I think I've always known deep inside . . .

Which Hogwarts house will you be sorted into?

A poem that I found online and did not write:

There may be those of greater fame
From houses of another name,
Whose grand exploits and daring ways
Will draw attention through their days.

But when the tale is heard to tell
Of those who live not famed, but well
Who falseness scorn and sloth eschew
Regardless of what others do,

And who believe the greater end
Is never to desert a friend
And wisdom is reward enough,
Rest certain these are Hufflepuff.

So let it be full understood
That Hufflepuff means brotherhood
Our loyalty lies with Hufflepuff;
We have but thee; we have enough.

Welcome, Baby Jill!

My friend Sarah had her baby tonight, Jill!! We got to stop by to see her and she's so precious!! The phenomenon just continues to amaze me - she's not there and then she's suddenly here. I know - it sounds ridiculous. I mean, I knew there was a baby inside of Sarah but it's just amazing to actually meet her in person! Welcome, Baby Jill!

20 things on our refrigerator

Mr. Whirlpool sure was genious when he thought to make the outside of refrigerators magnetized.

Tonight I was standing in my kitchen looking at everything on my fridge and thinking about how much I like pictures and seeing what pictures other people choose for their houses. Whenever I go into someone's house I can't help but go straight to their picture frames and refrigerators to see what they have on display! Well, in honor of that, I thought I would share my refrigerator with you! As usual, click on the image below for a larger view.


1) Courtney and Kyle's wedding postcard - she wrote all of her thank you notes on postcards that were made from one of their wedding photos! Brilliant - not much space to fill up there on the back!

2) Pick up Stix magnet for quick takeout!

3) Mark and Emily - I have no idea where this photo came from - my mom sent it to me once and I have no idea where she got it, but I'm glad they're on our frig!

4) Picture of me and Shannon from college - freshman year spring break! It was on our mini-frig in the dorm every year and still lives on today . . .

5) Sydney from Christmas last year!

6) Marc and Emily (not to be confused with Mark and Emily) at their wedding

7) The Harry Potter card Reba sent me for my 25th birthday: (outside of card:) "Remember - no magic is allowed outside of Hogwart's, (inside of card) but you'll be forgiven for making some cake disappear!" Love it! I have a strong affection for HP, and I love Rebs and birthday cake, so it was the perfect card for me!

8) The Ma'in's - Callen and Mike at their wedding!

9) The Richies - this pic is maybe from Northern Ireland? This year there will be 2.5 people in their Christmas photo!

10) The magnet we got on our honeymoon in Maui

11) My cousins Tyler and Weston

12)The birth announcement I got to design for Samuel Albertsen - maybe I'll post a real shot of this soon - he's a cutie!

13) The orphan from India that we helped support this year

14) a photo of us with Ryanne and Jonathan Witt the day we got our Disneyland passes!

15) My brother's senior picture

16) Another Birth announcement by MR - Annabelle Hinson! I'm getting to photograph and meet Annabelle for the first time in just a couple of weeks! Eeeee! I can't wait!! I know you're jealous!

17) The magnet Shan gave me - also from our freshman year of college - "There's nothing like a good friend, except a good friend with chocolate!"

18) Sarah, Daren, and Annie Blomquist - Baby Jill will be joining them any minute now! We can't wait!

19) The annual Loffi Christmas photo

20) Our running lists - Trader Joe's, Costco, Grocery Store, Target - what more could you possibly need in life that doesn't come from one of these 4 places?

I hope you've enjoyed looking at my refrigerator! There's more space to be had, so send us your Christmas card this year!

What's on your refrigerator? I'd love to see . . . .

Make new friends, but keep the old

Yay for a blog that's not about fire!

Last Saturday, Adam and I had a super fun day of old and new friends! It was great!

We started with a lunch date with some old friends that we've been so excited to see! There are a handful of friends from our high school who live in California - a little strange considering we graduated with only about 80 people. So we finally had a mini-Class of '00 reunion this weekend! Drew Allen and his wife live in Burbank, and Kaci Mullen lives in San Diego and we finally all got together at a place to celebrate our heritage - Sonic!

From R to left: Us truly, Kaci, her boyfriend Jeff, Drew and Michelle Allen


It was so fun to hear about everyone's lives, tell old stories, and connect with fellow Tennesseans-turned-Californians. We can't wait to see them again soon!

After Sonic, we drove up to Pasadena to meet some new friends! We had 2 photo shoots on Saturday afternoon with friends of Lauren's who are now friends of ours! We started with Darcy and Adam (I kept having to refer to "my Adam" when talking in groups). Darcy's in school with Lauren and I had heard the Kings refer to them often. They're a great couple and we had so much fun hanging out and shooting around Pasadena. Then we got to see Robin and Ben - we've gotten to hang out with them once before so it was fun to see them again! Robin's also in school with Lauren - all of these super cool Fuller students. I just love Pasadena - there are so many hours worth of photo shoots there so I was glad to get to begin to scratch the surface of it. We finished the evening with a great night of sushi with the Darcy, Adam, Ben, Lauren and Andrew. We tried out a place called A'Float Sushi where they have a sushi bar that has boats floating around carrying different types of sushi. It was really really good and really cheap! We'll definitely be going back!

The really good news is that all of these 'Dena folks that we saw on Saturday are all coming to Thanksgiving Extravaganza '07! Yippee! We're so looking forward to it!!

You can check out a preview of some of their pics on photoblog!

Fire Update: Thur evening

Are you guys tired of fires? I'm tired of fires and am ready for life to return to a normal routine. This is easy for me to say since I still have my house, unlike many others. Adam went back to class tonight, I'm at home blogging when I should be working, so there are signs of normal life beginning to surface again.

The update from here is much the same. Containment still at 30%, approx. 26,000 acres burned, and fire still posing danger but continuing to move Eastward away from us. Here's a new map - I put a couple of familiar landmarks on there for reference. The yellow is recently burned and the red is currently burning (click the image for larger view). Also keep in mind this is only "our" portion of "our" fire. There's a whole other map for Trabuco Canyon area, etc.


The ash and smoke seem to have been at their worst this morning. I wish I had taken a photo of our cars when I walked out to leave for work today - yuck. But there seems to be some improvement in all of that this evening, thankfully. It's a little tough to see but here's a view of the ash on our doorstep just now:


I'm hoping that the fire news is on it's way out of our life - I'm looking forward to blogs about things other than fires again soon!

Fire Update: Wed night

Fortunately, again, there is nothing major to report. The orange cloud in the distance has re-appeared tonight as well as what sounds like about 10 helicoptors flying above our house. It's almost kind of soothing - like white noise.

Air quality is a continual concern - most schools in the area are cancelled because of it and the atmosphere is emitting a weird greenish/yellow glow - it's pretty creepy. Kind of like just before a tornado. The smoke and ash is everywhere - in Laguna, here at home, everywhere.

As I've said before, getting information has been somewhat frustrating. The best/only updating website I've found pertaining to us is OCRegister.com - anyone else found something better? The info seems vague but at least it's something. We're currently at 14 homes lost and 22,000 acres. Our containment rating got up to 50% about mid-day but we're back down to 30% this evening.

Cabin fever seems to be setting in a little as well. We've been trying to exercise as much as possible lately which isn't currently an option due to air quality. Day 1 Fitness was perfect for us tonight - you can download a mini-training session from the website so Adam and I got a good work out in our living room!

Our stuff is still packed just in case. Of course these situations make you think, what would I take? Here's what we have:
1) The boring stuff: documents, insurance proof, official certificates, etc.
2) Photos from when we were kids - they used to have this stuff called film and you made photo prints from it - crazy. We actually have some!
3) Some baseball memorabilia that Adam has from his grandfather
4) Computer external harddrives and backup discs - work stuff for us both
5) A few days worth of clothes
6) Lamby! (no - not a joke)
7) Other small electronics - iPod, camera, etc.

What else would you bring if you were being evacuated?

Fire Update: Tue night

We're heading to bed now - it's Tuesday night and all in our neighborhood is quiet except an occasional helicopter fly-over or fire engine in the distance. We can see some glowing smoke in the distance but the skyscape tonight is nothing like this time last evening. Tonight we drove through the neighborhoods in our area and how strange to see everything perfectly still and "normal" compared with last night where the same streets were filled with flying embers, fire trucks, news crews, etc.

Unfortunately, the scope of "our" fire has worsened and took several homes today a couple of miles away. For non-Californians, we live just next to the canyons, a much more rural type of land where fires spread much more quickly and there is more vegetation and greenery to go up quickly. So several homes in a nearby canyon got taken today but overall the firefighters have been extremely successful in keeping the fire away from the more developed land areas. Here's a map of the scope that we're talking about - I don't want to pinpoint our house exactly but you get the idea. Currently our fire is pushing 20,000 acres of coverage.

Luckily the damage isn't nearly as bad as some of the other locations like San Diego, Lake Arrowhead, etc. This is the only OC fire that I know of currently but that also makes it feel a little like we're getting swept under the rug without much outside support. I think we finally got some planes in today which is supposed to make a big difference.

Have I mentioned that the cause of ours is arson? Someone intentionally set it off in 3 locations. I could go on about this but it's incredibly frustrating - all the manpower that could be used at other fires, all of the wildlife, property, land damaged. I can't even imagine what would motivate someone to do this.

Again, we feel extremely safe at this point despite the magnitude of the fire. Our stuff is still packed just in case but we don't expect to see any more of the action that we saw last night. It's been an exhausting last 24 hours or so with the preparing, watching, waiting, etc. - we are quite tired despite the fact that we never even were evacuated. Off to get some much-needed rest - sweet dreams!

Fire Update

Well, it was a long evening/night for us but all is well. From what I can tell the fire is still going strong but has moved on from our neighborhood. I think a lot of other homes are still in danger but we seem to be in the clear.

I came home from work early yesterday to help Adam prep for the potential evacuation that we were expecting. We spent the afternoon and evening packing external harddrives, photos, etc. I think it's probably always a good exercise to think through the loss of all of your possessions. We really do have a lot of meaningless stuff.

When I arrived home in the afternoon the fire was a good couple of miles away but by the evening it had wrapped its way around our neighborhood and reached probably within 1/2 to 1/4 mile of our house. Here was the view from our doorstep:


The fire was a good couple of streets away from us but with the strong winds, the embers have been starting smaller fires so we and the others neighbors who hadn't evacuated yet were wetting down the greenery around us. Ready for action!


At times, when the wind would shift towards our direction - the ash and smoke blowing at us were quite strong hence the gear above. Apparently dish towels and Brita pitchers are the key elements for fire fighting. At one point it looked like snow with all of the ash raining down.

Again, I'm not telling you this so you guys will worry (moms, etc.). We were being cautious and had cars packed and ready to leave quickly should the fire have jumped at all. In the end, from what I can tell, not a single house in Foothill caught fire. The firefighters have truly done an amazing job and stayed with this thing as it worked its way across the back of our neighborhood.

Around 11:30 last night we could finally tell a significant difference in the distance of the fire from our house so we were able to get a pretty good night's sleep. Thanks for your prayers - we are so thankful but are continuing to pray for those who are still in danger.

Ryan started the fire . . .

I've been singing this song in my head all day thanks to the craziness going on this week.

It's definitely been Fire Week in the Rosenbaum world this week. The excitement started last Monday with major dessert disaster #2 of the past year - Apple Pie. My mom has this amazing recipe where you bake the pies in brown grocery bags. It doesn't work out so well, however, when your bags burst into flames and your husband has to use the fire extinguisher to put them out. In my head, I was actually thinking, oh, maybe if he doesn't spray very much we can salvage the pies. Bummer.


So after surviving fire #1 of the week, we move on to the other fires of the week that started over the weekend, with our very own Foothill Ranch fire that started about 24 hours ago. Yes, the Santiago Canyon/Irvine fire just happens to be in our backyard. Luckily it's the only major fire in Orange County. We are thankful for our safety and the firefighters seem to have done an amazing job keeping the fire back from our neighborhood. Here's some views from the day - everything is quite smokey and ashy - yuck!

The view on the drive to work this morning - this was about 9:30am:



Here's a view of our house from a couple of hours ago! Wow!



We really feel extremely safe right now so we don't want to worry anyone. Let's just hope that the Santa Ana winds slow down so the fires don't continue to spread! It's definitely been a crazy day here!

WHAT?!?!

Folks, I have NEWS! We (or at least I) have been missing out for years now. Am I alone in this?

A couple of weeks ago I was quickly running errands so I ran into the card section of my local CVS to quickly try to pick up a couple of birthday cards for Ryanne and Courtney. The doors slide open . . . cards, cards, where are they - oh. Yes. Here's the aisle.

Ok - Graduation cards, Halloween Cards, Anniversary Cards, Sweetest Day Cards, Baby Cards . . . wait. What? Sweetest Day Cards? Yes - I did read that correctly. October 20 - Sweetest Day.

I stroll over and pick one up. The inside and out - pink and red - looks quite similar to a Valentine's Day Card. I conclude that Sweetest Day must be the Canadian version of Valentine's Day? It's the best I can come up with.

Well, there's no mystery that can't be solved by Wikipedia, so here's their definition to enlighten us all:

"Sweetest Day is an observance celebrated mainly in the Great Lakes region and parts of the Northeastern United States on the third Saturday in October." Basically Wiki concludes that it's a holiday made up by candy makers to sell more candy.



The only reaction that I have to this is : Brilliant! I love this holiday! Seriously, way to make something up and just call it exactly what it is. A day for us all to buy each other candy. Retailers are happy, I'm happy - we're all happy! Chocolate for all mankind! There's no false V-day obligation to feel a certain way or buy particular items under the guise of love - just simplify that complicated day down to buying each other goodness and you have Sweetest Day! Seriously, who's with me?

Northern friends, can you shed any light on this? How have I missed out on this genious-ness for all these years.

Get pumped because tomorrow is SWEETEST DAY!!!

Christmas Photos

Check out my photoblog for info on the Christmas Photo special I'm running. I will also be in Nashville for a few days in November for some shoots and I have a few timeslots left.

LBH, I'm totally regretting that I undercharged for this whole portrait thing, so you guys should definitely take full advantage of that mistake :)

Please pass on the info to any friends/families that you know who might be intersted! Thanks!

TN vs. AL

Ahh - the rivalry of the old home states. Does anyone have connections to get tickets to this game? My brother is searching desperately!

How long will it last?

I'm taking guesses . . . how long do you think I can keep up with changing this photo out seasonally?


Hopefully longer than my Album of the Month series lasted . . . I know you're a true bloggie if you were around for those days . . .

Ryanne's Birthday!

October is quite the celebratory month in our lives, so we were thrilled to have yet another reason to celebrate last night in honor of Ryanne's 25th birthday!

A big group of us went to dinner at Rusty Pelican in Newport which was a fun change of pace. I had one of those "Wow, we live at the beach!" moments. I know, I work 2 blocks from the ocean everyday but going for work vs. for pleasure makes it a whole new experience! We don't go down there nearly enough!


We had an 8:00 reservation for 22 people but they were extremely accomodating to us. The food was great (shrimp and scallop risotto - how good does that sound!) and the company was even better.


AND . . . the very fun part of the evening was that we sat right next to a VIP table where someone you may recognize was sitting:

Yup! Creed from the Office was sitting at the the next table over. After about an hour of us all gawking at him, Josh W. finally strolled over (after looking up his real name on his iPhone - it's Creed) and said what a fan he and our entire table were of the show. Creed was very gracious and stepped over to our table to say hello and let us snap a photo of him with the birthday girl.

After dinner, we hit all of the local hotspots including the Costa Mesa Embassy Suites (that's right - don't miss the artwork):



and Patsy's where Josh G entertained us all with some Tenacious-D karaoke.
What a fun night - happy birthday Ryanne!

Necessary Information

Up front disclaimer: This post is mostly for my brother and husband.



I was recently inspired by this conversation:

Courtney R: Once I memorized every quarterback in the NFL.
Josh W: Wow. That's dedication. What did Kyle do for you in return?
Kyle R: Married her.

I started thinking about that idea and was so inspired that I am officially on the road to trying to learn every NFL quarterback and team. This is very useful information in the heart of fantasy season if you intend to have a clue what's going on in 90% of conversations.

Here's what I can do off the top of my head - the way to do it is geographically. I've never had to write them so my spelling may be a trainwreck:

San Diego Chargers: Philip Rivers
Oakland Raiders : ummm . . ummmm . . shoot. Sorry Kyle, can't remember. I think it starts with a C and is about 4 syllables?
San Francisco 49ers: Smith
Seattle Seahawks: ummm . . .ummmm . . . this isn't going so well. I just learned this one on Sunday
Arizona Cardinals: Matt Leinart and Kurt Warner (bonus points for 2 QB's)
Denver Broncos: Cutler from Vandy
Houston Texans: Shaub
Dallas Cowboys: Tony Romo - usde to date Carrie Underwood
Kansas City Chiefs: Brodie Croyle (Roll Tide)
Chicago Bears: used to be Rex Grossman and now Brian Griese
St. Louis Rams: Bulger
Indianapolis Colts: Peyton - no doy
Cincinnatti Bengals: Carson Palmer
Cleveland Browns: nope
New Orleans Saints: Drew Brees
TN Titans: Vince Young
Tampa Bay Bucs: Garcia
Jacksonville Jaguars: Gerard
Miami Dolphins: was Trent Green but he got hurt this week so we'll see what happens (just imagine a green dolphin)
Atlanta Falcons: was Michael Vick but now is . . . ummm . . . tricky - Herrington?
Carolina Panthers: Jason Campbell (War Eagle! - I never picked sides when I lived in AL)
Philadelphia Eagle: I'm supposed to imagine something flying on top of an eagle but I have no idea what that means - Soar? Fly? High?
Buffalo Bills: No idea
New England Patriots: Tom Brady
NY Jets: Pennington
NY Giants: Eli

How'd I do? That's 26 - I think that puts me a good 10 teams or so short. Shoot. Who'd I miss?

Oh well - it's the thought that counts . . .

Photo Blog is Back

You may have noticed a few subtle changes on my blog template including a new photo of yours truly, some link rearrangement, etc. While I know this tired template could use some updating, that will unfortunately have to wait because all of the changes are actually to get everything in order for my photoblog.

As I mentioned before, my old pseudo-website is now changing into what will hopefully be a true-to-form blog of all things photo in my life. So we have the new website in addition to the improved photo blog. I made a whole category for myself over to the left there.


I just did my first real post yesterday about Frank and Diane's engagement shoot - it was a night shoot so we got some cool lighting and a very different vibe than other recent engagement sessions. Check it out when you get a chance!

As always, thanks for linking to my website and now photo blog as well!

Birthday Boy

The celebration this week continues with holiday #2 of the week - Adam's birthday! We were both a little bummed at first that our wedding ended up being so close to his birthday. But this week has actually been a blast to have the celebrations last all week.

In honor of his birthday, here is a photo of Adam on his first day of UCLA! Yes, I made him pose. This is actually just after he arrived home!

Happy 26!

I heart October 1

Today is October 1 and we are celebrating our First Anniversary! Actually, celebrated is a better word as we really declared the whole weekend to be celebratory. In many ways I can't believe it's been a whole year and in others it seems like it's been forever (in the best sense).

We've been going through the play-by-play of our wedding week for the past several days and remembering how much we loved our wedding - flying to Nashville for the festivities, dress fittings, crying in the middle of the shoe store when my sweet friends all arrived, our rehearsal dinner, everything! I'll try to post some photos later today from all of the wedding festivities- I wasn't such a dedicated blogger then so I'm sure you're all dying to know the details (just kidding, but indulge me!).

I once heard someone say that your wedding day is the least happy day of your marriage. Not that it isn't an amazing day but that it doesn't compare to living life everyday with your spouse. I agree! As many of you who know me well know, I spent many hours thinking about "marriage" and trying to get my head around that concept as completely as possible - what is it like, how should I be feeling, what does all of this look like. Thanks to so many of you who supported me through my analyzing and thinking and all along the path that has lead us here.

I'm not sure how to totally articulate this but I think it's incredibly important. Maybe it's just semantics to many, but to me hearing about "marriage" from friends was something that I could only grasp pieces of; the word and concept of "marriage" were quite ambiguous and a little overwhelming to me. However, the reality of living life with Adam everyday has been the greatest gift I've ever received. And it's amazing because of him and our relationship, not because of some higher state that we've entered into. Does that make sense at all? It's finding the person that's right for you and living daily in that relationship. I'm not nearly as much of a fan of "marriage" as I am of Adam. I think it's kind of like "Christianity" vs. Jesus.

I'm continually amazed at Adam and how he loves me and serves me in a capacity that seems far greater than mine. I know it's only been a year, but I still get genuinely excited to wake up and see him next to me each day and to know that he'll be in my house when I get home from work. The past year has brought many more challenging circumstances than we would have liked or anticipated. But when I think of the past 12 months, it's truly joy and actual happiness that are my first reaction. The yuckiness and hard stuff kind of seems to fade away - I can't even explain or understand it.

So, I know that's all a little deeper than how we usually roll on my blog, but it's the reality of my life and I wanted to share with you!

In other news:
1) Happy Anniversary to The Witts as well! Thanks to you guys for sharing this first year of it all with us!
2) "Back to school, back to school, to prove to Dad I'm not a fool" - Yes! Today is Adam's first day of school at UCLA! He has a little more info about it on his blog if you want to hear about it. I tried to persuade him to take a picture of himself since I'll be at work when he leaves for his first day. Also mark your calendars that Mary actually just quoted a movie.