My sweet Oatsy turned 8 this month. EIGHT. Where does the time go? I thought it would be fun to do a double-donut themed birthday photo shoot with her this year, because two donuts together make an 8, obviously.

I cut up little pieces of paper for the sprinkles on the backdrop, got two donut ballons, made a little cake decorated with donut cookies (including a double donut cookie topper), and used a sprinkle bandana, a donut toy and a donut blanket. The only thing we were missing was an actual donut. Oops.

She is such a great model and every time I set up the studio backdrop she goes right to it. She is the best muse a photographer could ask for.

We took a bunch of silly photos with her new donut blanket and new donut toy. Yes, we are very extra.

Oatsy loved her cake, but had a bit of a hard time (understandably) when I asked her to “leave it.” This is the face she made. I think she was saying, “if I look at it I’ll eat it Mom, so imma look over here.”

She was a good sport waiting a minute to let me take a couple photos and then I let her have at it. It was her birthday cake, after all. She went for all the donut cookies first, so I guess they were a hit!

If you’re wondering if she got rewarded for this - she did. She had a good portion of that cake, and then we spent the afternoon at the local doggy pool, which we rented privately and had all to ourselves. She had a blast. I figured I owed it to her after making her wait for her cake and putting a toy on her head.

Here’s a few more goofy ones…

I really love this simple sprinkle backdrop. Anyone else want a birthday shoot with sprinkles? It was super easy and looks so fun!

And for fun, a new take on our classic logo image. What do you think?

I hope you enjoyed Oatsy’s silly birthday photos! If you’re interested in doing a birthday photo session with your dog, let’s chat! It’s so fun to plan out a themed birthday session, and we can even include a cake smash. (And if you’d like to use the sprinkle backdrop, let me know - I still have it!)

Donut Cookies: Pawsitively Homemade
Cookies purchased at: Naturally Dogs & Cats, Hartford CT
Bandana: PoshPupsAndCo
Balloons: Amazon
Donut fleece fabric: JoAnn Fabrics
Donut toy: Marshalls

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This post is full of HUGE ANNOUNCEMENTS from With Love & Oats Photography!

1) NOW BOOKING STUDIO SESSIONS

The biggest announcement is that I will now be offering studio photography sessions for dogs at a beautiful barn studio in Killingworth Connecticut! I am so excited to finally be able to offer studio photography for my clients, because we are able to capture stunning, modern images in a controlled setting. We can shoot in the studio even on rainy or hot days, which is perfect for this summer season. You’ll be able to get unique images that truly show your dog’s personality and expressions, and then I’ll guide you through the process of turning those beautiful images into artwork for your home. My goal, as with my outdoor sessions, is always to provide you and your dog with a unique, personalized and FUN experience from start to finish, and to create memories and images that you will cherish for a lifetime.

Signature Studio Sessions will be held on Fridays and each session will be 30-40 minutes long. Only one family will be booked per time slot, so your session will be completely private. The studio location is a beautiful renovated barn in Killingworth, with easy parking and a nice grassy area for dogs to use before entering the studio.

check out our studio video!

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2) MY PASSION PROJECT

Second, one of the really exciting things I’ll be incorporating into my studio sessions is my passion project, which I’m calling the With Love & Dogs Project. If you’ve ever seen and liked one of my photos with Oats and a chalkboard sign with a message, you can now get one of these, in studio, with YOUR DOG! I am thrilled to now offer this as a part of my sessions, and I’m going to be working on a couple *very special* and exciting projects with these images.

What is the With Love & Dogs Project?

For a couple years now, I’ve been posing Oats with messages of love on chalkboards. These have been some of my most popular and by far my most shared posts, so I have decided to turn it into a bigger project! I will now be working with YOU and YOUR DOGS to continue sharing messages of love, hope, kindness and equality, using chalkboard signs and a simple studio set up. The simplicity allows the focus to be on the dog and the message, and combines two of my favorite things: dogs and quotes. I have big dreams for this project, including an exhibition and possibly *a book!* and I would love for you to be a part of it.

If you’re interested in the With Love & Dogs Project, let me know when booking your studio session. I have many quotes and messages I’ll be using for this project, but if there’s a particular message that touches your heart, let me know! Anyone who participates will receive a social media sized, watermarked image of the chosen quote photo for online sharing!

If you’re interested in this project but don’t have a dog…there are other ways you can still be involved! I am currently on the hunt for various chalkboards (each photo will use a unique board) of different colors and sizes, and chalk artists (because my chalk artistry skills are pretty limited!). I am also accepting ideas for messages and quotes. Some of the topics I intend to focus on are: environmental awareness, civil rights, LGBTQ+ rights, ending violence and mental health. My hope for this project is to spread messages that matter, with the cutest possible subjects who understand only unconditional love - dogs.

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3) Studio Session Giveaway!

In honor of this big announcement about studio sessions and my passion project, I’m running a CONTEST and giving away TWO complimentary studio sessions for people interested in being a part of the With Love & Dogs Project! PLUS…everyone who enters the contest but does not win will receive an offer for 15% off a studio or outdoor session!

What You’ll Win:

• One FREE studio photography session, including some images for the With Love & Dogs Project

• 3 Digital Images to share on social media

• 1 8x10 fine art mounted print

• 10% discount off any additional artwork

• 20% off an Outdoor Signature Session booking

How To Enter:

• Complete the questionnaire in full (to access the questionnaire, click the green button below that says “Enter the Giveaway”)

• Follow With Love & Oats on Instagram by clicking here

• Like With Love & Oats on Facebook by clicking here

• Please read the fine print below!

Contest Dates:

• Contest will begin on Monday July 1, 2019 and end on Monday July 15, 2019 at 11:59pm EST

• The winners will be notified on Tuesday July 16, 2019 by phone and/or email

• Winning studio sessions will be held on either Friday July 26, 2019 or Friday August 2, 2019 (Times TBD)

The giveaway has now ended. thank you to everyone who entered!

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I’m thrilled for this new exciting chapter for With Love & Oats Photography and I’m looking forward to working with you and your dogs to create fun memories and stunning studio images that you can cherish forever.

I will also still be offering my Outdoor Signature Sessions, so please contact me to book either one!

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Our next stop was to visit my friend Christi, her husband John, and their sweet dogs and cats just outside Kansas City. Christi and I were roommates when we were both studying abroad in Ireland 13 years ago, and it was so great to see her and catch up for only the second time in over a decade! They were so sweet to open their home up to us for a few days during our trip.

Oats loved getting to know her new puppy friends, Vegas and Charlie, and little Charlie loved stealing Oatsy’s giant bed and her elephant toy that was larger than his head. This was the first time Oats had ever met cats, and it’s possible that she may now be forever scared of them :)

Dog Friendly Stop: Somerset Ridge Vineyard & Winery

One of the awesome places we visited while in Kansas was Somerset Ridge Vineyard & Winery, and it was one of the most dog-friendly places on the whole trip. Oats and Vegas came with us and were allowed INSIDE the tasting room, where the most friendly and sweet employee spoiled our pups with love and treats. The wine was delicious and the place was beautiful. As you know, I’m a big fan of dog-friendly places. Even better when they serve wine.

The pups were allowed inside the wine tasting room at Somerset Ridge Vineyard and Winery. What a fun day and experience for us and the pups!

Oats loved being able to join us inside the winery and then we spent some time outside in the sunshine and enjoyed our wine. It was a wonderful, fun day with the dogs, and we also stopped at a cute farm and store on the way home to get apple cider donuts (spoiler alert: Kansas ones are just as delicious as New England ones).

We did a little photo shoot with Christi and Vegas at the beautiful vineyard, and did you know that Kansas is the sunflower state?!? They were everywhere!

I also did a few family photos for this sweet family. Loved spending time with you guys!

On our way to Colorado, we stopped in rural Kansas to take a few photos. Does this remind anyone else of that scene from Castaway?

Oatsy modeled for me on this road for a bit and we didn’t see a single other car the whole time we were playing around, just photographing that classic goofy Oatsy sit all across America.

Kansas was an incredibly beautiful drive, full of sunflowers and rolling hills. It reminded me a lot of Ireland with its green scenery, which is fitting since Christi and I met there :) Can’t wait to visit again!

NEXT STOP: DENVER, COLORADO

So remember that time Oats and I drove cross country? You may have forgotten, because haven’t posted a blog since we were on the road in September! Let me explain why. A few weeks into the trip, I made a decision to hold off on creating more blog posts and editing photos so that I could just be present and enjoy my trip with Oats and with friends and family. Our days were very full, tiring, and wonderful. Often we were visiting with friends and family, making new friends, hiking, swimming, and seeing all the incredible sites all over this beautiful country. Most of our travel days pretty much went like this: wake up early, breakfast (for both of us), pack up our car for the next leg of the journey, fill the gas tank, drive to a beach or a hike or a park (or sometimes all three), spend some wonderful time outdoors, shop at a local pet store to get Oats a treat (spoiled), then drive to our next location, find a place to stay, eat dinner (Oats first of course), unpack our car for the night, meet up with friends (in several locations), quick research and plan out the following day…meaning where we would drive to, where we would hike/swim/adventure, and where we would sleep. It was amazing, but there wasn’t a whole lot of time built in to our days for being on the computer editing and blogging, so I made a decision that the adventure was the priority, and I would do the blogging when I got home.

Well…a couple crazy things have happened since. First, I broke my camera in Montana, on our very last adventure stop in Glacier National Park. My hands were very cold and I was trying to move too quickly and didn’t correctly attach my camera to the tripod, and….it fell. We enjoyed a lovely (and cold) day in Glacier National Park and Whitefish anyway, and then we headed home. It took about 5 days to get back, and then we immediately got to work on moving out of my house, which sold while I was on the road (yay!).

After the craziness of moving and closing on a home sale, I was finally able to sit down and take some time to look through my trip photos. This was when I learned that breaking a camera is hardly the worst thing that can happen to a photographer on an amazing trip.

While I was on the road, my laptop filled up, so I bought a brand new external hard drive, put all my photos on it (to free up space on my laptop for more), and drove home. I normally do multiple backups, so when I got home I plugged it in to do said backups. And the drive failed. Like...complete and total mechanical failure.

I brought it into two local places to see if they could recover the data, and called the brand manufacturer for the drive. I ultimately sent it in to the manufacturer for recovery, while also on my own working to recover some data off my memory cards and some from my cloud backup. For a while I was devastated, thinking that all of my trip photos were gone. However, I have been able to recover almost all of them through these various methods. They were not all recovered, but most. For that, I am eternally grateful. They are still a disorganized mess, but I’m sorting through them slowly and will start to finally post them on Facebook and Instagram and put together my blog posts!

Sometimes crazy things happen, but we still have all of our amazing memories. And *most* of our memorable photos. More to come ❤️

9.21.18 | Oats in Cannon Beach, Oregon

I should mention that our next three stops were all to visit family and friends (St Louis, Kansas City and Denver). We did venture out to do a few dog friendly activities, but mostly we relaxed and hung out with some awesome people that opened up their homes to us and made our road trip so much better. I am so grateful to everyone who has shared their homes with Oats and me and supported us along this journey.

After Ohio, we conquered another 8 hour driving day and headed for St. Louis to visit my aunt, who lives just outside the city. It was so wonderful to spend time with her, especially since I’ve never visited her in Missouri before. I see her often at family events, but this was such a great opportunity for us to really spend time together. She spoiled me with delicious food and wine and introduced Oats to the St. Louis “Dog Days of Summer.” We had such a great time. Thank you again Auntie Dot!

DOG-FRIENDLY STOP #1: St. Louis Gateway Arch Park

I am truthfully not planning to do many “touristy” excursions on this trip, but I really wanted to see the St. Louis Gateway Arch. When my aunt told me (how did I not know this?) that it’s purpose is to be the "gateway to the west,” there was really no way we could miss it. If it’s symbolic of exploring the west, then it’s pretty much exactly perfect for our road trip.

The park is dog friendly, but it was nearly 90 degrees and very humid, even though we got there pretty early in the morning. Oats lasted about 45 minutes before overheating again.

DOG-FRIENDLY STOP #2: Treecourt Unleashed Dog Adventure Park

After Oats got a little overheated (again - see our Ohio post!) I did a quick search for somewhere she could cool off. I found an adventure dog park, so I called and spoke directly to the owner. He said they had a couple great little spots for her to cool off, just no actual swimming (I also looked into a dock diving center in St. Louis, but when I called they had already closed down the pool after Labor Day) - but that was good enough for me - as long as she could cool down.

Treecourt was awesome and I highly recommend it to anyone visiting (or living near) St. Louis. There were lots of friendly dogs there with their owners, two little doggie pools with running water to cool off, tons of space to run around and explore, and a little mineral pool because evidently this area is famous for their mineral water. Oats basically had a dog’s version of a spa day, and I got to meet lots of very sweet dog owners.

Meeting the owner at Tree Court Dog Adventure Park.

Cooling off in one of two doggie pools at Tree Court.

DOG-FRIENDLY STOP #3: Dog Days of Summer

We got unbelievably lucky with this one. We visited St. Louis the day after Labor Day, so my aunt mentioned that a lot of the public pools in the city open up for dogs now. There were probably between 50-60 dogs there, and Oats just swam and chased toys the entire time. I think they do a few more pool days throughout early September, but I am very grateful that we just happened to be there on the day when most pools were open to dogs. I didn’t bring my camera to the pool, which was smart because I was soaked when I left, but here’s a little phone video of her swimming.

Here’s our little highlight reel from our Instagram updates while in St. Louis, so you can see some more about our lovely visit!

My aunt also has gorgeous butterfly gardens and raises monarchs in her home to release each year into the wild. There were about 8 in chrysalis form while I was there but we also saw a bunch of butterflies in her garden, so I had to shoot a few photos. Sometimes I take pictures of something other than Oats…sometimes.

Thank you again Auntie Dot for a fantastic time in St. Louis and for welcoming Oats and me into your lovely home! What a wonderful part of our trip :)

NEXT STOP: KANSAS CITy, kansas