Funny thing is…my mom has NO CLUE that her dog is a walking rainbow and I CAN’T WAIT to see her face when she comes to pick them up!!! Oh and the other thing, we dressed them up a bit early for Halloween too. Trick or Dog Treat!! I wander if she’ll let me dog sit around Christmas. I have so many more ideas…BAHAHAHA!!!

PS: No dogs were harmed in the making of this blog post.

PPS: Can you tell we don’t own dogs!! HA!

PPPS: Poodle painting is harder than it looks.

Our travel home went relatively fast. We had to take an alternative route home via the plane due to Earl which set us behind an additional 30-40 minutes. That with only an hour layover in Charlotte, NC and being on the opposite side of the airport, we had to haul ARSE to get to our terminal. We made it just in time for our section to board. In front of me sat a soldier that was on his way home to see his family. Beside him a mom with an infant baby…and then there’s Mallory asking if airplanes could get speeding tickets or if there were police planes in the sky. The military guy laughed and smiled at the same time the baby laughed. It was just “a moment” you had to be there for I guess.

We pulled in the driveway around 2 a.m., lugged our stuff upstairs and were greeted by a bedroom FULL of bees. Yes, BEES! I took a shower while Greg stood in the room with the vacuum hose sucking them up. Only if my camera would have been handy…..it was hilarious to see. It looked like he was doing the Jersey Fist Pump with a vacuum hose in his hands. That my friends….is a whole other story.

We survived the Earl…these bees had nothing on us-told you, if it had legs…we saw it!! HAHA!

We caught a cab and were on our way to Old San Juan-or as Mallory would call it “The Old City”. Funny thing is before getting the cab, we had attempted to ride the public bus for the 4-5 miles down the road to the old city. This is where we met Michael. Ironically, Michael was in Puerto Rico by himself and he was heading to the same place as we were AND he just JUST HAPPENED  to be a travel agent. There was also another couple that was waiting for the bus, they were from Virginia and were spending their anniversary in Puerto Rico. After what seemed like forever (which gave us some time to chit chat) we found out that because of the previous day’s hurricane-all public transportation was unavailable at the time being. Soooooooo, we all jumped into a cab with our private travel agent and our new friends and headed into Old San Juan. We walked around with Michael for an hour or so as he pointed out this and that and then broke away to do some exploring of our own. To some people, Old San Juan may be just an Old City, but to be, it was a visual playground. All the colors, textures and the food…ohhh the food AND the frozen yogurt. OMG it was sooo scrump-didly-ousus!!

 Puerto Rico was actually discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1493 and has a rich history to explore. Old San Juan, once a walled city, is now a designated historic landmark. Architectural treasures abound, amidst the pastel-colored buildings that line the old narrow cobblestone streets which are blue bricks that were once used for ballast on sailing ships from Spain.  Next we were off to find the Forte. For you history buffs, El Castillo San Felipe del Morro, usually referred to as “El Morro”, dates back to 1539 when a small, turret-like tower was built by the Spanish settlers to defend the bay of San Juan. Over the next two centuries, the fort grew until it reached the present form towards the end of the 18th century. El Morro was attacked several times during the course of its history and was at the centre of battles against the likes of Sir Francis Drake, George Clifford and Ralph Abercromby. It was also involved in the two World Wars, when the American army made some slight modifications to convert El Morro into a military base and to watch for possible German attacks. In 1961, El Morro was finally opened to the public and the fort’s sentry boxes, or “garitas”, have since become a national symbol that can be found on license plates as well as most souvenirs.  And that’s your history lesson for the day!!

Anywho, here are a few photos from day cuatro!!

 Hurricane Earl battered tiny islands across Puerto Rico with heavy rain and roof-ripping winds today, rapidly intensifying into a major Category 4 storm on a path projected towards the States.  The winds reached upwards of135 mph (215 kph), Earl is expected to gain more strength before potentially brushing the U.S. East Coast this week and bringing deadly rip currents. For today, we were stuck in our rooms with an occasional walk out to the beach when the rain halted. We stayed safe and I’ll admit it is quite the experience being in a hurricane. I know that Earl is not the worste that this island has ever seen but to say that our family survived a hurricane is kinda a cool thing for Mallory to tell her friends. Tee he he.

The hotel took extra precautions today and have been handling everything rather smoothly. We just recieved a letter under our hotel door from the general manager that says that the hotel does have a back up generater in the case of a power outage and refrain from opening any windows or doors in our rooms or going outside during the storm. They have also removed ALL of the lawn chairs, hammocks, daybeds and garbage cans from the beach area, the pool area and even went as far as evacuating all of the rubberneckers (that would include us) from outside and locked us inside the building. We were also asked to remove the furniture from off of our balcony’s so ensure nothing blew away from the high winds.  Since we are in an ocean front room and on the highest floor-we had the most optimal view to watch the storm move in and see the ocean from our beds. Maybe most people would be bummed that we couldn’t use the beach or that the sun wasn’t shining, but I don’t see it that way. Number one, it presented us with an opportunity to spend some quality time together and we ordered food to be delivered, we played games and laughed at the Spanish cartoons… AND shhhh, we let Mallory jump on the beds!!! While others may learn about hurricanes in the class room or reading it out of a book, Mallory got to see one first hand and lastly, because we were stuck inside the hotel, we met so many of the locals by hanging out in the lobby area and got to share a little of each other’s culture. So  as you can see, it’s only as good as YOU make it…..and well, we had quite a great time!!

The only thing that made it difficult to take photographs was the fact that my lense kept fogging up. Inside the hotel it’s primarily air conditioned so as soon as we walked outside, the hot air would fog up my lense. I did manage to take a few photographs before the rain and wind picked up and they evacuated us from around the water area. We’re told by some of the locals that the day after a hurricane it is one of the most beautiful days of the year. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that we get a good day so that we can journey up to Old San Juan. We’ll see how the weather pans out.

We spent all day at the beach and the pool area. You could tell that the staff was starting to prepare for the hurricane that was about to hit because they began to slowly remove the unused chairs off of the beach. The tide began to get a little more aggressive but nothing that kept us out of the water. Mallory met a few new friends, we buried her in the sand, Greg hid coins in the sand and Mallory genuinely thought she was finding Pirate treasures and we worked on our tans for most of the day.

Later we decided to switch rooms to get a closer view of the beach area. I’m sooo glad we did-not that the last view wasn’t A-MAZING but this one was a bit closer to the beach and now we had an even better view to watch the hurricane that was on it’s way towards us.

I think our sunburns marked the end of a GREAT day. We knew that the next day wasn’t going to be an ideal beach day but we fell asleep to the sound of the ocean…..after a few Pina Coladas of course…and rum, maybe just a wee bit of rum!!!!!

For us, it was exciting. It was Mallory’s first time for flying so everything was new and exciting for her. Hours later we found ourselves in the PR airport at the baggage claim and before we know it we were in our taxi on the way to the resort. Our taxi driver Alberno, was freakin awesome-a crazy driver-but he was awesome. He told us about all the hot spots and some “must do” things while we were visiting.

When we arrived at the resort we immediately were given our room and began to explore. First of all, our view was amazing! It was overlooking San Geronimo Fort with breathtaking views of the ocean and just like in Costa Rica, Mexico and Punta Cana, the water was sooo blue!

Even with all of the travel time, Mallory was full of energy to get down to the beach. So off with the travel clothes, on with the swim suits and we were beach bound. This also was Mallory’s 1st time to the ocean so all she wanted to do -and all she KEPT talking about-was building sandcastles. We checked that off of our list and headed off to explore.

We walked around exploring the town near the resort and found a Subway-yes I know, not authentic PR food, BUT it would do in a rush. While inside waiting for our food (which was an experience in it’s self-good thing we could just point to what we wanted) there was a couple inside the restaurant who were clearly “involved” with each other. I snapped a photo while Greg was waiting at the counter, I love it. They had no idea I was taking it (and I felt sort of like a stalker ninja) but I just love the body language.

Anyways……… on the way back we stopped at a small “hole in the wall” convenient store and inside 12-15 people were just hanging out. I mean, chairs in the aisles of the store, beer in hand, cigarettes in the other and music cranking…this is when I realized we were FAR FAR from home! We grabbed our snacks and back to the beach we went.

So that’s it (in a nutshell). I’m still in Puerto Rico as I write this post but since we can’t go out to the beach due to the hurricane (that will be a whole other post) I thought I’d hop on and share a few photos with Y’all We are having a GREAT time despite the 75 MPH winds….tee he he! I’m not sure when I’ll be online to post Day Dos. Until then, know that we are safe and having a great time. This vacation was much more than the beach, it was more about spending lots of quality family time….and I promise, that is being accomplished Also, until I have enough  time to add more photographs…enjoy!!

Adiós

This will be our first official “out of the country” family vacation where Greg and I will be taking Mallory. Up until now, when we traveled she stayed at Grandma’s. We were unsure how she would do with long waits and long flights but she’s certainly old enough now to experience a bit more of the world. So this time around instead of her watching us pack, she is helping us pack….or I should say, she’s been “packing” the past few days. And I thought I over packed-this girl has an obsession with shoes! I guess it just parallels my obsession with cameras!

  So why Puerto Rico? Well it wasn’t exactly our first choice. Actually we were planning to go to a few other places outside of the county but it boiled down to us not being able to get her passport in time. I lost Mallory’s birth certificate (I know I know-what kind of mother am I) so that, coupled with being a procrastinator, we just couldn’t make it happen.  Since you do not need a passport to travel to the Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico, we decided that Puerto Rico had both sun and sand AND culture. After doing plenty of research, we are VERY excited to get down there. Yes we will be staying at a  resort (Caribe Hilton) but we will be traveling off the resort so that we can experience the REAL Puerto Rico. ….AND I’ll be collecting photographs along the way to share when we get back to the real world.

Whats on our agenda-besides soaking up the Caribbean sun at the beach? Well, we have a game plan but we are going to be flexible. I love talking with the locals and finding out the best places to visit. But from doing  a little bit of research we do have a few placed already in mind:  the El Yunque Rainforest, walking around the historical streets of San Juan and eating at an authentic restaurant, drinking their signature Pina Colada’s, visiting El Morro, possibly visiting the cave park….ohhh building sandcastles just to name a few! If you’ve been to PR and have any suggestions, please leave a comment below, I’d love to hear from you

Mallory is in charge of the “Kid-VideoCam” and she’s taking her own digital camera. So I’m excited to see her images from our trip. Seeing the world thru the eyes of a 5 (almost 6 year old) is going to be unique. If I can get regular internet access I will post a “photo of the day”…..that is of course if I feel like working with technology. I mean it is vacation after all! Now, you’ll have to excuse me while I go work on my Caribbean tan!! Tee he he  :-)

I just have to preface this by saying….these two are seriously THE nicest people I know. They always take care of me (and Greg) when I’m shooting weddings at the fabulous Chestnut Ridge and I’m not lying when I say that every time I’ve ever ran into Dan, he ALWAYS has a smile on his face. I am so thankful to these guys for “helping to get my name out there” so when she contacted me to not only shoot her wedding but to also do the engagement session-I won’t lie…I did a little happy dance! Natalie and Dan are managers at Chestnut Ridge and they make things HAPPEN!!

So where do I even begin? Our location was the Duquesne Incline-Why?? Because it’s where they were engaged. AWWW!! Dan actually proposed on the incline as they were going up……and it just happens that they had their very own car. Soooooo, when we went back today, the AWESOME girl in the ticket booth got us the hook up and gave us a car all to our own so we could go photo happy on the way up! For those of you who aren’t from the area…..the incline scales Mount Washington in one of two original 1877 cable cars for a breathtaking view of the Pittsburgh skyline when you reach the top of the 400-foot incline. It’s quite the view! And I learned today, that the Duquesne Incline is ranked the #3 most romantic spot in America!! Once you reach the top, there are several restaurants….and one of them is very special. The Le Mont is where Dan took Natalie the night he proposed, and YEP, we went there too!

I’m in love with these photos. I really think it’s because they picked a location that was special. I encourage all of you that are planning to do engagement photos, think of an activity or a location that means a lot to you ….and let’s go have fun! Natalie and Dan, YOU. WERE. SO. FUN.!!!! Here’s a sneak peek of a few while I’m working on the others!!

I’ve known Jackie for ages…..since elementary school when we both began our days of cheerleading. She was the top (aka flier) and I was her base (aka-the person who caught her). We dropped her a few times, she gave us a black eye a few times…you know, it was THAT kind of relationship! Tee he he! I have so many funny memories that I could go on for DAYS talking competition parties, bonfires, football games…and cheer camp. The weird thing is—–we are all grown up….and it makes me feel so old thinking about our high school days. She hasn’t changed a bit. Same personality and all. It’s kind of contagious….I mean I dare you to look at these photos and not smile! 

 So long story short….Jackie and her hubby Ed, drove up from Baltimore, MD for the weekend to celebrate her maternity festivities and while in town…ahh, why not get some baby bump shots! We had so much fun laughing and joking around that time flew by in no time. Ed,  you were a fantastic sport and it’s quiet clear that you think the WORLD of Mrs. Jackie! I wish the two of you nothing but happiness….and a whole football team of children. Tee he he!

Today we made three new friends, Jarred the cute Tate’s boy, some random guy who was watching us from afar then decided to let out a WOOO,  we got some honks by some passerbyers and became BFF’s with a security officer….long story! LOL But the Tate’s boy was a good sport and even allowed me to take his photo …haha!! He has a girlfriend ladies…but he helped us out with a few shots! Ahhh, small town life!!

All you local folk…..these photos were taken in Clymer, PA….and if you know where that is-it’s a small town with one red light. I knew as soon as she got out of the car….she was no pretty flowers and field girl. She wanted something a little bit more edgy and urban…so the walk began in downtown Clymers-Burg, this is how we met our friends Maybe I should change my sentence at the top of the blog to “Photography for FUN and FRIENDLY people!!” Tee he he

PS: Jarred the Tate’s boy is at the end of the blog! HI JARRED!!!!

Well Amanda, I hope you don’t think I’m too weird……………and remember, there is water under that bridge!! LOL