In This Season | Fall in the Meadow | Northern Virginia Portrait Photographer

I’m going to be brutally honest. This Fall has been a make it or break it season for Justin and me. Both separately AND together. Never in our entire lives have we been this busy. This tired. This run down and this stressed out. Justin’s a full time business student, a volunteer firefighter, and a manager at his job. I’m a full time business student and a wedding and portrait photographer. Between our school work and our real work, it’s HARD to find time for each other… it would probably be a little different if we were married and coming home to the same house at the end of every day. But we live 15 minutes apart and the most time we get to spend together is on the 40 minute ride to and from school twice every week. And I won’t even have that anymore come next semester! It’s been really hard… the times we do get to spend together, we aren’t giving each other our best because we are so stressed out. It’s REALLY hard not to lash out on each other over something silly like Justin wanting orange chicken when I want seasame chicken or one of us saying something a little careless and letting it escalate to something bigger than it is. I’m ready for this season to end and a new one to begin… but I know God is repeating over and over, “I’m teaching you something important here. Listen to me. You need to learn this before you can move on to the next season you’re so desperately wanting. I may not always give you what you want, but I will always give you what you need.” It’s so good to know that God has an AWESOME plan for the two of us and to see him working in both of our lives separately right now. I know it’s just going to make us that much more prepared for whatever the next season of life brings! For now, we are celebrating the few moments we do have together to just relax… like when we took these pictures! I was technically shooting a family session for a friend of mine, but she was kind enough to take a few of me and Justin during the shoot, and then Justin and I took some of each other before heading home! I let myself take a break from client editing to edit these because I feel like this is important and it would never get done while it was still Fall if I let it continue to sit on the back burner (these are from weeks ago!). So here they are! And there’s some pretty funny ones at the end…haha!! :)

The light was SO pretty between these two trees!! And those leaves!

Oh this is so typical Justin… hahaha! Whoever has to photograph him as a groom is going to have a LOVELY time doing so. Lol!

Love this one!!!

This valley was so pretty…!

And then Justin let me take some of him! I posed him and he was so good at letting me put him into seemingly corny poses. Haha.

Justin and his Oakley’s…

And then he took some of me! Maybe I’ll use these on my new website?! :)

Annnd then Justin got a little crazy with posing me… hahaha!! These were cracking me up!

SO serious… lol!

And then he had me lay on a log… okay. Haha.

I think the next time we’ll be taking pictures of each other like this… we’ll be in GERMANY!!! Except I probably won’t be lying on a log, but who knows. After this crazy season… we can’t wait!!!