In For The Long Hall

One of the kind of cool things about staying in the same area for as long as I have is that you get to watch people grow up.

My dad is pretty well known for commenting on this, reminding people often that he remembers them when they were just sooooo tiny. It's a little bit weird that I'm starting to have those sorts of comments too. (I recently said the exact same thing to my young friend Natalie - now a Senior in high school, who I've known since she was just an infant. Even as the words were coming out of my mouth, I was thinking:"I can't believe I'm saying this!")

My dad is rather notorious amongst the Hall kids for mentioning this fact to them; especially now that the Hall kids are in fact, all growed up, and there's an entirely new batch of (really fun) littles running around with that label.

Last November I go to spend a bit of time with some Hall kids - both the grown up kind, and the kind still measuring their ages by their fingertips.

Here they are, the Halls #s 1 & 2! :)

Creepy Stuff

Ok. So rewind again back to last summer.

I posted a couple of pictures a while back from my cousin's wedding in San Jose. What I didn't mention before is that on the way home, we stopped at this place called Casa de Fruta -- a giant farmers market with a weird little park attached to it.

They had the creepiest carousel there:



Sends shivers up your spine, right?

The crazy part? I encountered the exact same creepy carousel a few weeks later at the fair!!!



Crazy, right?!

And actually, there was just all sorts of creepy going on at the fair this year...

Creepy Fortune Teller Booth:


Creepy Clown Murals:


Creepy Mannequin Dude:


Creepy Mannequin Dude still being Creepy from far away:


Creepy Mermaid:


Creepy Dinosaur:


And Creepy Brightly-Lit-Empty-Fairgrounds:





*Shivers*

Oh Yeah... I Have A Blog!

A couple of weeks ago, someone asked if I had a photography blog.

Woops.

That was a big fat reminder that I do, but fail to post on it. (seriously, I deserve a spot on failblog, I'm that bad).

Even worse, I've been super busy, photographically speaking, and have lots of stuff to actually share.

Speaking of which....

I've been asked to do a lot of family photos these past few months. Scary because frankly, I'm not that good with the posed stuff and feel so much more at home with a candid style of photography. Practice makes perfect though, and I'm starting to feel more comfortable in this realm.

Thank you to everyone who has allowed me to practice on them!

This first batch is from all the way back in October and features my good friends, Richie and Allison and their two adorable little munchkins, Jackson and Ella. One dreary, rainy sort of day our plans to go to Oak Glenn for pictures was thwarted and instead we ended up in a business park of all places.

The results:




















They turned out kinda fun, right?

Key Key!!!

Ok. So I know this is getting random.

Forgive me, I'm still trying to figure out how I really want to do this whole thing.

Anyhow, here's the kitty that inspired the fluffies from yesterday. I forgot that I still have a picture of her on my laptop :)

I pinky swear -- the next post will be something a bit more interesting.

Furry Excuses

Did I tell you my cat died?

Yeah, I know. I didn't. It was a sad, sad day though. She was 14 years old and I'd had her for exactly half of my life.

So. It's 1:30 in the morning and I forgot to post any pictures today (surprise, surprise!). While there are many factors involved in this negligence, there is ultimately only one real explanation: I'm still not done editing. Anything. Ughsh.

Lucky for all of us, I've a couple of shots from last spring to revisit!

Here they are - some furry animals from a trip to the zoo, inspired at this late hour by my kitty (who I miss).

Eeek!

So. I've been seriously negligent.

No excuses beyond the usual whirlwind.

The second half of the summer was every bit as crazy as the first half. I've got a few hundred pictures as proof -- and I'll be making a point of posting a few of them in the coming days.

Oh, oh, oh! I should mention, cool stuff on the horizon :) Will be keeping everyone posted.

Meanwhile, today's posts are a couple highlights of a recent trip up to San Jose for my cousin Lorena's wedding. The above is a close up detail of one of the beautiful mats that were used as decoration for the ceremony. Below is a picture of my auntie Anna (right) and her sister. I love this photo, if only because apparently I've become my auntie's personal photographer - and that amuses the crud out of me.



And just a taste of what's to come:

The Swing of It

As a kid, summer always meant boredom. Sure, it was great (for the first couple of weeks) to stay home from school, watch cartoons, hang out with the neighborhood kids.... but that glamor always wore off much faster than I expected it too, and I always found myself, about a month into the stretch, feeling bored, missing my other friends, and really...missing school. To be fair, I was a bit of a super geek - not with the horn-rimmed glasses and pocket protectors, but definitely in the teacher's pet sense (seriously. I found out years down the line that several of my teachers would stick me next to the "bad" kids, hoping I'd rub off on them. Ha!).

These days, well, really not a lot has changed; three months of "freedom" would drive me nuts. I love the pace I work at, even when it's particularly hectic -- which it has been. This past month has been busy, busy, busy with a lot of cool things (that I'll be posting more about as they come up).

Here's a few shots from the middle of the whirlwind :)

The first bunch is from my cousin Stephanie's wedding in Northern California. The last bit is more from San Diego.