Est. 2012 | Colorado Springs, Colorado and Charlottesville, Virginia wedding & family photographer

Thanksgiving time is a wonderful occasion to bring family and friends together and I am SO fortunate to have been given a “vacation time” during Thanksgiving week! I put my camera away (I put my sister in charge of taking spontaneous photos with her IPhone, lol!), email away, blogging, Facebook, everything that’s involved in my typical routine. What a nice change of pace! Last night I could barely sleep because I was anxious to dive back into business work and had a list of things I want to conquer today. So I will start my routine for today with my blog post then off to a little editing, emails and then Christmas decorating around the house! 🙂 Eeep! It was SO awesome coming home listening to Christmas music and seeing all of the lights! Decorating a new space is tricky and a little overwhelming as to how much I need to purchase, but Pinterest has put SO many awesome ideas in my head thanks to the 13 hour drive on the way home… so I’m diving in! I’ll share one of my projects for the house this Friday’s blog post! 🙂

A lot of our time was spent at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure! We rode every roller coaster there … even though I was opposed to one of them. I did not grow up loving roller coasters, so I still get a little anxiety when they look overwhelming. One of them being Rip Ride Rocket. Heard of it? But after it was done, I felt like I could ride it again. 🙂 Fear gets in the way sometimes and I have to remind myself to let my walls down and just go for it!

And yes, of course we went to Harry Potter world and had Butterbeer! Delicious … but VERY sweet! And speaking of Harry Potter world … have you heard of this new Robo coaster?! OH MY GOSH! This seriously has to be my favorite ride!!! Because it is SO different and out of this world! Even though I have not read all of the Harry Potter books or even seen one movie (shocker, I know!), I was SO impressed with the Forbidden Journey ride!!! I advise reading/checking out behind the scenes photos through Wiki! It’s definitely worth checking out and standing in line! But I will tell you a secret! Go at the VERY end of the day … like 8:30 p.m. when the park closes at 9 p.m. We walked up to the gate at 8:30 p.m. and it said there was a 60 minute wait … well it turned out to be 20 minutes of just walking through the place just to get onto the ride and with zero wait! I cannot imagine what the lines must be like on a busy day of the year! Whew!

And we then were off to Toon Lagoon where we were kids over again! 🙂

Thanksgiving was spent at my lovely grandparents in their retirement community and we were able to get this shot of the four generations and then of course Kyle and I. 🙂 And I want to give a shout out to Kyle for starting his first day at a new job today!!! CONGRATS and so excited for you! xoxo

Of course I need to show off my truly loved MRDs on my blog!!! SO proud of them!!!

My break concluded with an exciting time to photograph my friend’s maternity session!!! But the reality of the cold up here in VA was not so pleasant. Yes … a brutal 19 degrees it was when we started the session!!! I give so much credit to April for doing this! But I will say it was worth it! 🙂

A couple announcements for now:
1) I am hosting mini sessions (30 minutes) on December 8th and only have 2 afternoon spots left! If you are interested, email me at info@stephaniemessick.com and I will send you more information. I’ll make one last announcement via Facebook this evening.
2) Starting January 2014, I will not be doing weekend sessions. As much as I LOVE filling up my time with beautiful clients, I need to have my Sundays open for church and family/friends … unless I have a Sunday wedding instead of a Saturday. I will be offering sessions Monday-Friday and can do sunrise or sunset. Spring booking will begin in March and will email anyone interested before it is open to the public if you express interest early on. Again, email is info@stephaniemessick.com 🙂

That is all for now! I hope everyone had a SAFE and relaxing week! I unfortunately saw so many tragic accidents and I know the Holiday season is here, so please be careful through this rush and busy time.

Comment below if you have a favorite ride at Universal Studios or Islands of Adventure! 🙂 Would love to hear from you! Or if you had awesome plans for Thanksgiving, I would love to hear them as well! Now it is time for me to jump into editing for a little while!