balance...

I was going back through my old blog the other day because I just hit my second blog-o-versary!  I've been blogging continually for two years now and I feel pretty good!  I've seen many people start blogs with grand intentions and then abandon them because it's not an easy thing to keep up with.  At any rate, I realized that when I switched over to hosting my blog on my photography site, I kind of stopped blogging about life in general.  Sure, this is a photography blog and you should expect a good bit of photography posts up here!  But I love to write.  I majored in journalism!  So I decided to spend a little more time writing about life in addition to photography...so here goes.  If you're just stopping by for pictures, come back soon.  If you don't mind getting to know me a bit better, then keep on reading! I'm usually an all-or-nothing kind of guy.  Like many men, I typically focus on the task at hand.  Unfortunately, life gets out of balance pretty quickly that way!  And when you're trying to balance all that our family is balancing, only focusing on what's directly in front of you is not a great way to go.  That's the great thing about being married to a woman like Sarah.  She's balanced.  She doesn't forget that there is life outside of whatever is screaming for attention.  She gently reminds me to slow down...to stop and pray...to get out and enjoy the fresh air...to put priority on spending time with the ones I love.  We balance a lot around the Davis house.  I teach full time, we photograph weddings and portraits, Sarah has a blossoming business, we (well, mostly Sarah) homeschool our oldest daughter, we manage a property in NC, and Sarah recently enrolled in school to become a midwife!  Yeah, we're a little crazy.  But that's where balance comes in.  We don't have it all figured out, but we're getting there.  We're learning the art of scheduling (being sure to include date nights and laundry days) and by God's grace we're hanging in there.  We're even managing to experience some cool things going on in our lives right now that I'm excited to share!

-I felt the baby kick!  Sarah's about 19 weeks along and we haven't found out what we're having yet.  Our daughters are hoping for another girl!  Either way, this kid will definitely have 3 mothers!  Kyla and Avery are two of the most nurturing and motherly girls I have ever seen.  We are loving them so much right now and are so thankful for the fact that they are best friends and love spending time together!

-We just found out today that Megan and John's Halloween wedding is going to be featured in Virginia Bride magazine!  We're working on picking out the right images from their big day.  Unfortunately, the issue won't be out until the fall, but we'll be sure to let you know when it hits the news stands!

-We're headed to Charlotte to visit friends this weekend.  I haven't been back since we moved in June, so it will be fun to catch up with a lot of people.  We're also showing our house to potential tenants and I'm pretty sure we've found someone who wants to rent it already!

-We've been booking a lot of weddings already for the year.  I made a goal that I would like to book and shoot 20-25 weddings per year.  So far, we have 4 booked and we've got several other couples about ready to book as well!  Considering we're still pretty new to Charlottesville and that we don't spend a dime on advertising, I'm pretty excited!  We rely solely on referrals and social networking to get new business.  We've considered paying for advertising, but the small amount we've done in the past hasn't generated any new business and the referral method fits our natural style and personalities too!  This time last year, we only had one booked and we moved out of state and we still ended up shooting nine weddings!  I have faith that there are many good things to come.

-We decided that Sarah should take a break from shooting any more weddings until well after the baby comes.  She was pretty beat after her last wedding!  Thankfully, our friend Maggie who worked with me on Meghan and John's wedding agreed to step up and be my second shooter for a bunch of our 2010 weddings!  I'm so thankful to have someone like her to rely on.

And since this is a post about balancing life and it's nearly 1:00AM, I guess I'll wrap it up so that I can get some sleep.  Every post needs a picture, so here ya go.  One of the great things about living in Charlottesville is that we're much closer to our families in Richmond.  We were able to make it down for my dad's surprise 39th (again) birthday party last week!  It was such a blessing to be able to see my dad as well as my brother and his family on a Monday night!  Here's my dad opening his presents with the grandkids!