Our longtime friend Michelle Bullard and her new beau Matthew White came to see us from their home in Houston on a weekend whirlwind visit to Oklahoma. They arrived Friday afternoon in time for Matthew to hitch along with me to shoot my Friday night football, since he is, as I am, a news and sports photographer by trade. We worked the first quarter in Holdenville’s neat old rock stadium, then came back to Ada for the second half of the Cougars football game at Norris field. It wasn’t much of a game, and when we met up with my friend Jeannie Neal, Matt decided to let her use his Canon 1DmII with his 300mm f/2.8, much to Jeannie’s amazement and delight.

While we were gone, Abby and Michelle had a grand time catching up, since they hadn’t actually seen each other in the flesh since early 2004.

Saturday morning we got up, shared a big breakfast, then loaded the Jeep with some of our various firearms and drove them down to the pond. One reason Matt was so easily enticed to make this trip was the fact that he could shoot his guns out here all he wanted. We were able to play around with several types of weapons and target setups. It became obvious early on that Matt is a talented marksman.

The heat took its toll, and by 2 pm, we were drenched in sweat and exhausted, but we all had fun. Abby made enchiladas and we shared another great meal, after which everyone took a long nap.

As evening approached, we ventured out again to make some pictures in the maturing light, particularly of Matthew and Michelle together, since they actually had very few of those images. Matthew had commented several times that he didn’t exactly understand why I was so excited about owning goats, but after just a few minutes he took a liking to them, particularly Buxton (the tan one), and ended up making lots of pictures of them.

The four of us ended up staying up past one in the morning, laughing and joking. Everyone had a great time. Matt and Michelle left this morning, but we know they will be coming back, and they know they are welcome.