That one time I met Hines Ward... :)

Oh gosh, where to begin?

How about we start from the very beginning?

It's Tuesday morning, I'm sitting in my office playing around on the internet before anyone else is here, when I see this...

You see, last year when he came to Charlotte I was out of town in Alaska with my dad. So I missed him and was heartbroken!

That wasn't about to happen this time. Charlotte is only a short drive from Raleigh and I was determined to make this happen. I immediately text my cousin (in Pittsburgh) and ask if she wants to fly down for the weekend just to see Hines. Unfortunately she has to work and can't make the last minute trip. So next I write this on Hillary's facebook wall...

After some texting back and forth, Hillary and I decided hey...what the heck? Let's go! We got two tickets for his autograph (happy early birthday present to me!) and a hotel and there was no looking back.

I was ECSTATIC. As you can tell from our conversation above. Hillary was equally excited too, as you can see. (She really could care less about the Steelers or the NFL for that matter...)

Friday afternoon rolls around and we hop in the car and head on out to Charlotte! We had only been once for the bowl game, so decided to head down the night before so we could explore downtown a bit. I really liked the city! It was super clean, and the atmosphere was really neat.

After an interesting night out (no need to get into details about that) we woke up bright and early to get ready to meet HINES!!

Hines Ward (and some other Steelers players, can't leave them out!) were signing autographs at the mall in Charlotte. The mall opened at 10am and Steelers would be there at 1pm and 3pm. Hines was scheduled to be there at 1pm. So what do Hillary and I do? We get there before the mall even opens because we were just so uber duber excited (aka: paranoid about long lines).

There were absolutely zero lines. I don't know what I was thinking, but I was super far off...

We walk into the mall, head to the area all set up for Hines, and wait. Lots and lots of waiting. At 10:00 we're able to get up and turn in our paper receipts for real tickets. So I do that. Then I sit back down and wait and wait some more.

We even recorded a video but I won't bother to waste your time with that :)

After about 2 hours of waiting (in comfy chairs!) we decide to go ahead and get in line, where we can wait another hour and a half for Hines. We were the third people in line for Hines which was pretty sweet, especially because eventually the line filled up pretty fast. Unfortunately they had a separate line for "VIP" people who bought tickets to get autographs from all of the players, and they got to go first so we had to do even more waiting once Hines actually arrived. But whatever...I'll do as much waiting as I need to if it means that he's just a few feet away :)

Around 1:15 Hines Ward finally showed his pretty smile and I was completely THRILLED! I was shaking, I felt like I was going to throw up, I was nervous and excited all wrapped up into one. It was such a huge adrenaline rush!

All of our waiting finally paid off and we inched our way up to Hines Ward...

But first, we passed Mike Wallace along the way :)

And then.....

"Hey, I'm Brittany!"
"Nice to meet you Brittany!"
...aaaaaaaaaaaaah, I'm dying.

Our conversation could have ended right there and I would have died a happy girl. But it didn't, it only got better...

So here I am, standing in front of Hines Ward with my two things that I want signed and I just start talking away. I never talk that much! But apparently nervous Brittany just can't control it. He's signing away and I'm talking to him about everything under the sun...my last name (it's relevant), Pittsburgh, my bamie, my family and how they love him, if he's having a good day or not, Raleigh....etc. Way to go, Brittany. I mean, I was just trying to keep the conversation going....he was surprisingly quiet...

Our time is nearing an end so we both turn to Hillary (who has been snapping off pictures left and right, she's amazing!) for a posed picture together. I lean over the table, he leans in, and I notice that his hands are kind of overlapping each other and you can't really see his Super Bowl ring. Not acceptable! So I say...."Gotta be sure to show off that ring!" and he responds... "Well why don't you wear it?" WHAAAT?! The only way I know how to truly describe this situation: ASLKGJSLKGJALKGJA!!!!!! :) :) :) That's basically what happened. I was stumbling over my words, trying to put this MASSIVE ring on, while on the verge of crying big fat happy tears! I was in complete shock! I mean, I won't lie...the thought crossed my mind while I was in line waiting - maybe I'll ask to wear his ring! ...no way, Brittany, he would never let that happen, that this is worth more than everything I've ever owned combined! - Oh but it happened. And it was wonderful :)

After uttering out a big huge thank you, I was finally forced to leave the wonderful moment and head home, back to reality.

But my heart is left feeling super happy and my week life has been made significantly better :)

And that's the story of the greatest day of my life!

Happy FRIDAY!! 

Stay cool this weekend...

B.Hines

The happiest day ever

Saturday was by far the BEST day I have probably ever had in my life. All because of this one moment right here...

That's me, in a picture with Hines Ward.

And as if it gets any better than that...take a look at what's on my ring finger, please.

YES, that is his SUPER BOWL ring!! I didn't even have to ask to wear it...he asked me if I wanted to wear it. Seriously?! He must have known it would have made my day life.

I'm a very, very happy girl :)

I'll have the full recap soon...you better believe I'm going to share every detail of this glorious day!

I'm obsessed with film

If you happen to read both this blog and my photography blog, then you may have already seen this same post. I guess this topic is just so exciting that I had to share it on both blogs :) So sorry in advance if you've already seen this.

As I mentioned earlier, I borrowed my granddad's old Minolta film camera (from 1979!) to play around with learning how to shoot using a film camera. No auto mode, no instant playback, no "crap looks like I did that wrong...let me try again." Instead, it's all manual, it's learning to really focus on what's in the frame, and it's saying a lot of "well...I guess we'll see!"

And I love it so much.

But would I love the actual pictures as much as I loved the whole process? Did I actually know what I was doing as a photographer or not? This first roll of film, that I had developed yesterday, would be the indicator of that.

Well, I have to say that I'm pretty pleased (SO HAPPY!) with the pictures...

I have a  feeling that there will be many more rolls of film in my future :)

Happy Wednesday!

B.Hines


Photos copyright Brittany Hines

I'M SO EXCITED!

Hines Ward is coming to Charlotte on Saturday to sign autographs.

My awesome roommate and I are going.
(You're probably wondering about why she's going after reading her latest blog post about how she doesn't like sports, right? It's cause she's awesome. She'll hang out with me to meet Hines Ward even though she doesn't care at all. SHE'S THE BOMB!) 

Anyway...

I'm pee-my-pants-excited.

Oh.my.gosh.

And that's all. :)

I'm still alive!

Just popping in for a quick hey!

And to tell you about something that you should definitely check out.

Know how I love photography?

Well, if you didn't, now you do. And you should probably click that photography link up above and check out my facebook page. :)

ANYWAY...the point of this...

Once upon a time a few weeks ago, my roommate and I ventured out to the Art Museum to take some just-for-fun pictures! These pictures eventually then turned into a "Hippie Bride" photo shoot, inspired by her outfit, our surroundings, and flower crowns.

It was probably one of the best impromptu photo shoots ever.

And you should check it out.

In other news, check out this bad boy that my granddad is letting me borrow...

He said if I got some film and some batteries that I could play!

I'm so in love.

Of course I haven't actually developed any film yet so who knows how my pictures are actually turning out, BUT either way...it's making me happy :)

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

B.Hines

Something really awesome happened yesterday...

...and I'm not allowed to talk about it or post any pictures on any social media site, including this here blog.

Know how much that sucks?!

This was one of the coolest things that I've ever been able to experience, and I have to keep quiet. Seriously? It's going to take some reaaal skill if I can pull it off.

So you're probably wondering "okay, why is she even mentioning this on the blog if she can't share anything?"

To torture you, that's why....

Kidding, of course :) I really just want to write up a little something-something so that looking back on this good ole blog I will remember the awesome day that I had yesterday. After all, if it's not documented on the blog/facebook/twitter then it never happened. ;) So ya know, just making sure that I remember that this DID in fact happen.

Some things I will say about it...

1. I saw some celebs.

2. It was a very unproductive day (or maybe productive depending on how you look at it...)

3. I got to witness something I've never seen before and that few people actually do get to see.

4. I bonded with people that I've been surrounded by for 2 years but never talked to before.

Maybe in 2013 I'll be able to give out some more details about my exciting day. But until then...sorry kiddos.

NYC pictures soon!

Happy Wednesday,

B.Hines

The Story of Kitty Mooch

Today I'm here with a story. A story of a sweet little kitty named Mooch (or if you're me you just call her Kitty).

Once upon a time, many years ago, back when I was living at home and we still had our sweet pup, Lucky (she died of leukemia after my Freshman year of college), my family unintentionally got a cat.

This cute little animal started showing up at our house, hanging around outside looking for food. After a few days passed by and she was still there, we started to leave dog food outside for her to eat. We started asking around to see if anyone was missing a cat, and we looked for signs, but we didn't find out anything. To this day we're still not sure where she came from. As the months went on and it got colder outside, my siblings and I gradually convinced our parents to let her stay in the garage at night. I mean we couldn't let her freeze, right?! Well that then turned into "okay, well she's still here so we should probably at least buy some cat food..." and then from there she eventually she made her way into our house and she became our cat!

So since she was now ours we figured we should take her to the vet to get her spayed, we didn't want any baby kitties running around! We took her to the vet, they go through the whole process of shaving her, cutting her open, yadda yadda yadda, only to find out that oh wait, she's already been spayed! and hey look, she's declawed too! What? Basically our new 'adopted' cat was already someones house cat. Well whoops, too late now!

We still never heard anything about a missing cat, so we continued to treat her like our own. She hung around the house, cuddled with us (sometimes unwillingly, gotta love cats...), ate our food, fought with our dog (when really our dog just wanted to play!), and took over the house as cats typically do. But we loved her! And because she truly 'mooched' off of us, we thought it was only fitting to name her Mooch! Sweet little Kitty Mooch :)

Clearly she loved it when I held her and attempted to give her a leash... 

Now, many years later our sweet little kitty has passed away due to leukemia (or lymphoma maybe?) and now my home is petless. :( Oh how I'll miss seeing those sweet little animals that were there whenever I came home...

I realize that this picture is horrible as far as quality goes, and as much as it pains me to actually put this on my blog, I couldn't not share this adorable moment from many years ago. Maybe they loved each other more than we all thought... :)

Miss you Mooch & Lucky!

B.Hines