Rib Cook Off!

Last weekend I went to my first Rib Cook Off. It was a total blast! We went with our friends Brandon & Rachel and spent most of the time stuffing our faces with tasty food. I had no idea what a big deal Rib Cook Offs are. Each group had a huge booth showing off all of it's awards. There were even trophies on display and people walking around giving out stickers with their BBQ brand on it for people to wear. Rachel was laughing because I kept taking pictures of everything. It felt like summer had arrived early and it made me really excited for all the festivals that are coming up.

Zoey's Princess Smile

Hope you had a great Memorial Weekend! I had the most social weekend since probably my sorority days in college. Friday night Derrick and I went to my first Rib Cook Off with some friends (more on that in a later post). Saturday night I met up with a bunch of people for a bonfire after I was done photographing a prom. Sunday we went to a cookout with Derrick's family and played outside all day. Monday we went to another cookout at Derrick's Mom's House and I played with Zoey. Here she is giving me her "princess smile." lol. The flowers behind her are peonies and they smell wonderful! Derrick's Mom has them all over her house. The blooms are the same size as hydrangea blooms. I've been trying to teach Zoey how to do a cartwheel which is pretty entertaining. I don't think I was able to do one until I was in high school.

I'm becoming more stalker friendly

I've decided to give twitter a try. I've been very against it since I feel no one really needs to know what you're doing all day long but there are so many people I want to follow on twitter (Sarah Petty, Local Harvest, Derrick and his mom) that I feel it is only fair that I am on twitter too. We'll see how it goes but for now you will be able to read my twitter updates (tweets, I need to get with the lingo) here on my blog in the column on the right. If you're on twitter, let me know so we can stalk each other! You can follow me at twitter.com/kaprilphoto

Westside Market

Derrick and I went to one of my favorite places in Cleveland the other day, The Westside Market. This place is so cool and I know I've talked about it before but on this visit I got to do something new. I walked up the stairs and sat on the balcony where you can sit and watch life go by in the market. I could sit up there for hours but I had to go to work so we were only there for about 30 minutes. Before we left we bought the first local produce of the year, asparagus! We had some with dinner tonight sauteed in butter and seasoned with salt and pepper. In-season asparagus isn't stringy and taste almost sweet. All I need now is my mom's asparagus recipe...

Missouri Cookies!

This is too good to be true and if I didn't see it with my own eyes I wouldn't believe it. The gas station across the street from my apartment complex now sells Missouri Cookies! They call them No Bake Drop Cookies but they can't fool me. I read the ingredients to make sure they were the real thing. This is probably going to be bad for my figure.

A Sneak Peak of Summer in the Midwest

This is our local ice cream stand that opened last week. It was a beautiful night and tons of people came out to stand in line to buy the first ice cream of the season. How cute is that? It's things like this that make me love the Midwest. It's like a Hallmark movie. Derrick is standing in there holding my place in line while I take a picture. Their Taylor Shortcake is to die for! It's like a Strawberry Shortcake with soft serve vanilla ice cream. Num, num, num!

I'm At Prom!

I photographed a prom last weekend. For entertainment I had my coworker take a picture of me so you can see our beautiful set-up. It's always amusing to work proms because you get to see all of the drama unfold (the conversations in the bathroom are hilarious!) Plus, the girl's dresses are always really pretty. I love my job!

I.E. Girls Stick Together

As you may or may not know, Cleveland's basketball team is in the playoffs. On Tuesday I was at work and Derrick sent me a text asking what time I would be home because he had tickets for the Cavs Game. He recently starting working for his uncle and they happened to spray the Assistant Coach's house for bugs. Derrick, being the social person that he is, started talking with the wife and found out that she grew up in Riverside. He told her I grew up in Chino and when he went to leave she gave him two tickets for the game in the 4th row! She gave one to his uncle too. It was awesome! We had a great time and got to see Labron James receive the MVP award. The woman who gave us the tickets sat by me for a little bit and we talked about how we like Ohio even though the winters are cold. She is such a nice, friendly woman.

Here's a picture taken with my phone from our seats. I didn't want to bring my big camera and look like a nerd. You can see Labron James on the left (he's number 23). I feel like an official Clevelander now. I've seen the Indians, Browns and the Cavaliers all at home games.

April Showers Bring...

My beautiful May flowers!

The Dog Pound AKA My Parent's House

My parents have three dogs, Lola, Biscuit and their newest member of the family, Scooter. I love to take my dogs to their house so they can have puppy parties and turn the backyard into a kennel. Here's Lola, Biscuit and Scooter on a day when they had the backyard to themselves.

Gorgeous!

This is my favorite model who also happens to be my cousin Alyssa. She was nice enough to let me borrow her during her spring break so I could take some pictures in the wildflowers. Isn't she beautiful? While we were hiking the dirt trails she almost stepped on a rattlesnake. I don't think Alyssa expected to go for a hike during our photo shoot but she did an awesome job of posing in the brush even though there were bugs and animals that freaked her out.