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 :-).

Now that I am finally caught up on my wedding postings, I have a chance to post some personal stuff, and it has been accumulating so get ready :-).

Back in April my friend, Phuong, came to visit me.  We have been friends for a very long time and I hadn't seen her in 10 years, so it was a wonderful visit.  She stayed for almost 5 weeks and in that time we just had to make her play dress-up and do a couple of trash-the-dress shoots at some fabulous Arizona locals!

We had an absolute blast doing these shoots and quite a bit of planning went into them.  We wanted them to be very haute couture with heavy makeup, sexy stockings, costume jewelry, a really hip black wig with blue highlights mixed in, oh ... and some peacock feathers thrown in as a headdress for good measure :-).  Our backdrops would be the Grand Canyon and the Superstition Mountain Range.  The Grand Canyon shoot was amazing and Phuong was so excited to shoot there, but that excitement was tempered as the sun began to drop ... it was freezing cold.  You would never know it by the photos though.  She looked stunning in every image!!

Stay tuned for our month-long adventure as "Tina and Phuong take on Arizona" - coming soon!

The Grand Canyon Shoot ... always love the wind at the Canyon!!

We just wanted to update everyone on our baby skunk.  After one glorious week our baby passed away.  It happened last Tuesday, June 30th and was very unexpected.  Once we noticed the signs that he wasn't doing well, it was only a matter of hours and he was gone.

It was a very tough week because we had both let our guard down thinking he was going to make it.  He had a GREAT week though ... and so did we!!  In that week he took more milk daily and gained weight.  His eyes opened fully and he played and played and played.  We loved it when he chased us around and stamped his front feet at us with such spunk.  He was a spunky little guy and had such an incredible personality :-)!

Our loss was profound but we are so blessed to have found him.  We named him the night before he died (wanting to wait until we thought he would make it.)  His official name was Squirrel - he ran around and acted crazy like one :-) - and his nickname was MeMe because everything was about him :-).  He is now buried in our garden and we got some colorful, decorative mushrooms to mark the spot.

We want to thank everyone for asking about him and making their wonderful comments on his blog posting.  He got a lot of interest from a lot of people which just shows how special he was.  We love you Squirrel!!!  We hope we gave you the love and happiness that you needed, because you certainly gave us a lifetime of memories :-)!

This was by far one of the coolest weddings we have ever had the good fortune to photograph!!!  There were even props (I finally found a bride who voluntarily, and of her own accord, posed with a tumbleweed) and a really cool ring bearer with a personality of his own!  Enough said ... this one speaks for itself!