The Grand Canyon ... that was our final trip on the "Tina & Phuong take on Arizona" expedition.  We had gone to the Canyon when Phuong first arrived, but that was the Trash-the-Dress shoot, so we decided to end our trip here - a place that Phuong was so excited to see.  We brought Yoshi along as well since Phuong developed such a close relationship with him during her stay.  We stopped by Snowbowl on the way to take a photo illustrating the change in season from the photo taken on the first day, seemed befitting.  It was a fun trip, but at the sam time a bittersweet one.  After ten years of not seeing my high school friend, I had grown accustomed to her presence again ... hopefully it won't be another ten years before we meet again and take on another destination :-)!  Love ya Phuong!!

Back to where our trip began ... on top of Snowbowl.  Amazing how different it looked after almost 5 weeks.

We have been fortunate this year to have quite a few publications in several magazines and we are really excited about them!!  Aside from the ones shown here, one of our images made the cover of the July/August issue of the Wedding Chronicle.  We were blown away when we got the news from the editor and we will definitely be posting that when we receive a copy!

Arizona Weddings Magazine featured Armanda and Jon's wedding in Monument Valley and they used another image from their wedding as a full page spread to introduce their "Northern Arizona" section.

It is always an honor to place in any competition but especially the Wedding Photojournalist Association's quarterly contests.  The competition spans the globe and the photographers are extremely talented.  I am happy to say that I one of my images placed fourteenth in the Ceremony category.  I love this image and am proud it placed!  Thank you to Payvand and Jeremy for allowing me to photograph their exceptionally beautiful Persian wedding!

A little background here.  We usually have Yoshi shaved down every summer as he is an Old English Sheepdog and even in Flagstaff's temperate climate he still gets really hot with all that fur.  Seems like a simple task, right?  Not with Yoshi.  You see, he had a very bad grooming experience as a puppy (I should have sued those idiots) and ever since then has been TERRIFIED ... and I mean really TERRIFIED of being shaved.  Not even tranquilizers would work.  He had to be put completely under and shaved that way.  No big deal (other than the fact that it cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 a shave) but this year it was a big deal.

Yoshi is entering into his golden years - he is 11 now - and our wonderful vet, Dr. Bush of Flagstaff Animal Hospital, didn't feel comfortable putting him under at his age.  The risk of death is just too great and I am not about to lose my best friend that way, so they decided instead to tranquilize and muzzle him and see how far they could get.  We were so proud of him because he did great and they got most of the fur off, but there was a slight snag.  They couldn't trim his face because of the muzzle and his feet were off limits ... he does not under any circumstance like his feet touched.  This left him a little funny looking this time around.  His face resembles that of a schnauzer and his feet remind me of a poodle's.  With this I have come up with my new designer breed ... Yoshi is now my Old-English Schnauzer-Poo :-)!

We finally finished our pet project this year ... our beautiful backyard oasis complete with gardens, a koi pond, flower planters and a new patio set.  It is our little refuge and since my mom lives all the way across the country, this is the only way I can show her what I have been talking about for so many months now.  Here it is mom :-)!

Some of our pretty fish at feeding time :-).