I'm too excited to finally have my phone system up to par with the rest of my business! GotvMail has so many awesome features that are perfect for making a small business like mine appear much bigger! Here are some of my favorite features:

• Web & Email Delivery of Voicemails and Faxes (comes with unlimited online storage)
• Live Call Forwarding (send calls to my assistant if I can't take the call)
  
• Music-On-Hold (choice of music style or upload your own mp3!)
  
• Call Announce/Screening (hear the caller's name and choose to accept or send to voicemail)
  
• Conference Calling (awesome!)
• Dial-by-Name Directory (makes my company seem much bigger!)
  
• Virtual Marketing Extensions (for prerecorded info and directions to my studio)
• Toll-Free 800 number (I transferred my existing number)
  
• CHECK IT OUT THIS SERVICE BY CLICKING HERE!

I'm overwhelmed with joy! Wedding Style Magazine is on stands everywhere with my image on the cover and in tons of fashion and editorial inside! Special thanks to my publicist (who chooses to remain anonymous), my stylist Sunny Ravanbach of White Lilac Inc. (who absolutely saved me on this one!), my hair stylist Christophe Saluzzo, my make-up artist Mara Leverre, Voytek Stradomski for making all of the gorgeous jewelry, Grace and Yanni for trusting me with your cover shoot, and the one who I rely on every day, my provider in heaven, God!

Ceremony Magazine 2006 has just arrived on shelves! This is one of only two magazines I advertise in. It is an absolutely gorgeous publication that features only the top vendors in Orange County and Los Angeles. I love the new size and cover idea that they put out this year! It is so classy and rich. The cover shown on the left was photographed by Aaron Delesie, a super cool Orange County photographer who I'm sure you'll be seeing a lot more of in the years to come!

This is a fashion spread I shot for Ceremony. The girl on the left is actually a client of mine. Her name is Sarah and she's one of my favorite brides from 2005. Her and her fiance Aaron are the sweetest couple. They will actually be modeling for my sold out February Newport Beach 4-day Workshop and possibly for my March Workshop as well. They were also featured in Grace Ormonde Marriage 2006 in the honeymoon section. See image below.

I think my son is going to be in a band someday soon. At the age of 20 months, he's into the guitar, vocals, and now drums! The picture above is him smacking me in the face with his drumstick. I figured I should get out of his way so I stepped back and made a video of him. Click on the video below to see Aidan rocking out!

Here's a shot from the lift going up the Bullet Express at Big White, British Columbia. I'm so spoiled with the snow here that I don't know how I'll be able to enjoy the local mountains in CA anymore.

I had to take a couple pictures as I walked through town. This was my fourth time visiting since 2001 and the town has grown so much! It's getting to be such the happening place.
Click on the image above to see the 2006 spinning Gary Fong snowcoaster!

After we had our fill of the mountain (yeah right), we headed down to Gary's awesome Victorian-style home on Okanagan Lake. It's like a mini castle with spectacular views from every bedroom! We spent half the night in the movie theater watching Zoolander and surfing the web. In the morning, after the amazing Melissa made pancakes, scrambled eggs, and biscuits for breakfast, we took a walk down to the lake. Here are some funny pictures of us we took with the multi-shot feature on my mini Nikon. Too much fun!

Gary "WOW" Fong
Melissa "That's Stupid" Carl
Amy "I like to pretend I'm camera-shy" Nave
David "The Friendly Serial Killer" Jay
JuJu "I'm Crazy-Silly" Colon
Mike "Accident Prone" Colon

We're having so much fun up here in Canada! Here's a group shot of the gang. From left to right: David Jay, Amy Nave, Kassandra and David Beckstead, Julie, me, Gary Fong and Melissa Carl. More images below:

David Beckstead loves the snow! His famous line is "It's so greasy dude!"
What a great couple!Gondola rides do weird things to people. Amy calls them Gorgonzola rides.
Above: My cute wifey
I don't know where DJ gets his hops, but he really should be in the NBA. Beckstead can probably throw down a dunk too! My wife on the other hand is perhaps just humoring the idea.

The snowball fight got pretty brutal - here's Melissa attacking Kassandra.
This one's called The Underhand Splash. It's quite effective - just ask Amy.

This is a photo of Gary getting beaned by a snowball (I won't say who threw it) while he's taking a video of us and calling us weird. He's a great sport! I'm surprised he didn't make us sleep out in the cold for this one! Thanks for your hospitality Gary! You are one of the most generous guys I know!

We're up in Big White, B.C. and it's gorgeous! 100 inch base and a foot of powder in the last 24 hours! Snowboarding heaven! I'll post more pics tonight!

Happy New Year Everyone!! I hope that you are having a wonderful start to your 2006! Do you have a New Year's Resolution? Mine is to make more conscious efforts to do things for other people. I want to be the kind of guy that is known for my frequent selfless acts of kindness. Life is so much more fulfilling when your agenda each day is to make someone else's day better. When I go to sleep at night I want to have pictures of people's smiles popping into my head from the things I did that day to make them happy.

I am so thankful for how God has blessed my family and my business in 2005. The more we rely on God, the more blessings he trusts us with. He wants to spoil us without spoiling us if you know what I mean. If you want to maximize God's blessing in your life this year, you have to prove to God that his blessings will not make you big-headed, selfish, distant, or corrupt. Money is the root to all sorts of evil and God does not want to lose us to our own greed. The key to maximizing God's blessing in our lives is to become more and more generous, loving, compassionate, and selfless with each blessing. This is not an easy task! Every dollar you make will bring to mind all of the toys it could buy. It's best to make a policy to give first before spending anything. It's the same concept behind saving your money, only with giving you have eternal rewards. I would much rather store up my treasures in heaven that spend them here on Earth. But don't get me wrong, I still like nice things as you can tell by my last post. I think God wants us to have nice things as long as those nice things are not the driving force behind our work. God wants to be the driving force behind everything we do. He has a purpose for every one of us and it's up to us to let go of our own ambitions and give it all to Him. If you are faithful with the little things, you will get more.

It's hard to write this stuff, because my worst fear is looking like a hypocrite. I think many people are turned off by Christians because of hypocrisy. I think by writing something like this, it creates accountability for me because I'm now responsible for walking the talk!

I pray God's richest blessing on you all! Remember... He is our provider and we should trust him. If you're struggling financially, physically, or emotionally... Seek God (I've found this works best on my knees) and He will deliver you!

The photo above was from a recent wedding. The bride and groom (Julia and Chris) decided to have photos taken together before the ceremony. I like to make sure they are all alone when they first see each other and capture their surprise and emotion. Isn't it a great job we wedding photographers have?!! I will post a new portfolio piece on my website soon of this beautiful wedding so keep an eye out for it!

It was taken with my D2x, 70-200mm AF-S VR lens zoomed to 75mm, set manually to F2.8 at 1/250 sec, 250iso, RAW+JPG medium-fine, available light, no flash.

P.S. I'm leaving tomorrow for a snowboarding trip to Big White, B.C. to spend time with my wife on the slopes and to hang with some great friends and awesome wedding photographers - Gary Fong, David Jay, David Beckstead, and Amy Nave. I think a few more people are coming up, but I'm not sure who is going to make it. And don't worry.. I'll wear my helmet :)