motel, before that was The Following...The Following is hands down my favorite out of the last three shows we have watched)

5. Pintrest

Cole and I are in the very early stages of a new adventure in our lives...and what better place to get inspiration than Pintrest?! haha. but seriously. I have rediscovered my love for pintrest! Also, once everything is official and finalized for this adventure I promise I will be sharing more about it. Sorry for the little teaser...but stay tuned! 

5TF is back!!

          Since I am getting back into the swing of things, and trying to get back into regularly blogging I am bring back the old Five Things Friday posts. If you haven't read the previous 5FTs the posts are basically a summary of five things that are relevant to my life right now, that I think are worth noting on here, weather it be a life milestone, a current obsession or a viral video I saw this week. So lets go ahead and jump into this Friday's five things.

1.

This week has been abnormally cold, like upstate South Carolina got in the single digits almost every evening this week...we even got a small ice storm Monday afternoon, the picture above may look like snow but it is literally all ICE. So this week I have been been wearing my fur lined moccasin slippers, or my 3 button "ugg" boots...and I have been putting all our fuzzy soft throw blankets around the house to good use.  So my 1st THING is warm fuzzy things to make these frigid nights a little more bearable. 

2. 

This Valentines was  our first Valentine's day being married and my love surprised me good, with my new beautiful Orchid, this sweet gesture was definitely one of the highlights of this week! 

I mentioned the other week that I really wanted to eventually get an orchid, because I think they are sooo pretty. My love actually spent the morning working on a vehicle for a friend so imagine my surprise when I opened our front door for him in the afternoon to see beautiful purple orchids. To top it off another bud bloomed today! I don't exactly have a green thumb...actually I don't even have little inkling of a green thumb so I was very excited to see it bloom more as the week has gone on.

3. 

Our "Valentine's Date" was definitely a favorite of the week. It was very impromptu. I mad us some spaghetti squash chicken Alfredo, and my lovie and I binge watched Bates Motel....and also drank a few bottles of wine and ate some double chocolate cookies (you know the chocolate dough ones with chocolate chips!? my fave!)....We really enjoyed having a little date night at home, where we didn't have to deal with the crowds out on the town, or spending a ridiculous amount of money.  

4. 

Our fur babies have been in a realm of absolute hyperness this week, Dusk especially. He has been antagonizing Cali, running through the house drifting around the corners of the hardwood floors through the house, and acting like a Tazmanian devil rolling around our bed. The video above was one afternoon when we were playing around with him. He was going crazy on our bed, and we covered him with the comforter to see what he would do since he was so hyper... it was rather entertaining. 

5.

Google Chromecast is a serious favorite in our household right now. We watch Netflix and Youtube on our TV on the daily... So much so that we basically don't even use our cable anymore. In fact we are thinking about dropping our cable that is how little we watch it. 

Life Reinvented

Jeez, I can't believe I haven't posted in so long. I have a tendency to slip from posting when life gets busy, and that's exactly what happened again. However this time is because I have been caught up in a whirlwind and it has totally transitioned my life.

Last time I posted I was a fresh doe-eyed college graduate, counting down the days til I married the love of my life, and I was casually looking for a job while I stressed about planning the wedding of our dreams and spent as much time with family as I could while I had the unlimited free time. 

I am now employed full-time, in my degree field, at a company that I absolutely love. To top that off my job gives me the opportunity to use my creative side, and mess with Photoshop! I work with great guys, I started in August and I already feel like I have been there forever. 

I am a married woman now, My love and I officially tied the knot September 20th 2014! We dreamed of our wedding day for years and reality was a million times better than anything we could have ever dreamed of. Our wedding day was amazing. We were surrounded by so much love, the people in our life that helped shape and cultivate our marriage, and it was amazing to have everyone there to support us and celebrate such a huge step in our lives.

After our wedding we went on an amazing 11 day honeymoon. We spent three days in Puerto Rico and then got on a cruise for 7 days. We stopped in St. Thomas, Barbados, St. Kitts, St. Marteen and St. Lucia. We had an absolute blast...in our 7+ years together our honeymoon was our first vacation alone...we normally choose to spend our vacation time with our family or some of our good friends. It  was refreshing to spend get out and explore together. We loved it!! I have a boatload of photos to share at some point!

Once we got back into the swing of life after or trip we got launched right into the holiday season. It proved to be a busy one. We got to spend thanksgiving with my mans family in Charlotte. We hustled up to Ohio to my sister's house on Christmas Eve and we got to watch our niece's and baby nephew enjoy Christmas morning, which was an amazing experience. It was awesome!! 

It has been hectic but my love and I are trying our best to change our dietary lifestyle as well. We have basically removed all frozen foods and processed foods from our diet...when we go to the grocery store we try and stick to fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, fresh seafood, meats and dairy. We basically just shop the perimeter of the grocery store. We still indulge in tasty foods, but we are cooking at home a lot more, and are cooking a lot healthier.

I look forward to see how our lives will change over the next few months. Updates will follow on here. I plan to get more regular with postings! 

Saxby Rhett Anthony {Newborn Photography Session}

      While I was in Ohio I got a chance to take some time to photograph sweet Saxby. Two of his older sisters wanted to be included in some of the pictures as well. It is adorable how much they love their new baby brother!  Check out my favorites from the shoot, and leave baby Saxby some love in the comments below!!

A week...A month, same thing?!

Well according to my last post I posted I was going to Ohio for a week. I went up there with my mom to help my sister and her husband out. My sister had her baby boy over a month early and they already have three little girls, so life was pretty hectic for them before Saxby's surprise entrance. My mom has always been able to go up and help out the week after my sister gives birth. This is the first time that I haven't been tied up in work or school, so I was very excited to get to go up and spend time with my sister, her family and my new little baby nephew. The week we were up there was crazy hectic, on top of being a mommy of four, my sister had to be back in her doctoral classes. My mom and I helped out with watching the girls, and spent a lot of time coloring, playing outside and changing diapers. We were all winding down and talking at the end of the night a few days before mom and I were supposed to head back home. We were joking around about how difficult my sister's life was about to get once my mom and I left.

      Long story short, the joking turned into an actual proposal for me to stay in Ohio for a few more weeks and help my sister out. My brother in law pretty much offered me everything under the sun to stay. After a quick phone call to my love back in SC, it was decided that my week trip would turn into a month long one. I would be staying up there til July 4th weekend.

      I am so grateful that I did stay up there to help out. I got some seriously needed quality time with my sister and brother-in-law, spent a lot of needed bonding time with my nieces and nephew, and my sister and I even got to spend our birthdays together...which hasn't happened in at least 6 years. Cole even got to come up part of the week of July 4th and spent some time with me, my sister and her family! It was a pretty great end to an awesome month. I have a ton of pictures from the month and I promise to post them I just need to get them all in one place first.

Ohio Bound

       My original plans for this weekend were to go camping with some friends, in the upstate of South Carolina. However, my little nephew decided to make his appearance in this world almost 6 weeks earlier. My sister gave birth to him Tuesday! To say I am excited to have a baby nephew is an understatement, I am ecstatic!
         Well anyways, my mom always takes a week of vacation the week after a grandbaby is born so that she can go up to visit, and help care for the rest of the babies while my sister recovers, and so my sister can get a little bit of much needed rest. This time since I am in the limbo between graduating school and finding a full time job I am going up to Ohio with my mom to visit.
           I am really looking forward to seeing my sister, brother-in-law, and all of their adorable babies, including the newest addition. I have my camera packed and I am hoping to get some great photos of the excited big sisters and the new bitty baby boy. Keep an eye out for updates through out the week on here and on my instagram: @sessel91.

Summer Activities

The days have gotten warmer and the sun is staying up longer. Summer is officially here in the south, and I couldn't be more excited. Summer is my favorite season, mostly because it means Cole and I spend a lot of time outdoors, and I absolutely love it! This summer I want to make a summer bucket list.

1. have bonfires a lot
2. go out on a boat on Lake Murray with friends
3. go out on a boat on Lake Hartwell
4. do a rope swing
5. go swimming a lot
6. catch fireflies
7. make s'mores
8. play soccer
9. play Frisbee
10. play volleyball
11. go get slurpees
12. get ice cream
13. go camping
14. take the dogs hiking
15. go to Folly beach
16. take the dogs for several walks
17. go to tallulah gorge
18. play football
19. eat outdoors as much as possible
20. play with sparklers
21. have a water balloon fight

Clemson Graduation Party - May 2014

          With everything that happened at the end of April and the beginning of May, I made the decision to not walk at my undergraduate graduation, and had to postpone my graduation party. Cole and I hosted the party at our house memorial day weekend. We had an afternoon cookout complete with yard games, laughter and yummy food!

             I am so grateful to all of my family and friends who made the trip to come visit us, and celebrate with me! The support and encouragement I received from each and every one of them over the past five years means the world to me. I can't imagine where I would be without all these amazing people!

My sweet boy

My little family 

I love my boys

Our sweet friend, Sam 

Dusk "graduated" too

He's so handsome, wearing Clemson colors for the party

Me and my cousin, Ron (I'm glad he came down with my Gram from Pittsburgh)

Dusk, Me and my girl Fitz

My bestie Deidre, Dusk and Me

YMCA?! and the girls looking cute

Love this group! 

My #1 supporter, My mom!
Thanks for everything mom 

The most important ladies in my life
3 generations

Jamaica - May 2014

My brother was planning on going to Jamaica the week of my college graduation, so when he passed away most of the family thought it would be best if I took the trip in place of him.

After a few days of tossing around which would mean more to me later in life, walking at graduation or going to Jamaica for a week in place of my brother...I decided to go on the trip, because lets be honest I was tired of school and was just ready to relax and take a break. 

I spent the week in Jamaica with my aunt and uncle along with about 50 other people from our group...

I took my Canon with me, in the hopes that I would have some time to take some photos, which I did.