our first giveaway!

free stuff = happiness. :)

In case you didn't make it through the lengthy text of the last post, we have officially started our photography business! You can see it here: http://www.jonandmelissaphotography.com/.

And for all you wonderful people helping us to get the word out, we're hosting OUR FIRST GIVEAWAY on the new blog! Jump over there to check out how you can win a free photo shoot...because who doesn't want free stuff??

some people sit on the dock of the bay...

You could just skip the story/buildup part and get to the big news debut at the end, should that
seem more enjoyable. :)



Jon and I had kind of a fun, crazy, unexpected, rushed, but perfect-for-us beginning. I was an intern in Washington, DC. He was a full-time graphic designer in northern Virginia. We briefly met at church in May. We had our first conversation mid-July, sharing a blanket on the grass at the ward luau. He flirted. I liked it. He emailed me photos from that night. I emailed back. We emailed daily. We called and talked a lot. Time was not on our side and by the time we went on our first "official date", I had only 3 weeks left before I headed back to Utah State for my last year of school.

3 weeks.

We had no clue what would happen, but it was all very exciting, very refreshing, and somehow, so very very right. When Jon drove me to Dulles airport the day I was going back to Utah, I gave him the card pictured above. The post title may sound familiar if you've ever read our blog header, because they both came from this very card, which encapsulates one of the things I love most about Jon. On the inside, the card says,

Some people sit on the dock of the bay.
You're more of a jumper off the dock of the bay.

I'm so glad he is. If he weren't, I don't think we ever would have met, or even both been in DC at the same time. Nor would he have asked out an intern who would soon be leaving across the country.

I love that about him. Sometimes I like to jump off the dock of the bay too. Sometimes it scares me to death. Sometimes I'm excited and feel like I'm losing my stomach at the same time when I think about jumping. This is one of those times.

Trying to sum up how I feel right now is almost impossible. People ask how we're doing, but I find that the answer would be much longer than they're expecting, and I don't know if I could cover it even if they had the time, so my response is always "good! busy!". But more fitting would be to say I feel like I'm sticking my head out of a car window on the freeway while going 85 mph and hoping to get enough air. Or like I'm about to go bungee jumping (which I would NEVER dare do, such a sissy) and I'm not even guaranteed if the cord will be secure. Or like we're about to take the raddest trip ever and I'm so excited I can't even stand it. I feel like life has taken a complete 360 so many times in the last few months, and the way I see things and think and our life as we know it is totally foreign—and yet totally, completely, and absolutely enthralling. Exciting in a new way we never thought it could be. So exciting that we don't ever get to bed before 1 am and when we do we can hardly sleep without dreaming about all the exciting things happening. So much to learn. So much to do. So much improve. So much work that goes into this kind of thing that I NEVER thought of.

No, we're not moving. No, it's not because I'm pregnant.

And in a way, (especially now that I write it down), I often feel like I could totally be overreacting, like the stress and excitement is beyond overboard for what our reality actually is right now. Like we're acting like it's the biggest deal ever, and it could end up just being nothing.

But then again, it could end up being something.

One of the first reasons I loved Jon was because he was a jumper off the dock of the bay. So I should pretty much be crazy madly in love with him now. Because we're about to do (what feels to us like) some serious jumping. It may sound little to you, and it probably is, but little as it may be now, it feels crazy, big, and completely exciting to us.

So we wanted to share it with you.

After tons of encouragement, excitement, support, and motivation received from our friends and family (and blog readers!), we're doing it. We're starting our own little, new, fledgling photography business.

It's finally real.

YOU CAN CHECK IT OUT HERE.

Please do. We'd love to hear what you think.

we're so not getting pinched today

happy green day 2010!

xoxo,
the smiths