Renaissance Festival

These past few weeks have been incredibly hard for me personally. I've held myself hostage because a lot of issues I've suppressed.  The funny thing about hard times is that you see who your real friends are.  I am blessed to be surrounded by a number of people who have made me accountable to getting out there and still living. My dear friend, Janae, made plans for me to attend the Charlotte Renaissance Festival.  First of all, I've never been to ANY festival like this at all.  Second, my excitement was slightly muted by my current trials.  Third, I had a helluva good time. We ate food. We saw a show. We had Chicken and Chips. We bought candles. I took pictures like a tourist.  I remembered happiness for the first time in a very long time.  I have gratitude for the friends that God has sent me.  I am eternally thankful for these weekends.  Here are a few pictures from that awesome day!

Where Have You Been Ollie Wills?

I have the distinguished honor of getting to work for myself and take photos all the time.  If I had to compare my love, I would say that it is very much like a happy marriage.  There are many more good days then bad days.  But I do have to say that I have an insane amount of gratitude for realizingmy dream and focusing on making my craft better.  Here's some food for the starving artists soul. I welcome criticism. These pictures are from various places I have shot in the last few weeks (yes, I'm insanely behind).

So for the past few weeks, I've been working with a wonderful company Charlotte Fashion Plate on their company rollout, SEO Management and photography.  This is been a dream realized.  I now can focus on my dream and my family.  I feel like I have spent so much of life planning for the start of life which has been.

I am thankful for the family that has supported me throughout this process of who what where when and when and when.  I appreciate those who stood by me and told me, "You are going to be somebody, not that you're not already somebody."  I appreciate my partner sitting with me through many a long nights that he didn't have to.  I appreciate the time he spent watching my children while I sometimes worked for 12 hours straight.

EYE opening.

Gratitude amasses within my soul to the point that it's almost overwhelming.

I thank you all for believing in me.

The Day my Family Eloped

A Holiday

by Ella Wheeler

The Wife
The house is like a garden,
The children are the flowers,
The gardener should come methinks...

The Husband
Impossible! You women do not know
The toil it takes to make a business grow.
I cannot join you until very late,
So hurry home, nor let the dinner wait.

Source: http://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/a-holiday-by-ella-wheeler-wilcox#ixzz3lkPCVlEa
 

This weekend we eloped; we being the whole entire family of me, Jordan, the kids, and the two fur kids. Our elopement was marked by flip-flops, sandy hair, shaggy sweaters, and two overly excited dogs. The Atlantic Ocean was our music and the menu was salt water and jelly fish.

We secretly ran off to become one again. 

Our family needed to run off. We literally were forgetting to look at each other.

We needed to have a reason to take a break from the social media, tablets, and cellphones (especially me).

Outside of work, we really don't travel as much as I would like us to travel.  (Keywords: as much as I would like us to travel).  If my partner had it his way, we would stay within the confines of our 75 mile radius.  I, on the other hand, am a born rolling stone.  I really MUST have the wind beneath my wings.

This weekend, my dreams were temporarily placated with a trip to the beach. We even brought our fur children with us who got to experience the Atlantic Ocean (and sand, and beach, and wind, and everything else) for the first times in their short little lives.

This was probably one of the shortest most entertaining days I've had in a long time.  There's nothing more comforting and absolutely delicious than the looks on my dogs face when they entered the warm ocean for the first time.

xo

Enjoy

Ollie