recent folly beach session

i will admit that i haven't blogged the last several sessions. april and may were a little busy for me, with our hawaii trip and addie finishing up school. so, i thought i'd blog my most recent session.

this family is one of my beaufort clients. they were visiting folly beach to celebrate grammy's birthday. grammy, her three children and their families were all in town. so, we got all of them together and hit the folly pier! this time was my first shooting a client at the pier and i actually loved it. granted, it's heavier trafficked than my regular spot on sullivan's island. but, it wasn't too bad in the morning (it got worse as the morning progressed).

we had a fun time! the family had seven boys total! now, that was a fun crowd!

tomorrow is the big day

i am worried that i will be too distracted to post tomorrow. but it's finally here--graduation day. it's so hard to believe that my little monkey will be graduating kindergarten. time flies by so quickly. and i know that, before i realize it, she'll be graduating high school. and goodness knows that i'm not even ready to go there. at all.

it seems such a short time ago that i was pregnant with addie. i knew she was addie before the doctor ever told me we were having a girl. it's true what they say about mother's intuition (i knew with both of mine). of course, before it was confirmed, i had given her the name sprout. but i knew. i knew that it was my adeline ruth.

she really was a great baby. other than that time, when at four days old, she decided to quit eating. those were good times. but otherwise, she was a breeze. now, her toddler years were a little more trying. but still, a pretty good kid. even now. and don't get me wrong because she certainly isn't perfect (but neither am i--shocking, i know). she's a little spoiled. okay. a lot spoiled. but it isn't all my doing. i certainly have help from her aunt, granny and grandma.

she's done really well in school. she adores her teacher, and the feeling is requited. she's a bright girl and has excelled in academics. she loves reading and math (happy, aunt wendy?). and i must brag on her a bit--she has not gotten ONE tally all year. that's right. she hasn't gotten in trouble once. i'm sure she's probably deserved a tally a time or too, but she never was given one. and her report cards started out the year at satisfactory/satisfactory plus and proceeded to outstanding. i am so very proud of her.

she's still ready for summer break. she said she is ready for the break from seat work. is she ever in for it next year with first grade! :)

anyway, tomorrow night is the big graduation ceremony. i am so excited to see her in her cap and gown. and she is excited for all of us to see the program! they've been working on it for a few weeks now and she's about to burst in anticipation.

so, here she is, in her cap and gown. my little graduate. my soon-to-be first grader.



and every time she leaves me, she blows me a kiss. it's for my pocket. so that when i miss her, i can pull it out and have it to help me feel better. so, here's a kiss for yours...

aloha

okay, bear with me. :)

we left last wednesday at 6:05 am. needless to say, neither one of us had a huge amount of sleep! the flight from atlanta to honolulu was LONG. i was about to go nuts. going to the bathroom in an airplane is terrifying! i could feel the turbulence in there so much more. that's all i'm saying about that!

we landed at 2 pm hawaii time (8 pm est). michael and i walked around the resort a little and i checked out the jewelry stores (a girl's gotta shop). our resort had these cute little penguins (also several koi ponds, ducks, flamingos, etc.).



i made it until 6 pm and then literally was about to fall over. we went to the room and i crashed. michael went to get a snack for us. he woke me up at 8 pm to watch the AI results and then i crashed again. i woke up EARLY and kept waking up every hour until i finally got up at 4: 30 am! we went down and got some breakfast (macadamia muffin for me--YUM). the coffee in the room was horrible! blech! we also went and sat on some lava rocks and watched the surfers.



this day was pretty much spent waiting for musc's booth set-up to be delivered to the convention center. we ate lunch at this sandwich shop (so good, but expensive--$16 for a sandwich and potato salad). we finally went over to the hawaii convention center to set up their stuff. this took several hours. then, we all had dinner at a little italian place. i have a major fondness for italian food. as an aside, the hawaii convention center is where the "sydney airport" scenes of LOST are filmed.

on friday, we planned the pearl harbour/circle island tour. we left our resort at 6:10 am. our first stop was pearl harbour. i took a ton of pictures here, but i'm only sharing a few. i don't know that words can really say the impression left on me. as an american, it was just such a heavy feeling. i cried. and feel like, if it doesn't get to you at all, then something is wrong with your "getter." i imagine i'd feel the same way if I ever get to visit where the world trade center towers stood. they ask you not to talk when you enter the arizona memorial area. so, there is this silence and reverence that takes place. and to think of the lives that were lost there. it's just...i don't have words to do it justice.





more...

aloha, part two

after pearl harbour, our tour traveled around the island and hit some of the hot spots, so to speak. of course, we drove by some places where i wished we would've stopped. oh well. these are the mountains (the name escapes me), taken from a moving tour bus. ;)



we stopped at bonsai beach, which was completely deserted. this spot is normally a surfing hot spot, but the water was like glass further out. the only waves were small ones at the shore.



chinaman's hat (i can't remember if we stopped here or if this is from the tour bus too)



i can't remember which beach this is, but it was full of people snorkeling. it was beautiful. i would've liked to have gone back.



nuaana pali lookout, a stop on our tour:





hanauama bay, another hot spot for snorkeling. there was a beach at the bottom that was pretty crowded. we didn't get to hike down to the water though.



more...

aloha, part three

monday was our LOST tour. now, this tour isn't cheap, but this company is the only one allowed to go off-road back in the kauloa ranch. there is a four-wheeler tour and a bus tour, but neither of those go to some of the cool spots. and those tours don't stop for pictures either. since there were eight of us, we had two hummers. the tour visits spots used in windtalkers, godzilla, mighty joe young, george of the jungle, 50 first dates, you, me and dupree, tears of the sun, and pearl harbour (I think that's it). i'll mostly focus on LOST here.

this spot is where they film the jacob's cabin outside shots. it's just right off the road (nuuana pali drive). this picture was taken out the front window.



this tree is the one where they hide. they took a picture of us with michael's camera here, but it is too dark. this spot is off the nuuana pali drive as well. we did have to walk back to it though.



this spot was used in the scene where mr. eko kills two drug dealers. on the opposite side of this building is the spot where they filmed the reception from you, me and dupree. it's funny because you literally walk through and the building looks completely different from whichever angle you see it.



radio hill: they drop you off and let you walk up the hill. you come down on the other side of some trees. this first picture is looking up radio hill:



coming down, this is the spot where ben and jack talked at some point.



this hill is the one hurley rode down in the van. our tour guide even did donuts in the spot where hurley does them. we went down this hill in our hummers.



hurley's golf course



godzilla footprints. there are four of them and then the rest were CGI. this film was the one with matthew broderick (what? you haven't seen it either?). the footprints were deeper, but they've been mostly filled in because it was dangerous for the cattle here.



this spot was used in the movie pearl harbour. they also put a facade on the front to film for the LOST tempest scenes. also, there was a scene filmed with jack and juliet kissing taken from inside the bunker facing out. they took a picture of that with michael's camera. this bunker was actually used during the war.



one more picture...meet tifani and charlie. tifani is addie's, and was a gift from our dear friend tifani. charlie is ian's. they went along for the trip. they posed in various spots. and I'm not the only one who does this, since i saw another dad taking pictures of a teddy bear. ;) anyway, here they are at nuuana pali lookout.



i'll have to post about surfing, or the attempt thereof, later!