I've been asked on soooo many occasions which camera I use, what lens I shoot with, what gear is the best, what books I read, what music I like and so on and so forth.

I don't mind in the least bit sharing this information, I actually love helping others who are getting started, or who are looking for some sweet toys to buy.

So far, I've been really slow in replying to people who ask these questions because I'm so busy helping my brides get the best photography and service possible.

But, thanks for the one-and-only Gary Fong and his AWESOME blog, I was able to find a way to not only share this information with everyone in a very simple format, I was also able to set it up so that everyone can buy anything that I LOVE using from the same page where I'm showing it to them!!

SOOOO AWESOME!!!

Oh... so you're probably wondering how you can find this site that I set up. Well, CLICK HERE and you'll be taken to the site. Or, you can browse to the links on the right side of this blog where the link will always be sitting and waiting.

I plan to keep this pretty up-to-date as I acquire more fun toys, pick up on new music, or read a great book.

I hope you guys enjoy, and if there is anything you are wondering about, like what brand shoes and socks I wear, I'm sure I can put those online for you as well! ;-)

On Friday night I made the drive from somewhat Santa Barbara to Bakersfield for a very special wedding!

My little cousin Emily had her wedding Saturday and not only was I there because I was stoked to see her get married, but she also trusted me to be her photographer!

We had a blast taking pictures and it was fun to harass my family members with my camera! Not to mention taking pictures of my EXTREMELY cute niece and nephew!

This morning I woke up at 5:30 a.m. to the my cell phone ringing in my ear. It was my good buddy Michael Costa calling me to make sure I was up. We had a 6 a.m. rendevous time set for me to pick him up for one of our ongoing photo field trips (that sounds pretty lame huh?) (it really isn't... it's just a great time to go out and shoot for fun and work those creative juices!!)

This time we were in for a treat! The one and only Jose Villa was meeting Michael and myself in Solvang to take us on a photo safari sunrise shoot in and around the Santa Ynez Valley.

We had soooo much fun, and hanging out with these two amazing photographers was truly inspiring!

I can't wait to see what pictures they post up on their blogs!

Decorating for Christmas for the first time as a married couple has been fun!

It's crazy though, because we have a serious lack of ornaments! I remember growing up and taking for granted all the endless ornaments on my parents tree, all with meaning, down to the detail of the skirt around the base of the tree.

So, we have a little Charlie Brown style tree, and only one personalized ornament (I think we need to find a way to sneak our childhood ones out of our folk's homes this winter) which we got from Cheryl's mom for Christmas. So, the rest of our ornaments are the generic storebought silver balls along with a load of candy canes (great excuse to buy candy that we shouldn't have bought) ;-)

Then there's the fridge full of peanut-butter-balls!!! YIKES!!! Seriously, the belly is NOT getting any smaller this winter.

Wow... I had the most amazing conversation with Deyl Kearin and Mark Kuroda this morning over breakfast at Finestra Cafe!

Deyl is amazing with investments and was giving me some great insight into my own money matters.

I was truly inspired this morning to really get on top of owning and destroying my debt (which as a former Brooks student I have plenty of) so that I can begin to build investments in the future.

I went ahead and called all of my credit card companies and found out some really scary news... I've got INCREDIBLY high interest rates... it's amazing what they're able to charge for these things.

So, it's time to pay down the debt. I wish I could come up with something brilliant like the "One Red Paper Clip" guy who was able to start trading with one red paper clip, and without spending a dime, finally was able to trade for a house. Crazy thing is, it only took him 1 year and ONLY 14 trades to realize his goal. Brilliant! Who would have thought the idea of a neighborhood kids game "Bigger or Better" would equate to something so big!

Anyone want to trade me for a compact flash card case?

So my honeymoon was only (I know... I shouldn't say only...) about 11 nights long (it would have been an epic 2 or 3 weeks, but seeing as I shoot a wedding nearly every single weekend, I had to plan our honeymoon accordingly.

We got back on Wednesday night from our honeymoon (mind you this was several weeks back now) and on Saturday we were shooting a wedding.

The funniest thing at the wedding was that Cheryl and I see this dude who looks a lot like the pictures I've seen of Ansel Adams. And to top it off, the guy is shooting pictures with a little point and shoot digital camera. I couldn't but grab a few shots of him!

Life has been cruising along, and I've been ignoring the blog. So, here are two quick pics from today.

One, we just bought a new-to-us car (ie: used car)

Me and Cheryl both secretly (maybe even openly) had wanted a Toyota Tacoma for a while and so we decided it would be wise to sell both vehicles we own right now and buy a Tacoma. They're supposed to run for AGES without breaking down. (now the curious part is, that anyone who knows me well knows that this would be my 10th car. Being that I'm 26 years old, you can do the math. I don't usually keep cars more than a year) So, the fact that it runs for ages and people have told me on multiple occasions that this puppy will run for 300,000 miles, I don't think that will ever factor into my car owning equation.

And because it's Sunday and Cheryl and I had to be at church at 8 a.m. (we don't normally get up til closer to 10 a.m.) to prep for teaching Sunday school, it's been a lazy day around our house. So I tossed in a quick pic of Cheryl sleeping. We'll see how long it takes for her to read my blog and notice that I posted a pic of her.

Oh, and for those of you who haven't checked out Cheryl's website hop over there and check it out: http://www.cherylmay.com. I believe she just recently updated it and added in some awesome family portraits she recently shot. That girl can freaking shoot!!!! I can't believe the portraits she does!!! (I married a good one! I keep telling her that I plan to retire from the business she's gonna get!!)