Updated Blog

Hi Everyone,

I know it's been a while since I've been on here - sorry about that! I thought I'd pop on here for a quick second to let you know I've updated my "Photography By Aubrey" blog (no, not the daily photo challenge blog). There's a new wedding or two on there and a couple of family sessions. The weather has been great in San Diego for picture taking lately and I've been taking advantage! http://photographybyaubrey.blogspot.com/

Friday Addison's football team played Pine Valley. They beat them 24 to zero. I felt bad for the Pine Valley kids but the kids from Alpine were on cloud nine. Here's a couple of shots from the game.
I love this shot of Tanner running in the touchdown. He can really fly. His feet aren't even touching the ground in this shot.
Addison is really good at blocking. Here's a shot of him holding this kid with one hand.

This was a great play by Addison. As soon as the other team tossed the ball Addison took off.He broke through their defenses.

And pulled the guy's flags before he ever even had a chance to throw the ball.

What a play!

Good catching up with you. Check back in soon!

Blessings,

Aubrey

ROUTINES & VACATIONS

Well it's back to school time - that means back to routines! Here's my standard 1st day of school pictures. Addison is totally used to this now. He's grown so much, I can't hardly believe he's in 10th grade!My sister and her son came down in August for her vacation. We had a great time. Everyone (except me) went to a Chargers Game. Please see Jenn's August 10th blog post: http://www.jennsgems.blogspot.com/ for pictures and details. I can tell you they had an excellent time (I did too because I didn't have to go to a football game!) :)

We decide to go to Sea World and the Zoo while they were down. Here's some shots from the zoo.

Here's a shot of Addis & Q in front of the SD Zoo sign - (another must take photo).

I saw this bird right away as we went into the kids zoo. What fun lovely colors.

I thought the light on this camel was lovely, even if he does look a bit sad.I've always loved the flamingos. They're so cool and different looking.This lovely smiling face is a man named, John. John was truly a blessing to us on our trip to the zoo. Quentin was on a mission to see an armadillo and John took us back the VIP area and not only brought out an armadillo for us to see and pet, but brought out an alligator too. HOW COOL IS HE?!

Don't ya just love Meerkats?!Here's a shot of Addis on the verge of a smile at the zoo.Here's a peek at the Bell Tower in Balboa Park. You can see this from the SkyTram at the zoo. Another shot from the SkyTram.
Thanks for reading!

Blessings,

Aubrey

VACATION SHOTS

We got back from vacation - and had a wonderful time. It's always nice to have a little time off. We started off in Big Bear. It was lovely there. I didn't take many pictures but I shot a couple of flowers - I thought I'd post this one for my sister.We left Big Bear and drove to Bishop. If you haven't been to Bishop - you should check it out - it's such a neat little town. On the drive to Bishop we came across this beautiful set of clouds (I think I'll post these for my friend Leah, who is a lover of cloud shots.)

We left Bishop and drove up to Mammoth and had breakfast and then went on to the ghost town of Bodie. The place itself was neat - even if all the visitors there weren't exactly well mannered. Below is a picture of the sheriff's house (if I remember right).Here's a shot of a door to one of the houses in the town. I loved that you could see the clouds reflected in the glass. This was shot looking through the window into one of the houses. Can't you just see two old guys sitting there shooting the breeze after a long day at work?!When we left Bodie Jeff asked me where I'd like to go next - I told him all I wanted was to stick my feet in a stream and I'd be fine. Guess what he found 5 minutes later? "Come on in boys, the water is fine!" (quote from Delmar-Oh Brother Where Art Thou).We went back to Mammoth that afternoon. We found a brewery there, where we had dinner and FANTASTIC beer. Really, if you're a beer lover - you should definitely try their Amber, IPA, and 395 which is a double IPA brewed with Sage and Desert Juniper. VERY GOOD stuff. Jeff picked up a pint glass and the t-shirt pictured below (amongst other things)!!
From Mammoth we decided to drive up to Yosemite (one of our favorite spots). Along the way we stopped and checked out Mono Lake (pronounced Moe-No). This is a look from the South Tufa area.
And here's the view from Highway 395.From there we made our way to Yosemite. We just sort of drove through. We've been there so many times. It never fails to amaze with its beauty though. Even though the falls were pretty dry they were still beautiful.

Here's a shot of the Merced River. I don't think that we've ever gone to the park that we haven't stopped and played in the River.
From here we left and had dinner with my sister, her son and my brother. It was wonderful to get to see them, even if for just a little bit. It was a great vacation. I'm glad I got to share a couple of pictures with you.

Blessings,

Aubrey

ANOTHER WEDDING

Today we're supposed to be leaving for vacation (I obviously do not have my stuff together/ready, etc...) I figured I'd do a quick update...My friend Melissa and I shot another wedding 2 weeks ago. Such fun! Here's a couple of shots of Mike and Melaine:

About to kiss - Mike tenderly holding onto their baby! One of the bridesmaids - she really got down!
The guys were soooo much fun! They had a blast!

A tender moment... Yep, they really do like each other.

We had a great time capturing their event.

In other news: Like I said, we're going on vacation - no idea where yet. Umm...our Guinea Pig "Switch" passed away. He was 7 years old and a really cool pig. We miss him daily. What a treat it was to have him in our lives. He was a cool guy.

Well I better get back to my dictation so we can get out of here!

Blessings!
Aubrey

Yes Jeanne, It's An UPDATE! :)

Well, I've been accused of being a bad blogger (if the shoe fits...) so I figured I'd finally give my two readers an update. I promised to post pictures of the second wedding my friend Melissa and I shot. They were the sweetest couple, Aaron and Ericka. Here's a couple of our favorites.Here's a shot of the bride before the wedding. She looked so pretty!This is the groom, Aaron, what a fun guy!Aaahh, the wedding kiss. Here's a couple of shots after the ceremony, but before the reception - aaahhh love.... Yep, time to start the honeymoon! Here's a shot of the wedding cake and the bottle of champagne. Gorgeous cake! Below is a shot of the cake topper - so pretty!

Finally here's a shot of their wedding glasses. It was a beautiful wedding with a stunning family. LOVED THEM!

I know I haven't been blogging much, but honestly there's not been much going on. I've been feeling a bit under-the-weather, so I've been taking it easy. Addison finished 9th grade and is vacationing at grandma's house. We put in a wood floor upstairs in the living room and got rid of the carpet (BIG IMPROVEMENT). Now you're all caught up. I promise to try to do better at keeping current.

HUGS!

Blessings,
Aubrey

WEDDING

My friend, Melissa, and I shot a wedding for a friend of mine, Jessi. I've been working on getting her photos sorted so that I can get them too her. My mom simply can't stand the waiting...so here's two - that's all I'm going to share until Jessi & Josh get their set.

We had a great time photographing this wedding. We've got another we're shooting this Saturday - wish us luck. Pssst....aren't they a lovely couple!

Blessings,

Aubrey

IT'S A CREATIVE WORLD

It sure is ... or at least it ought to be. I think about what being creative does for someone and I'm so grateful to my mother for helping foster that in me. My mom has always been very creative and encouraged that in me and my siblings. Having some sort of creative outlet has been proven to reduce stress, reduce high blood pressure, etc... (How do you relieve the stress of having too many stress-relievers? Hee hee hee just kidding!)

I've been invited to be a Guest Designer for a day at It's A Creative World on April 19th http://itsacreativeworld.typepad.com/. I was so honored when Diana asked - thanks again gals for the invitation! Here's a shot of Diana and I together when I met her in South Africa. I know you'll just love their site - take a minute and check out all the different projects!

On a personal note - I always meant to go back and finish my South Africa blogging, which is why I haven't posted anything recently, but you know...life just keeps getting in the way.

For Easter we went for a drive through the Anza-Borrego desert. I got some lovely pictures of the desert in bloom.

Last night I just finished the most intense photography class I've ever taken called In Focus 2 - man!!!

My dear friend Melissa and I were lucky enough to be able to shoot my friend Jessi's wedding (sorry Jessi - I'll get those photos to you this weekend.)

So it's been busy...I'm off on some unknown adventure this weekend - I'll post later and let you know where we ended up!

Blessings!!!
Aubrey

AN UPDATE - FINALLY!!!

Hi Everyone!
We are back home. Been home for about a week now (it's taken that long to catch up on sleep)! Just kidding - although I did have some serious jet lag. But I am back home now and went right back into the full swing of things. I've been debating on how to do the next post. There are so many pictures we wanted to share and I didn't want it to be a HUGE post, so I guess I'm going to break it down the way I would've if I were able to blog in South Africa. Today I'll finish the safari post. I know we left off on Day 1 of Safari, to continue that story, we woke up early the next morning and went on the sunrise safari. It was gorgeous!!! We went to a different area of the game lodge - we went up the mountain and checked out the animals there.


This is where we had all our meals. It was so beautiful, and nice and quiet. I especially enjoyed eating outside - it was wonderful.One thing that I thought was really cool, was just about everywhere we went folks used skeleton keys. How cool! Even in the hotels. I think they're such neat keys.When we got back to our room there was this big, green, bug in our room. So we called one of the gentlemen over to remove the bug. He kind of laughed at us - and then told us a Praying Mantis is considered a good luck sign if you find one in your house. Obviously we are foreigners - we just wanted the bug out.Day two we started out on the Sunrise Safari. It was beautiful. I actually much prefer the sunrise safari to the sunset safari. We came across this pond on our drive out. It was so beautiful. There was steam on the water and the sun was just coming up. The water reflected the surrounding scene - it was almost magical. As we went up the mountainside we came across some Kudu. These are beautiful little animals. (They also make a tasty Biltong! *Biltong is their version of Jerky - it's way better too.)Next we saw the Rhinos. VERY cool. There were 4 of them all traveling together. At one point we were so close I took a picture of one of the Rhinos and my shadow is on the Rhinos face - we were that close.Then we were driving around and I saw these Wart Hogs coming out of the ground. There was a whole pile of them in that hole! They just kept coming out. As ugly as they are - I think they're just super cute!Here's a shot from the front. Aren't they cool looking!?!Here's a shot of Leah and I being silly.We came upon a herd of Zebras. They were beautiful. They seemed very peaceful and content to graze in the sun. Michelle told us when her family goes on safari the kids get points for each animal they spot. But if they spot a zebra they get docked points because there are so many zebras around. (So here's my zebra picture, you'll have to dock me!) :)Directly after spending time with the peaceful zebras we came upon a group of Water Buffalo. The ranger told us more people are killed by each year by Water Buffalo than any other creature in South Africa. So as we came upon them this buffalo started to charge us. Luckily his friends took off the other way and he got distracted, but it was really scary there for a bit!We stopped for a restroom break and just outside the walkway to the bathroom was this little beauty. It's called a Black and Yellow Argiope Spider. Thank goodness none of us walked into it's web!Here's a picture of us in the Land Cruiser.

After our encounter with the Water Buffalo and the big spider, Leah and I decided we needed to relax. So we signed up for a massage and one of the neighboring camps. We were driven over and along with an amazing massage we got to enjoy this view. It was so peaceful and quiet. What an absolutely wonderful time we had on safari!!!