Life without Friendship is like the Dawn without the Sun.

So begins a poem on friendship by Marsa

I don't know about you, but I've found that making time for friends is something that's the first to go when life gets busy.

And these days, when isn't life busy??

I have several wonderful friends, all of them the kind you can go for months without seeing and then pick up right where you left off.

It's a precious gift.

However . . . there's nothing better than regularly spending time with the people you love , so a couple of months ago I made a commitment to myself to visit with a friend at least once a week. And the visit has to be a face to face visit. Virtual visits don't count here. (I'm not knocking a virtual visit mind you, that's the only way I get to hang out with my sisters most of the year.)

So far I'm doing quite well. I missed this week but it was a week filled with new people, which I thoroughly enjoyed, so that was nice too.

I'm still hard at work on my Photo Artistry course and as a way to practice some of my Photoshop skills, I tried out a tutorial on making a beautiful thank you card.

I made mine for all my dear friends.

Life wouldn't be the same without you . . .

Brad and Amanda. An engagement Session

"Excuse me . . ."

I turned around and looked at the woman.

"Are you a professional photographer? Is this an engagement session?"

"Yes I am and it is." I smiled.

"Did you book ahead and pay the $75 fee?"

I was confused. "No, when I phoned a few weeks ago I was told there was no fee and no need to book ahead."

"Well I don't know who you talked to, but I'm the garden center's manager and there is a fee and you must book ahead."

And that is how Brad and Amanda's engagement session began.

Luckily for me, Brad's known me most of his life and believed me when I said I had phoned ahead and asked. The manager did not. Although, she did offer to let us pay the fee and continue even though we hadn't booked ahead.

We declined and headed back into the city while I racked my brain for another indoor venue we could use. The problem was, all the places I had checked out ahead of time required prebooking and some rather steep fees.

Time for plan B. We headed to the Museum and did the remainder of our session outside. Thankfully, it was only rather chilly as opposed to spectacularly cold. (although I do wish I had remembered to pack my hand warming packets)

I so enjoyed the chance to take their engagements photos. Brad and Morgan (my oldest son) have been friends since the day they started kindergarten so this was special to me.

 He's family.

After playing outside at the museum we headed to Joey's restaurant to warm up and have supper while we waited for the sun to go down. Amanda wanted to try for a photo of the two of them under a street lamp in the dark. She also thought it would be great if it was snowing while we did it.

I told her it wasn't something I'd done before, but I was always game to try something new as long as they understood that this was experimental and there were no garuntees.

I was pretty sure I was going to need to have a flash off the camera to make it work but my external flash couldn't be triggered if it wasn't mounted on my camera. I figured it was worth a try without a flash anyway.

I had scoped out a nearby neighborhood for good spots to try this and we headed over there after we'd eaten. It wasn't snowing and the first lamppost we tried didn't even give off enough light for my camera to focus. The next one was better but I was sure glad I'd been learning how to do more in Photoshop. This photo was definitely  going to need some work . . .

Here's the result of our day together (and several hours in Photoshop for the street lamp photo. ;D )

I can't wait for the wedding!

And, because I love a good slideshow video: