Happy New Years Eve - My year in review

My year in review --- and whatever other else ramblings I'll come up with....

2010 has probably been one of the best years of my life --- and here's why starting from the top ---

January --
Cold weather, nothing terribly exciting, the usual celebration at Longhorns - pretty boring. Jan. 28, 2010 -- One of the last Kyle Bennett Band concerts at Longhorns.

Josh & I - Our first picture of 2010

February --
More cold weather --- My 5 year class reunion; Feb. 4, 2010 - the LAST Fat Dixie concert at Longhorns. I saw these guys for three years. I've seen them change drummers three times - it was always fun when they were around.

Our last picture with Mr. Jared Sutton - friends, if you're in Oklahoma and he's playing - go see him.

Josh & I had our two year "dating" anniversary on Feb. 23, - we had a nice dinner at Old Chicago before he had to go to work.


Another favorite concert - Mr. Aaron Watson & the boys were back in town.


March --- fairly boring this year....
I did get to see Clay Walker - not a terrible show, except he sang "Lonely too long" twice, and then they played it as his exit.



Fake Patty's Day -- not my favorite, ever.. too many drunks that smell --- but Lindsay did come see me at the bar


St. Patrick's Day -- trip to Oklahoma -- why? To buy a truck :)

Josh & his new beautiful diesel Dodge truck :)


April --- The start of weddings & baseball. I was honored to photograph, our friends, Jess & Cade's wedding - BEAUTIFUL!
Here's my favorite image --


and of course, BASEBALL ----



May ---
One more month until our wedding - holy cow! Those were my thoughts every month until our wedding. So much planning, showers, and events - it was amazing!

My maid of honor, Jennifer & I at my shower in Wichita.

Cason's first t-ball game - he was awesome!


June ---
My favorite month of course :) So many events, I'll try not to bore you --
My 23rd Birthday - Dinner at Olive Garden with Josh, Jess, Cade, & Coy - it was small and great :)
My bachelorette party in Kansas City - it was so much fun (minus power & light - I will never willingly go there unless an event is going on and it's for someone I love dearly).

I'm so thankful for each and every one of you that helped make this event so special.

THE WEDDING :) June 26, 2010 - the day I married my best friend, Mr. Josh Olsen (if you're bored, check out the other blogs about the wedding). I'll just post some of my favorite moments of this day ---


My favorite girls


Our reveal


Mr. & Mrs. Olsen


Our amazing wedding party

Our amazing family - we are so thankful each and everyone one of you were at our wedding.


The Troutman Family


The Extended Troutman Family


My two amazing big brothers, Josh & Jeremy, I love you both so much!


The Nichols' Extended Family


Josh's amazing family I'm so happy to be apart of now.


Josh & his two sisters, Angie & Shannon - we're so glad they were both able to make the trip up.


Our four favorite little guys in the entire world - our nephews - the ring bearers.
Kohl, Coy, Cason, & Cole


Our favorite and last Kyle Bennett Band concert. Due to unfortunate circumstances, our favorite band dismembered on September 10th.

A new best friend -- Miss Robyn


And our bar friends that came to our wedding ---


July ---- Our honeymoon!! ORLANDO!!!!!!!!!

Getting ready to head to Orlando


Mr. & Mrs.


Our first fourth of July together


Cinderella's Castle

August --
Our youngest nephew Coy's first birthday


Parent Child Golf Tourney in Wellington --


September -- the breakup of our friends, and the founding of our new favorite band, the Thieving Birds. Josh's 26th Birthday - celebrated by working, but thankfully Bart Crow was in town.



October -- trip to Texas to see the Thieving Birds & family.

Josh & I with the THIEVING BIRDS


Jon, Robyn, Me, & Josh at the D Vine Winery


Robyn & I in the Stockyards


My first Dublin Dr. Pepper - YUM!!!

November -- Thanksgiving - family time, football - lots of football.


December -- Christmas! It was so hard to get in the spirit this year for Christmas. I still have no idea why. Best part of Christmas, like always, is family. Poor Cason was sick with the stomach flu, so activities were limited. It was nice and quiet.


Our first Christmas as Mr. & Mrs.

I hope you all have had a wonderful year - these are just brief moments of the many wonderful events that have happened. Happy End of 2010 and Happy New 2011! xoxoxo

Tis the Season (so far)

I know it's been forever since I've blogged - but I really haven't had a whole lot to blog about. This last year has been a whirl wind. It's been mainly of weddings and I'm glad they're over so I can relax. Besides our wedding, I shot 4 other weddings. There were parts I loved and hated about shooting those this year. They're a very stressful event - it's a one shot event - no going back. So if anyone reads this that is getting married, make sure you have a wonderful photographer. I love shooting weddings if it's the right couple for me. I want a relationship to where I can get images not your typical photographer can. - Anyways enough about that.

It's been crazy right now trying to prepare to head to my parents' and Josh's this holiday season. We're leaving on Tuesday afternoon for about a week. It'll be a lot of driving, but it'll be worth it. Christmas is my favorite holiday, but this year I've been lacking in the Christmas joy. Don't really know why - just am. I love seeing my family - but I just can't get into the holiday spirit.

I've got three trees up in our apartment (yes, three) - I haven't even taken pictures of them this year, yet. I will sometime before I take them down. I love decorating for it, the glow of the trees, it's great. I've inherited my mom's craziness for Christmas. She's a Christmas nut - and well, so am I.

I started out doing this blog as a year in review, but well, the year isn't over...yet. I just woke up 25 minutes ago (yay for finally sleeping in!!) and I don't really want to think that much. That's all I have for now -- happy Saturday.

..for love of the music..

I'm getting better at this whole blogging thing..it's only been a week since my last one. So much has gone on in the last week. From my previous post, my favorite BAND, parted ways - well, one went one direction and four went in another. I will never forget the "Kyle Bennett Band" - how can I? I've known these guys for the last almost 3 years. I've been to every show they played at Longhorns...took a few to the Donut Shop & McDonalds (Seilder & Fish) - and many drunken nights in in depth conversations about everything under the sun. Many develops have came out since last Wednesday - Kyle had "creative differences" and the others stood their ground. There will always be two sides to every story..in this case 5, but I will always cherish my memories of the "Kyle Bennett Band". I'm still dreading/excited for our wedding video. I'm not sure how watching it will go knowing that was our last concert.

The BAND - Fish, Beau, Rody & John - will be playing at Spencer's Corner on October 7th with this guy, Ace. I'm really hoping we can make the trip - to see them and my newest cousin, Camielle, that was born almost a week ago and Miss Robyn. We need a getaway - some relaxation and fun. We have more friends in the Fort Worth area now than we do in Manhattan. Our friends down there are becoming more like family and we're so thankful for them. We know they're all going through a rough time and constantly having to deal with the bullshit of life. We only wish them the best through this time, and HOPEFULLY we can come party on the 7th!


A new best friend of mine, Robyn, she came up from Texas for our wedding without ever meeting us. I wish her & Fish only the best in their journey together. Love you guys!

Can you believe Josh & I have been married for 81 days? Our wedding is still a blur. I can look at the pictures over and over again but all of that planning over and gone. I really need something to help pass my time while Josh works nights at the bar. Who knows - scrapbooking is fun and depressing. And after last week, I really don't want to think about good memories being put in a book and stuck on a shelf.

I've tried cooking again - I'm actually a good cook if I want to be. It's just very time consuming and exhausting. Thanks to Amy from mytexastoday.com & her go-to Tuesday meals - I've now mastered a new dip, stuffed shells, and now chicken puffs. You can find all of the recipes and more on her blog. I'll try to post pictures sometime of my cooking skills. I'm weird and take pictures of the steps to one day put together a favorite recipe scrapbook/cookbook. Who knows if that will ever get done. I've had that planned for about 3 years now. I think I'm up to about 6 recipes.

Guess who's birthday is today? CASON!!!!!!!! He's 6! I called him tonight, they went to Chuck E Cheese's tonight and he got "dollars" for his birthday. I was lucky enough to be home last weekend and got to have lunch Sunday with Jeremy & his family at Red Robin. I can't believe my little man is 6 years old - I remember the day he was born like it was yesterday.

I couldn't find the image online that I wanted to use of Cason, this is the youngest one I could find. Cole is on the left, and Cason the right.

They're both playing football this fall - I hope to make it to at least a game a piece so I can get some good pictures of them scoring touchdowns. Cason had 3 last weekend and Cole had an interception that saved the game.

The last couple of weeks we've acquired quite a few new cds to our collection. One of my favorites is the new 80 Proof Band cd - LD Whitehead, so kindly gave Josh and I our own companies for a wedding gift. I love "Fools Love Song" - I tell ya, that should be the next single. It has great potential and I think a lot of people can relate to it. Josh also went on his CD binge and bought the new Ryan Bingham & Dead Horses cd - Junky Star. By far my favorite CD by Ryan. I enjoyed his two songs in "Crazy Heart" - GREAT movie if you haven't watched it. Also, the new Cory Morrow & Randy Rogers cd. Cory's sounds good - nothing to out of the ordinary for him. And well, Randy's, just add another "goodbye" to it. I think if he could only talk about one subject, heartache and goodbyes. I do enjoy their music, but my all time favorite Randy song, is "Like it used to be" - nothing is ever as it used to be. Also, our friends, No Justice, were in town 2 weeks ago, and thankfully I knew a guy...Steve Rice...and he so graciously gave me a copy of their new cd, "2nd Avenue". I love "Five More Minutes". :) I recommend buying these cds to anyone - support the music - they're doing what they love so we can enjoy what we love...the music. Or at least I LOVE. Live Life Loud

...end of a dirt road...

So I was going to blog next about the 2nd part of our honeymoon - but something much more drastic has unfolded in the last 4 hours of my life...well, a lot of lives..A lot of friends that I love dearly....I have to get my thoughts out now while I can......

I knew I shouldn't have got out of bed this morning...and here's why...(minus the fact I fell back asleep this morning) ----- but my favorite band, the band that played the night of Josh & I's first kiss, the band that played the night Jess & Cade got engaged, the band that played at OUR WEDDING broke up tonight.......

It started when Patrick called Josh to say something had happened to one of the members of the band. They're not just a band to us, they're amazing friends with a kick ass talent. So I texted Beau & Josh texted John to see if everyone was okay. They were fine and knew nothing about the cancellation...this was followed by a meeting and then the worst news of the year .... Kyle is going solo and now there isn't a Kyle Bennett Band.

I didn't know 74 days ago would be the last time I saw the KYLE BENNETT BAND in concert. The last song that I heard them play was the one I sang with my husband the last song of our wedding. I didn't know the start of our lives would be the final chapter of the Kyle Bennett Band concert series for Josh & I. We are both in a rut this evening, sending our hearts out to our friends that are affected by this tragedy. I hope things get worked out and they will be together again someday but that is in the hands of the powers at be.

I have seen so many changes in bands the last 4 years I can't keep track - I've seen so many great artists...but these guys were my favorite, and still will be. I know we will be seeing them in the future...whether it's going down to visit or on a stage somewhere..Love you guys!



*The first time I met some of the Kyle Bennett Band - 1.12.08 - Amy & Kyle, Amy & John, and Amy & Fish


Josh, Kyle, & Amy - 4.18.08



















Josh & Amy with the Kyle Bennett Band at the Flint Hills Music Fest Sept. 28, 09


Josh & Amy with the Kyle Bennett Band, December 2009


Our last Kyle Bennett Band show, our wedding, June 26, 2010

I have so many pictures of these guys - I will always remember the great times we had...The donut shop, McDonalds, the stories will always go on forever. I wish them all the best, they will always hold a place in my heart.