Andersen Family Pictures 2014

There isn't too much to say about these other than I really like them, my family is cool, and John doesn't quite have the Andersen look (notice the dark hair and dark eyes and height). They were taken by Lindsey Orton.

I asked Lindsey to take a couple of just John and I so we'd have some pictures other than our engagements and groomals.

It was really nice to get these done before Kristen left. Everyone looks older than the last time we had pictures taken (before Jared left) and obviously John wasn't in our last set of pictures. I have the best family.

Kristen's Mission Pictures Part Two

When we went to take Kristen's mission pictures a few weeks ago, there was a big crowd of people in front of the temple. We figured we'd just go take the rest of her pictures (in a sunflower field and at the river bottoms) and come back on another day. Soooo since she's leaving next week (!) we finally went and got these done. Our timing was a little off and it was starting to get dark, but you do what you can.

Isn't she cute? I'm not super excited for her to be gone for 18 months, but she'll be a great missionary and she gets to serve in the same city (and even area!) where I lived on my study abroad, so I'm really happy for her. 

Birthday Week

My birthday is September 11 and John's is September 14, so we always get to celebrate together. This year, John surprised me on Wednesday night and took me up to Park City. We stayed at the Westgate, which was so nice. I honestly thought they gave us the wrong room when we walked in. It had a family room (complete with leather couch and fireplace), a master suite (complete with jacuzzi), a kitchen, a spiral staircase, another family room upstairs, another bathroom, and a hot tub on our porch.

We went to Main Street Pizza and Noodle for dinner, then came back to the hotel and spent the night soaking in the hot tub and cuddling up by the fireplace and eating dark chocolate sea salt caramels. My kind of night. Then the next day, we went to Cheesecake Factory for dinner with my family.

John always does a really good job on my presents. This year he outdid himself. I got two skirts, two pairs of earrings, a little gold circle necklace stamped with our initials, and a really beautiful sapphire ring. My parents gave me a pair of black boots and a brush for buffing my hunter boots, and my siblings gave me the movie Austenland and a whole bunch of treats and snacks to eat.

John's birthday was a little less eventful. I felt bad, but it was on a Sunday, so we couldn't do as much. We went to our church (it's so hard for me to get a substitute since I'm the primary pianist and we don't have many piano players in the ward), then went to my parents' ward for my sister's mission farewell. After that we had a picnic at the park with John's family, then went back to my parents' house for more birthday celebration. I promise that strawberry angel food cake looked less lopsided in real life. And I should probably add that my mom doesn't usually have folding chairs in the family room. They were left out after the farewell.

It was a really good birthday week for us. And now we're officially 24 (me) and 25 (John).

PS thanks for the birthday money, Grandma! We're going shopping tonight.

Sidenote: my url is now officially www.kayleecoles.com. The old link will still work (it just redirects to here), but I was getting sick of typing it in since it was so long. GoDaddy was having a sale and my domain was something like $15 for two years. Not that this matters to anyone, but it's much easier to remember.

Kristen's Mission Pictures

This is my favorite soon-to-be sister missionary (aka my little sister Kristen). My mom asked me to take her missionary pictures and I'm so glad because I really loved doing it. I'll miss Kristen a lot while she's gone, but she's going to my favorite city ever (London!) and I know she'll be amazing.

Rowen Christian Couture Shoot

Rowen Christian Couture is the high-end boys' clothing company started by my uncle David and aunt Jeana (they actually traveled to Hong Kong with us last year to find manufacturers, so we've been learning together). Jeana asked me to do a shoot for their instagram page and she picked a really cool location -- a porsche dealership.

After this shoot, they decided they need small quantities of pictures more often instead of big shoots every couple of months. That's exciting because it means that they're hiring me to do mini-shoots every couple weeks, so I'll get to work with them from here on out.