the party's not over just yet

So grad season is nearing its 2009 farewell. I, for one, thought it was already over, but apparently not -- at least not as of yesterday, as the St. Charles Family Arena was spinning Francis Howell school district grads through left and right. Word has it there were three ceremonies basically back-to-back-to-back (baseball commentators use that term freely, which gives me the right, but is it actually physically possible and does it make sense?). Anyway, that leads us to today's post, a selection of photos from the amazing dinner party we went to yesterday evening at a friend's house 20 minutes down the road (basically on the way to the college), in honor of Meghan, a Francis Howell grad, and Kelsea, a Peachtree Ridge grad.

No details on the camera settings other than the lenses we used: the handy 17-70 Sigma f/2.8-4.5 (which actually has been having some issues lately not maintaining a sharp focus [a problem for the camera shop, not a psychologist]) and the trusty Canon 70-200 f/4L.

happy days are here

Ahhh... Spring-summer in St. Louis. The inevitable switching back and forth from fans, open windows and outdoor dining to air conditioning and watering the lawn five days a week that comes this time of year.

While freeing up hard drive space, we were sorting through our Lightroom catalog and came across a theme: happy guys. These photos were all shot in the fall, hence the sweaters, but that's what got me thinking about the current "season" we are in right now. Yesterday: 68 degrees. Today: 85. Tomorrow? Who knows?

Simple editing performed on these pictures: b/w conversion and a contrast increase in LR, cropped to 1x1 ratio.

Baby w.

Today we got to hang out with one cool cat ... he was very composed all day and set a very good example :) during his church blessing. The church service just may go down in the record books for the longest sacrament meeting ever (so it's a good thing he was on his best behavior!) -- two baby blessings, two and "a half" missionary farewells, a "there-is-no-end" closing song and a five-minute closer brought the meeting to just over 1.5 hours in length. The after-party (and we all needed it) was held at Steve n' Sherry's; all in all it was a day of good food, friends, lots of family, and fun... oh and some fotographs ... Want in on the crazy fun? Visit our Picasa album now and click "Slideshow."

Pomp and Circumstance ... I mean really, where did that come from?

As promised, here they are ... You can also see all the pics by going to our Picasa site (see if you can find out which one is super fake, it's pretty obvious and funny at the same time). All pics are taken by Mr. Benjamin. I figured I needed to get mine up here before Ben comes home from SCC's graduation and posts those!

The pic on bottom right is of three of the four (we missed you Brian!) of the best Capstone teammates ever in Webster history. We seriously rocked and ended up in the 99th percentile in the nation on our project.

The third vertical pic on the top row is of me and Ashley, another good friend I had many classes with who still has the Capstone (equivalent of a Master's Thesis) to go. Pretty sure we probably weren't supposed to be waving at the camera, but we had just finished duping the grad assistant so we could line up in Dean Akande's line - and not the Assoc. Dean who-knows-her-name's line. So we felt pretty proud of ourselves. It takes an MBA to be a swindler.

Grad Fest

Rarely, if ever, do we post pics we didn't take. However, this photo merited an exception. Friday night, Webster U hosted a pre-graduation party for the 2009 grads. The highlights? A pretty good hot dog and free photo booth. Seriously. Needless to say, we didn't stay long - just long enough to pose for these pretty cool shots. So, in a way, I guess we sort of took them.

The Sccougar.

The journalism students of St. Charles Community College recently launched an online news site -- sccougar.com. And yesterday, while Amanda, Josh, Kat, and Kylie were with me on campus for the college's annual spring photo shoot, we picked up the companion print version (it's virtually everywhere on campus) and started shooting. Kind of dumb but funny. I chose to post these four because I liked their expressions. Not sure how I feel about the pub name.