midnight in philadelphia

Moving…

Jay & Kerith — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 03:59:11 +0000

Not physically, of course. But we’re moving our blog over to the Overjoyed Photography website. We thought it would help to simplify things a bit. So from now on, we’ll be posting not only our portrait sessions and weddings there, but also shots of our personal lives and our personal projects. And for those of you that checked both before, now you can kill two birds with one stone.

Under Construction!

Jay & Kerith — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 14:50:55 +0000

We’ve been doing a lot of repainting and rearranging on our second floor. We’ll post pictures of the new and improved 2nd floor soon. Ellie wanted to help out too!

I wanna help!

C'mon, just give me a paintbrush, and I'll show you what my paintin' paws can do!

Mountain Trip

Jay & Kerith — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 05:29:07 +0000

Last weekend we went up to the mountains with friends from our Bible study. Matt’s parents have a house up in Bradford County (in northern PA, near the NY border), so he and his wife, Jamie, invited a group of people up to spend the weekend with them and their baby, Caleb. On Saturday, Matt took us on a two hour hike around the property. There was probably between a foot and 18 inches of snow on the ground (and more in some places), and it was snowing pretty hard again when we started the hike. It was a great trip, though, and we had a very relaxing weekend, with lots of hot cocoa and board games. :-)

The latest addition to the Leatherman family!

When we first started the hike, it was snowing pretty hard. (It had already lighten up a lot at this point.)

An action shot of Matt's snowball hitting the tree.

Matt punching through a chunk of ice.

This was where the hike started to get a little steep.

The snow was up to our knees (and higher) at places, and it was covered with a couple inches of ice, so sometimes you could stay on top, and sometimes you fell through.

A deer stand. Or a tree house. You decide.

The wind picked up as we were getting back close to the house.

Snowboarding didn't work so well...

Mmmm….

Jay & Kerith — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 03:20:14 +0000

Fresh out of the oven. With Andes baking chips. :-)

Snowy Hike!

Jay & Kerith — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 02:42:11 +0000

Philly got 15 inches of snow this past week! I like snow, but I liked it a whole lot better before I got a job that does not have snow days. I had to walk to work Thursday morning (about 2 miles) through the snow, and Jay was a very sweet husband who walked with me at 5:45am. We decided to go to one of our favorite parks, Wissahickon Park, today for a snowy hike. It was a sunny, warm(er) January day and we had a grand time!

Ready to go exploring!

The stare down...

Some awesome icicles.

C'mon guys, stop taking pictures and hurry up!

Can you tell that we're 'snow' in love....

Family picture take one...

... and take 2. The wind blew and snow got dumped on our head from a branch above us. I love how Ellie and I have the same expression on our faces!

Ellie's newest trick... She just learned to roll over.

Miscellanea

Jay & Kerith — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 22:22:58 +0000

I just wanted to post an assortment of recent shots. The first three were from the last roll I shot on my Holga, and the last couple are just around the house. Stay tuned for a bunch more photos from around the house… We’re currently in the process of doing a lot of painting, rearranging, and redecorating. No promises on how soon pics will be up though…

This may be my favorite Holga photo I've taken. This is our friend James, and it was taken on a New Year's hike in Wissahickon with Kerith, James, and his wife Kate.

Yes. Yes, it does.

The bonsai tree (a Chinese elm) that Kerith gave me for Christmas. :-)

And a candle holder on our dining room wall that we decided looked better with clementines than with candles.

Walnut Street Fire

Jay & Kerith — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 00:26:04 +0000

On January 10, there was a five-alarm fire in an apartment building about two blocks from our house. The fire started around 2:30 pm, and even with about 160 firemen there it wasn’t declared under control until about 7:30 pm. The next morning at about 7 am, there were still several fire trucks there. Because it was about 20 degrees, when Kerith and I walked by the next day, pretty much everything around the building (cars, fences, trees, a bike rack) was encased in a thick layer of ice.

Fortunately there were no injuries in the fire, but the building was pretty much destroyed, and 89 families were displaced. The American Red Cross is accepting donations for these families.

This was taken from the window of our house. The vignetting is, unfortunately, the result of using a lens that wasn't designed for my camera...

Happy New Year!

Jay & Kerith — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 18:51:16 +0000

Welcome to 2011! 2010 was an exciting year for us, and we’re excited about what the new year will bring. Here are some highlights from the past year..

Attended a lot of weddings, both as guests and as photographers (12 total!)
Expanded our photography business (Check us out here)
Joined our new church, Renewal
Got 2 fish as a Valentine’s Day gift (well, we started with 5, but… survival of the fittest…)
Celebrated one year of marriage (aww)
Adopted our 3-legged wonderpup, Ellie (one day after our 1 year anniversary– we said we’d wait at least a year before getting a dog!)
Ran the Broad St. Run (10 miles) on a record hot day in May. (J&K)
Bought our first car– Hobbes the Versa
Drove down South several times in aforementioned car
Went camping, once in the Adirondacks & then at Hickory Run State Park (Ellie’s first camping trip).
Ran a 1/2 marathon… without training and has been paying for it (J)
1/2 through grad school (J)
Unemployment, but that’s okay (J)
Became a Certified Critical Care Nurse (K)

Ellie looking ahead to the new year.

Merry Christmas and a…

Jay & Kerith — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 01:02:38 +0000

I can’t believe it’s been so long since we’ve posted on here! A lot has happened since September, and we have a lot of photos from the fall to post. Hopefully, we’ll get them up over the next week or two. We did want to go ahead and put up our Christmas post, however.

Our Christmas started on Thursday, December 9, when Kerith, Ellie, and I drove down to NC to celebrate Christ-thankmas with my family. We spent Friday and Saturday with Kait and Kent and their new puppy, Patch. Patch is a 4 month old pit bull, and he and Ellie got along wonderfully.

Patch!

A typical Ellie stance.

Next time they meet, they won't be so evenly matched.

Kait's family- Parkers, take note! Shelly's eyes are OPEN & Chuck's are closed-- usually it's the reverse!

The couples!

The Parker family

Our Christmas picture, taken on Kait and Kent's porch. (Kait took the pictures and Kent stood behind her making noises to get Ellie to look at the camera).

We're comin' for you!

On the way back from SC, we stopped in Charlotte to visit our good friends Seth and Janet. Unfortunately, we neglected to get any photos, but we had a great time. We celebrated Christ-thankmas on Monday with my family. Christ-thankmas pretty much consisted of a huge Thanksgiving dinner (turkey, stuffing, and casseroles) and gift-giving. We had a great time with my family, and Ellie had a great time with my family’s three dogs, Frodo, Sadie, and Daytah.

On the right is my brother's dog, Daytah.

Mom & Dad opening the new wind chime.

Exhausted & ready to head back North.

Christmas, part 2. After having our own little Christmas celebration on Christmas eve, we spent the rest of Christmas weekend with Kerith’s family at her parents’ house in Philly. We went up there late Christmas eve and stayed until the evening of the 26th.

Our decorations.

A lot of gifts under the tree for only two people.

Ellie, excited for Christmas.

Gloria handing out stockings.

This note was taped to the package containing our blender. (Ellie knocked our old one off the counter and broke it.)

The Finegan family photo.

Animals!

Jay & Kerith — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 02:42:02 +0000

We have lots of stray cats in the alley behind our house, and they frequently curl up on the wicker furniture on our porch. Whenever we go out the back door, Ellie loves to run out on the porch and chase the cats. She whines when they won’t stay and play with her. Yesterday, Kerith went outside, and there was a mother cat and a tiny kitten on the chair. Ellie came out, and the mother ran off, leaving the kitten. We got Ellie back inside, but after almost an hour, the mother still hadn’t come back. It was a chilly day, and we were worried about the kitten being okay on it’s own, so we brought it in and wrapped it up in some old towels. We took Zeus (we named him) to the SPCA, where he was renamed (by the computer’s auto-assign feature, presumably) Reese. Hopefully he will now have a better life than he would have had living as a stray cat in our alley.

And of course I took a few photos before we took him to the SPCA:

And a few I took of Ellie curled up on her favorite pillow on our couch this afternoon: