• 15 minute posts,  Beach Bits,  easy on the words,  Family Matters,  heavy on photos,  photography,  Tis the Season

    2016 Christmas Photos

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    We got our Christmas pictures taken last month. It’s the second year we’ve had Vanessa Brooke take them for us and I absolutely love them. I don’t care what kind of middle-class, white-woman bandwagon, marketing ploy I’m on…it’s just cool to take family pictures every year and since I design Christmas cards for a living (well, at least one month of the year I do) I might as well make some for us too!  So that’s why I still send Christmas cards. Don’t judge.

    I love seeing how much the girls change from year to year. It’s going to be hard to take last year’s photos off the wall because last year’s were really cool too. I haven’t aged as well as I’d like and I think I look better last year but whatever, right?! Time marches on!  I only have so much wall space. Next year I’ll probably feel the same way about this year’s.

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    Last year (I can’t find my old post on last year’s photos. Did I not post them? Musta been on Facebook only.) we had our pictures taken out in the country, walking through brush and amongst oak trees. It was so pretty. I love how the magical sunset time of day makes everyone seem all aglow.

    This year Vanessa asked us if we wanted to do country, city or beach and the kids picked beach of course. I was voting for city but obviously my vote means zip. I was stressing big time too because the beach kinda knocks out all my favorite shoes. I was planning on wearing my boots, that I wear every day with everything, but that’s not gonna work with sand and surf. Flip flops seemed too casual and heels were obviously not an option.

    Thankfully the day we took these photos turned out to be unseasonably warm and I wouldn’t have wanted to wear boots anyway. In fact, we all made completely different outfit choices because it was so hot! But I like it. It’s more representative of our usual Southern California lifestyle.  We don’t dress up. No Christmas sweaters here. Sometimes a random outfit from the back of the closet shows a better slice of life than some perfectly chosen one.

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    The orange loafers that I chose out of desperation last minute are probably my favorite thing about our Christmas card photo this year. Sometimes the wrong thing is just right.

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    Like kids pretending to get along just for a photo. Just kidding. They actually got along great this day because, duh we were at the beach and there were about a thousand Pokemon creatures to catch that we’d never seen before.

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    Most of my favorite shots are of us on this rock where you can’t even see the ocean. I don’t mind though. I love the rough texture of the rock and the colors.

    November is prime beach-photo-taking season and everywhere you looked there were other families doing the exact same thing. It was hard for Vanessa to get a shot of us with the ocean in the background without having to do hours and hours of photoshop to clone out everyone else. But she managed.

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    Then the sun went down and we got this goober shot.

    Thank you Vanessa!

  • easy on the words,  out out out of the house!,  travel

    Impromptu Catalina Weekend

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    Payam surprised me with a quick trip to Catalina this last weekend. Yes, he’s that kind of guy. You can see why I’m so crazy about him. A weekend in Catalina for no reason at all!

    My travel agent friend hooked us up with a sweet hotel. It was up a bit out of town and tucked away in a canyon. Very private and quiet.  Of course we hoofed it up the half mile up the hill to get there, sweating all the way before we figured out they offered a free shuttle from downtown. But that was good (for me) because I have stopped going to yoga and I need all the exercise I can get.

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    I loved our little hilltop hotel. There was a dirt path up to a lookout point and the next morning I got up really early and sat in a chair and watched the sun rise. It was magical. The fact that there was hotel chair just sitting on the top of a dusty hill all by itself was magical all on it’s own. I wonder who carted it up there.

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    Catalina can sometimes be a bit boring if you don’t like to sit around and drink. It only takes a few hours to completely explore the entire town and just a few hours more to explore the hills surrounding the town. So if you have more than a day you can sometimes find yourself sitting on the beach wondering what else to do. Not a bad thing of course but if you’re looking for high adventure let me recommend ziplining!

    I was so scared when I first got to the Eco-tour Zipline location. I have a pretty healthy fear of heights and the thought of stepping off a platform into mid air scared the crap out of me! Eventually, I convinced myself that it was just like buckling yourself into a rollercoaster. You just have to trust the many belts and buckles holding you in and enjoy the thrill. And after that first zip boy did I enjoy the thrill! It totally made my trip! It was amazing to fly through the trees and down the canyon, taking in the amazing views as you zipped. catalina-weekend-4

    Of course the drinks on the beach didn’t hinder either. Catalina is magical. There is an eddy that keeps all the marine layer (and cold/foggy weather) away from the town of Avalon so they have beautiful weather all year around. Even more beautiful than the rest of Southern California, which is saying a lot because we have pretty perfect weather most of the year! Unfortunately that also keeps rain and moisture away from them too so they are suffering the drought even worse than we are.

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    We toured around town in a trusty little rent-by-the-hour golf cart and saw the sites.

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    It was beautiful. We can’t wait to go back and take the kids too!