So, I brought my SLR, a point-and-shoot, a GoPro Hero 2 AND my iPhone (overkill), but I actually ended up taking more video clips than still images if you can believe it! So (and please keep in mind that I’m a photographer and not really a videographer) here’s a short video I put together of our adventure:

Tortola 2013 from Susan Marks on Vimeo.

But I have been practicing! A lot, actually. I try to cook at least one or two new recipes each week, sometimes even as many as four. And in the interest of catching up a bit, I’m going to post a few links to successful recipes I’ve tried and officially cross them off my list. A few of these are duplicate “lessons,” but I figure it can’t hurt to repeat. (Especially with my track record of getting it right the first time.)

Shown from left-to-right:

• Chicken and Mushrooms in Garlic White Wine Sauce – recipe and photo courtesy of skinnytaste.com. This recipe is in our regular weeknight dinner rotation. I actually skipped the flour the first time to see how it would turn out (and to keep the dish clean-eating), and it was great! I haven’t used flour in it since.
• Pan-Seared Chicken with Mushroom Sage Sauce – recipe and photo courtesy of Cook’s Country Magazine. This was actually kind of a pain to make. The recipe had a lot of steps, and I don’t usually like to eat chicken with the bones still in, but it was good to learn how to work with it.
• Papparedelle in Saffron Cream – recipe and photo courtesy of foodnetwork.com. I made this as a side dish to sirloin steaks, and it was a big hit (despite getting a stomachache from the dairy)!
• Slow-Cooker Asian Pork with Noodles and Broccoli – recipe and photo courtesy of Real Simple Magazine. We loved this one – it made a huge batch, and thankfully the leftovers were just as good.
• Orange Shrimp – recipe and photo courtesy of heartmindandseoul.com. Super easy, although I didn’t grill the shrimp. We aren’t allowed to grill on our balcony, so if you want to grill you have to do it on the driveway – awkward, right?! Plus it has been so cold here lately, too cold to grill outside, so I just threw the shrimp in the pan to cook and it came out just fine. I guess I could have used a grill pan, but I have never really been successful with it. I guess that’s something I should work on, huh?
• Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Balsamic Vinegar – recipe and photo courtesy of whiteonricecouple.com. I’m calling this a successful recipe because I think I cooked them correctly, but Chris doesn’t love Brussels Sprouts in general.

So there you have it! A round of the recipes I considered successful. Yes, there have been a few that were less successful, or nearly inedible. I made a Spicy Shrimp recipe that was incredibly salty, and that’s coming from someone who loves salt. I think it went wrong when I read 1/2 teaspoon of salt as 1/2 Tablespoon of salt. And that was on top of using regular soy sauce instead of reduced-sodium soy sauce like the recipe indicated. Oops. We drank extra water that night.

More updates soon! And photos, unless I’m just too quick to eat the results (which is always a good thing since it means I didn’t burn it, under-cook it, or otherwise ruin it).

The ceremony space indoors was perfect for an intimate gathering.

I love all of the beautiful traditions in a Jewish ceremony, and their rabbi did an amazing job officiating.

Signing the ketubah:

I LOVE this next image. It’s one of my most favorite post-ceremony photos ever.

After the ceremony, guests mingled for cocktail hour…

…and I stole Danielle and Fred for a few quick portraits outside. It was just barely warm enough for five minutes of portraits, but we made it work!

There is something really amazing that happens when I ask a couple to look at each other. It becomes an un-posed moment of joy – just magic. I love it.

The dining room was transformed after the ceremony…

…with signs of spring!

Mazel tov Danielle and Fred! It was so wonderful to meet you both, and I was truly honored to be a small part of your special day. Best wishes for a lifetime of happiness together!

So pretty, right? The Japanese Book Cloth is available in eleven colors and has a silk-like feel. Imprinting looks lovely in any of the inks available. Contact me for details if you still want/need to order a wedding album!

Nicole’s aunt, helping with the jewelry. (Nicole, you have the best skin ever! Gorgeous.)

Mom joins in – getting ready is always a team effort!

Nicole and Colin opted to see each other before the ceremony, so we met in the library for this incredibly sweet moment.

We stepped outside for approximately two minutes – with a wind chill in the 20s, and quite a strong breeze, we stayed close to the door!

The ceremony in the parlor was beautiful and intimate, with friends and family standing close by.

I loved the setting in the Louis XVI dining room, where everyone was seated together.

Guests took home these adorable heart-shaped cookies. Love my cute little helper here!

One more quick portrait outside. It was even colder once the sun set, of course, but I think it was totally worth it!

Nicole and Colin, thank you so much for inviting me to join you on such a special occasion, and for trusting me to capture your wedding day memories. It was so nice meeting you both, and I wish you a lifetime of joy together!

Where was I?

Oh yes, timing. I bought an inexpensive candy thermometer (I don’t see myself making candy very frequently) so I could bring the ingredients exactly to the temperature of the soft ball stage, which incidentally has nothing to do with sports. I was terrified not only of passing up the correct temperature, but also of burning myself. Amazingly enough I didn’t! And I just watched that thermometer until the mercury rose to the “soft ball stage” line and then followed the next steps.

Here’s where I ran into an issue. When I added the vanilla, butter and flour, the recipe didn’t explain what to do with it. Stir it until smooth? Whisk it quickly? If you look at the original recipe it just reads, “Remove from the heat and add butter, vanilla extract and flour.  Pour into a 9×13-inch pan and let sit for 20 minutes.” The flour immediately lumped up, and in my research I had read that if you stir at the wrong phase you can ruin the fudge, so I wasn’t sure what to do! I decided to just whisk the lumps as much as I could because I didn’t think they’d work themselves out, and then I continued the recipe. (Note that I added this step to the recipe below.) It was very awkward scraping the fudge out of the pan and into the stand mixing bowl and I was only able to scrape it in chunks, but it did eventually whip up into a ball (which wouldn’t have been possible without my new stand mixer).

• What I learned: Candy really does require precision! And I learned about the soft ball stage of candy.
• What went well: I had all of my ingredients ready to go before I started. This helped tremendously with the timing of everything. And I didn’t burn myself!
• What I can do better next time: When it was time to press the fudge into the 8×8 pan, I wasn’t sure what to press it with. I scrambled around looking for something – I should have been more prepared. I ended up using the bottom of my largest measuring cup, which worked fine.

Chris and I thought the fudge was really good, although it didn’t taste exactly like cookie dough. I think I got the texture right though! Lesson complete.

I followed the directions in the original recipe, except I didn’t want to use my new food processor because Chris was still sleeping and I wasn’t sure how loud it would be. I decided to use my hand blender instead, and that worked just fine since it was just mixing beans and spices. Oh and I didn’t have a heavy cast iron skillet to heat the tortillas, so I just used a regular skillet. I also copied Annie’s food presentation almost exactly because I have no idea what this usually looks like.

• What I learned: I learned what Huevos Rancheros is, and I learned that sometimes it’s totally fine to use another appliance instead of what the recipe calls for – a hand blender instead of a food processor, for instance.
• What went well:It was delicious!
• What I can do better next time: I made a huge mess. Maybe I can work on cleaning as I go?!

The view from the lift was just so pretty. The view down the mountain:

And the view up the hill. Plus an action shot of me! I’m happy to report that my skills are improving vastly – I can link turns consistently and make it down a run without really falling. I do still have a little trouble when the trail is really really narrow – that kind of spooks me because my turns are wide, but I’m sure I’ll continue to improve this season. We have several trips planned – I’m obsessed with our new hobby.

Most importantly, while I was in Colorado I got to spend quality time with my family for the Christmas holiday. I love them so much! We chatted a lot, and I personally ate a lot, so thank goodness for the snowboarding to burn off the calories.

And I got to see my nephew, Andy the Weimaraner (pictured below), and my niece, Fiona the Snowshoe Siamese kitty! So that’s always nice.

Counting down the days to our next trip out there!

In the search for a breakfast that meets my challenging array of dietary restrictions (lactose-intolerance, wheat-intolerance, and an egg allergy), I have finally grown to like oatmeal which I actually used to detest. I found this clean-eating recipe for Slow Cooker Sweet Potato Oatmeal and thought, well that’s different. I’ve never had sweet potato anything for breakfast. And I’m not super skilled at making steel-cut oats, so I figured this should be good practice.

I gathered my ingredients and followed the directions word-for-word. I used the correct size slow cooker, I measured everything exactly, and I gave it the proper amount of time to cook. By the end of the 2.5 hours on low, it was still incredibly liquidy. The oats seemed cooked even though they were all afloat in there, so I ended up just putting the whole batch through a fine mesh strainer to drain the extra liquid. The remaining oats were the consistency I prefer, so this recipe turned out fine in the end! Can I chalk this up to developing good instincts in the kitchen?! Or maybe some people just like liquidy oatmeal. The original photo does look soupier than mine.

Short of draining the liquid after the cook time was up, what else could I have done? Should I have let it cook longer? Was there a way for me to know from the start that this was too much liquid? I suppose if I make it again, I will try cutting the milk and water in half, or maybe just leaving out the water altogether.

• What I learned: Liquid apparently does not evaporate much if at all in a slow cooker. The ingredients have to absorb the liquids or else the results are soupy.
• What went well: I didn’t grate my thumb while preparing the sweet potato! Success!
• What I can do better next time: I actually didn’t have cinnamon in my pantry like I thought I did (I usually do?!), so when I was ready to cook, I didn’t have all the ingredients needed. Chris ran to the store for me while the oats were cooking. So next time I’ll physically gather all the ingredients ahead of time to make sure I have everything.

This will be good with some walnut pieces mixed in. Chris also suggested marshmallows (like in the traditional sweet potato side for the holidays), but I think I’ll keep it clean and wholesome. Well, okay…I did sprinkle a little brown sugar and extra cinnamon on top. Lesson complete!

And with that, I have some news! In addition to the new blogsite layout, things are changing a bit here at SSP, and I want to share my thoughts with you.

Chris and I have been doing wedding photography for five years now. In some ways, I can’t believe it has gone by so quickly! And other times I think, five years – wow, it seems like a lot longer. We have met so many incredibly wonderful couples and have had some amazing adventures that could have only been experienced through our photography business. That time we photographed a wedding right in the middle of a huge blizzard. That time it rained (okay, this happened more than once). That time it was over 100 degrees (this definitely happened more than once). That time we photographed a beautiful wedding on New Year’s Eve and counted down to the new year with our wonderful couple’s friends and family. That time the officiant didn’t show up and the amazing wedding coordinator stepped in to perform the ceremony. That time we ate dinner in a tiny broom closet (a closet!). That time the venue was crawling with spiders everywhere I turned, but I stayed brave. That time we photographed a wedding in super cute and tiny Decorah, Iowa. That time we photographed a wedding in Hawaii!

So many clicks of the shutter, so many miles on the car. Checklist-checking, prepping the gear, packing the gear, carrying the gear. Driving, standing, walking, running. Directing, posing, staging, observing. Early mornings, late nights. Importing, exporting, backing up. Editing, editing, editing. Album designing, email answering, social media posting.

Oh and did I mention that we both have other full-time jobs? At one point I realized: I’m spending nearly all of my free time capturing other people’s memories instead of making more of my own. Yes, Chris and I were fortunate enough to have had some wonderful adventures here-and-there over the last five years – mainly our trips to Alaska, St. John, and Colorado. But when I look back at the amount of time that I was working vs. the amount of time I wasn’t working, it’s quite an imbalance. The typical workweek for most people  is designed with two days off (exception: parents!), but with two jobs and a never-ending-to-do list, I have been working seven days a week most weeks. The time commitment with weddings plus our other jobs leaves us with little to no free time and we miss our weekends, so…

We’ve decided to take a pause on offering full-scale weddings for a while.

Never say never, so I won’t say that we aren’t doing them at all, but we’re taking a much needed pause in order to simplify our lives a bit. I truly do LOVE weddings. Yes, it’s a lot (a lot a lot) of work, but there is something so special about The Big Day that always draws me back in. I’m truly honored when we’re chosen to share that day with someone and when we’re trusted to capture those important moments. So I personally will still be available for a few smaller weddings, and to second-shoot for fellow wedding photographers, and of course for portraits here and there, which I also love! Chris, however, is hanging up his BlackRapid double camera strap for the time being. He will still have a hand in the business though – he is my brilliant technical support.

Thank you to all of our fantastic couples from 2008-2012! We feel so very blessed to have crossed paths with you in such a special way.