In town for a few days with family & in love with this place...
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Travel
Just got back from this gorgeous Lake Tahoe engagement session... Christine and I have been emailing for so long, I felt like I knew her before we had even spoken. It was so much fun to finally meet her and Dave on their home turf in Reno! Their wedding is coming up in less than a month in Durango, and it's going to be amazing. I know a few secret details about it so I'm super excited! It was a pretty chilly day and Reno had just gotten dumped on, but I got to walk around and explore a little bit before our shoot started. The vibe of this place is so unique - it's like a less glitzy, smaller Vegas, except they still have all the old neon signs, which I loved. It turns out that some of my favorite vintage-looking casino signs during the day were the one that were abandoned and didn't light up at night.
Christine and Dave clearly love each other so much, and it was an honor to be there with them. Thank you guys so much for driving me through two states for such a fun engagement session! I can't wait for the wedding!
One of my favorite things to do when I'm in a new place is wander around with my camera and try to figure out how the town feels to me, if that makes any sense... so, a few fun shots of downtown Reno: 
Lake Tahoe was incredible. I had never been, but loved wading through several feet of snow with my camera and their sweet dog :)
Not a bad shot, considering it was taken out of a car window:
The water is unbelievably blue. Like, Caribbean blues and turquoises.... so pretty!
Christine is a geologist, so this ring shot seemed appropriate:
Thanks again, guys! Your wedding is going to be so incredible - I can't wait! :)
We just got back from an amazing trip to Costa Rica with my family, and I miss it already! Those of you who know me or my family can imagine what a feat this was... all four of us kids are the most randomly accident-prone people in existence ...yeah... (injury stories to come later). I love traveling with my family!I loved being in the jungle around all that green. I love San Jose because of / in spite of what a huge, bustling, dirty, colorful city it is. I loved seeing all the creepy-crawly creatures in the tidepools at dusk. I loved the food. I love all the sweet, wonderful people we met. I loved all the hand-painted signs and murals. I loved translating and trying to answer our taxi driver's questions about what driving in the snow is like. I love being on the road.
And, as the title of this post suggests... sorry. I couldn't help myself.
So, we get into San Jose in the morning after a loooong overnight flight, and first thing I do? Explore the graveyards!
Blue Morpho butterflies - they look really exotic, but dude, they're everywhere.
I fell in love with all the small creatures that both are so elegant and so poisonous...
All these bright yellow pit vipers made me happy... I've always had a thing for snakes. So cool!
We visited a butterfly garden! It was so cool to watch the butterflies hatching from cocoons.
On the right are pitcher plants:
My two cutie brothers at Playa Negra in Puerto Viejo.
One of my favorite walls I have ever seen:
These guys were just posing for me. I swear.
My lovely sister.
Agapi, our little place, staffed by the best people ever.
I always wondered if they meant "snake bite specialists"... I dunno, maybe there are some super treacherous worms out there...
I suppose now's a good time to explain how accident-prone my family is. We went on a 2 day rafting trip, and we stopped on the shore for lunch. My dad was trying to take a picture and slipped and fell on some rocks, cracking a few ribs and getting a nasty head wound. I'm mostly fluent in Spanish, but on this trip I got to learn some new phrases, like, "Please wear this lead vest while you translate from inside the x-ray room".
Next injury: my little sister crashes her rented cruiser bike riding to the bar.
Next injury: my little brother crashes his rented cruiser bike riding home from the bar.
Next injury: I get stung on the lip by a wasp. Twice. This happened at night as I was getting ready for bed, and my lip swelled up so much I looked like a cartoon character. I could barely talk, my lip was so big. Regretfully, I just laughed and went to bed without taking a picture of myself in the mirror, and it was better by morning. I looked so awesome and ridiculous, but you'll just have to take my word for it.
Boa constrictors: this is why you don't wander around the jungle at night.
Best restaurant menu ever.
I look just like Tarzan. Obviously.
My mom at the market in San Jose:
I'm headed out of the country for the next few weeks, but before I go, here's a quick sneak peek from a gorgeous, cozy Telluride wedding I shot last week.
I won't be checking email or voicemail while I'm gone, but I'll get back to you when I get back into the studio on January 20th. Happy New Year!
Zach and I lived in Bangkok for 4 months or so in 2006. We were watching some Thai movies the other night and I started missing it hardcore. So, I got all nostalgic and went back and unearthed some photos. Most people who travel through Thailand use Bangkok as a stepping stone to the beaches or to the jungles up north and are surprised that we loved the city itself so much. We adored Bangkok - the food, the temples, the people, the night markets, all the random little neighborhoods. We lived on the outskirts of one of the Middle Eastern neighborhoods, and one of my favorite restaurants in Bangkok was a Lebanese place :)
One of the things that I love about Asia is discovering all these random fruits and vegetables that I never even knew existed. Meet rambutan.
During monsoon season, it rains in biblical proportions. I loved it.
I took some Mandarin classes at Assumption University, which has such a beautiful campus:
One of the days it was raining too hard to go outside, I sat in the little lobby of our apartment / guesthouse and watched the Discovery Channel. They had a show about monks in Thailand who take in sick tigers and rehabilitate them. I was really fascinated, and then I remembered that we were IN Thailand. So we went!
So... I'm pretty much just looking for an excuse to go back. Anyone wanna come? :)