Last month, I had a birthday on the 19th, as I usually do every year on that day  In celebration of staying alive while the Earth took another rotation around the sun, my boyfriend Matt took me on a trip up into wine country for the first time to try out different wineries and relax.

Our first winery (Demetria) turned out to be a beautiful estate in the middle of many winding roads and rows of growing grapes.  The grounds were completely picturesque and the wine was quite tasty; what more could you ask for?

Hey guys!

I’m excited to show off my final batch of photos from Jeannie’s and my mini-road trip; I finished them quick too!

Our last day on the road ended up taking us north from Yosemite to Lake Tahoe, which is one of the biggest and clearest lakes I’ve ever been to.  It also led us to a side of the lake less visited called Emerald Bay, which was surrounded by hundreds of trees in the middle of their fall transformation.  I’ve always been a huge fan of the leaves changing color for the new season, so I was basically in heaven with all of the colors that were going on around me.

Hope you all enjoy the photos as much as I enjoyed taking them

Hi everyone!

I’ve been trying my best to finish editing all the photos I got on my and Miss Jeannie’s mini-road trip, but I’ve been a little behind lately because of all the photo shoots I’ve been on (which is definitely a good thing).

Today I’d like to bring you all the photos I took while Jeannie and I were actually in Yosemite National Park on the second day of our road trip.  Driving a terrifyingly gigantic truck (which I am definitely not used to, since I drive a crackerjack box of a car), we made our way into and around the park and picked up a few awesome shots on the way.

I hope you all enjoy my photos from Yosemite National Park!

(If you look closely at the base of the tree, there is an itty bitty Jeannie)

Hi again, all!

I have some photos to share with you all from a road trip I took with the extremely talented Jeannie Muritas (http://www.jeanniemutrais.com/ – go check her out!) following my time spent in San Francisco.

Jeannie was nice enough to drive all the way up from Orange County to San Francisco to pick me up to go on a three day road trip to.. well, we weren’t quite sure where exactly we were going at first.  I ended up mentioning Yosemite, since it was only 6 hours east, and as it turned out neither of us had ever been there, so that’s where we headed.

The first day of our trip took us to Mono Lake, possibly one of the oldest lakes in Northern America, and there I managed to get a number of photos to share with you all today.

Hello

So I have a short little post to share with you guys today.  A couple of weeks ago, I took my first plane ride (in 12 years) up to San Francisco to visit Matt’s little sister Lindsay at her new apartment on 19th Street.

Lucky for me, the flight was only an hour, and although going into the airport, my nerves were as good as shot, I quite enjoyed myself once we made it to our takeoff.  The feeling of flying is quite an amazing thing, and being one who’s been doing most of her traveling by car recently, it was a pretty exciting change; I definitely can’t wait to do it again!

Although we were there for 3 days, and attended a number of memorable events, I only used my camera for the first few hours after we arrived at Lindsay’s apartment.  Lindsay and her roommate Kadee had just adopted a pair of kittens, so of course I had to snap a number of photos of the adorable duo.  So for those of you prepared for a mega-kitten-adorableness-overload, here ya go!

Hi all.  Sorry it’s been a little while since I’ve posted last – I’ve been fairly busy with all sorts of work lately, and sadly haven’t found much time to make another blog post until now.

So lets get back into it! Last month I took a trip out to Lake Havasu in Arizona with Matt’s family to visit his grandpa Ed and spend a couple of days in 113 degree heat floating around in the lake.

Despite a few setbacks (minor and some major) throughout the trip, it was still very enjoyable, and I was sad to leave the relaxation behind when it was time to go.

I brought my camera on the trip with me (no surprise there), but was a little hesitant to take it out on the lake.  ”What if the heat melts some vital organ inside of it?” “What if I drop it in the lake while I’m trying to take photos by the water?” “What if a gust of wind carries it to a faraway land?” Drawbacks as such kept me from bringing it anywhere outside of the house for the first few days, until I finally decided that since I brought it, I might as well get some use out of it.

So here are the photos I took while on our adventure in Lake Havasu City, Arizona!

(This was the gentleman that saved us when the car broke down after lunch in Blythe.  Marshall was his name – so claims his shirt.. )

Hello again everybody (I hope more than one of you read this post, otherwise that will sound pretty silly)!

Recently Matt and I took a trip down to Coronado in San Diego for a couple of days to take it easy and enjoy both the cities of Coronado and downtown San Diego.  As we meant it to be, the trip was very relaxing, and we even had a celebrity sighting (Will Ferrell) while hanging out on the boardwalk in front of the Hotel Del on the last day we were there.  It definitely got me revved up to go on more mini vacations down there in the future (the entire vacation that is, not just seeing WF).

In any case, I brought a pair of San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park tickets with us that were going to expire in a few months, so we put them to good use.  I’ll admit, I was a bad photographer and completely forgot to pack my camera’s battery charger (I was so elated to get out of town for a few days, I frolicked past it without a second glance when I was leaving).  So, the photos I took at the Wild Animal Park are the only photos I have from the trip; shortly after we left my camera gave up on trying to stay alive.  I am pleased with the turn out though, and would like to share them with you all.

Alright guys, today I bring you the third and final installment of the Santa Barbara trip photos : our last day of vacation in Ojai.

The last day of our vacation was spent in a little town east of Santa Barbara called Ojai, hidden behind many winding twisting roads and hills.  Mark (Matt’s father) has cousins, Merle and Melanie, living in the hot, veiled town who invited us to come by for lunch before our journey back home.  Upon arriving at Merle and Melanie’s house, I began exploring the area with my camera immediately.  Melanie has an amazing collection of decorations, some of which are from Germany that her mother gave to her after they moved to the United States, and some are just plain neat to look at (and photograph), while Merle has a collection of 15 classic cars (not counting the 4-5 part cars he keeps in a car graveyard behind his garages) that he restores and works on in his free time.

Lunch was delicious, which I began to suspect it would be after I smelled what was coming out of Melanie’s kitchen while running around her home photographing anything and everything that caught my eye, and after our meal Merle was more than happy to show us around his garages and let us take a look at his work, complete and in progress.

So I hope you all enjoy the last installment of our Santa Barbara trip photos, and keep checking back for new shoot posts!

Hi again, and yes, so soon!  I’ve got part two of the Santa Barbara trip to share with you guys today : the beach house!

The beach house we stayed in for the week was an adorable minuscule vintage building.  It was built in the 1920′s and reached a grand total of 600 square feet; 300 upstairs and 300 downstairs (apparently people in the 1920′s didn’t need a lot of space).  It was quite cozy.  Despite its size though, there were a ton of different things to see, secret rooms to explore, and it was about 50 feet away from the ocean.  So, whenever we decided to hang out on a balcony (upstairs or downstairs), we were able to watch and listen to the waves constantly crashing in and then slipping back, which was very relaxing.

Read : the first two photos were taken before we actually left for Santa Barbara, making this post a little backwards, but I hope you enjoy, all the same!

(Ours was the one with the white umbrella)