Long overdue...

Here's the deal, it's been a very long time since I've blogged, but I've also been through photo heart break! Last time I blogged, I promised to post all my photos from my trip to California. During the trip, however, I lost about 90% of my photos.  It's been hard, but I finally feel ready to blog about my trip and what's been going on since. My boyfriend and mom both took photos as well, but I've yet to get them from either of them.. So without further ado...


California was an absolute blast! Here's what the trip looked like:


Tuesday- 14 hours in the car; lots of coloring, movies, sleeping, and listening to music.


Wednesday- 12-13 hours in the car; lots of wishing and hoping we were there already!


Thursday- Day One! Kottsberry Farms was our destination, home to the Xcelerator (0-82 in 2.3 seconds!!) 
Chris and I had a characature made, and just had a blast riding all the rides!


Friday- Day Two! HOLLYWOOD! We went to Madam Tussaud's wax museum, went on a tour of Kodak Theatre (home to the Oscars), shopped till we dropped, ate at Pink's (famous hot dog place on Food Network), went on a crazy hunt for the perfect Hollywood sign shot (photos I miss the most of all the lost ones. :/), and saw all the stars and prints on Hollywood Blvd. :) 


Saturday- Day Three "aka" Santa Monica Day. We spent this day first at a farmers market, where we found HUGE blackberries, homemade Burt's Bees, honey pixie stix, the most delicious lemons I have ever eaten (seriously, I sliced them, and ate the whole thing!) fresh green beans, and some other fruit. Then we went and had fun on Santa Monica Pier (on Private Practice's credits). But, the best part was probably 3rd Street Promenade, where ever store you can imagine is right there, alongside street performers, and the black guy from Scrubs! (Daddy and Nathaniel passed on shopping and went for a motorcycle ride along the coast instead.) Later, it was back to the Pier for some late night fun. 


Sunday- Day Four and Father's Day was spent in two different places. First, was legoland where we rode some "eh" rides (meant for little ones) but saw Miniland USA, where whole cities are built in mini version by legos! I also got another characature of myself as a lego person. :) After lunch, we drove another half-hour to San Diego, and, yep you guessed it, we went PARASAILING! I do have a few pictures of this:

On the boat getting ready for take-off.

Taking off!

Up we go!

In the air with my lubbb. <3

Okay, let me tell you, it was FREEZING up there, so when the driver lowered us down to dip our feet in, and my butt got SOAKED, it was not so hot. (no pun intended. :P)

After parasailing, we went to Old Town San Diego and had some delicious Mexican Food, complete with a mariachi performance of "Another Brick in the Wall" by Pink Floyd played to my brother. IT was great. :)

Monday- Day Five and Chris and I's 16 month anniversary..not a big one but cool when you spend it at... Six Flags Magic Mountain!! So, besides having an overwhelming amount of roller coasters, Magic Mountain also had the mother of all coasters: X2. We waited for over an hour to ride this, even staying in line after the park closed. We finally made it on, and boy was it worth the wait. You are strapped in, the laid backwards to go up the ramp. (the click-click-click part..) Then, when the ride starts, your seat flips over so your facing the ground, free-falling. There is also some fire, and some music played in your ears. Pretty much, AWESOME.

Tuesday- Day Six! This day we decided against a day full of walking and slept in. Then we went to the California Science Center and saw an IMAX about the Hubble Telescope, and rode a bicycle across a tight-rope way high in the air! 

Wednesday- Day Seven. Universal Studios! Universal was fun! It was a lot like Disney where every ride has a theme. My favorite was the Jurassic Park Ride and the Mummy Roller Coaster. Then for dinner we ate at Hard Rock in the little hidden shopping area called the City Walk. We would have never known it was there if the GPS hadn't of told us!

Thursday- Last but not Least- Day Eight. On our last day, we decided to chill on the beach. So, we met up with my Aunt Maddie, Uncle Chris, and cousins Bella and Ryder (also vacationing in Cali, but not with us.. weird but complicated..) to hve fun on Laguna Beach! I used to love that show so I was pretty dang excited. :) This is the only place I have photos from of my own, because they were on a separate memory card from all the others...

It was cold if you can't tell! 

Friday- Driving, blah I'm sick of these people already... :P

Saturday- Driving. My butt seriously hurts! Home at 11:30pm. :)

After the trip, I went straight over the next day and began housesitting. It was fun but their backyard WAY flooded because of Hurricane Alex. It was scary!

To end this post.. here are some fireworks. I read a little lesson on how to take them here. It's the blog of a fellow photographer friend with much more experience and so many great tips! Thanks Elizabeth!

Happy Belated July 4th Everyone! And until next time, 

Beachhouse 2010...

I got home yesterday from a very fun trip to Galveston with Chris's family for about a week. I'm going to tell the story my favorite way to do so, in photographs!


The first night at the beachhouse, the boys went out to do what they spent pretty much the whole trip doing, fishing. No one, however, expected Andrew, Chris's brother, to catch a shark the first night! I ran out, camera and speedlight in tow, to document this crazy occasion! 

One thing I was determined to go while in Galveston, was to capture the sunset and the sunrise. The first photo is of the sunset, which was the easier of the two to capture seeing as I didn't have to wake up at 6am to take it!

Here is the sunrise...

Another thing I was determined to do was to learn how to skim board. I did, and it was so fun!!

But not without a few falls!!!

On memorial day, we all spent the day at Galveston State Park, where we kayaked, fished, tried to catch crabs, but I mostly read. :) Ah, it was so nice to just bask in the summer sun and read a good girly book. :) Chris's mom decorated our picnic area with flags! 

The morning I set out to capture the sunrise, Chris came with me and decided to baywatch run down the beach. :) (tongue sticking out is for added effect).

And we saw a sand crab that hadn't quite hidden away before the hustle and bustle of beachgoers. 

On Tuesday, the second to last day we were at the beach, we went on a little scavenger hunt. See, after Ike, lots of poor trees lost their lives, so amazing artists turned the dead trees into interesting carvings. They are located mostly in the historic district. Here is my favorite of all the various carvings:

Later that day, we went on a really fun tour of the Moody Mansion. The Moody's were/are a famous influential family in Galveston starting way back in the late 1800's!

Here is a photo from the garage of the house.

The beautiful detail of the outside of the house.

Not sure what this is, but it sure is intriguing!

 

The front porch. 

If you look closely, you can see the beautiful stained-glass window. We couldn't take pictures from the inside, so this was the best I could get of it!

Here is a photo of my roomie Jamie helping out her beau, Andrew, by getting the kite in the air!!

On our final morning, pancakes were made from a can like spray cheese. Chris got really excited because he could make whatever shape he wanted. This is a cross pancake. :)

After checking out of the beachhouse, Chris and I decided to spend one last day on the beach. To be honest, I barely got sunburned until this day where we read, cooked burgers, boogie boarded, and hinted for seashells. It was a perfect way to end such a fun trip. 

Here are a few artsy fartsy photos I shot while in Galveston:

Can you tell I'm a sucker for shallow depth of field? :P

- I'd like to wish Chris's dad, Mr. Marcelino, a happy birthday! We celebrated his birthday at Rudy & Paco, a SUPER fancy restaurant, with nakie people pictures in the bathrooms I might add. But, I didn't bring my camera. :( So, Happy 50th!