Autumn Mini Session with DC Yoga Teacher Charlotte Bowden!

Happy almost Friday world! 

I thought I would keep to my fall flashback theme from last week and share about another yoga mini session I had in October. I mean, who doesn't love looking at fall photos, #amiright?

On Halloween weekend, I had the pleasure of snapping some photos of local DC-area teacher Charlotte Bowden. If you're a local yogi, you may have seen her teaching at Grip the Mat events or at Corepower Yoga in DC.

Charlotte and I had an early morning session, which was absolutely magical. The fall colors contrasted perfectly with her outfit and the scenery of Rock Creek Park was stunning.

I think I'm going to let the photos speak for themselves...

Sunflowers on Sunsets: A Friday Afternoon Adventure

There's something sort of magical about sunflowers during the dog-days of summer, isn't there?

You see them in the grocery store, at the farmer's market -- even peaking up over the fences of neighbors who have the luxury of a garden. They've always been a favorite of mine, sunflowers, so cheery and bright!

I remember when I was growing up (I think I was four or five), I begged my mum to let me grow a small batch of sunflowers in our yard. One of my favorite childhood pictures is of me standing in front of those tall, wonderful flowers, looking so proud at what I had grown...

As I've grown up and moved into the big, bad city, I don't have many opportunities to see sunflowers in their natural habitat anymore-- unless I seek the opportunities out, that is!

A few weeks ago I was reading online about how the Maryland Department of Natural Resources's McKee-Beshers WMA plants a few huge fields of sunflowers each year as food for the local dove population. Cue social media perusing, gawking at other photographer's photos, frantically emailing friends to see who would come along with me on my search for these epic sunflower fields... and before you knew it, I had a date on my calender to visit the beauties.

While we didn't get there during peak bloom, my crew and I did have a wonderful (HUMID!!) evening walking among these bright, cheery flowers. Here's some of my favorite snaps:

Adorable Alert: Mini Sunset Portrait/ Mommy & Me Session!

Can you believe it's almost September? Before you know it the air will be filled with cool breezes, the leaves will start turning color and we'll all be sipping on apple cider and Oktoberfest beers...Oh, how I love fall!

However, I shouldn't get ahead of myself -- we still have a few wonderful warm weeks of summer to enjoy! Come December, I know I'll be wishing I had an endless supply of warm evenings, fresh produce and lovely afternoon thunderstorms, so I should to my best to enjoy them now.

Speaking of, what better way to enjoy a summer evening than with an adorable headshot/mommy & me photo shoot?

I was so honored with my friend from grad school, Cynthia, asked me to take a few new headshots of her and snap some pics of her adorable daughter, Adelaide.

Cynthia and I met in class at Georgetown's School of Continuing studies where we are (or were in her case!) studying public relations and corporate communications. She's in the Army and is moving across the country now that she's done with school.

I'll miss seeing her around campus for sure but I was so happy to capture these images for her and her little one!

The End of USO Route 75 = I'm back and bloggin'!

Pfew. Well guys, its been a while, and I'm so glad to be back!

ICYMI, I took a bit of a blogging hiatus while I was traveling on-and-off as part of USO Route 75. You can read more about that here.

Anyway, all that's important for you to know is that I'm back with PLENTY of stories to share, a bunch of new project ideas/leads and even more plenty of photos and videos to show you. So, get pumped!

Now, the only question is... where do I begin?

Check back next week!

Snaps from Snowzilla: DC Family Photo Shoot in the Blizzard!

Oh winter. How I love you. But hate you. But mostly love you :)

Anyway.

Earlier this month we got hammered with an EPIC snow storm (erm, blizzard), which was actually a TON of fun. The last time we had snow this intense was circa the '09 "snomaggedon" storm, so everyone was pretty pumped to see the city shut down and snow-covered after a four-ish year capital city blizzard hiatus.

Besides spending the "snowzilla" storm hunkered down in my apartment snuggling my cats and concocting treats in my kitchen, I also ventured out into the elements to do a special family photo shoot in the snow for my friends Adam and Dani.

I can't remember the last time I did a shoot in such extreme weather -- but it was so fun! We walked all around the National Cathedral area to capture these amazing images and had a crazy good time as well.

Here's a look at some of my shots:

I'm definitely not a pro when it comes to shooting in the snow, but I'm not half bad either!

Yogi-tastic Photos from Grip The Mat at A Baked Joint

Can I just start by saying how much I love the name of the DC-based bakery, A Baked Joint? I shot a Grip the Mat Vinyasa to Vino event there a few weeks ago and can still can't get over how amazingly appropriate the place's name is.

Considering the shop's sister store is the beloved Baked & Wired (where I basically lived on Mondays during college), I shouldn't be surprised they chose such a fun name for their second location.

Unlike Baked & Wired, which is small and charming, A Baked Joint is large, airy and has plenty of breathing room for lounging and hosting fun events, like Grip the Mat's yoga events (see what I did there)?

I loved shooting this event although, I'll be the first to admit the low-light situation was super challenging. Hello ISO, nice to meet you.

Maybe I should learn off-camera flash...

Either way. I think the photos turned out okay. Not my best. But acceptable.

New Year, New Photos from Grip the Mat's Bendy Brunch at Union Kitchen Ivy City

Happy New Year, internet world! I hope over the last few weeks you had some time to enjoy the wonderful winter holiday season and catch up with family and friends.

Mr. Man and I worked until the later December calendar days before heading off to the Caribbean for a cruise with his family. It was totally magical! But more on that in another post once I get around to editing the photos :)

Before I set sail for my holiday vacation this December, I had the wonderful opportunity to donate my time and talents to shoot another event for the wonderful DC-based yoga event start-up, Grip the Mat. I've shot many of their events before and was delighted to be asked back to shoot for them again!

One of Grip the Mat's hallmark's is it's "pop-up" event style, which gives attendees the chance to practice their flow in some of DC's funkiest locations. This Bendy Brunch took place at Union Kitchen, Ivy City, which is a food incubator in the DC-area.

Tell you what, I've never shot a yoga event in a kitchen before -- and it was totally fabulous, as was the food!

Shooting these events is always so fun :)

Kicking off the New Year with a Nerd Fitness Feature for Spright

Happy happy happy new year to you beautiful blogosphere people, you!

Before I do a deep dive into my holiday shenanigans/travels (probably in a separate post), I thought I would share an awesome feature piece I wrote for Spright to help people jump-start their new year's fitness resolutions with a little inspiration.

When looking up amazing fitness industry leaders to write about for Spright a few months ago, I stumbled across Steve Kamb and his site, Nerd Fitness, and was instantly intrigued.

Nerd Fitness was unlike any other fitness site I had ever encountered in my years of writing about the fitness industry. Imagine nerd culture, mixed with bro culture in a subdued, supportive online fitness world -- that is Nerd Fitness.

I knew I had to talk to the creator of this wonderful, strange fitness world.

After several email attempts back and forth, I finally snagged an interview with the brains behind Nerd Fitness, Steve Kamb, and spoke to him about how the entire operation came together. Here's a snippet of my interview:

Steve Kamb is a nerd. Like, a video game-playing, comic book-reading, knows more about Star Wars than your brother kind of nerd. But don’t let that fool you into thinking he’s clueless when it comes to healthy living. The author, entrepreneur, and founder of Nerd Fitness knows his stuff.

A largely self-taught fitness leader, Kamb founded Nerd Fitness in 2009 to help nerds like himself get fit. Once a side project, Nerd Fitness has since exploded into a top online fitness community and has helped thousands of geeks incorporate fitness into their lives.

We chatted with Kamb about Nerd Fitness, favorite workouts, go-to take out orders, and his book, Level Up Your Life, out in January 2016. Here’s what he had to say:

What’s the Nerd Fitness origin story?

SK: I grew up in a town called East Sandwich. I was active as a kid, and I played sports. Growing up in a small town, we all played every sport together as a group of friends. I also spent a significant portion of my childhood playing video games. It wasn’t until high school when I got cut from the basketball team that I signed up for a gym membership. I had no clue what I was doing. But I decided I wanted to get big and strong and spent half of high school and all four years of college — I went to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee — strength training and following muscle and fitness magazines and trying to get strong and healthy and big — and failing miserably...

Read the full story on Spright!

Spright Interview of Olympic Proportions: Talking with Gold Medalists Meryl Davis & Charlie White

Guys. I had a really fantastic opportunity a few weeks ago that I'm so jazzed to share a little bit with you about today.

See, it all started with a big interview series I was organizing for Spright back in the summer.

I got to talk to a lot of awesome people for this series, but one of the highlights of the series was scoring a conversation with Meryl Davis and Charlie White. A quick 4-1-1 for those who have no idea who they are, Davis and White are champion ice dancers that brought home the U.S.'s first-ever gold medal in the sport during the last Olympics.

Basically, they're kind of a big deal.

Anyway, I reached out to their publicist over the summer with the hopes of chatting to them about their eating, fitness and post-Olympic life routines and was pleased to hear back rather quickly. Within a few days, we set up two interviews and before I knew it I was chatting with Davis and White about their favorite workouts and YOLO meals. They were SUPER nice to talk to and very down to earth.

So cool, right?

It's always so fun to have great interview experiences like this to remind me that even world-class Olympic athletes are normal people, just like me.

Hello December, Hello Awesome USO Recipe Series

Guys, I have a confession. I've been holding back a super exciting project that I've been working on at the USO for a while from you. But now that it's officially launched, I can finally tell you all about it!

Drum roll, please... Introducing... my USO Celebrity Cookbook recipe series!

A few months ago my awesome boss stumbled upon an old USO Celebrity Cookbook from our archives and asked if I would be willing to test some of the recipes and launch a multimedia series about the cookbook, its history and how to make the different dishes. Naturally, I said yes. (Read the full story behind the series here.)

Cookbook, spatula and camera(s) in hand, I selected five of the star-studded recipes and set off to turn them into rich multimedia stories for the USO's online audience to enjoy. For five straight Fridays I turned my tiny apartment kitchen into a makeshift studio to test, film and photograph myself making each recipe. While this was super fun (and tasty), most of the legwork came in long after the treats were eaten.

I spent many days researching, writing stories, editing photos and videos and putting this multimedia project together. It's a five part series with long, beefy historical posts, Instavids, YouTube videos and custom graphics for each recipe, so each post took quite while to make. (Shout-out to the USO's awesome creative team, who helped design special graphics for the series!)

Now, two weeks into the five week series, I'm happy to say all my work during the months of August and September are finally paying off. The whole series looks great and is getting great reviews. Plus, who doesn't like to hear about the awesome celebrities who help support and spread the USO's mission?

You can take a look at the two currently published recipes here and here.

November Craziness: Spright Research, Georgetown Grad School, USO blogging & more!

Oh hi, it's me again. The blogger who forgets to write on her blog. Sigh. I really hope this once a month posting thing doesn't turn into a routine.

So, guess what? I'll make this post nice a meaty to make up for my lack of posting.

This past month has been a complete blur. While I haven't been writing a ton for Spright this month (a few of my stories that I wrote awhile ago did go up though!), I've been totally swamped with regular work for the USO and schoolwork for my PR/CC grad program at Georgetown.

I'm not going to lie, I'm really happy that I'm finally finished one of my classes, Introduction to Elements, at Georgetown. Don't get me wrong -- it was a wonderful class with a great professor and I learned a lot -- but it was a TON of work to do on top of a full-time job, a freelance gig, another class and having a social and personal life. Grad school is hard!

However, I did learn a lot of really valuable skills that will help me over the next four semesters I have at Georgetown and as I look forward into my future communications career. Oh, and I had a ton of fun making my final communications plan (responding to an imaginary RFP from CVS Health) look pretty using fun tools like Canva.

What can I say? I'm a creative at heart!

In USO land, things have been busier than ever. I had a few awesome stories I have been working on run over the past month -- in particular a story about historic floorboards at USO SeaTac and another story about the USO's Holiday Boxes program. I just love the way both of these stories turned out and look on the new USO site!

    

I also loved a story that published earlier in November on the USO's new site about a young couple -- Isaac and Jillian Strausbaugh -- that is transitioning out of military life. Isaac recently suffered a training injury, so the couple has been forced to leave the military world earlier than expected, which is what lead them to the USO's recent Caregivers Seminar in Tacoma, Washington (I wrote about this in more detail in an earlier blog).

They were an absolute delight to to talk with and I'm so grateful they shared their story with me so I could share it with others via the USO's outlets.

Anyway, as the holidays approach, I'll be sure to be a bit more judicious about updating my blog. I have so much coming down the pipe, it'll be hard to stay so quiet this month!

October = Craziness & 550 Cord Bracelet Stories for the USO

The past two weeks of my life have been a total blur. Between crunching out papers for grad school (which don't get me wrong, I love, but it's so much work!), finding time to push out freelance stories for Spright and doing my actual regular job at the USO, I've barely had a moment to get my bearings.

HA! Barely. Bearings. Bears. Sometimes I make myself laugh.

I think one of the coolest projects I've been up to in USO land has been my 550 cord bracelet story that published with the launch of the brand new USO website last week. (Side note: The new website looks awesome, you should totally go check it out!)

For those who don't know, 550 cord bracelets are simple woven bracelets made from paracord, also known as 550 cord. These bracelets are made with roughly ten feet of cord and can be unwoven and used in survival situations, which makes them pretty popular in the military community. Over the past few years, USO centers overseas have started to offer 550 cord making workshops so troops can make bracelets for themselves and their family and friends back home.

Over the years, the bracelets have come to symbolize a special military connection the wearer has with a service member -- pretty cool, huh? To get a bit more info about 550 cord bracelets and their associated traditions, you should check out my story here.

Oh! And if you want to learn how to make your own 550 cord bracelet, you should watch the video above I made for the USO below and read this special tutorial.

Happy crafting!

Seattle Adventures: On the Road Reporting for the USO

One of the best parts of my job, I think, is the opportunity to travel.

Last week, I got to head to Seattle/Tacoma to cover the USO's 10th Caregivers Seminar, which provides specialized programming to caregivers of wounded, ill and injured soldiers. The programming is actually really great and features sessions from gameonNation, Stronger Families and more.

Even though I had been to this seminar before in Fort Leonard Wood, Miss., I really enjoyed the opportunity to attend the seminar in this location. While the Fort Leonard Wood seminar was small and intimate, this session was quite large, with around 90 registered attendees. For me, more attendees means more stories, more dialogue and more interesting things to write and report about.

In particular, I got to meet Carleeh Mullholland, the wife and caregiver of medically retired Army Sgt. Cy Mullholland, who was diagnosed with severe PTSD and TBI after serving several tours in the Middle East as a tank commander. Carleeh shared her story with me and talked a bit about her personal journey and how she ended up at the Caregiver's Seminar. Here's a look at my USO blog story:

TACOMA, Wash. — Carleeh Mullholland didn’t choose to be a caregiver.

But when her husband, medically retired Army Sgt. Cy Mullholland, was diagnosed with severe PTSD and TBI after serving several tours in the Middle East as a tank commander, she stepped into the caregiving role — whether she was ready or not.

“It fell in my lap,” she said. “[I had to] take care of my husband and I didn’t really get a say-so.”

After receiving his official diagnosis, Cy served for several more years before eventually being medically discharged. During the family’s transition process out of the military, Carlee notes that her husband’s condition added another dimension to an already difficult and confusing time.

“You’re in this place where you don’t know where you are, you don’t know what’s going to happen, there’s no job for your spouse if he is unable to work [like my husband, who is disabled],” Carleeh said. “So you got to figure something out.”

Over the past few years, Carleeh, a mother of three, has started to figure it out

Read more here!

While at the seminar, I also spoke to a young military couple, Jill and Isaac Strausbaugh (Isaac is injured), who are in the process of transitioning out of the military. I haven't gotten around to writing their story yet, but I can promise you it will be a good one. Besides attending the Caregivers Seminar, I also got to head to RP/6 (an org that helps veterans/transition troops find jobs) and the USO SEATAC center for two other stories which are in process.

Even though it was a very busy (and fruitful!) reporting trip, I did get a chance to sneak a peek at some gorgeous Seattle/Tacoma sites. Mountains, anyone?