We are frantically prepping for our photography conference next week.  Yesterday we worked on the Steampunk hats and had to spend a good deal of time shopping for the things needed to finish them up.  I hope we are at least 90% done with them by the end of today.  We still have some shopping to do for a couple of the other costumes we will be using while there and the packing must start.  This trip is going to require that we take two vehicles to transport everything plus the dogs and then our intern will be an extra passenger on the way home.  She is flying in Sunday night.

JD pitches again this Friday.  Hopefully he will have some run support from his team and they will get the series off to a good start.  They haven't scored for him in the last 12 innings he has pitched.

  

No run support forJD again in a 5-0 loss.  He only surrendered 3 hits again but he did have 5 walks and 3 scored.  He gave up 4 runs, two earned but he had 10 strikeouts in 6 innings.  They wound up winning the next two games, taking the series from the nationally ranked team.  Too bad they can't seem to score in his starts lately.

I'm working all weekend and then a photo shoot Sunday afternoon followed by 4 more shoots the rest of the week before we head to St. Louis for Easter with Jodi's family followed by our photography conference.  We have a pretty cool shoot setup with a Stearman biplane.  We'll use our 25 foot pink parachute dress for that.

I'm going to keep this short today.  Jodi's grandpa passed away yesterday.  She has gone to St. Louis to be with her family.  There will be no service for him.

Kicking this week off on the wrong foot.  Sunday, during a photo shoot, I did something to my lower back and now it is not pretty.  Pretty sure it's just muscular but walking, siting, pretty much anything is painful and to top it off, I'm photographing three of my models later today.  But, where there's a will, there's a way and I will succeed in getting the shoot done and then probably collapse when I get home.  The last time this happened to me I was hurting for 5 weeks.  I'm hopeful that won't be the case this time.

JD took a tough luck loss yesterday, his first of the season, losing 1-0 while tossing a complete game three hitter.  The lone run scored on shallow sac fly that a decent throw would have likely had.  The offense was lethargic and the coach got into the team in the post game about not supporting JD's effort.  Tough way to take your first L of the season.  JD was not happy.

We have three busy weeks ahead with photos shoots and our trip to St. Louis for the photography conference.  It appears that I have secured a yellow Stearman biplane for a photo shoot while there.  My plan is to use the pink parachute dress with the plane at sunset.  Hopefully all goes as I envision.  Another shoot a friend is helping me line up is using exotic cars with a model or two.  We may get the use of a Lamborghini Aventador or a Ferrari. 

JD had a pretty good outing in St. Louis over the weekend defeating the #21 team in the nation.  This is the second year in a row that he beat them and last year they were ranked even higher.  He said he is starting to feel better and more confident on the mound.  He said the had better control this game and when he missed, he missed out of the zone.  He's starting to get dialed in.  Unfortunately, thew other two games they played, they got shelled.  I know he was glad to see his uncles, aunt and our family friend in the stands cheering him on.  

Coach called him yesterday to say that their trip to Arkansas this weekend is being changed due to weather and that the Arkansas team is coming here and they are moving it up a day.  So he should start the first game on Thursday.  The following weekend, he will pitch against the #18 team in the nation.

Tonight we have a sales session and we have multiple shoots scheduled for the next couple weeks.  We are also busy preparing for our photography conference in St. Louis and have made some progress on the outfits the models will wear for us.  We have some pretty epic shoots planned. I'm looking forward to the 10 days off of work too!

I'm looking forward to this weekend as we will be photographing three of our new model team members. We plan on going downtown and doing a "Big City" shoot with them.  We will likely do some video as well as I try to get better at filming and editing.  It is a much tougher skill set to learn than photography but once I'm good at it, I expect to enjoy it more than the photography. 

JD is in St. Louis playing this weekend.  His team will be up against a pretty good program in Missouri Baptist.  JD starts the first game of a doubleheader on Saturday and puts his perfect 3-0 record on the line.  His stats aren't as good as last year, namely because he hasn't had adequate mound time yet to regain more precise control and his arm is bothering him again.  The tendonitis is relentless and he is stuck with it apparently.  The team is doing much better this year thanks to a much improved offense.  I'm looking forward to getting to see them play soon. 

I guess I better start thinking about getting my taxes ready for the accountant.  I don;t know what to expect as far as whether we will owe or get a refund.  Last year I was expecting to pay and we got a sizable return.  We made considerably more with the business this past year so that may change.  We are already off to a great start this year as we have many shoots scheduled already and our new model team is going to do really well, I can tell.