It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas!

Just wanted to share my two favorite photos from the Lyonses photo session yesterday. What a wonderful family - their friendship has been such a blessing to my family. You can see more of them here.

Picture Post!

So, here are some pictures to go with the previous post!

We saw this on our walk the first night we were there... California! This was in the Disney park area.

The Disney park was lined with these awesome trees... I only wish my picture could do it justice! Notice the fireworks in the background! We were able to see those the first night we were there. It was pretty cool.

The Hollywood sign!

And, just because it is SUPER cool in Black & White!

Rodeo Drive! Didn't buy anything... The stores didn't have anything for me!

The palm trees...ahhh...

Ok, so I'm all about famous signs...

The name of President Reagan and the First Lady's boat was TruLuv.

Greg and retired Air Force One. Retired in 2001.

Still looks like it's ready for takeoff.

A piece of the Berlin wall.

The amazing view from the Reagan Presidential Library. No wonder it was their favorite place to be.

Pictureless Post

SO, Greg and I are in CALIFORNIA! It's been a really great trip. Today, we went to Rodeo Drive or as Greg called it "RoDEEo Doctor"... I only heard that about 100 times... :) After Rodeo Drive, we drove around looking for the Hollywood sign, all the while quoting lines from Pretty Woman... "Welcome to Hollywood. What's your dream?" or "Reg. Bev. Wil." or "Rodeo Drive, Baby".

After the Hollywood & Beverly Hills stuff, we went to visit the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. It was amazing. Completely humbling. I cried listening to the commentary about "Ronnie" and Nancy's love for each other. It was real. He was real. They led such an amazing life. We got to see the desk set on his desk in the Oval Office, many famous selections from the former First Lady's wardrobe, campaign memoribilia, and we even were able to go through the retired Air Force One. It was just incredible to see some pieces from history... our history. Ronald Reagan was president while I was a child. I wish I would've been older at the time so I could have followed his presidential career. We even saw a piece of the Berlin Wall today. It was amazing.

I'm so glad that Greg and I share an appreciation for history. We were both in awe today. I think we both teared up at points, just overwhelmed from it all. What an amazing life. What an amazing couple.

After we got back from our tourist adventures, Greg had to go to the conference/training he's here for. I got to take a nice nap, and then we went to an appetizer party where we met some of the salesmen and other "geeky" guys here. It was pretty fun. I think Greg was proud of me because I held my own with the guys. :)

I make Greg laugh because when we travel, I act like such a tourist. I will ask questions and not be shy. I'll make a fool of myself if I want to see something, get an autograph, etc... I don't care. I wasn't going to come to California and not at least ASK where the Hollywood sign was. I had no idea if it was 30 miles away or 200 miles away. I just wanted to know if it was possible to see it. Once I found out we were close, it was my mission to find it. (I did the same thing in Vegas with the "Welcome to Las Vegas, Nevada" sign). But, because I wasn't afraid of looking like a "tourist", we got to see those famous things! I am so glad that I asked about Rodeo Drive and the sign today.

Well, tomorrow, I'm taking it easy while Greg's in the conference & training all day. Then tomorrow night we're attending a Pirates of the Carribean dinner the company is throwing. It should be fun. I brought my camera (duh!) but I don't have a way of taking the pictures off the card until I get home.

The ONLY sucky thing? We sure miss our little Gabers. We know he's safe and sound and probably having an awesome time himself, but we sure miss him.

So, Greg, in case I forget to tell you later, I had a great trip with you.

Thoughts on Photographing my 1st Wedding:

• Thankful I wore comfortable shoes.
• I was tired... dog tired when we got home.
• SO thankful to have a second shooter.
• I need a new camera - that will hold an SD card.
• 2 CF cards were not near enough.
• It stinks trying to delete pictures just to make more room.
• Be QUICK
• Be flexible - never know what's going to happen!
• Don't panic when all of the curtains are shut (when you were told they'd be open)
• Be glad it was a beautiful day!
• Eat at the reception
• BRING WATER
• Take as many photos as you can
• Don't panic.

Overall, it went very well. Between me & Grant, we got all of the shots we wanted. I don't know how/if people shoot weddings by themselves. I'm working on the processing now and I'm finding that a lot of mine are grainy. One of the problems was the lighting during the ceremony. The closest thing I can think of, is it reminded me of the lighting in a gymnasium... yeah really difficult! However, we did get a lot of good shots and I'm already having fun processing them.

Oh, yeah, I was asked to do another wedding! Um, I'll be thinking about that... It's a lot of work, but it is GREAT experience.