SURPRISE!
On Wednesday evening, we headed to Terre Haute to surprise Jessica with the money we helped raise for her cause. (If you missed the past blog posts, click here and here to read her whole story!) Anyway, her best friend Jess had set up this whole thing…she told Jessica that they would go for a "girls night out" dinner at Red Lobster, one of their favorite restaurants. Luckily, she bought the story and even though she wasn't feeling well that night, she came anyway. Jess had called all of Jessica's closest friends and family to join us in surprising her and proceeded to collect more cards, checks and gifts for Jessica before the surprise party. Prior to Wednesday night, we had all helped collect $4,400 for her cause…but I just heard that the grand total for the evening ended up at $5,500!! Thank you to ALL of my clients, friends and family who helped make this surprise a HUGE success for all of us! 🙂 Here's the first of many checks…
And some of the gifts she received…one group of hospital staff members even pitched in and bought her a pink iPod! 🙂
I LOVE this…Jess put the names of all of the people who donated on this card…it was continued on the back too…
LOL She also bought her some cute Victoria's Secret PJ's for her upcoming hospital stays….
And Jess got her some roses too! Look at all of the goodies!!
Here's Jess texting Jessica before she arrived…
And Jessica looking at all of us like "what is going on here?!" 😉
The reactions!! She was sooooo adorably cute!! She was so surprised and excited all at the same time. The cutest was when she blurted out, "I'll be able to pay all of the medical bills now!" 🙂 That was our mission! LOL She was so surprised at all of the items that local businesses donated too…I loved it!
Jess spent the whole day putting the names of everyone who donated into the heart shaped raffle box…there were a LOT of people!!
The official drawing… (and if you won, Jessica Durbin will be contacting you!) 😉
Here's everyone watching her pull names for the winners of the raffle…
Both Jessicas together!! Love you guys! 🙂 I'm so glad we were able to help you out with this project!!!!
Absolutely hilarious!
LOL! I ran across this on another blog today…absolutely hilarious! I guess this is one way to fake it 'til you make it! 😉
WOW!!!
All 60+ photo mentors for the Thirst Relief Project raised a combine total of $33,546.55! Enough to save 10,500 lives! 🙂 Thank you to everyone who bid on us and the other photographers involved in the charity project!!
**UPDATE: I've had a few photographers run across the auction after it ended and asked if I will be hosting any seminars or other mentor opportunities soon and the answer is YES!! 🙂 I have a mentoring website that is in the works right now where you will be able to apply online very soon…keep checking the blog for more info!**
Happy Valentine’s Day!
I have to say, this has been the strangest Valentine's Day…yesterday we worked on albums all day and then had a shoot out of town last night so I had planned on spending all day today catching up with phone calls, e-mails, other orders, etc. John and I had planned a nice dinner date for tonight and then planned to go to a movie afterwards. Well, I guess you can plan all you want but life throws you curve balls sometimes you know?! LOL
We woke up this morning to a very sick kitty. Snowball had to be taken to the "kitty ER" this past weekend for a UTI and it got worse overnight last night. So…off to the vet we went again today. The poor thing had to be sedated, x-rayed, given 2 shots and poked and prodded more than ever before. 🙁 He was thankful to come back home this afternoon but we decided it would be better to stay in with him tonight. So, I picked up a pizza and some movies for our date night and when I got home, I was surprised with a dozen gorgeous pink gerber daisies, chocolates, a pink heart mug, a DVD, some cute decor for my office and an adorable card. The funny thing is that I got 3 DVD's for John for V-Day this year and the DVD he bought me was one of the same ones that I bought him. 🙂 I guess that happens after you've been married for nearly 5 years huh?
The funniest thing about this V-Day is that I must have REALLY liked one of the cards I bought him…because as I was going through our closet, I found out that I bought the same card twice this year! LOL I think I originally saw it after Christmas and then again a week or two ago and forgot that I bought it after Christmas. Too funny. So yeah, I had 2 identical cards and 2 identical gifts today. Weird. LOL He told me to save the 2nd one for next year!
I think I've gotten my inbox down to about 20-30 more emails to return from the past 2 days so if you're waiting on a response from me, I promise I'll reply soon! 🙂
I'm off to enjoy my date night with my hubby though, Happy Valentine's Day everyone!! xoxo
The auction site has been extended!
Last night, hundreds of photographers tried accessing the Thirst Relief auction site and their server went down. I couldn't even log in to see who won my session last night nor could I continue to bid on other photographers myself. LOL! We just received this e-mail though so if you were planning on bidding on us at the last minute last night, you have another opportunity today. 🙂
Here's the updated info:
"The auctions that were in progress when the server went down have been restarted and extended. They now end in 15 minute intervals starting Thursday morning at 10am.
The host thinks we were being "attacked" by someone overloading the server with web requests. However, we are trying to clarify whether that was actually the case or whether it might just have been a couple of hundred people all hitting "refresh" every five seconds (as people have been conditioned to do by their eBay experiences). That's one reason why we are staggering all the auction ending times now (plus it gives people an opportunity to bid on a second or third choice).
Just remember that the anti-snipe feature means you don't have to check an auction more than once every 5 minutes or so. (Stop thinking like eBay!) It is currently set to extend the auction if a new high bid comes in within 10 minutes of the auction end time – and don't forget – if you are the previous high bidder, you will be notified by e-mail if that happens, so you should have plenty of time to respond. So relax, and bid what you are actually willing to pay. Don't try to snipe in order to win by a nickel at the last minute. (It's a tough habit to break!)Again, the following are the only auctions that ended before the server went down (at 8:30 pm EST) and so have final results:
David Beckstead
Millie Holloman
Laura Novak
Rick and Deborah Fero
Kevin Kubota
Sarah Petty
Bronson Pate
Corey McNabb
LaCour
–Auction Admin"