"Chandler, what is wrong with your face?"

Oooh goodness, welcome back!  Did you think I was a goner? I might have thought that myself these past few weeks.

School has officially started back up and my relaxing life of leisure has gone out the window.  With my 40 minute drive to work, it makes for some really long days.  Plus trying to get in exercise means that I get home at 6:00pm and have 3 hours to cook dinner, eat, update lesson plans, email students, watch a smidgen of TV and then go off to bed for my required 8 hours of sleep.  Annnd repeat.

So blogging...it's been kind of put on the back burner until I get readjusted to working life again.  Also, wedding planning has been pretty slow, so there's nothing I have really planned to share quite yet!

However, Adam and I are on the countdown for our engagement pictures.  We are just over 5 weeks away and I am starting to get a little nervous.  Let me tell you why...

Adam doesn't know how to smile.

Now, this seems absolutely ridiculous, but it's true!  Adam can smile.  He had braces in high school and now he has a very nice smile.  But you cannot ask Adam to smile and then receive one because he cannot force it.  In essence, he has the Chandler Bing Smile Problem (YouTube won't let me embed it, so you must click the link instead).

Let's see some evidence of this:

See what I mean?  We have been together for almost 9 years and I have more fingers than good pictures of me and Adam together.  Seriously?  We can't take a single good picture a year?  My mom has experienced my pain as any time she tries to take our picture together, she ends up taking 15 shots, looking at the camera each time, and then saying, "really Adam?"  It's actually become a joke in their household and you can expect to double the time needed for picture taking when Adam is, well, literally, in the picture.

Of all the terrible photos, my favorite is the Angry Adam by the Christmas tree.  We spent probably an hour a couple of Christmases ago trying to take a picture together.  I finally got frustrated, and clearly so did Adam, so I took a picture of him by himself in front of the tree.  We have not sent a photo Christmas card since.

While Adam clearly never had to take pictures as a child, I do think he partially tries to sabotage the photos to keep me from taking more. But he should have learned by now that it doesn't work and it just makes the process longer and more painful.  (I'm going to tell myself that he does some of this on purpose so that I don't feel like we're wasting our money by getting engagement pictures.)

So what do you think?  Are we doomed to have terrible engagement pictures?  I talked to our photographer about Adam when we had our sit-down(you know, mob style) and he didn't seem too concerned.  His suggestion was to get Adam loosened up a little bit by means of alcohol...haha.  So I guess Adam and I will be celebrating on a Sunday afternoon in October with Long Islands before we take our engagement pictures.  I probably should avoid drinking because I get a really cheesy smile once alcohol takes root in my system, but who can really turn down a Hibachi Hut Long Island Iced Tea?

How was the picture-taking process for you?  Any suggestions for a poor, worried soul like me?