It's with a GIANT SMILE on my face... and a tear in my eye... that I write you this post. Since we found out about my great friends battle, it has been a roller coaster or emotion... for all involved. Friends, Family... and mostly her of course - from good news to horrible news to better news... This Rock-Away-Cancer giveaway was no exception... DURING this push for prayers, thoughts, vibes, (whatever you send our way)... after one month double chemotherapy and no change, her brain tumor shrunk a half inch in diameter and the ovarian cancer is almost gone... I got that amazing news about 3 days into it... Can you believe it? Maybe all this positivity & love really can work! So don't think that just because the giveaway is over that you're off the hook... keep that sweet, sweet lovin' comin our way... we can use all the help we can get. We still have a long long way to go... surgery, healing, etc. And want that tumor as small as possible because surgery is he last resort... So first off, i just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone for that...

Second of all, (and I can't even count how many times I have cried during this) I want to share with you all how much we donated... My goal was $500 and I would have been jumping for joy... I figured if even a fraction of people chipped in a sent a buck, we would hit that no problem... I would have been THRILLED had people donated $1. The first night, I was blown away... not one person donated just $1... everything was above and beyond. Some even came back to donate again... and in the end. The final total for giveaway entries was............ $1,175... So like I said, I have cried like a baby over stories, comments, messages, and donations I have received and couldn't wait to share this number with my friend... So HUGE thank you, again... You guys all exceeded my wildest expectations... HUGE karma points for you all. You will be repaid, some way... some how. :)

Lastly, the moment you've all been waiting for. The giveaway... now THIS was a challenge with well over 1,000 entries... I had to break down all of the entries... copy all the names into a spreadsheet... And THEN I found a random generator that would pick the name for me...

And this winner or the grand prize is.........
1. Dawn Milligan

And since everyone did so amazing, I wanted to pick 4 more winners for gift certificates.

$20 gift certificate:

2. Dancing Bear
3. Michael Palmieri

$10 Gift Certificate:
4. Allie McCarthy
5. Virginia Passarge


So I want to thank everyone once more... for everything. Your donations, your thoughts, your prayers... it is all helping.  This went over SO well, I may even do it again next month. In the mean time, we are working on some SUPER awesome shirts to sell... Should have those available for pre-order hopefully this week!! All hand screened, designed by me, and brought to life by an awesome tattoo artist, Emily, local to Minneapolis. Thanks guys!!

I write this post with a heavy heart, but a lot of promise... and a twinkle in my eye. It's rare I come to you asking for anything, but this time is a little bit different. A couple months ago I was hit with some heavy news... one of my greatest friends, at just 23 years old was diagnosed with Stage 4 ovarian cancer. I know this is always terrible news, but at 23 its just unacceptable, and pretty damn unfair if you ask me.  No one deserves to be going through what she is right now. She got to spend her birthday weekend getting her first dose of Chemo. A few weeks later she was noticing some strange memory loss... forgetting names of friends... family, etc. so she went to get it checked out. While at the doctor, they found a brain tumor.  Seriously?? Ugh. Just writing this I am getting angry all over again. So they doubled the chemo/radiation cocktail... and she's on loads of meds. The good news is - the Ovarian cancer has almost been blasted away - so she will hopefully just need the hysterectomy to finish it off. The bad news is - the brain tumor isn't changing and is going to require surgery. Between being so sick, missing work, medical bills & prescriptions she is out of money just like any one of us would be. I would like to think if I were ever in this situation someone would be willing to help me keep up this fight, so it was NO DOUBT that I was ready to pull all of my resources to help her... Rather than just asking you amazing friends, family, & customers to donate - I came up with a plan... we will do a Rock-Away-Cancer giveaway...

For every $1 you donate you get 1 entry into the contest.
For every $5 you donate you get 10 entries into the contest.
For every $10 you donate you get 25 entries into the contest.

Example: $3 = 3 entries  -  $7 = 12 entries   -   $15 = 35 entries

After a week - we will combine all the entries into one big giant hat and pull a name...

The winner will receive a custom basket of awesomeness catered your lil' ones gender. Winner will choose girl/boy/unisex and I will put together a basket of awesom-ness... Blankets, bibs, burp rags, booger bashers... whatever I can come up with valuing well over $150... OR the winner can choose a custom toddler bedding set OR two adult blankets....

I appreciate you guys taking the time to read this... anything... every single dollar will help and I wanted to do something special that would benefit you as well. Win or lose, the prize is high... she gets to keep fighting this battle.

Donate here - the money goes to a special paypal account just for her so that we can keep track. I will run this for a week so until Saturday, April 16th... If it goes as well as I am hoping - maybe we will do another one next month too :)

So - like I said last week - the AE Photography is in town and we're having a blast. Last night we went to Manny's Steakhouse and spent about $435 between the 6 of us. Worth. Every. Penny. (More details on that later) And today has been a "we were up WAY too late playing games, and slept horrible" kind of lazy day - involving emails, editing, and blogging... YAY!

So Ashley posted an AWESOME blog post last week called "Critique Me" where she is gunna post tutorials to her awesome editing tricks... so naturally, since the master is sitting across the table from me, I started practicing... I had snapped a picture of her & Finn earlier in the day and this is what I came up with.

Before:
After Edits: And another batch of edits:
Whatcha think? I know they're not perfect... but they're still pretty cool... now I should make Ashley do her own spin and see what SHE would do with it :)

Check it out - i stole this from their blog so you can share in the deals... to ANY of you in the Minneapolis area - i urge you to JUMP at this deal :)


do you live in or around minneapolis?  would you like a session done by ae?  day after, trash the dress, fashion bridal, senior, boudoir, engagement, family, baby, maternity, child, loveshoot, product, business, or just a fun portrait shoot??  well, you're in luck!  since we will be there already, there will be no travel fees (within a reasonable distance from minneapolis), and we will be offering shoots at the discounted price of:$250 -- which includes a full photo disc with every image and release rights to print whenever and wherever you would like!*1-2 hours of shoot time*full photo disc*complete editing + retouching for every image*online gallery for you, family & friends to view and order prints (if you'd like)*$50 print credit to be used within 1 week of your gallery being fully posted.  good for prints, products & albums.sessions are typically $499 with your choice of photo disc, prints or an album--and you may add on all 3 at an additional charge... so this is a great deal.why are we doing this?!because we are dying to shoot in this lovely spring weather.because we LOVE shooting in new locations.because we will be on a mini vacation, so we will be in extra good moods!because we have a lot of new, fun ideas we are just thrilled about bringing to life!because we love taking pictures... all the time, simple as that.SO -- if you're interested in booking a session from the 21st of March to the 27th, email us RIGHT NOW (because it's, like, next week!) and let's get your scheduled!   limited slots available. more details will be sent out when we hear from you.  feel free to email us with any questions you might have before actually booking.  we look forward to hopefully having fun photographing some of you!!happy spring!