A quick hello before heading out again :)

We spent all morning and early afternoon with Grandma and Aunt Ashley, Aunt Chel, Uncle Brad, Ella and Adi. This was my first time seeing my beautiful niece since the week she was born into this world. It was awesome seeing her. She has grown so much in 5 months. I can't get over how beautiful she is. My entire family is so beautiful, but it's only natural for me to think so, right? :)

Anyhow, I'm off again for a shoot in a 1/2 hour, but I couldn't resist sharing some pictures from today that I quickly just processed. Thursday we'll be spending all day with them again, so you can expect me to have more, but until then, enjoy the lovely kiddos :)

Sorry this is just a stop in and post some pictures post. See, I really do need to call this a photo blog. I might just do that, too.

Yay! Pictures from Sea Island!

I put (some of) my pictures up online at flickr and had started with them posted as "public" but I kept having a bad feeling about that (always follow your instincts!), so I have now made them "private" for friends and family. I think you can still access the pictures by clicking this link here. They just won't be public to all who look at random people's pictures on flickr, like mine.

How it works: Click on the link above. Then once at the page of my Sea Island pictures, you can either click on each picture individually, or your can click on "view as slideshow" in the righthand corner. I recommend the slide show because you can either scroll through them one-by-one or play it like a movie. But do note that with the slideshow you cannot view my captions and descriptions. Clicking on each individually on the main page may be the way to go if you want to know the details of the photos.

I have only looked through 2 memory cards of pictures out of 4 cards. And this is just 150 of about 800+ pictures! Hope you enjoy and please comment away, whether it be at flickr itself or here at my blog. Enjoy, enjoy! (And more will be posted as I take time to download 'em!)

P.S. Happy Birthday to Natalie! She is 31 today. I will post more tomorrow. It's been another looooong day. Happy B-day, Nat! :c)

(Rainy) day #3 in gorgeous Georgia

Well, I haven't been able to read my book or get online because we've been so busy. Not having time to read is normal for this girl, but not being online for almost 2 days is totally not me. I feel so detached from the world . . . from you guys. But, it's been so worth it.

Yesterday we ordered dine-in breakfast and then packed the kids in the car and headed to St. Simon Island. It's very touristy compared to Sea Island. Sea Island is way more secluded and although there are tourists, they aren't so "look-at-me-with-my-fannie-pack-and-visor" but instead everyone seems to just fit in so you can't tell who is local and who isn't . . . if that makes sense?

I've never been to the Hamptons before, but what I've heard Kelli Ripa and Martha Stewart say about it, and from what I've seen in tabloids, it seems very similar to me. And even though this sort of lifestyle isn't so much me, I have to admit, I like it. A lot.

So back to St. Simon. It was fun. We didn't do much but walk around the very touristy stores, but we did eat at a great restaurant called Barbara Jean's. I guess in that area it's known for homestyle southern food and is normally really hard to get into, but we walked right in and, yep, it was really yummy. Neil and I both had melt-in-your-mouth crab cakes and the butter for the bread was mouth-watering. Mmmmm . . . I can still taste it all.

After St. Simon, we went back to Sea Island. We decided to head to the beach again. We called Brad and Chel to see what they were doing and Brad says "it's raining". Ugh. So we're like, 'oh well' and we go anyway. It didn't look like it was going to last. I'm really glad we went.

We get down there and no one is there. Literally, no one. It's like we have the Atlantic all to ourselves. It's great. With the clouds out and not much sun, it was chilly, but it didn't stop the kiddos. An hour later the sun was out full-throttle and other beach visitors arrived. We even took some bikes out on the beach for a ride. Noah absolutely loved that. Maia just kept playing in the sand. She loved the sand and the water and the salty waters didn't bother her in the least. Later Brad, Chel and Ella arrive just when Maia is ready to head back for her nap. Ah well, such is toddler-hood and parenting inconsistencies.

That night we had dinner on our patios and then planned to meet B, C & E back out at the beach at 7 for a photo shoot of the cousins. To be honest, it's like the entire trip has been a photo shoot for me. I've been in photography heaven. And with this one, even though the clouds soon grew dark on us, I had a great time shooting and the girls looked adorable in their pink and white dresses and Noah in his white polo and khakis. I can't wait to show you pictures!

Later we meet grandpa, grandma and Ashley out at the main terrace for some drinks. We had a fun time. It rained the whole time, but it was so neat to be "outside" yet be totally dry. I love 72 degree weather, on vacation, on the beach. To me, that is one definition of perfection. Thank you, dad and Martha!

Day 2 in Georgia!

Our plans this morning were to go to Savannah, and we did. It's just what we did there wasn't really as planned. Actually, yeah it was, but much shorter than planned.

Savannah is about 1 hour from Sea Island, so after we ordered a fancy room service breakfast with a rolling table, white table linens, and a sweet waiter boy (something I'm not use to but looooooved - the fancy room service, not so much the waiter, stop it now!), we headed for Savannah. We met Brad, Chel and Ella there at the visitor's center. We walked down to the river and the historic district to find a place to eat and landed at hole in the wall kind of burger joint but it was really tasty. I had a portabella mushroom sandwhich, something I tend to always get on vacations! The service was pretty dang slow, though. Bummer. Our plans were to find Paula Deen's restaurant but never could -- of course we saw it on our way back. Arg.

After lunch we headed out and about. It was scorching hot. I mean, high 90 temps and high humidity that felt like 110 degrees. It was literally scorching. We all tried our best to make the most of it (and I think we did) but with sweat pouring down our faces and the kids' faces turning beet red (but not complaining - bless their hearts!), we were easing into pure misery. The kids traded stroller seats about a dozen times and we traded who pushed about a dozen times. I still managed, though, to take a few (hundred) pictures because no matter how hot I was, I knew this would probably be my only time in Savannah, a place so rich in history.

Even through the pouring down sweat off our bodies, I just couldn't get enough of the history. The brick streets, the roads paved in rocks, the brick buildings and the amazing architecture. My favorite building was a cotton trading building. These are all we really saw as after just a couple hours were were literally drained. We had enough energy to get the kids back to the cars and to head back to Sea Island. We didn't even get to see any of the old historic homes and plantations that I really wanted to see. But Neil and I both said one day we'd come back in the spring or fall (note to file, don't visit anything in the south that is not a beach in the summer months!) and without kids. While the kids did really marvelous despite the heat (only a minor problem - ha!), we still think we'd enjoy it more alone or else when they were old enough to appreciate it.

So here we are, ending another day . . . maybe not the best day in most people's eyes, but in my eyes it was. We had a great time with Brad, Chel and Ella and this evening we had a yummy yummy dinner and then played on the beach. I got some great snaps, and that is all that matters in a day in the life of a photographer mom :c) I can't wait for tomorrow.

Wordless Wednesday ~ (Suddenly) I Can Do It By Myself, Mommy!