Summer Shenanigans

Sutro Baths, San Francisco, CA

I saw a post by Ali Edwards and believe that there should always be a summer manifesto! Summer has always been a favorite time of year to me. Here's my list for Summer 2012:

1. Take a ride on a boat
2. Go to a garage sale
3. Night tour on Alcatraz Island
4. Kayak in the bay
5. Make gelato
6. Try making Uncle Pat's ice cream cake
7. Surf
8. Shoot film!
9. Go for a bike ride
10. Spend time outside
11. Visit the Library
12. Make something with beads
13. Paint my nails bright colors
14. Go swimming
15. Visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium
16. Dance!
17. Free Friday Night Concert at The Boardwalk
18. Go to a Water Park/Theme Park
19. Eat Ice Cream
20. Movie night in the Park (in San Francisco)

Puerto Rico

Traveling to Puerto Rico in March was such an adventure! My friend Terra had a beautiful destination wedding. I ran through the airport like a crazy tourist in search of a postcard and stamp so I could continue on my tradition. Any time I have a layover I send my parents a postcard from the airport I'm stopped in. 

I arrived to the Fort San Cristobal just before they closed. The timing was perfect because the sun was setting and the lighting was gorgeous! 

I walked along the path towards the other fort, Fort San Felipe del Morro. I had a travel book with a mini map so I wasn't completely lost-until I tried meeting up with Terra's fiancee Kevin. This is a view looking back towards Fort San Cristobal.

Isn't this side street beautiful?

After getting directions, I connected with Kevin and his family. I felt like part of the family within moments of meeting them all. Terra joined us and took me back to their apartment. I was thrilled to see it since they were renting from a local. She is beautiful.

Terra sent me a photo from her bedroom a few days before I left on my trip. I admired the lighting and the contrast of the dark wood against the light linens.

I enjoyed how open the apartment was. I had fun playing with the echo from the rooms upstairs.

Nightlife in San Juan is beautiful!

The El Yunque Rainforest was lush and humid. The hike on La Mina Trail was picturesque and heavenly. I especially liked looking up at the canopy.

I feel that this photo sums up everything I dreamt my trip would look like:

Our guide took us to a lookout point and to another waterfall for photo opportunities. One of the Italian tourists convinced me to climb up a bunch of rocks to pose for a photo.

I joined my new friends John & Samera for lunch and a stroll along Luquillo Beach.

The 3 of us said goodbye to the rest of our group and another guide picked us up for the evening excursion. After signing a waiver, an attractive local helped me into a life jacket and then trained the large group how to properly row a double kayak in the ocean. I was told I would be paired with one of the young guides and I was oh so happy!

There were several groups kayaking into Laguna Grande the bioluminescent bay of Fajardo. I was paired with the leader of our group who entertained me with a Spanish lesson and some Puerto Rican slang thrown in. I got a little spooked when we were the first going through the channel that was completely covered with a mangrove canopy. When we arrived at the bay I was completely speechless.

That night, it was clear, quiet, and there was a full moon. Once all the kayaks arrived we were shown the special feature of the bay.

The bio-luminescent microscopic algae lit up the water as my hands dipped quickly into the water. I was surprised when one of the guides tapped the kayak and shrimp lit up. The dinoflagellates convert chemical energy into light and emit tiny blue flashes when the water is  disturbed.

Sadly, I don’t have any photos from my excursion because I did not have the proper water housing for underwater photography. Photos that people did capture at bio luminescent bay can be seen here.

On Friday, my friend Sally met me at Fort San Felipe del Morro. I showed Sally some tips on photography while we walked around the fort and enjoyed the sun.

The great thing about making friends along the way when traveling on your own: great company and photos of you on your trip!

Sally and I grabbed some local food at a restaurant nearby. Mashed plantains are the best!

The Cathedral de San Juan was a beautiful location to have the ceremony. 

They made great use of the brightly painted buildings. Terra was a beautiful bride. 

The reception was held at Hotel El Covento. The entrance into the reception was decorated very elegantly. Terra had the cutest table place cards: suckers that were shaped like X’s and O’s. 

I think it greatly benefited Terra that she is a wedding photographer. The decorations and details were magical. Walking into the reception was quite the experience.

It was one of the lightest, fluffiest cakes. I went back for seconds, not caring if anyone noticed. I doubt this is shocking to Terra.  

The night blew by so quickly with the wonderful food, music, and dancing. Terra’s day was perfect!

Only having a short time left, I opted to go to a nearby beach. I hadn’t planned on going to the beach so I was in shorts instead of a swimsuit. That didn’t stop me for looking for sea glass in water up to my waist! Check out flickr for more photos.

New Years Tradition

Spending New Years Day at the beach has become a tradition for my mom and I. The rolling waves, colorful rocks and white sand were picturesque today. We met a friend at Moss Beach and spent a few hours taking photos while searching for glass. It was an overcast day with an occasional misting.

Low tide always makes for an exciting experience.

 

This part of the beach reminds me of Devil's Golf Course at Death Valley: looking south towards Mavericks.

The water was a beautiful color today and it was fun being a professional beach bum. The best way to start out a new decade!

In 2009, I chose the word simplify as my One Little Word. Instead of trying to keep up with a new years resolution I found myself reciting this word and trying to keep it alive through out the whole year. I took a year off but I am ready to play again. I chose a word that I find myself saying frequently.

My word for 2011 is balance.

I struggle with balancing my hectic schedule. My work life, family life, friends, and personal time. I want to find a happy balance and maintain it in a healthy manner. Since I started dancing recently I have noticed that my balance is not as strong as it can be. I want to improve that too. If you would like to learn more about One Little Word, take a look at Ali Edward's blog. She's always an inspiration!

I hope that I can balance my time and blog more frequently. I really enjoy this space as a place to share my photos, creativity and document what is happening right now. Here's to 2011!

Photo recap

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. Hope you have a great weekend celebrating your accomplishments.

I have a winner for the NSD gift certificate. The prize goes to redmom a.k.a. Lisa! Congrats!

Kristi & I are holding a DT call for the challenge blog Say It In Scrap. Head over to get all the details. The main stuff is that we are looking for 6 talented girls to scrap a page once a month (alternate) and help us brainstorm some new challenges. Submit your take on one of our previous challenges to the blog. Hope to see you trying out! The deadline is May 15th.

A few Friday's ago I met Courtenay, Kristi, Sandy, Marie, and Crystal at Picture Me Perfect. I love how welcoming Suzy is with all of her customers. We had an AMAZING time. We celebrated Sandy's birthday by grabbing some gelato a few doors down. I was super excited because I made bank on the most recent garage sale. I bought a ton of Hambly and then decided that I needed to fan all of my new Hambly out. I didn't buy all of this in one night. ;) Photo courtesy of Kristi.
Suzy took some goofy photos of us. I took out a D200 with an SB 800, along with a Nikon 14-24mm lens, and Nikon 10.5 fish that weekend.
I did this page for a Round Robin challenge last weekend (NSD) for Scrap Gal. I don't have a title for it and I think that its okay without one. If you are inspired with a title, let me know and I might change my mind.
I had a ton of fun lifting Chez and playing with some new Hambly. I discovered how difficult it is to photograph overlays when they are the main part of your page. I photographed this using my photo cube that I got for Christmas from Calumet. Saturday evening we drove to Sausalito for Joss's 60th birthday party. It was held at the Presidio Yacht club and it had a great view of the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge.
Sunday night we relaxed and watched movies while eating pizza. I played with a fish eye lens of course.
Lately, work has been overwhelmingly busy. Lisa captured this moment of me being completely buried by boxes. Its great for the company and that makes me thrilled. We've been having record numbers lately. I can't wait until we move into our bigger building at the end of the month.
Wednesday was a chaotic day for me. After work I met one of the new owners of Borrow Lenses at O'Neill's in San Mateo. Then I drove to meet Dan's father's family at the Cheesecake Factory across the bay. Franchesco turned 15 so we had quite the celebration. After dinner, we went home and watched American Idol. It was so hard to believe that Adam was in the bottom two. WTF? We had cake at 11pm at night before passing out.
The next morning I drove to visit my grandma, and catch up with her. It was fun, but too brief. I headed into work and met a new co-worker and got trained in some greater aspects of the company. We got in a lot more new equipment and one of the lenses was a Nikon 600mm! Look how huge that is! We had way too much fun, goofing around and taking pictures with the new lens. Now its making its way through Alaska!
Kristi came to our house on Friday night. I was so glad that she came to us because of how long my week had been. I took out a D300 and the Nikon 14-24 lens again, along with a battery grip (MB-D10) for the weekend. I can't remember why they were pointing at each other but we had a fun, silly night. We were supposed to scrap but we didn't make a damn thing.
It was raining on Saturday morning when Dan & I met Lisa and her cousin Sara at Ocean Beach. We went in search of beach glass. We found two bigger pieces, and some beautiful sand dollars on the beach. I took a small sand dollar and left the rest for others to admire.
It wasn't a bust, because I had so much fun taking photos.
This one made me wish they were in a band so we could put this photo in a CD booklet or something.
Windblown Lisa & I:
Due to my hectic schedule, I had to step down from my design team position with Scrap Mojo. I'll be back with lots more photos soon. Thanks to those of you who still stop by.

Winner, Pages, and Easter photos

Well I can't believe how quickly time is passing these days. It's hard to believe that it's practically May already. I have a ton to share! First, I want to announce the winner for the MME card kit. I used a random number generator and the winner is #2, MandieGirl! Congrats. Please contact me with your mailing address. Thanks to everyone who participated.

I fell in love with Cosmo Cricket's Snorkel line the moment I saw it at Everything Scrapp'n. I have been meaning to scrapbook my photos from my Kauai trip in 2003 since I began scrapbooking in 2006. This paper was just perfect for my photos. If you have any summer photos you've been waiting to scrap, this paper is for you! And I love how distressed it is. To see my full post, check the ES blog.

Onto the rest... I just found the time to look through these past two weeks of photos and pick a few favorites for a quick update. Easter weekend was my first weekend to borrow equipment from my job and I was very excited that a Nikon D700 was available for me to test. Look for separate posts on how I like the cameras I try in the future.

I was so excited that I drove straight to Sutro Baths to shoot before the sun went down. I was using a Nikon 70-200 VR f/2.8 lens for this shot and what a wonderful lens that is! I was so lucky that it was such a beautiful evening too. Later that night, Kelly came over to visit and we goofed off looking at photos from her birthday and catching up. It had been a while since we had seen each other. Of course, we were lucky to hang out for a bit the following day at Lynne's Easter party (Saturday). The food is always so delicious. Here is a photos of us taken by Dan.
After a short visit, Dan & I went to our second party for the day. We headed to San Francisco for a lovely dinner at a family friends house in San Francisco. I found a favorite new salad of mine. I can't remember what its called, but it is spinach, apple, and candied walnut. YUM! I was very happy to have Pellegrino too.
We held the Easter party at our house on Sunday. Zena made really fun and colorful jello jigglers and jello jelly beans. I love these!
I took a TON of photos and thought I'd just share food because that's what I really want to talk about. Valerie brought her niece's pastry chef friend who helped her bake INCREDIBLE bread. It was gone before you could say oh yum! The table was so bright and filled with food. I love documenting little things like that. The holiday was wonderful and relaxing. We were surrounded with many loved ones.
The rest of that week was a bit of a blur. We shipped out a record number of boxes at work. I scrapped when I had time (I've already shared). Dan & I went for a walk on the beach in search of beach glass. I got my car back from the transmission shop! I'm really happy to have it back. I had my first shoot for a house being listed on the market shortly. It was such an incredible house and a great experience.

Friday night I borrowed a Canon 50D and then drove to this great ladies' house:
Managed to take the whole night making these ATC's for the Scrap Gal monogram swap.
I pretended to scrap and we lazed around a bit. Kristi took this really fun photo of Dan & I taking a break.
Saturday night we went out to buy My Spanish Coach for my Nintendo DS and ended up having dinner here. I devoured their Apple Harvest Chicken salad. Here is a photo of my mom's ever growing backyard garden:On Sunday, Jenny & Ken stopped by to hang out and chat while I created a quick layout. It was so much fun, I laughed until I fell on the floor. We call Ken "Moses" and he tells such great stories.

Monday night was so pleasant due to the heat wave that my mom and I decided to go for a walk on the beach, and we ran into Jenny & Ken. We had fun trying to search for beach glass in the fading light. Dan met us there and we had a very summery night. Photo by my mom. ;)
I have more to share from last weekend, but that will have to be for another post. Happy Hump Day!