It's a White Christmas!

I'm not just talking about the Snow that's pouring outside right now. Lea got me the best gift ever! Warm, PJ's with feet from Big Feet Pj's.com I don't even know how many years I have wanted footed PJ's! I never knew they made them for adults. Warm, fuzzy and nostalgic! The best part is the flap in the back for a bit of AC if they get too hot. That's what I meant about a white christmas, I've been walking around with the flap down horrifying my poor family :)

Santa Claus was good to us all, Savannah got a huge barn and coral for her horses, Sophie got a giant doll house with approximately 1,000,000,000,093 pieces. Lea got some earrings and I got a Fish Eye Lens I had been wanting for a long time! The greatest gift of all however is my incredible family. We are healthy, we are happy and we are filled with love! I hope that you all have the same blessings and wish you the very Merriest of Christmas!

Mat

Christmas Eve

My Uncle John has been relentlessly hounding me about updating my blog. Daily Text Messages, Voice Mails, Emails, Snail Mail, Telegrams, at one point one of those planes flying overhead with the message "UPDATE YOUR BLOG MAT!" trailing behind.

So here it is. I am updating my blog.

Truth is, I've been swamped and just simply haven't had the time to update it lately.

Today is Christmas Eve. I got up at the ugly hour of 4:45 AM so that I could count inventory at the Fish House. I love to count inventory, I love to count inventory, I love to count inventory. I figure if I say that enough times eventually I will start to believe it.

So I got home around 7:30 and I couldn't believe it...everyone was still asleep! Well, I had about 6 cups of Coffee and a Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks in my system so I couldn't allow that to happen. I threw the covers off the girls and made everyone get up. We hit I-5 which had virtually no traffic (the first Christmas miracle for us this year) and drove to Queen Anne Hill in Downtown Seattle for breakfast at the famous 5 Spot restaurant. I first learned about this place when photographing Greg and Lauren's wedding last summer. I ordered the French Toast which is very unique there. It's kind of like a Cinnabon Cinnamon Roll only thicker, hotter and better...I gave Lea a bite and she said it was what she would choose to eat if it were her last meal. That's quite a compliment from a woman that loves breakfast!

5 Spot is just a block away from Seattles Best View at Kerry Park so we headed down the hill to take this family photo.

Afterwards, we hit the Woodland Park Zoo where it was a bit chilly but the sun was shining. We saw a wide variety of animals and I was able to grab a few photo's as well. I'm particularily excited about some Turkey Vulture Shots I got as well as Junior the Jaguar. Watch for future blogs with pics and possibly the Zoo magazine.

Anyway...I'll be sure to blog tomorrow after Santa comes.

I hope all is well with you and your family and thank you very much for checking out the blog!

Merry Christmas!

Mat

An early Christmas

Saturday night I arrived home from work to find about 20 of Lea's family members at the house all waiting for me so they could eat a seriously good dinner prepared by my very talented bride. From then until now it has been a whirl wind of activity. We had a great time opening presents, playing spoons...I need to stop there...spoons with Lea's family is a vicious sport. More than one person was bleeding before that game was over...I am not joking. Blood was shed. They do not mess around with spoons....

Anyway, we had a great time visiting with everyone. Lea's Sister asked if I wouldn't mind taking some photo's of her with her children and husband Corey for their Christmas card. We turned it into an afternoon photo shoot and got some good shots. This is the pic that made the card. Pretty good eh?

Aunt Minnie

A great perk to marrying such a beautiful woman is that she also comes equipped with a beautiful family. Her Sister Tiffany does some modeling in addition to her Mortgage company. Lea was in the Mall the other day up here getting her ring cleaned when she looked up and saw 20 posters of Tiffany all around the shop. She is very photogenic and a lot of fun to photograph. This is a very small sampling of the photo's we took yesterday.

Sydney

Every time I see my Niece Sydney I am amazed at how much she changes. She is becoming quite the supermodel just like her Mom. She's going to use some of the photo's I took for her Myspace page.

Brian and Gabbie

I really had a great time photographing my Nephew Brian and his awesome girlfriend Gabbie. They had a lot of fun in front of the camera.

Honorable Mention

Every year the Association of Zoo's and Aquariums throws out an invitation to all Volunteers and Employees of the Zoo's and Aquariums around the world to submit one photo for their contest. The results were in and the Woodland Park Zoo had four photographers get Honorable Mentions including yours truly! Last year we got skunked (pardon the pun) but this year was much better. My buddy Dennis Dow had a shot in there as well as two others. I love shooting at the Zoo and this is icing on the cake!

The Hippo Pic is mine. They put the credit on the next page which is a bit odd, but hey it's there :)

You can see the hippo pic as well as many others in a gallery on my web page as well as a lot of other great photo's I've shot. I love being a Seattle Wedding Photographer! Please be sure to visit www.mathaywardphoto.com

Random Photo's of the Day

I don't think I'm going to be able to post the next few days so I thought I'd post a few random pics of the day to make up for it. Sophie and I have been snowed in while Lea and Savannah had a Mother/Daugher day at the Nutcracker. Sophie and I watched the Seahawks beat the Eagles then watched a movie (Firehouse Dog...not bad). Anway, I finally finished the Disneyland pics from our trip in July. I know, I know...wow so soon!

Next to get worked on will be the girls birthday parties from April and May.

The Extraction!

I really had to yank to get that sucker out!

Random Photo of the Day

Random Photo of the Day

This is a shot of McKala. I'm sure I'm spelling her name wrong...sorry about that Mick-Ayy-Lah.

Anyway, she's one of the gals on the opening team in Federal Way I told you about before. Every month I print a calendar for all the restaurants in our company and I put interesting, unique photo's related to the Fish House on it. I was going to feature this pic of MicEighLuh on it but she wasn't at the Fish House when I tried to reach her to guage her sense of humor level before publishing this image for thousands to see. So I was nice and didn't use it quite as much. Instead I am now publishing it on my blog for millions to see (well, the blog could take off like crazy..you never know :) Anyway...everyone say hi to Mychayla, my random photo of the day!

Really Random Photo of the Day

Well, at first when I told Lea about my idea for a new stock photo she was reluctant. I had to set it up with a 10 second timer, focus on her foot and race to the location, lay down and have her stomp on my face. After a few tries, she started to get into it though...maybe a bit too much :) Even after I had the shot she kept wanting to do it over and over again...weird eh?

Random Photo of the Day

This Snow Leopard in the Woodland Park Zoo is pretty tricky to get decent photo's of. For one thing, she is almost always near the back of her habitat. The glass for the main viewing area is as thick, uneven and just plain bad as any I've seen for taking photo's through. I got lucky a couple of weeks ago as she was out and about. This photo wasn't shot through the glass, but rather through a chain link fence. It was pretty funny because she is a pretty good sized cat. She was agitated about something and she made her sound to express it. I expected a roar or at least a growl. Instead she sounded like my house cat Jasmine and had a sweet little "meow."

Random Pic of the Day

Here's a shot I grabbed of my Aunt and Uncle on Turkey Day on their back porch in Mount Vernon, WA.

Random Photo of the Day

Does anyone recognize this guy? I will be amazed if you do!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

There is so much to be thankful for this year!

We had a very low key, nice day at my Uncle John's house. My Uncle is a huge wine nut and so of course we had some spectacular vino. We watched some movies (Ratatouille is a must see whether you have kids or not) There was a fire! There was broken glass! There were Swans everywhere! Yes, live Swans! There was a Hawk that visited. All those huge birds paled in comparison to the spectacular turkey that made an appearance on the table after Aunt Vickie cooked it to perfection! I know that's a lot of exclamation points but doggone it! We had a great day!

I'll post some pics asap!

Mat

Alex and Trina's Wedding Photo's

All of Alex and Trina's wedding photo's are available to be viewed here...


http://kkstudioconnect.com/apps/customer/index.php?clientID=9518&albumID=11186

Alex and Trina's Slideshow

Hi everyone!

I just added a tool to my blog that keeps track of how many visits I get to my blog and what country you are in when checking. I was surprised to see quite a few visits! Many from Australia and France. To you I say Bonjour! and Gooday! Thanks for stopping by. Please be sure to leave a note in the comment box to say hi!

I finished Alex and Trina's wedding photo's last night, you can view a slideshow featuring 100 of my favorite's from the day here...

http://www.mathaywardphoto.com/AlexTrina/

For those of you visiting my site that were at the wedding, there will be an online gallery up and running shortly where you can order prints for yourselves. I will post a link as soon as it is up and running.

Take care!

Mat

Livin the dream!

I do love my life! If I had to describe it in a word, that word would be hectic. Sometimes things can be a bit overwhelming, but the truth is I wouldn't have it any other way. I remember the last time I was caught up on things. It was back in the summer of 2002. I remember twiddling my thumbs and being a bit bored. The way things have been ever since have prevented me from ever feeling boredom again! To my family members...yes, I still have the RAW files from last Christmas and I am sure I will get them edited some day. To my wife and kids...yes, I still have all the Disneyland pics. They'll get edited...some day :) Ryan, I know I've got some great shots from the Zoo. I'll get them to you asap, I promise!

Truth is, I've been very blessed with an amazing family including a beautiful wife and two incredible daughters as well as many tremendous opportunities in my life that have helped mold me into the person I am today. Everything happens for a reason. I firmly believe that. In addition to my incredible family, I have been blessed with the gift of photography as well. It is rare to be able to do something that you love. To have a genuine passion for something and to get paid to do it is incredible! Last night a friend of mine from Portland Randy Kepple stopped by the restaurant with his daughter and we had a great conversation. His daughter is so patient as so often happens when photographers get together we talk about what else...photography. I know when Lea is around those conversations, her eyes roll in the back of her head and she starts speaking in foreign tongues. The girls start ripping the heads off their My Little Pony Dolls and flushing them down the toilet. Randy's daughter is 16 so she had control of the urge to destroy things but I was extremely impressed to see a teenage girl with a level of maturity that kept her from text messaging anyone and everyone. Instead, she kept right up with us in the conversation and Randy tells me she herself has a great eye for photography.

Randy sent me a link to his blog today and I was humbled by his kind words. He's one of the best bloggers out there and one of the best photographers for that matter as well so you should be sure to bookmark his blog and check back on it frequently. He's always got something interesting to say and he says it well. Thanks again Randy! Here's the link... The Unauthorized Blog of Randy Kepple

Grand Opening!

I have worked for McGrath's Fish House for over 19 years now in a variety of positions ranging from Dishwasher to General Manager. We open our 20th restaurant in Federal Way, Washington on Tuesday at 5PM. I had the distinct privilege of helping out over the weekend. These amazing men and women are working day and night. Literally from 8AM until at least Midnight or later every day of the week. Last night they finished the final VIP dinner. It was a tremendous success thanks to the hard work by everyone photographed below (click the image to view a larger version) and their great staff. Opening a restaurant is one of the most challenging, intense experiences in the world. In addition, it is one of the most rewarding, exhilarating experiences because it pushes your personal envelope and challenges you in many ways physically and mentally. When you walk away from a successful opening you can look back with tremendous pride and say to yourself "Wow, I did this! If I can do this, I can do anything!" That is more true than anything else I can think of. I am proud of everyone on the team and have absolute confidence that through them and with the tremendous team they have hired in Federal Way that restaurant is going to be extremely successful. Congratulations to you all and I'll see you at the game tonight! Go Seahawks!

Oh yeah, I meant I'm proud of everyone except Tiffany whom by default I cannot give praise to even though she is an incredibly talented and hard working woman...she is rooting for the 49ers tonight so her and I are not friends at this time. Tomorrow, after the Seahawks have dominated and embarrassed her "Team" Tiffany will also be counted as one of the people I am proud of :)

Dan and Kali's images are available online!

You can view a slideshow featuring some of my favorite shots from the two days I spent with Dan and Kali at the Holly Farm in Carmel, CA here...

http://www.mathaywardphoto.com/DanandKali/

Afterward be sure to visit www.kkstudioconnect.com and enter the username: Carmel
to see all of the photo's. You can order prints directly through that site. Be sure to leave comments on the blog and let me know what you think!

Here is a direct link to the gallery if you want to skip the username..

http://kkstudioconnect.com/apps/customer/index.php?clientID=9262&albumID=10887

Happy Halloween!