I have been meaning to write this for some time, now that the snow and ice have melted, I really needed to get this written. We have finally had some snow to play around in. This is a wonderful thing for my family because it is the first time my daughter Caidence got to play in snow. Sure she lived in TN and KY for about 2 years, but well I wasn’t going to let her get all cold and play in the snow when she was a baby! We then moved to Nicaragua for 2 years and then Texas for 2 years. Which it did snow in Texas once we moved! We had some flurries here in Clarksville, but my daughter kept being upset because she has always wanted to build a snow man.

We finally got about 2 inches of ice and about half an inch of snow, the roads froze over and Montgomery Co schools were out for an entire week! I was finally able to let her play in the snow, and then later we went back out so I could get some photographs of her.

I wanted to document Clarksville’s first real snow fall of the year and Caidence’s first time playing in it. It was also an exciting time because my daughter made her first friends here. I introduced her to some neighbor kids across the street, and Caidence went to play with them for a little while until her hands got too cold and too red they burned! Her first experience and well she was not found of the pain.

I was able to capture important memories of my dad and his granddaughter. They played in the snow and rolled around whenever he and my husband finished clearing off the steps to the house.

So now the snow is melted and probably now just a memory of the past and I am totally late with getting this up but it is better late than never. Oh and the snow wasn’t even the good kind for us to attempt to build a snowman, though I have seen some people succeed!

The past couple of weeks I have made a lot of changes to this site. One of the first things you will notice is I now have a slideshow on the main page. It automatically plays, but if you hover over the slideshow, arrows pop show, where you can manually go back and forth through the slideshow. I have kept the galleries the same on the portfolio pages, and also added a few more pages, such as Homecomings and Modeling. I do want to mention, if you are viewing one of my galleries, you can easily click on an image to view larger and it opens up in a larger slideshow. There are arrows on the left and right side of your screen to manually click back and forth through the gallery.

I have removed all of the information on the bottom, and made it easier for you all to find me on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. By clicking on the icon, it will directly take you to my social media sites.

I have updated the About Crystal section and added a head shot of yours truly!

I am also excited to announce that I now have a way to make payments via my website. If you hover over “Rates” on my navigation menu, “Payment” will drop down. Click on Payment and a new page opens. It is PayPal friendly but also accepts other forms of payment! I have listed my basic rates, tax is included once you click “Pay now”.

You will also notice another empty box, it allows you to pay a different amount, such as a different price, due to coupon, promotion or down payment on your session.

Below are a few before the transformation images. It is not “drastic” but I believe more appealing, less cluttered and more functional.

A lot has happened in such a short time. My family left Texas and moved back to Tennessee. I left my friends, and my wonderful clients to embark on a new adventure to the unknown. It has been an interesting transition for my family. My daughter left her Killeen school during Christmas break and entered my old elementary school. I am finally adjusting to not feeling like I am missing anything during my week. It became busy with her Speech and OT therapy twice a week and her starting ballet for the first time.

We went from having such busy lives to having a lot of free time. I have been able to concentrate more on my school work and bring my grades up. I am happy to say that my classes end on March 26th and I will finally have my Bachelors Degree that I have been working non-stop for since July of 2009. My daughter starts ballet here in Clarksville, TN. She is enjoying school, and impressing me on her reading and spelling skills.

I have been able to meet up with a few old friends. Who have happily helped me with being my models for school work. I have had the pleasure to photograph a good friend of mine. I have known her since high school and we ended up going to cosmetology school afterwards. Marriage and family and pcsing drifted us apart, so it was a honor to photograph her and her two boys as my first clients here in TN.

Her boys are growing up so quickly, and Shytella is still as beautiful as ever.

I am excited for what the future holds. I hope that I do just as good if not better than how I did in Texas. I miss all my Texas clients, they have became more than just clients they became friends. I will always hold a special place in my heart for Killeen. It is the birth place of Crystal Arroyo Photography and if it wasn’t for the wonderful people that I met along the way. I would not be where I am today. I want to thank everyone who chose me as their photographer. I do hope our paths cross again!