My last wedding of the year was spent with Ben & Apryl at New Prospect Baptist Church and Altavista Country Club! I photographed their engagement several months earlier at Virginia Tech’s campus and so it was a pleasure to be included on their wedding day celebration as well.

Congraulations to Ben and Apryl!

While I am not in the habit of making New Year’s Resolutions, it so happened that my new health kick started on January 1st. I was pretty darn fit when I first joined the military, so it has become my goal to get back to that level of fitness - to lose a little bit of body fat and turn it to muscle.

To accomplish this I committed to working out (running and lifting weights) at least three times per week, eating portion sizes, and most of all…no cheese for two weeks.

I love cheese. Any way it comes. Especially cheese and grapes, which fortunately for me is at almost every wedding buffet! Because it isn’t exactly the healthiest food (lots of fat ya know) I am taking a 13 day sabbatical from cheese. When I return from this hiatus I’ve resolved to eat it sparingly!

Oh yeah, and very little iced tea. I rarely drink soda, but with sweet iced tea I might as well have an IV drip. So now I only get one 4oz glass a day.

10 days into this journey things have been great. I’ve lost a couple pounds, and I feel more energetic! I won’t be giving up Buffalo Wild Wings though - that’s just insane.

I hope you all had an outstanding Christmas and, thus far, an AWESOME new year! On Christmas Eve I had the pleasure of watching Dallas WHOOP on the Panthers! Okay, maybe it wasn’t exactly a spanking…matter of fact we barely won. But hey, winning is winning!

The only problem is my wife is a Panthers fan. While it made rubbing the win in a little more fun, the couch wasn’t exactly comfortable that night either. Just kidding - she’s a great sport!

Just for fun…here’s our pregame face off!