Last night we went over to a friend’s house to watch the Jaguars vs. New England game. Although the Jags didn’t win, we still had fun. Eddie provided lots of BBQ chicken and I brought some fruit salad as my contribution. Here are a few spur of the moment shots from our football night.

I just love the color of strawberries when you are cutting them up… the red, white and green are so fresh and fun it makes me just want to eat them all up!

and more fruit… fruity fruit fruit

and the final masterpiece… mmm it was good!

Brad was super excited about the beanie weenies that were there… he only gets this stuff when we are at other people’s houses.

Savoring the beanie weenie goodness

Eddie’s fantastic BBQ chicken

and then came the dart game of the century… Erin and I were so bad we were good! We gave the wall its very first dart hole… and its second… and third… and well this went on for a very long time.

Erin is up at bat…

and here is what resulted…

My turn

and my results… pretty impressive I must say… I managed to get in the tiniest little crack and hit the wall.

Needless to say our game lasted quite a long time and we were relentlessly made fun of by all the guys. One shot I didn’t get was at the end of the night as we were leaving Brad walks up to Eddie who was playing and says “let me show you how good I am.” Grabs the dart and throws a bullseye. This was all entirely an accident so he decided that was a good note to leave on and we went home. Brad has had ridiculously good luck lately!

Thanks Eddie for having us over and letting us desecrate your wall!

This past weekend Brad and I spent attending the DWF Convention in Tampa. It was our first time ever attending a photography convention and it was absolutely fantastic!!! We got to see our McLellans again and met some fantastic new friends. The convention was so informative and we learned loads of fun new stuff to implement now that we are home. The funny thing about attending a photography convention is that we really didn’t take many photos at all. Our days were jam packed full of seminars and trade shows and our nights were equally as full. We were running on virtually no sleep at all… but that didn’t stop us from having fun. Sleep is for suckers anyhow right?!? Okay maybe not… but sometimes you just go without. So after 4 entire days at the Hyatt in Tampa here are the measly couple of shots we have to share. I know I know… we will take more pictures next time.

So when we first arrived… I had this grand illusion that we would document our entire experience in pictures… so here is us just getting to our room.

Check out the price of the water at this place… yeah I’m not that thirsty.

I quickly realized that was craziness… we did lots of observing and learning and not so much shooting. Here is a photo I found of us at Michelle Turner’s demonstration. The photo was taken by Sam dePoy. Can you spot us in the crowd??

At one of the seminars I took a photo of Sean taking a photo… yeah… not sure why but it seemed fun at the time.

Brad and I had a Zoolander style impromptu photo shoot while we were getting ready to go to the party at the Florida Aquarium.

mmm hair goo

check out that fierce shark fin

Now back to normal… or is Brad ever really normal??

Brad is all ready to go… and just checking out how good he looks from all angles!

At the convention Brad and I played Deal or No Deal sponsored by GraphiStudio. You had to enter your name into a huge pile of other wanna be contestants and wait to see if you were the next player chosen. We stood around and watched others win for awhile, then Brad decided to yell out “call my name” right as they started to pull from the stack. Sure enough… the called “Bradford Watson.” It was hillarious… I tell you this boy should get his butt to Vegas his luck has been so good lately. Anyhow… he went up and played and won a fantastic prize!!! He won admission to the Yervant & Joe Buissink Seminar in Orlando this April. What an awesome prize! Here are some shots from my iphone:

and the Deal or No Deal girls

We had a few more photo shoots around the aquarium just for fun… here is the gorgeous Melanie McLellan striking her best Yervant pose

and the lovely Adrian Hitt giving us a very mod look

and the last iphone shot of the night… here is Sean giving me the evil eye on the bus ride back to the hotel.

On Monday night we went out to eat at Maggianos with a fantastic group of other Husband & Wife photo teams and sadly had to miss the Oreo Shootout that occured afterwards back at the hotel. You all have to go to the McLellan’s DWF blog and see their slide show of the events. It was a sight to see! 72 Oreo’s eaten in 30 minutes was what got Joel Weibner the title of Oreo King that night! There are also a few photos of me and Brad in the mix… see if you can spot us.

We got home at 2:30am Tuesday morning… only get up 4 hours later and get back to work!!! It was well worth all the sleep deprivation.

When we were in my hometown of New Smyrna Beach for the Christmas holiday, we met up with the Aftuck family to do a great big family shoot! Although the boys were a bit reluctant to have their pictures taken, we still had a great time. Here are a few of the fun images that resulted.

Martin wasn’t really a fan of having his picture taken… so I put him right up front!

Earlier during the shoot I asked Ed where he could sit that would make him feel more comfortable and he replied “in my truck.” So here is Ed… in his truck.



Donna, Alex, Catie and I stuck around a little longer to get some fun shots.

Later that evening they invited Brad and I over so we brought along the card game “Pit.” It was a huge hit… so much so that they had to go to the store the next day to buy it for themselves.



and lastly… Martin’s dog Layla who was intrigued by the cameras but a little terrified of them too.



Thanks for allowing us to drag you all over the beach side and spend the evening with you guys… we had an awesome time with you all!

Happy 2008 Everyone!!!

What better way to start the New Year, than with a brand spanking new BLOG!!! Welcome to La Dolce Blog… aka The Sweet Blog! We hope you all will come here often and check out all the comings and goings in our little corner of the world!

To kick things off… here is a report of all the fun we had on New Year’s Eve! We hope you all had a fantastic start to the new year as well. Our holiday was dominated by Brad’s new Rock Band game for PS3. It was such a hit that everyone vetoed the idea of going out just to stay in and play more Metallica! Here are a few images of our rocking New Year’s Eve party.

The game that ruled the night…

Me feeling very confident in my drumming skills…

an attempt to play cat’s cradle with the leis

Bobby was rocking some Enter Sandman…