San Diego Maternity Photography: Storm Watch 2008 with JJ & Krissa

In San Diego we are usually in the 70's or 80's with sunshine. However, if you watch the news this week you might think that the end is near based on the over dramatic weather people on our newscasts. Watch out...brace yourself...board up your windows...stay inside...we're looking at getting a full 2" of rain. No...not 2 inches per hour...that is 2 inches over 6 days. I know...we have it rough here.

Well, in the midst of Storm Watch 2008 we decided we wouldn't let this horrific weather paralyze us. Today we had planned on shooting some pix of our friends JJ and Krissa. They are pregnant with their first child and wanted some casual pictures and they allowed me to practice on them. Fortunately, they are both not originally from California so they were able to persevere through the very chilly, windy weather we had today. Yes it was cold...yes the wind was blowing Krissa's hair all over...but in the end we were able to survive the weather and a fun time. Here are few pix from the day...

Lilly...

getting cuter and cuter...



And one of my favorite pictures I have so far. I just like the way this one turned out...

Fun with a new item...

I tried using a white sheet but it was unable to un-wrinkle...so I just bought an actual backdrop. What a novel idea...buying things that are actually designed to do what I am trying to do. Maybe I'll actually get some real lighting as I'm just using an off camera flash which takes forever to recycle it's charge. anyways...Monday we went over and took some pictures w/ some family...

I think crap is a word...

Title a little confusing??? Well, it has to do with where we are tonight. A little over two years ago we traveled up to Oregon with my mom and grandma for my cousins wedding. On the way back we were doing a little road sign scrabble. We see a word on a sign and using those letters you see how many words you can spell from that particular word. Well, we played for a while. Exhausted all the options for that word...and since we're all introverts...we enjoyed about 30 minutes of silence. So 30 minutes had passed since the game was over and Grandma chimes in, "I think CRAP is a work". We were all a little confused at that point.
yes, crap is a word but where did that question come from you may ask?? Apparently grandma was still playing the game...and while crap is a word...it didn't quite work with the word we had last played with. So what is this word? Well, it's where we happen to be tonight.

Petaluma

Yes, if you are observant, there is no C or R in that word. :)

anyways, since our last update we have traveled from Bozeman, MT to Boise, Idaho to visit my sister Kristen and her hubby Peter. Just so you know...it is pronounced BOY-SEE. There we enjoyed a tour of the historic Boise Prison, ate a bunch of food, and went to the best dollar theater we've been too. While it's not actually a dollar a ticket, it was $3 and for an extra $1 you get two food items.

From there we traveled to Seattle where you'd think our hotel would give us free internet, however, Sheraton Hotels will steal your money in any way they can. They wanted $10 a day for internet access...not to mention $38 a day to park there and $8 for gummi bears. Anyways, Seattle was pretty cool except there was a constant aroma of urine.

Our first morning we were there we were excited to go to the Crumpet Shoppe our friends the Stoners recomended. With Nutella on our minds...we got there and they were closed. It was Labor Day. Surprisingly, a lot of things were closed that day. Don't worry...we went back and got crumpets the following morning...although they were out of Nutella. :) While in Seattle we went to the aquarium, took the underground city tour, and ate a lot of food.

Tuesday we drove down the Oregon Coast...today through the redwood forest and some of the CA coast...tomorrow...not sure yet. Here's a few less than great pictures...


Boise Prison


The "every tourist takes a picture of this" Pike Market sign. The other sign had a stinkin banner in the way!


Underground tour pic


Yumm...Crumpets




Oregon Coast as the sun sets...

Montana Family Portraits: The Stoner Family Pix...

So it was my first attempt at this sort of thing aside from the candids I usually have. It was windy and chilly and my decision to go with a cheaper off camera flash set up came back to hurt me for a while...so as soon as I can sell a guitar I'm going wireless! The Stoners were good sports...especially Jefferson who was hating every moment he had to wear his uniform...but we wanted to make his mom happy (i guess she LOVES pictures of him in his uniform). Anyways...the flash started to work later and it was a fun experience and hopefully I will improve from here...

Montana

Yesterday and Today we are in Montana visiting our friends the Stoners. Despite their suspicious last name, we actually met Jeff and Jenny in one of our Growth Groups years ago. We shared the same silly humor and have been laughing and quoting arrested development and (more recently) flight of the conchords ever since. A little over two years ago they moved just outside Bozeman and we finally have gotten out here to visit. Check out the sweet view they have from their yard...



And their dog Buster...named after an Arrested Development character...





AND...saving the best for last...Eliana Stoner...about 4 weeks old and super cute. I think later today we're gonna do a photo shoot...but here are a few unofficial ones for now...

Days 4 and 5...

Our roadtrip continues to be super busy. In the last two days we have done our best to cover not one...but two national parks...Teton National Park and Yellowstone. We didn't get too crazy at either one...just trying to hit the main things. After a while things start looking the same so we felt we could skip a lot of things. You can only see so many waterfalls and pine trees. The tetons were cool...they'd probably look way better in the winter...but here are a few pictures from day 4. There are a bunch more but it's 2:30 am so this is what you get. :)







They are actually very small...



Monday night we slept in the element. Erica was freaking out about bears so we weren't quite sure where to sleep. She was convinced that the bears would smell something they liked and rip our car (and us) to shreds to get it. Finally, I convinced her we'd be fine...and we made it through the night...

So today was busy trying to cram Yellowstone into one full day. We started off at Old Faithful. This is the famous geyser that is so faithful with it's eruptions. Well, it was a dud this morning. It only went about 5 feet up for maybe 30 seconds. It was right on time though...which was nice because it was FREEZING!! After that disappointment we walked around and looked at a bunch of other nasty smelling geysers and sulfur pools. They smelled extremely foul, but the colors were beautiful. We also did some hiking to some of the famous waterfalls (more at a later time for that) Okay...time for bed...here are a couple more pix...







some older couples waiting for round two of Old Faithful.

Farts are Funny

Saw this sticker while walking around Jackson Hole. I agree with it...

Road Trip...days 1-3

On Friday we left planning on driving through Utah to Arches National Park. I've never driven through Utah but I don't imagine it pretty. After driving through the desert towards Las Vegas I had enough of desert and decided I wanted to see Colorado. SO we made a detour. However, our GPS took us through Arizona to get there...so there was a lot of ugly desert to endure. It worked out well because we stopped at the Grand Canyon which was cool. Neither of us had been there and it's nice to finally say that we have. It's crazy how many European tourists there are there...and most of them like to smoke. :( We stayed the night there testing out our elements versatility and from there we drove towards colorado. It took a little while, but we finally hit some pretty mountains...and my favorite thing...really nice clouds. We rarely have clouds this good in So Cal so I got excited. They just make pictures look better. Our second night we just parked in a hotel parking lot and slept.

Day 3...we drove from Colorado and into parts of Utah and are currently in Wyoming. In Utah there was the Flaming Gorge. Not too impressive, but it was a nice drive and they had some cool clouds. Wyoming is pretty...but probably not on the top of our list of places to move. Not sure we could handle being in towns that have less than a thousand people.

Last night we stayed in Jackson. It's a nice little town right by the Grand Tetons. Again, a lot of European tourist. While out we found some sweet hats but resisted the urge to buy.

Okay...gotta go. We're gonna do some hiking in the Grand Tetons and then make our way into Yellowstone.










In Jackson they had some great hats...