for all you fitness gurus...

you MUST check out tracy anderson! i am on day 14 of the metamorphosis program and i am loving it! and believe me, it takes me a lot to love a workout routine. don't get me wrong, i like to be healthy and in shape, but i just hate monotony and seeing zero results for all your effort. (and i'd probably rather clean toilets than run on a treadmill...)

i'd heard about tracy for a long time, but finally decided to check it out when i read an issue of gwyneth paltrow's goop newsletter and she endorsed the tracy anderson method. turns out tracy works for just about every hot bod in hollywood - jennifer lopez, courtney cox, madonna, kristin davis...and the list goes on.

the program is hard to maintain on the required daily basis and it does take a lot of dedication, but it's totally worth it. you track your progress every day so you can really see change and the programs are targeted to your specific body type (abcentric, hipcentric, omnicentric, or glutecentric.) this program is especially awesome for any dancers out there; you are really encouraged to go through the moves as if you are dancing in a night club and really improvise. haha...i usually pretend like i'm the only blonde, 20-year-old dancing on a balcony of el kapital in madrid...it's fun :) it's a pretty intense hour of cardio and muscle toning, but i've found if you have killer music it goes by fast. tracy's awesome and she makes you feel like you're working out with your best friend (albeit your supermodel, helen-of-troy, chiseled best friend...) also, i don't like to get that bulked-up look, which is what i was getting with P90X, this program will definitely give you the long, lean, dancer's body.

i've always looked at personal service professionals as a means of their own advertisement. i.e. if you're a dentist, you better have dang good teeth; if you're doing my hair, your hair better look coifed too, you get the point. i think tracy's body speaks for itself...join me on the journey!!!

engagement photo shoot

it only took a million years, but our engagement pictures our finally hot off the press! i am so pleased with how they turned out and i couldn't be happier with our photographer - julio costilla of helo photography. i knew of a lot of photographers, but i had no idea how to choose one until i was referred to julio by rebecca trois (a goddess who i adore and also the owner of our wedding venue). julio is the official photog of trois estate and he's worked with some of the best in the business. he's the consummate professional and very wise beyond his years, plus he made it so easy! i don't know about y'all, but every time i looked at engagement portraits of other couples, i would think to myself, "i wonder if it's really awkward to take photos like that? do they give you directions for that stuff?" our photographer was all about letting us do our own thing and blending himself into the background so we wouldn't even know he existed. it sounds strange, but i really didn't even know he was there...which i guess you can tell as many people have asked, "so did y'all just decide to make out the whole time?" i'm sorry! i know there are a lot of kissing pictures! oops ;)

anyway, i wanted the photos to be very representative of us, our lifestyle, and our personalities. i decided to do the shoot at floore's country store since i knew there would be some good backdrops and that's the place where theron and i met, plus we love it out there! i'm the kind of person that can see something in my head and i know what i want, so i told julio that i wanted pictures that told a story (rather than portraits of us just sitting there with my arms draped around theron's neck) and i wanted a pictorial look to the photos, something like a photo spread you might see in cowboys & indians or texas monthly. he really hit it out of the park and his use of color is just phenomenal! here's a few, but you can check out the rest on facebook:


love all the signage! i was going for an old gringo/double d ranch ad and i think we got it!


color turned out great on this one...


haha reminds me of an epic romance...


shannan d'aun sowder, would you marry me?!


i'm a huge dancer and have been all of my life. thank the lord, i found a guy who loves to dance too! this is our little homage to that...


i like this cute little spy shot!


fan of this one...well, because red is my fave color and my man looks hot!!! is he not a dead-ringer for the dude from country strong?


under the neons...


this shot was very spontaneous...we wanted to take a break so we just saw some chairs sitting there and had a seat, but i love the way this turned out!


i thought the antique finish on this one turned out cool, plus i love the general vibe of the photo. too bad my husband doesn't plan to run for governor of texas...i think this one would make an awesome campaign photo!

i hope to be back with more wedding updates soon, but this will have to do for now! i will get to blogging more frequently again i promise!

in honor of teacher appreciation week...

i must give some love to all the teachers out there! hope you're all surviving the end of the school year, and if you're counting down like me (22 days to be exact), you know that the promise of a beautiful summer is just over the horizon. i have complained about the hardships of this job, but i foreshadow that it will shatter my heart into a million pieces when the school year draws to an end. it sounds strange, but since i don't have any children of my own yet, those kids were my kids and i have treated them like my own all along. me and those 18 kids, well, we're a family. i know, i'm probably not your stereotypical teacher. i didn't ever even set out to do this...never in a million years. i become really obsessive about investing in these kids and working scrupulously and i take everything personal and i also fight for them like a mama bear.

even though i am beyond thrilled about the opportunity to catch up on my reading, get back to blogging and writing, catching up with old friends, wedding planning, and decorating/organizing our little home; it is difficult for me to imagine not getting up each morning to see juan's gap-toothed smile, the pretty new dress ximena's abuelita made for her, and hear diego's incessant knock-knock jokes. and yes, i'll even miss the awkward, "well, i think you should ask your parents about that..." line that i've had to deliver countless times.

case in point: today, i had several bottle of water on my desk (trying to be healthy here) and one student came up to me and asked, "ms. sowder, why do you have so much water on your desk?" almost immediately, another shouted out,"miss can't get pregnant, she's not married yet!" and yet another exclaimed, "don't you guys know, you don't have to be married to have a baby! you don't even have to be in love!!!!!!!" eeeek :/

anyway, thank you all, not just teachers, but anybody who has a profession that requires a tremendous amount of service and investment in other people. keep it up...this world needs you.

my babies on nerd day: