Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Virginia Countryside Photography

When our friends at Virginia Countryside Photography contacted us about making a custom soap for their client packages we were beyond thrilled!

Custom Soap for Virginia Countryside Photography


When we get a request we usually have a few questions to ask. We want to get the feel of your website and social media. We want to see your style and will usually ask what colors and fragrances you like. We ask if you want curls and sticks. We ask if you want glitter. We ask if you want plain or swirled.

Custom Soap for Virginia Countryside Photography

As artists it's nice to have some creative freedom to interpret the customer's style. Melissa put all of her trust in us to create the right bar for her! We talked about her favorite colors and scents. I spent some time getting the feel for her work. She told me that she liked the glitter and the colors of our tropical breeze soap.

Custom Soap for Virginia Countryside Photography

I noticed that Melissa posted a lot of sunrise pictures to her pages. And, Virginia is known for its beaches and mountains. It was perfectly fitting to create "Sweet Virginia Breeze" soap just for Melissa! The white, blue, teal, and coral go perfectly with her style and the scent is that of a crisp and clean babbling brook.

Custom Soap for Virginia Countryside Photography


It was a pleasure working with Melissa and we hope her customers will enjoy their mini soaps as part of their client packages! Thank you, Melissa and Mark, for trusting us to work on your custom soap. Be sure to visit their website here and their facebook page here. We love working with small businesses!
Here's an excerpt from their website:
We are Mark & Melissa Anderson, full-time mommy and daddy, professor, director, and project manager, lovers of the beach, the mountains, blue crabs, and the reason you are here, photographers. Welcome to our little piece of the world. We are glad you are here! Virginia Countryside Photography was born out of our love for photographing our children. We have always enjoyed capturing great memories of our own family, but we have found true joy in capturing memories for others. It brings us great delight to take photos at family gatherings, and the images burn a hole in our SD cards as we race to upload them and share them with the world. This same passion has transcended to our photography clients, and we absolutely can’t wait to get back to our computers after a session and view the amazing images we were fortunate to capture.

We specialize in outdoor, natural light photography, and love capturing all types of memories ~ families, babies, pets, you name it, we love capturing it. We also specialize in indoor studio portraits using a combination of natural and studio lights, which create many beautiful options to capture your memories!

We offer many opportunities to capture your sweet moments, and shoot at various locations throughout Central Virginia. We have access to beautiful areas around the James River in Chesterfield County, but we love a good road trip and will travel to a location of your choice around the heart of Virginia.




vcppic





Monday, October 20, 2014

This is the Day!

This past weekend could easily be described by the song "This is the Day (that the Lord hath made)". It really was glorious to be outside in the fresh air!

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Charlie could barely stand the wait from the time we mentioned the word, "park," at the house!

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There was no holding him back once we got there! First, we hiked the Beaver Lake Trail at Poco. This goes around the lake and is about the distance of a 5k.

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The trees were starting to lose their leaves and change color!

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And, Charlie wanted to just get going! No time to stop and take pictures, mom!

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There are quite a few pretty bridges/walkways around the lake! The sun just glistens on the leaves.

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And, there are always others walking with their fur-children!! This was Paxton!

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This is Charlie's favorite spot in the park because he can get wet! And, you know how much that little man loves water!

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We even let him off-leash here to fully enjoy the experience!

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There's so much splashing and running to do at this spot!

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It comes almost in the middle of the hike, so it's the perfect spot to cool down!

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He says to us, "Do we have to move on now?"

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It really was glorious at the Park. People were all around hiking, biking, and enjoying the VA Hops and Harvest Festival.

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We finished up the Beaver Lake Trail and Charlie still wanted to venture around some more!

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We looked for the snake family at the bridge by the dam!

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Then, we headed over to hike Forest Exploration Trail to see 'split rock.'

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There were kayakers enjoying the water!

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Then, we finally made it there!

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What a blessing to have our health to be able to enjoy these wonderful places on earth! We wrapped up with about 8 miles and Charlie was still ready to go more! Not me! Time for a break!

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Friday, October 17, 2014

Celebrating Columbus Day with some off-roading!

Poco Ride 10.13.14

We were finally able to get the trio back together for a little off-road riding at Poco this past Monday, which was a holiday for some of us!

Poco Ride 10.13.14

The day was just right for riding! We headed over to the Forest Exploration/Fendley Station Loop in hopes of checking out the new trails they are putting in for the IMBA Richmond Regional Ride Center!

Poco Ride 10.13.14

There was actually a guy working and we chatted with him about the plans! They have made lots of progress on the trail building for the hand cycling/beginner trails!

Poco Ride 10.13.14

There are wide trails and berms along with that awesome "skinny" log so far!

Poco Ride 10.13.14

Poco will truly be a destination once all of these new trails are completed! We are so proud of this project and the progress being made!

Poco Ride 10.13.14

We encountered two turtles on the side of the fire road and I think we interrupted them. Never seen that before in person!

Poco Ride 10.13.14

We examined the many flags marking the new trails! So exciting!

Poco Ride 10.13.14


The leaves are beginning to fall, and that is one of the prettiest times of the year at the park!

Poco Ride 10.13.14

Poco Ride 10.13.14

After our loop over on Forest Exploration we decided to try out the Blue trail before quitting!

Poco ride 10.13.14

It felt so great to finally hit the single track again!

Poco ride 10.13.14

And, even better to have our friend, Mountain Bike Mike (MBM), back too!

Poco ride 10.13.14

We even rode in our usual order...me, MBM, and Dynamo!

Poco ride 10.13.14

I'm the turtle of the group so they follow me!

Poco Ride 10.13.14

We finished up with around 14 miles! We really loved being back!

Poco Ride 10.13.14



Thursday, October 16, 2014

A walk in the park...

Sunday was a catch-up day for us after Saturday's busy day in Norfolk! So, we took the Little Man for a hike at the Battlefield!

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He loves the word "Park" and will only walk when it involves trails. Our 2 mile long dirt road just isn't interesting enough for him to want to walk on it! Go figure!

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You say "battlefield" and he's waiting at the car!

We stopped along the 4 mile hike to snap some pics at this old brick house-like structure!

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To get him to pose involved some treats!

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This is the "haven't you taken enough pictures yet?" look...

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In all the times we have ridden at the Petersburg Battlefield we've never stopped at this place...

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The spider felt interrupted I'm sure...

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I couldn't believe we lucked out and got this picture of us together all looking at the camera!!

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Even though it was a little drizzly early on, it turned out to be a nice evening for a hike!

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It's always so different hiking versus biking! You see things differently!

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It was a good time!!