Merry Christmas all!

We are home in California for Christmas! Brisa and I were super excited to leave the ridiculously cold Kansas climate to go home to our family and friends in San Jose and Yorba Linda! It has been a whirlwind tour of Northern and Southern California, but the opportunity to visit both of our homes is too good to pass up!
Last night we attended a candlelight Christmas Eve service and the pastor challenged us to figure out what gifts we treasure the most and I must admit that my wife, Brisa, has been the greatest gift that God could ever give me. She is my jewel in the rough and I am incredibly thankful that God blessed me with someone so amazing for my unworthy self.
I encourage you all to celebrate and cherish your treasured gifts as we honor Christ's birth.

Here are a few pictures of our trip so far! We've been eating like crazy (not surprising) and I realize now looking at myself how much weight I've gained lately (also not surprising) and like everyone else in America, I am going to work on losing some of my "excess" ASAP! The first is a picture of my great friend, Anobel and me. He is an amazing photographer and you can view his work at www.anobelodisho.com. We have known each other since our early high school years and we make it a point to see each other every time we get a chance! Also, we have my whole family minus my oldest sister and her husband. Biggest change is that my other sister is very pregnant and we were excited to finally see her growing belly! Merry Christmas all!

Busy Holiday Season!!!

With Brisa recently taking her Boards exam for vet school (basically a test that covers everything she has learned or was supposed to have learned from the past 4 years) to my finals this week, it has been extremely busy at the Hsieh household! I apologize for not posting more lately, but life happens and so I was busy managing others things at the moment. Nonetheless, the show must go on! And so here is a quick slideshow of what we are currently working on! I am going to try my best to finish as many of these sessions before Christmas so that you can share them with your friends and family over the holidays! I appreciate your patience and understanding! 

Hope you all are staying warm and safe during this winter season! We had our first snowfall here in Manhattan last night and it's been a doozy! Accidents galore and people fishtailing, it was a interesting morning commute to say the least!

Enjoy the slideshow and look for a ton of posts in the next fex days! By the way, this is what you'll be viewing: Niki & Josh's wedding, Jenny & Casey's wedding, Emily & Tony's engagement session, Amie & Paul's wedding, Ashley & Bryant's wedding, Gramkow Family session and the Dexter's OpLove homecoming!

Jenna & Travis ~ Attraction

Recently we went out and did a fun session with our awesome friends, the Wodiskes! These kids are so cool, that they are even making us consider moving to their homeland of sunny Arizona. Whoa, right? Us, the California kids moving to Arizona? That's right. The Wodiskes are THAT cool. Bound by their faith in Jesus Christ and their love for sharing the word, they are just contagiously energetic and fun people!

We went out to the gorgeous K-State campus because they really wanted to do some Lover's Lane pictures for their Christmas cards (Don't worry, we didn't spoil the surprise for those of you expecting a card)! Are these kids not absolutely gorgeous? Seriously, they could be in the next American Eagle print ads, right? It was hard picking our favorites out of the session because they were all so awesome!

Thanks Wodiskes for being such amzing friends and congrats on spending your first Christmas together!

Enjoy their rockin slideshow!

TAG!

Sometime last week, the awesome ericamay tagged me in a cool game that bloggers play! Please click on the link to ericamay's blog because she reveals some old personal information that I think is hilarious! Something about her former life in high school and if you know her, you know how ridiculous it is!

So here's how the game works:

• link to the person that tagged you
• post the rules on your blog
• write 6 random things about yourself
• tag 6 people at the end of your post
• let the blogger know that he/she has been tagged
• let the tagger know when your entry it up

1. It takes me literally less than 2 minutes to fall asleep and I can fall asleep anywhere. If it takes me longer than 10 minutes to fall asleep, I get super grumpy because I feel like I have been tossing and turning all night (yes, my wife hates me for this)!
2. I hate wasting food. In undergrad, my roommates would save their leftovers and bring them home for me to eat (even when I didn't go out to eat with them). It drives me nuts when people either a) leave a half-eaten meal and don't take it home and b) don't eat their leftovers. Maybe this explains my "larger" stature :)
3. Going to steal one from Erica, but it is exactly the same for me: I never thought I would be a professional photographer. My at-the-time fiance and my sisters pitched in to buy me my first digital SLR camera (which I still love) and I started taking pictures of anything and everything. Suddenly I was taking pictures of friends and families and voila...my first wedding! It has been an unimaginable joy ride ever since and I have loved every second of it. After Amie & Paul's amazing wedding this past weekend, I realized how truly blessed I am to witness the power of God's love in bringing amazing people together. Weddings truly are the ultimate celebration of Him and I absolutely love them!
4. One of my life goals is to own a BMW. I love how they look and more importantly, how they drive. The balance of the car, the pinpoint steering and beautiful sounds of the inline-6 are just a few of the things that I love about these cars. I think I am a LONG way from actually realizing my dream, but my wife and I have an agreement in place: she gets to have a horse if I can have my bimmer - everyone wins except our checkbook!
5. I am a terrible, horrible, ridiculous procrastinator. No reasons or excuses for it really, that is just who I am. For those of you waiting to see your pictures, my procrastination does not apply to you (seriously), I try my hardest to get these back as soon as possible! Here's my current queue of editing: Niki & Josh's wedding, Jenny & Casey's wedding, Emily & Tony's engagement, Ewing Family, Jenna & Travis' x-mas, Amie & Paul's wedding...(need to work on my scheduling skills :)
6. I brush my teeth while taking a shower. Try it sometime. My teeth and mouth feel amazingly refreshed! When I was studying abroad in Germany, my German roommates did this and I thought that they were crazy! So I tried it and it was awesome! Seriously try it. I think you'll be surprised! I now have two toothbrushes...one in the shower and one by the sink :)

Time to tag it up! Ok party people, here is the list of the next victims! Sarah Jeanne Photography, Sarah White, Ali Mocabee Designs, Ellie Jo Gramkow, Jenna Wodiske and Yellow Streaks!

Nathan - Style

We can't say this enough...we absolutely LOVE senior sessions! So much fun and so incredibly unique every time! Nathan's session was no different. Different, individualistic and literally and figuratively rockin!

Nathan is a phenomenal guitarist and so had to incorporate part of his identity in his senior session and the end result was amazing! He loves alternative/rock, but listens to a whole host of other genres as well. Here is one of his favorite bands CLICK HERE (because we're from California, we try to find any way that we can incorporate our home state into anything :)

Someday, Nathan may start his own band or cut his own record and we think we took plenty of shots that our CD Cover material! Check out the slideshow to see what we are talking about!

Thanks again Nathan for selecting us as your photographer and we wish you the very best with your senior year and your rising music career!

Willy, Porky, Figgins & Paz

Our kids. We call them our kids because they are in fact, our kids. We feed and bathe them and constantly worry about them. They sleep on our bed and they firmly believe that it is their bed and they are just allowing us to sleep there. They run our lives and we wouldn't have it any other way!

When Chris was sick last week, he took some pictures of the kids in their elements. Soaking up the sun and laying down all day long. If heaven is a smidgen of what life is like as one of our pets, we love our faith! :)

Unnamed Trio - Jack, Alec, Caleb, and Samantha

We love to support new artists coming into their own and paving their way into the industry and so we gotta give some love to a recently formed local band here in Manhattan called The Unnamed Trio of Alec, Caleb, Jack and Samantha! They have yet to figure out a name for their newly formed group and they are asking for your help! Please visit their Facebook page to help them come up with a name here! Already, they have made waves and were featured in the K-State newspaper here. With original tracks by lead singer Samantha and fun cover songs by Caleb, this group gets the crowd pumped up with their energy and their lyrics! Keep on the lookout for them as they start landing more and more gigs in the near future!

Check out the group in action from their show at the Kathouse Lounge!

Bryant Family ~ Joy

Lisa, Damon, Colton, Jake, Bella, & Sabo. That's the entire Bryant family. And they are absolutely adorable! Colton, the young man that you'll see in the ensuing slideshow is quite possibly one of the cutest little boys we have ever seen! He was just so full of life and so comfortable in front of the camera that he clearly was the centerpiece of our session. Colton loved the camera so much that he even snapped a few pictures of his parents rolling around and laughing! Photographic bliss!

What's a family portrait session with out the canine kids, right? Jake, Bella and Sabo definirely made our day! They were such happy happy dogs! And so incredibly cute too!

Thank you again for selecting us for your family session! Many blessings to you all!

Sabina ~ Style

Sabina made our lives so much easier. She knew exactly what she wanted, where she wanted to take pictures and how she wanted to dress for each shot. What more could we ask for? All we needed to do was point and shoot because Sabina looked fabulous and she picked some AMAZING places for her senior portraits!!!

What a cool and mature young lady! With her stylish "little black dress" to her hunting gear and shotgun, Sabina always dresses to impress! With her dad driving us around into the backcountry between Manhattan and Wamego, we were awestruck by the beauty of the area and how comfortable Sabina was in each location.

Thank you Sabina for selecting us as your photographer and we wish you the absolute best in college and the rest of your senior year!

Enjoy the slideshow!

Courtney & Troy ~ Attraction

We recently had the pleasure and privilege of meeting Courtney & Troy! After a couple of re-schedulings, we finally made it happen and it was well worth it! Based on the slideshow, you'll realize how easy it was for us to take photos of them because they are both absolutely beautiful! And as photographers, it gets nothing better than gorgeous people in love!

Congratulations on your engagement and upcoming wedding! We wish the very best!

Enjoy the slideshow!