A photo journey

Link to blog about our Baby Girls

2010-08-09T02:00:00.000-07:00

I started a blog about our baby girls with updates, pictures, prayer requests and praises. I figured with all the updates, it might dominate this blog or my photography blog.

I will update every Sunday and Wednesday, and if anything comes up between them. Please add to your google reader or follow along.

Thanks for all your love

www.heheardmycall.blogspot.com

July 28th, 2010

2010-07-31T13:40:00.000-07:00

Some of you may know what happened but sadly, I haven’t been able to get a hold of some of my dearest friends. I don’t have a phone. I tried to use it on Wednesday to get a hold of people but it wasn’t working with me. Then in all the chaos, it vanished and with it went all my contact information. If you’ve been trying to get a hold of me, I don’t have a phone so I have not received texts or voicemails and unless Scott has your phone number, I can’t get in touch with you. Please email me with your contact info!!!

This past Wednesday, Scott and I had plans to celebrate our third wedding anniversary. Instead, we found ourselves driving to the hospital in the wee hours of the morning. From the minute the nurse told us that we were having triplets, our biggest concern has been pre-term labor. Despite all precautions, the human body is not designed to accommodate more than 2 babies at a time. At 26 weeks, I was already past the size of a woman carrying one full-term baby. We entered the hospital with mild symptoms but were confident along with doctors that we would be sent home, we just wanted to be safe. Unfortunately, tests indicated that my water might have broken. They began me on heavy medication that stalls and delays labor and we began talking about me being hospitalized and on complete, absolute bedrest for as many weeks as we could delay their delivery.

Scott and I have countdown timer applications on our phones. I have a countdown to 28 weeks gestation where premature babies have a great rate of survival with few complications. Scott’s countdown is to 33 weeks, our goal for our triplet pregnancy where our babies would spend only a little amount of time in the NICU. We were hit pretty hard with the prospect that 33 weeks would now be a very big stretch and we had to switch our focus to 28 weeks which was still 13 days away. The nurse monitored me while I waited for the medication to slow and diminish the mild contractions I was having. Instead, despite upping the medication and trying an additional second drug, I rapidly switched into advanced labor to the shock of all, including the doctors. It was the most chaotic and scary moment I have ever experienced as alarms went off, people started yelling and I was being raced down the hall into the operating room. One of the last things I saw before the door swung close and I was put under was the scared face of Scott putting on scrubs in the hall. I would be told later that he wasn’t even allowed into the room. I was put completely under and I have no memory of what followed.

On Wednesday, July 28th 2010, a little after noon, our three daughters were delivered by emergency C-Section. They were born 3 and half months early at 26 weeks and 1 day gestation. Allison “Astro” Sunaoka weighing 1 lb 12 oz. Rory “Gizmo” Sunaoka weighing ~ 2 lb 4 oz. Casey “Slugger” Sunaoka weighing ~ 2 lb 4 oz. Allie and Casey were rushed to the NICU. Scott and I are heartbroken to share that a few hours after birth, our little Rory “Gizmo” had passed away.

About a month and a half ago, we learned through ultrasounds and echocardiograms that Rory had a serious heart defect that was terminal. The past 6 weeks have been an emotional journey as each week and each scan brought new questions with unhappy answers. We have been struggling with how to share this news publicly as we know so many have shared in this pregnancy and excitement. Our girls are beyond cherished and loved by all, and our family has expanded in the last 6 months to include so many thrilled “aunties” and “uncles.” There were so many questions that we had to deal with. Our future changed from week to week. We were even looking to possibly giving birth in San Diego and uprooting our lives for a year. We didn’t know if we wanted a baby shower, or even how to register for baby items. I would break down in tears when it came down to deciding quantity. At night, we mainly talked about how we might want to spend Rory’s time after birth with her. Above all, we did not want to give up hope of miraculous hearing and every week and every doctor visit, we just kept praying that this was the week that would bring us good news. Unfortunately, we just ran out of time far quicker than we could ever have imagined and nothing…nothing could have prepared us for saying hello and goodbye to our daughter in less than a day.

We had hoped to get as far as long as possible to give Rory the best chance at birth, and to give us the most time with her. Being born at 26 weeks erased a lot of our options and plans, and it is still hard for us to face. The hospital staff were aware of the situation and made her as comfortable as possible. Rory did get to spend a lot of quality time being held by daddy and close family and friends before she returned home to be with her other “Daddy.” Such a short time with us, but we cherished every moment and I’m thankful for every second I had to be her mom. It was a blessing and an honor.

We are recovering and there’s a lot to deal with as we were not very prepared at this early a stage. We know you love our families and we ask that most communication be through email or texts or fb (so modern huh) and not through phone calls. We don’t have much time to spend on the phone although we want to keep everyone updated. Please don’t feel that you can’t ask us about Rory. We certainly want to celebrate her life. I’ll be posting soon about Rory for those who never got to meet or know her. I’m so proud of her and I want everyone to know how amazing she is.

We have two little babies in the NICU who also still need our attention and a lot of prayer. At this stage, their lungs, immune system, brain, and digestive system are still underdeveloped and they are kept isolated to mimic still being in the womb. Allie, our petite little 1 lb 12 oz firecracker, was moved off a breathing tube and to a less invasive breathing assistance called a C-PAP. Today, they will do an echo on her heart to see if she has any heart problems related to her identical sister’s heart problem. Casey, last to arrive at 2 lb 4 oz, is having more difficulty. She’s not been able to move off the breathing tube and is having a rougher time managing her oxygen levels. She had a lot of swelling but it has gone down a lot in the last day. We’ve been warned that with micro-preemies, there will be a lot of steps forward and just as many steps back. We’re praying for those steps forward. These girls may have been born in Honolulu, but I am pretty sure I see some Big Island in them=)

Prayer Requests:
-Slugger is able to move onto a C-PAP today
-No apnea spells for Astro
-Today’s fetal echocardiograms show perfect hearts for both girls
-Astro to be able to move to a PIC-line
*we still refer to them by Scott’s crazy nicknames, it’s a habit I can’t kick unfortunately

Christmas cookies in January

2010-01-14T11:26:00.001-08:00

My sister has five girls and I adore my nieces. My 3 year old niece, Lauren, has two little twin sisters who since turning a year and half and learning to walk have been promoted to official twisters. Scott and I made a goal of trying to watch Lauren once a week to let her have some "Lauren" time and actually spend some time playing with toys without having four smaller hands snatch them away. When you babysit, you always feel that urge to have to entertain them. So my sister gave us some leftover Christmas crafts and this visit we attempted to bake and decorate our own home-made gingerbread cookies.

The party included:

Lauren's friend, HB, stopped by for some playground and coloring book fun but left before the culinary lesson began. Here's Master Baker Scott showing a preview of our final creations. I may have to explain Scott's cookie a little. That's actually supposed to be a gummy heart in the middle and the "A" is for me...his nickname for me. Well, by nickname, I mean, my real first name. And, no, I will never divulge it.

The kit came with a really cute little booklet of instructions. We were a little waylaid by the fact that you had to add a few ingredients to the kit of your own. Honey. I didn't own honey, I actually don't like honey. So, just be forewarned to check the back of these cute kits before attempting at home. We mixed the ingredients together and let it sit in the fridge for half an hour. I followed the directions but the dough was a little crumbly and weird looking at first. It began to take a more doughy texture after we had worked on it a bit. Here's Lauren who learned to to knead it herself.

Now, you may notice above a spray can of Pam nonstick cooking spray rolling around. I couldn't for the life of me find a rolling pin (hmmm, seems the roommate left it at someone's house)...so I had to improvise. Washed the outside of the Pam can and sprinkled it with flour. Hey, it worked pretty decently.

3 year olds are a great age. Lauren caught on and was able to roll up the dough, roll it out, and then cut out a shape with the cookie cutters all by herself. Her favorite was the heart shaped cookies. After we had assembled most of the cookies, I left her with a little bit of dough to play with like play-do (Hey, I just got the name....hah, it makes sense now) and went to put the cookies in the oven. But she kept running to the kitchen with more heart cookies that she was just milling out by the second.

After fifteen minutes in the oven, out came beautiful gingerbread cookies, all shapes and sizes.

We kind of forgot to explain to the 3 year old that these cookies were for the joy of decorating. Because after we down all the gels and sprinkles in front of her and then brought the cookies to the table, she reached out and started to grind on the freshly baked cookies. I think Scott and I startled her when we snatched them out of her hands and said "No." Ooops. We then showed her that you could decorate them first and then she went to town and had a blast. But after that, she refused to take a bite of any cookies, even after we had decorated them all. My sister arrived and we all tried to show Lauren that you could eat the cookies. I think I ate like three. But, nope...she wouldn't touch them. She just carried them around with pride.

The gingerbread cookie kit came with little eyes to put on your gingerbread men. I love that Lauren made an all-seeing Christmas tree. Magical.

Hey, I have some amazing pictures from a children session on the Big Island. Look forward to that post and pictures coming sometime next week.

Is there a doctor in the house?

2010-01-09T16:25:00.000-08:00

December was chock full of holiday fun but it also marked other momentous events. I met Chrystie when we were both in the Master's Program in Cell and Molecular Biology at University of Hawaii-Manoa. We both obtained our Master's Degree but she continued on in her graduate studies in the PhD Program while I joined the workforce. While watching her dissertation, this flood of pride welled up as I watched her explain her work with stunning clarity and unheard-of vocabulary. I was proud that I slightly understood the first third and then it went beyond my capabilities. It also reminded me how much I love my background in scientific research. I started to try to work out how I could get back into research...considering volunteering in the lab after work. Then I slapped myself awake. There I go thinking I have 36 hour long days to cram all this stuff in.

The morning of the UH graduation, I was a little rushed. We had to skip the flower shop so we drove into the parking garage lei-less. Scott slowed the car slightly so I could jump out and dash into the Stan Sheriff Center. I made it in time to watch Chrystie receive her diploma and join the faculty as a part of the doctorate community.

Here's Dr. Chrystie flashing a shaka.

Chrystie and Janice

Me, Dr. Janice, Dr. Haymer, and Dr. Chrystie
Hmmm, my name looks so unimpressive next to these academic wizards.

Chrystie and her sweet family

An intimate luncheon followed at a Chinese Restaurant in Hawaii Kai. It was 2 hours of music, touching speeches, tears, crying...and then more crying....and then, just a little more crying. Chrystie has an amazing support system, her family, her church, and us (her friends!!!). Her sister, Malia, had just gotten married a month before and she was constantly at her sister's side. She laughed and joked with everyone that she and Chrystie had traded off, Chrystie was her servant at her wedding and now she had to return the favor. I was really touched by how close these two sisters are and how supportive they are of each other. I saw Malia and her new husband standing up and eating their lunch to let others have seats. Then Malia danced hula for Chrystie and the endless tears were streaming down their cheeks. When the notes faded away, they ran to each other and embraced forever. My sweet husband leaned over and whispered in my ear "Maybe I should hug my brother more often." Huh, that would be a sight to see.

For these pictures and more, check out the photo album on facebook. If you're already on fb, add me as your friend!!!

Happy New Year 2010

2010-01-05T14:06:00.000-08:00

I may be college educated but I, for the life of me, can never remember whether I should be wishing people "Happy New Year!" or "Happy New Years!" I promise to google it before the end of this post.

I am in love with 2010. I've read that 2009 was a tough year for most and I'm no exception. What a relief to have a fresh new page to write on!!! I'm a huge advocate for making resolutions, even those resolutions that dwindle to soft wishes most of the time. Making changes for the better and striving for self-improvement is an easy sell for me. I taught high school science straight out of college at Maryknoll Schools and their motto is "to whom much is given, much is expected." What a firm reminder that I am blessed and the best way to show my gratitude is to live my life giving everything I've got. So here are my resolutions...and if I fall of the wagon, I hope I remember that you get a fresh slate every morning on any given day. There's a Nicole Nordeman song "His mercies are new every morning." I cling to that as my saving grace.

Be more thankful-spend a few moments every day thanking God for the little and big things that come my way. And thanking those around me, like my dependable hubby, Scott who always reminds me that my car's registration expired three months ago (oops) or when it's time for an oil change. Or asking to take my car on our Costco run because he notices it's low on gas and Costco's gas is the cheapest.
Be more active and healthy- Hmmm, this one sounds so familiar. I'm not giving up. I weighed in 10 lbs heavier than my heaviest weight every. A new high for me. Ouch. Yet another reason why I am always the photographer, keep cameras pointed away from me. I want to at least feel stronger. So, I had a jumpstart on this one and have been back to the gym since Christmas. It's not as excruciating as I thought but, boy, it's just time consuming.
Laugh more-And thanks to goofy friends...one who was trying to wave out the window at a group of us and totally tipped her and her chair over and then my athletic, uber-coordinated husband whiffing on a frisbee catch and kissing the frisbee up close....I have laughed and laughed and laughed. I mean, I hope all my laughter doesn't come at the expense of others...but I love them more for filling my life with joy and light.
Use less and Give more-I grew up in a small town with where we, like most families there, struggled. We lived on welfare and survived on food stamps and housing assistance. I sometimes forget that I'm not poor anymore. It's such a hard mentality to shake. But I'm not poor....I have to repeat or I keep forgetting. I have all that I need. In fact, I have more than I need. So over the holidays, Scott and I went through our closets and pantry and cleared out boxes to donate to Goodwill and the Hawaii Food Bank. Cans and cans of soups and mixes that we bought months ago just to lie unused gathering dust. I need to stop buying stuff "just in case" I might find a use for it. Some credit will probably have to go to "Hoarders" which now has given me the opposite complex. I'm so scared of hoarding that we have empty closets and shelves after weekly purges. Hey, reality TV can be positive after all. We also give monthly support to an Ethiopian girl, Elilta, through Compassion. Then I got a newsletter from them with pictures of these children who have been waiting, some of them for over a year, to be adopted/supported through Compassion.

And because I know that even the best intentions get nudged to the side by the busy-ness of life, someone help me remember to revisit these resolutions every four months. April 1st let's see how I'm doing.

Darn, google didn't help me. Scott and I would like to wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

There's a chill in the air

2009-12-11T06:38:00.000-08:00

December is my favorite month of the year, it's basically sandwiched with cheesy Hallmark movies and party feasts between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I just finished up editing a big session with my husband's working place. I took their staff Christmas picture and then a bunch for their website. Sorry, I never post the photos from the church, but I may provide links eventually.

I'm battling a little cold...cough cough sniffle sniffle. I'm such a wussy sick person. Scott gets sick and he just likes to be left alone. I get a tickle in my throat and I'm eating ice cream for breakfast and making sad eyes at Scott in hopes that he'll rub my feet. But there's a lot to do...Christmas cards to finish and get out...reports at work to get in...laundry to wash and fold. After watching a few episodes of Hoarders, there's also nothing better I like to do each day at home than throw three things away and scrub four things down with bleach. I am trying to plan ahead for the next three months. I have a few sessions lined up, and I'm also looking to take some much-anticipated vacation.

And because I love pictures: here's a few fun pictures taken on the sidewalks of Kailua.

[I think this one is a funky angle but I like!!!]

[Only I can get so excited by a picture that's mostly concrete]

[This one would make a gorgeous canvas wrap. She's beautiful]

God's teaching me to wakeboard

2009-11-18T01:05:00.000-08:00

I've made no secret of it, this year has been brutal for me. I didn't have an idealic childhood and I've had to battle a lot in my life, but this year puts the rest to shame. Maybe it really is harder than the 30 years before it, or maybe I'm fatigued and losing strength in the third round. I just feel attacked on every angle possible...a big one being family, losing best friends, some health issues, pressure at work growing alarmingly fast. I've had to retreat at times and focus on regaining hope, because that's the critical ingredient. And I set back out with one foot forward saying "I'm going to do it...I'm going to survive." And I won't lie, I've gotten knocked down again. I have been praying for the year to turn around. Now with under two months left, I've changed to praying that this year just ends.

This past weekend, I fell back into the valleys and I thought "this is it, I can't get up again. Just leave me alone" But, the next morning brought renewed strength and glimmers of hope peeking through my fog of depression. Totally not of my own doing. Those embers of strength grew stronger and the glimmers glowed longer and brighter until I found myself back on my feet again. Ready to face life and still in the race. And God put something upon my heart. This year has been a battlefield. I no longer speak to my mother (which is not new) but now I have not spoken to my father in months. I've been on the phone hearing about my brother's (on the big island) attempt to hurt himself and threatening to commit suicide and sat in the hospital after another family member tried to end their life. And still not even the hardest situation we've had to face this year. I feel people turn to me for answers and I want to offer comfort but they may not get my answer. I have God. That's all I can really offer..

I have been complaining about just feeling battered and abused from every angle. But this past week, I had a image in my head. I'm riding out a storm but I'm not commanding a big boat with billowing sails. I'm in the water clinging to a rope and the reason I'm still moving is that God is pulling me. He's pulling me as fast and as quick as He can to get me out of this storm. I'm getting tossed about by the waves and the rain is cold darts on my skin, but He's pulling me through.

I had someone try to teach me to wakeboard once. I couldn't stand up until my 12th try which was super frustrating for me. The guy teaching me kept yelling me "don't try to stand up, that's why you're falling." I thought it was pure foolery, don't you have to stand to wakeboard? He'd pull the boat forward again and the rope would jerk me and I would face plant...again. Same thing, he'd yell "don't try to stand up." Frustration. I was so confused because I was insistent that I was not trying to stand up. Each time I concentrated and was confident that I wasn't trying to stand up, but each time I fell. I was running out of time, so the last time, I actually fought the urge to stand up by relaxing everything, almost to the point where I felt like I was sinking beneath the water. The boat jerked and I was up and wakeboarding...for 23.4 seconds. I'm revisiting that lesson on the ocean. God's teaching me to wakeboard and I have to fight the urge to stand up by myself. It's when I sit back and let God take over that I find myself standing up above the waves.

I'm not preaching a happy ending. I haven't gotten there yet. I know most stories offer "this is the troubles and storms I faced and look at how perfect everything is now." This is "Hey there, friend, having a rough year. I'm there with you. But we'll get through it." Like that wakeboarding lesson, I'll faceplant often. I might forget everything I've learned. But I know that God will keep pulling that rope as long as we are holding on to it.

Sneak Peek: Mike and Beka's Family Session

2009-11-02T01:49:00.000-08:00

Sneak Peek of a Halloween Morning Family Session

Where: Kakaako Park
When: Saturday, October 31st

New York New York (Pt 1 of 4)

2009-10-24T22:09:00.000-07:00

I was really excited about this trip. I'm not a big traveler, I'm such a home body. I am, however, married to the traveling man...he loves it. We had a discussion and came up with compromises before we got married. But this trip. This trip, even I was excited to go. One of my friend from college days (go BC) is from New York and proposed to his girlfriend of nine years. He set his wedding date for my birthday!!! At first I thought it was sweet, then I realized he was trying to steal my thunder. Nah, it was wonderful. Work was getting crazy so Scott and I were excited to fly 5,000 miles to the northeast. We spent a few days in New York for the wedding and then spent a few days in Boston.

We stayed a few days at my friend's place in Queens. I'd been to NYC a few times while in college and Scott just went for the first time last year. So there wasn't much I hadn't seen. When asked what I wanted to do, the only thing I said was "I want to find Cake Boss!!!" Cake Boss is a TLC show centered around a real bakery "Carlos' Bakery" and it's owner, Buddy. The bakery is run by an Italian family and the show is hilarious. They thought I was kidding but I insisted on googling the location of the bakery (Hoboken, New Jersey) and directions on how to take the train there.

So, our friends drove us from Queens into Manhattan.

Which meant we had to drive over the 59th street Bridge which instantly caused Scott to break out into a song "Feeling Groovy." Too bad, no one in the car had any clue what he was singing.

They dropped us off near Central Park, which I will have to say was my first time there. It's pretty huge...and I'm a country girl so I loved it. There were saxophone players and ballon animal artists every twenty feet.

The architecture and neighborhoods are so different in the mainland. I loved it. Scott is such a patient and understanding husband...as I made him pose over and over again so I could get my photography kicks out.

We really had no clue where we were walking but we did find ourselves at the Museum of Natural History. Also someplace I've never been. It was pretty cool. I have to admit that I kind of went out of curiousity to see how similar it was to movie "Night in the Museum." I have to say that the answer is "minimal." The exhibit displays are amazing though. Epic.
We took the subway and then changed over to the PATH train which took us to Hoboken, New Jersey. It was a super short walk and we found ourselves at ... CAKE BOSS!!! And Buddy is awesome!!! He stood outside and talked to everyone who came up...he volunteered for pictures. He was in the middle of signing autographs when they were calling him from inside the bakery and made sure to finish up with everyone on the sidewalk. He was amazingly friendly and awesome!!! It's a gunner for the highlight of my trip.

Then we wandered back to the train station and I saw this cool train station waiting room.

My latest engagement session

2009-10-07T19:09:00.001-07:00

can be found here

Mystic Pizza Party

2009-09-27T03:06:00.000-07:00

I originally had to work on all Fridays. But we're a bit short-handed and there's only three of us on my shift. And then one of my coworkers had to take famlily leave suddenly because his wife gave birth to their daughter a few weeks early. So, the two of us left had to juggle days to make sure that all the days were covered. So, I found myself with a Friday night off.

It just so happened that Scottie left for Japan that morning for his mission trip in Sapporo. So, my roommie, Tricia, and I decided to have a last-minute girl's night dinner. I picked the theme.

Mystic Pizza Party

We made our own little mini-pizzas and then watched Julia Roberts in "Mystic Pizza." The only thing our dinner guests had to bring was a pizza topping of their choice. Tricia did all the prep work. She researched possible toppings combination by scouring popular menus like California Pizza Kitchen. She laid out a spread of baked chicken, pears, cheeses, tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers, fresh spinach, sliced red onions, and she even toasted pine nuts. She had a variety of sauces to go on the pizza crusts; your regular but favored pizza sauce, a pesto, an alfredo, and this yummy BBQ sauce. We're still not done. She even has a little basil plant that we could pick from for our pizza masterpieces.

I don't really trust my cooking skills so I was prepared to buy pre-made pizza crusts from the store but that had the roommate aghast. Instead, she made dough from scratch following this recipe for Whole Wheat and Honey Pizza Crust and we even got to roll out our own crusts. This is an awesome idea for a get-together. it's fun and hands-on like an Arts-n-Crafts project, but then you get to eat it. Followed by a desert of thick brownies covered with rasberries, whip cream and chocolate sauce and we were ready to rest our full tummies while watching "Mystic Pizza." Ah, 80's movies...always a sure thing for a good laugh.

(Just some of the ingredient layout, place cards made by the roomie)

(my favorite, shredded baked chicken)

(I think girls were just snacking on the pears. I don't think they actually made it to any pizza)

(some of our pizza masterpieces pre-baking)

Field trip to the Discovery Center

2009-09-22T14:32:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I'll bore you with details of my thrilling life. But, on top of my full-time job and my photography business, I also babysit a few hours every week. She's a darling 19 month old who charms everyone. Our house is pretty toy-less, but thankfully, she loves our piano, my photography props, and she's been known to carry around Scott's golf clubs. To break the boredom, my sister and I have organized combined field trips where I bring baby HB and my sister brings her three youngest girls, all 2 years old and younger. Last week, we went to the Discovery Center in Honolulu. I thought I would blog about it for anyone who hasn't been there yet.

Discovery Center Hawaii

Two big downfalls that we immediately encountered were operating hours and prices. They are open only for very limited hours. They are closed Monday (which we found out a few months ago when we tried to show up without checking out the website...oops). Tuesdays through Fridays, the center is open 9 am to 1 pm. That was hard for us considering my sister had to feed, clothe, and pack up three toddlers by herself. We didn't meet up at the center until 11 am. They are open later on weekends (until 3 pm).

The fee is $8 for anyone over the age of 1. We did eye my sister's twins and HB. Totally tempted to try to knock off 7 months off their ages. Darn, they can pretty much run already so we just had to pay full price. And the $8 is the kama'aina rate and military rate so bring your ID. Once we paid, we were instructed to leave all strollers in the lobby before proceeding into the play area. Yikes. That threw us for a loops. Together, my sister and I had brought

2 year old girl
one 19 month old girl
two 17 month old twin girls
two backpacks
a camera bag

Next time, pack light.

The price was a little high but I think it's comparable to other attractions and we got to escape the hot summer heat. That's the biggest plus I can think of. Once we were inside the Discovery Center, the fun really began. There was an area for the younger toddlers immediately after you enter. We let the kids loose and frankly, they could have played in there the whole time. There was a sailboat that the kids could clamber in. There was a little play fishing pool that the 2 year old used a fishing rod to catch fake, colorful plastic fishes while the babies chose to just roll around on the floor.

All the kids would have been thrilled just to play in the baby play area, but we definitely wanted to explore the rest of the floor and get the most out of our day. There were all these displays set up to convert real world habitats into pint-sized worlds fit for humans under 3 feet tall. I dont' have pictures because I had to abandon the camera to keep up with our little bundles of speed. There was a little hospital room with mini-scrubs hanging on the door hook. Fire truck and a bus. A small theatre with a cool panel where pressing buttons changed the lighting or added sound effects. I got a litttle crazy with the lightning sound effect and my 2 year old niece jumped in my arms saying "skeri, skeri."

The babies, 19 month old HB and 17 month old twins, 2 year old not pictured (running amuck)

Fishing is fun, and plastic fishes smell way better

One twin was trying to scale the picket fence gate and look who came to help

Shopping at the pint-sized grocery store

I think the Discovery Center is more geared for kids 2 years and up. Although HB and the twins loved the grocery store, the rest of the displays and scenes didn't hold any appeal. They took more enjoyment climbing up on the snack table. But the 2 year old loved it. It was perfect for her. And all the kids just loved the freedom of running around. I wish they had more props. I went to the children's museum in Boston and they had a 3 foot tall chess set, hula hoops to blow bubbles. I would have liked to have seen that here, especially since they make such cute photo opportunities.

I cannot say enough about the staff at Discovery Center. Everyone was completely kind-hearted, from the woman who sold us our tickets, the young helpers watching the floors who sweetly played with the kids as well, to the friendly staff in the lunch counter who didn't bat an eye when my sister (not the kids) spilled an entire container of macaroni and cheese on the floor. If you have kids who are between 2 and 6, I would recommend it. And you can bring your own lunch, you just have to eat it outside. Just remember to bring your camera!!!

Lacie's Newborn Session

2009-09-04T18:50:00.000-07:00

For pictures of little Lacie, go to my other blog

See family session

2009-09-04T02:57:00.000-07:00

For a family session I did at Waimanalo Beach, go here

Where have I been?

2009-09-02T03:49:00.001-07:00

I want to blog. I wish there was more time...Here's a list of the stuff that I need/want to devote more time

-reading Bible and journaling daily (this maybe happens once a week)
-practicing the bass guitar (haven't done this in a month)
-practicing the regular guitar (I did spend some time this past two weeks practicing)
-learning how to use my new camera finally
-emailing people back!!!
-starting to jog again regularly

Here's the high hopes list
-go surfing again and wash the cobwebs off my board
-revise my photography website
-paint our kitchen
-save the world

Not only am I behind in this blog, but now my roommie, Tricia, has roped me into this getting fit and healthy and I'm supposed to blog that every day. That will make blog #4 for me. Oh geez louise.

Sneak Peek: John, Whitni and Baby "G"

2009-08-22T21:56:00.000-07:00

Here's a sneak peek from our last-minute session with John and his family. He's being deployed next week and asked if I could create some memories of his family before he left. Introducing John, Whitni, and baby "G..."

Pancakes and Sand-Castles

2009-08-20T18:50:00.000-07:00

We're such procrastinators. Joy, of our "Joy and Light" production, had her birthday last week but it took us over a week before we all went out to celebrate. Party animals that we are, we settled on a girl's breakfast at Cinnamon's of Kailua. We just love their yummy eggs benedict. And I have vague recollection of Krystal saying "we should stop by the beach afterward and build a sand castle." Wow, that sounds like such a cute idea. I thought of tossing on some swim clothes but I figured it would be a brief and carefree jaunt to the beach.

The girls (Tricia, Krystal and "birthday girl" Joy) and I headed over to Cinnamon's. I had the veggie eggs benedict with a poached egg perched on a chair of spinach leaves and tomatoes. Yum Yum. The ordering process was slightly complicated by Tricia who seems to have inherited a little "Sally" from "When Harry Met Sally." We stuffed ourselves full of Portuguese sweet bread french toast covered with drizzled maple syrups and benedicts.

The real adventure started on the sandy shores of Kailua Beach. I think the critical turning point was when someone started digging a hole in the sand and Tricia and I kind of stalled with the infamous question "Do you think that's high enough above the waterline?" Remember that question, it became critical. Thus ensued what was about 75 minutes of hauling endless buckets of sand under the hot sun...75 minutes that felt like 5 hours. It was so much fun...I just don't remember sandcastles being such a workout. I think I'm going to have to fill my plastic blue bucket with wet sand and see how much it weighs.

Krystal was the castle foreman and I focused on the protective moat and property wall. Very quickly we realized the tide was rising and waves were battering across our moat and washing up against our castle walls. Then it became a frantic rescue mission and all four of us had to abandon the castle and dig fervently to keep the water away. It was a total losing battle. We decided our castle would be a duplex so we just extended it up the beach. Despite our red faces, we must have made it look like fun because we had a sibling pair on vacation here from Hawaii join in on the fun. It was perfect timing because I think we were all about to pass out on the sand and they were little balls of energy. They actually were born and raised in New Zealand.

(You can't see me but I'm wearing a bright neon blue T-shirt. I somehow missed the memo to wear a black shirt.)

(Krystal, it's supposed to be fun, remember? There, that's better...there's a laugh)

(Tricia and her minions, she worked those two little New Zealand kiddies)

(Can you believe that Tricia actually thought she was going to go straight to work from the beach?)

(Our sand castle taking shape...it was a mansion)

(I can't tell who is having more fun)

(towers and castle doors)

(she was getting a little worked up over the battle between the wall and the waves)

(her brother was building a pond nearby for the castle royalty)

(then he took a little surf break)

(the stellar castle company)

My New Apprentice

2009-08-20T01:41:00.001-07:00

Every week, our house usually gets a visit from an adorable little 18 month old little girl. I once told my roommate, Tricia, "HB loves you." To which she replied "HB loves everybody." And it's so true. She loves to hug people and she starts to booty dance every time she hears music, even if it is just you singing to yourself. And my husband is the worst. One time, he rushed into the room her on one arm and a tub of M'n'M's in the other hand and gave both to me. He said "Here. She wants candy and I can't tell her no. You tell her." Oh goodness.

She's so photogenic that I have been using her as my model for...well, eighteen months.

But she's starting to pick up the whole camera thing. Now she races towards my camera and lifts it up to her face. It's much heavier than regular point-and-shoot cameras so I've always got a firm grasp on one end. The other day, she figured out how to press the shutter. I took a look and holy cow, she took a really nice picture. I think...I think she's got talent.

Now the logo is actually incorrect. A photo always belongs to the individual who took it. So, disclaimer here: This photo is actually the property of HB, I guess I have to make a "HB Photography" logo. Just a few color curve adjustments in PS and there's your final product. I'm thinking I can be her second shooter when she hits five.

Coming home

2009-08-10T02:11:00.000-07:00

So, I'm in LA. Scott didn't want us to put that on the internet in case our scandalous blog readers (you know...you, John-John,...oh, and you, Joy) read it and decide to burglarize our house. Well, we're on our way home and I feel pretty safe since Dural is house-sitting for us. Come on, Dural's arms need a permit or something.

I had so much fun but I'm also pretty excited to go home. I'm such a homebody. I will post again...with pictures. I just have to wait for Scott to download the pics off his camera since I didn't bring one. I just didn't have room. I hate traveling so all my luggage room was taken up with various media to occupy the flying hours.

We took the overnight flight to LA and it was about 5 hours long. I can't sleep on the plane, so I brought my computer, a DVD player, two books, my own personal pillow, a blanket, snacks, soda, and two magazines on the plane. I couldn't even move, I was cocooned by my belongings. But I think I used almost everything since it was a long flight and no one else stayed awake to entertain me. I even had to ration my water intake since I was on a window seat and both Scott and stranger in aisle seat were both completely out. I was trapped. Let's not forget the family of five in the row behind us with the crying infant and the little girl who kept kicking my chair in her sleep. I couldn't get mad. My heart went out to the mom who was trying to calm the little baby boy. But the rest of the trip was tons more fun. I hope I have time to get back to blogging it once we get back to our "normal lives."

I'm also wishing Joy a "Happy Birthday" just a day early. Girl, how are you celebrating?

Maternity Session-Matt and Leena

2009-07-28T02:50:00.000-07:00

see other blog

The wedding of Scot and Kim-Waioli Tea House

2009-07-13T02:00:00.001-07:00

Trying something new here...

see www.keaosphotography.blogspot.com

Dancing in the halls

2009-07-10T14:13:00.001-07:00

I just had a random thought that watching "So You Think You Can Dance" is a deadly combination when you mix in the fact that they pipe in music through all the rooms and hallways in my office building. Apparently, I now think I can dance...and I tend to do so down the hallways when I swept up by the music. I'm always in the middle of my "dance for you life" solo when some officer walks around the corner...ogh!!!

Although, I don't just think I can dance....I know I can!!!. Okay, maybe I'm losing my touch. Last month, I was hanging out with family and I decided to show my teen niece how you're really supposed to dance. My dad sweetly said "oh, keao, stop. You unfortunately inherited dance skills from me...which are zero to none." I was super indignant.

Me: "What? I can dance. Dad, I danced in high school. Don't you remember?

Dad (perplexed look)

Me: Remember? I was on the school's dance team. Ring a bell?

Dad (perplexed look not fazing)

Me: Hello. I was gone for a whole summer in high school because I was at grandma's ( on a totally different island than where we live) so I could go to the summer practices.

Dad: You did? When was this?

*sigh* Family. But anyways, just keep an eye out when doing turns down the hallway at work.

Family: Joe, Evelyn, and their extended family

2009-07-10T12:32:00.000-07:00

A photography business has two main components. "Photography" (which I love) and "Business" (which I am still working on). This the third month I've overbooked myself...again. *sigh* Mentally scolding myself as we speak. I keep meaning to take a break, give my poor hubby some quality time without my laptop molded to my lap...relax on the beach with a good book. However, it's the first half of "Photography Business" that gets me in trouble. I love photography. I get so excited when something comes up. An opportunity presents itself and the photography addict in me starts bargaining "Go for it, Keao, you can make time. You'll make it work." I just can't resist. Good photographer, bad bad business-woman. Ha ha. Seriously, you get there and it's so worth it.

For example, last week I received a call from Evelyn, the sweetest woman in the world. She and her husband, Joe, are sweethearts who moved to these islands years ago from Guam. They have raised three amazing kids and they are such a tight family. They joined our church's boot camp exercise together. I'm offering an "Introduction to Digital Photography" seminar in August and they signed up....together. They even do yardwork together. How do I know? They used to be my landlords. Before I married Scott, some friends and I rented out the first level of their duplex. And I fell in love. They were amazing to live under. I can't count how many times I would hear a knock on our door and there was Joe or Evelyn with a steaming pan of deliciousness saying "Oh, we made extra, so please enjoy."

In our premarital counseling, Scott and I read a chapter on "leaving and cleaving your family." Since living in a dorm as a seventh grader at Kamehameha Schools, I have pretty much lived on my own. So I thought this would be an easy and done deal. But the Flores family had quickly become family to me and when I finally got married, there was some definite moments of sadness and wishful thinking. I often joked with Evelyn that I was working on Scott to leave the house he grew up just so we could move back in with the Flores family.

Joe's father was on island visiting so it was a rare moment to have the family together for pictures. Evelyn and I threw this together last minute so we were looking for someplace close by. So we chose Kaneohe District Park. I have a new favorite location. I can't believe I haven't used it before. It has a gorgeous backdrop with the Koolau mountains and these pretty shading trees. I was a little worried about the sheer number of people (with Joe's sister and brother and their respective families), so I recruited fellow photographer, Joy Pishcura.

(Grandpa and all the grand-kids)

(the whole family. Missing only Carl who was firing up dinner on the grill for their barbecue)

just some silly fun, Connie (far right) and her son ,Dural (middle), and nephew Joseph Jr. (left)

(Joe and Evelyn)

(Joe and Evelyn with their amazing kids, Joe Jr., Kardyn, and Jared)

(Dural, a good friend of ours. We usually see him 2 to 3 times a week. Totally worth it)

(Dural and his mom, Connie, who is also Joe's sister)

(Joe's brother Carl couldn't make it so we took tons of pictures of his foursome)

(just some goofing around in the park)

Sneak Peek: Scot and Kim Wedding

2009-07-08T01:21:00.000-07:00

Here's a sneak peek from Scot and Kim. Kim and I had to come up with a system to distinguish our husbands (he's officially hers now) and our conversations were punctuated with my "my scott" versus her "my Scot." I chose this one because...well, it's horizontal and it's just a lot simpler to fit in the column...but also because I love how attentively Kim is listening to that handsome officiant. I was so nervous during my ceremony, I kind of just stared blankly at Pastor Ralph and I was caught a little off-guard when it turns out he was asking me for my vows. Not Kim, she's enjoying every second of her day. If there was a quiz at the end, I'm sure she would have aced it. Kim, don't spoil my Scott. Now he might expect the same set of listening skills from me.

Wedding of Nick and Lianne

2009-07-02T16:29:00.001-07:00

What: The wedding of Nick and Lianne
Where: Ko Olina, Oahu
When: Sunset on a wednesday in June
All details/services provided by: Sands Of Time Weddings

(The setting light was just gorgeous)
(Little "J" who is about to be freed from his stroller)

(One of my favorites)

To see these images and the rest from this special day, please visit http://www.keaosphotography.instaproofs.com/ and click on "Nick and Lianne."

I'm sorry...you are ____?

2009-07-01T22:37:00.000-07:00

I'm thirty. I think I'm losing my memory. At first it was a big joke...I was the one who could never remember people from high school. But today, it really started to bother me...I don't remember who people are.

I loved loved loved school...probably why I went into teaching and I wish I could go back and take more college classes. But I would agree that they left out the most important life skills in education. How to small talk. How to make connections. How to understand all those deductions on your paycheck. And I definitely missed the class on how to remember people's names and faces. Seriously, such a great skill that will do you great in life.

Maternity: Kacie and the yummy Oreos

2009-06-28T19:14:00.000-07:00

What: Kacie's Maternity sesion (joined by hubby, Clinton, and little man "L")
When: a Saturday afternoon in June
Where: Kalama Beach Park

So, Kacie's session was actually a few weeks ago so she has been patiently waiting for her pictures. The wait is finally over. I aim to do maternity shoots between the 32nd and the 36th week of a woman's pregnancy. You'll get the nice baby bump but you dont' want to be too close to the end, where you may be a little more uncomfortable or...the baby might make a surprise entrance before we can get those pictures. So we had to squeeze the session into June. She brought her hubby, Clinton, and their little manly "L" to the family maternity session at Kalama Beach Park. It was a location they chose because of it's meaning and special significance, the place where Clinton proposed to Kacie and set in motion the journey their family would take together.

This was also a Joy and Light production, I was joined by another photographer, Joy Pishcura. She literally had returned to Oahu just three days earlier after being with family in Ohio for six months. I had a sprained ankle so I was hopping around the beach and so I wanted that pair of second eyes there. It was a full car because my hubby decided he wanted to go to the beach and he brought along his friend, Jasen. Don't get me wrong, I love company...if I had any complaint...it would be that when I had a shot lined up with Clinton and Kacie in a sandy pathway under trees with the sand and ocean stretching behind them....there rising out of the seas like King Triton was my husband in his bright yellow surf shorts. His only response to my frantic arm waves motioning for him to move out of the frame was "What? You don't own the beach." Oh, that's my Scott.

Little "L" is...hmmm...I think he's two. He had just come from another party and was crashed out. Then he woke up to find himself at the beach with Auntie Keao chasing him around with a camera...he was more interested in playing. So we let him play. He actually found a dollar bill just digging in the sand and then he found a lone, unclaimed boogeyboard on the beach. His dad, clinton, wisely advised him to leave it there so that everybody else would get to use it.

Thanks so much to Kacie for letting us in on their family day at the beach. Kacie is our women's worship leader at our church and we've sung together so many times. She's an absolute sweetheart. Her hubby, Clinton, is also an uber-talented musician. He played the drums with my husband's band at our wedding and he also has a T-shirt design company, No Idols. They, of course by the pictures, have an adorable little boy "L", and will be joined by their very much already-loved daughter at the end of this summer.

Here's some of my faves from the day:

And by special request (so you know i don't make up these stories), here's a little gem of the stud in the yellow surf shorts.

Don't be jealous, he's mine!!!

Oh, it's not church night

2009-06-25T14:47:00.000-07:00

I probably say this over and over again in my blogs but I have 5 nieces...all from one sister. The middle child, Lauren, is 2 1/2 years old and so adorable with tons of black silky hair and big, dark eyes. She's become a little out-of-sorts since the arrival of her younger twin sisters having now lost the limelight. So, Scott and I have been making a big effort to take her to church with us every Friday night.

When she was much younger, she hated leaving home. She was such a mommy's girl. She stayed with us for three days while my sister was at the hospital delivering twins and she cried every night. For a few months, whenever she saw me or especially Scott at her house, she assumed we were coming to take her away from mom and she would start crying. Don't believe me? Hah, see Scott's video below.

Can you believe that was a year ago?

Now she wants to be anywhere but home. She's such an explorer. She just wants to be out out out!!! She now gets so excited and when we arrive to pick her up, she's walking around the house with her slippers, hat and backpack on ready to go. She tells everyone "I go church." Granted, church to her is the big nursery filled with toys with playful butterflies on the walls, but boy does she love the idea of going to church. This past Friday, we forgot to bring her backpack, hat and slippers with us when we dropped it off. Yesterday, we had a wedding at Ko Olina so we dropped by to drop off the backpack, hat and slippers.

Oh, she got so excited when she saw us. But she really lit up when she saw her backpack. She sailed across the living room and grabbed. She then proceed to put on her backpack...then her slippers....then her hat. We were sitting down chatting with my oldest niece, Ashley and my sister. Lauren climbed into my lap and was all giggly and excited. Halfway through our stay, I looked at my sister and asked "Does she think she's going with us?" Uh-oh. I tried to tell Lauren that we were going to go home, go sleep...and we would come back for her tomorrow to go church. Of course, she's two...her grasp of English seems to be very selective. It didn't really kick in until Scott stood up and wished her good-bye that I think it sunk in. Her face just fell and her body just slumped as she folded her arms and stared at her feet. She started crying as we walked out....oh, it was so heartbreaking. Tomorrow is Friday and church night so hopefully I can atone for it. My, how things have changed.

Family: Robert and Amy with their kids

2009-06-21T20:43:00.001-07:00

Who: Robert, Amy, Manly "M" and Sweet "M"
Where: Waimanalo Beach Park
When: Monday afternoon in June

This is a "Joy and Light Production" as I was joined by my lovely second shooter Joy Pishcura. The Stanleys contacted me after seeing our mutual and dear friend Bow's maternity session followed by a newborn session with her adorable daughter. The Stanleys have been in our islands for years but are now moving to Nebraska. Wow!!! I couldn't think of two more radically different places. They wanted some family photographs on the beach that would always serve as a reminder of their days living in paradise.

I'll be honest, I was a little nervous because I knew they were a military family. Although I know tons of military families and they are just all sweethearts, I still always have this niggling fear that the dad will be a drill seargant barking out commands to start running in place and do one-arm pushups. As soon as the family tumbled out of their van and greeted us warmly with these ear-to-ear smiles, I knew this was going to be fun. And boy, was it fun. Not only did the dad, Robert, not put us through drills on the sand, he was more of a kid himself as he chased his son through the sand and surf. The kids were so photogenic, I did get a little carried away with them. They both have these striking blue eyes (I'm so jealous, I always wanted blue eyes). Both their names start with "M," as apparently, four or so more cousins do as well. So I'll call them Manly "M" and Sweet "M." Sweet "M" had just recently lost some of her front teeth, oh I remember those days. They both turned out to be avid tree climbers and adventuresome. I think they wanted to do the whole session up in the trees. You could see how much love this family have. They were always hugging each other or laughing at someone's jokes.

This was at the tail-end of my sprained ankle week. But this family were so fun and creative, the adrenaline took over and I was running around the beach...totally forgetting about my ankle. All I felt was excitement. They were such a sweet family, which I shouldn't be surprised at since they're friends with Bow (completely made of sugar and spice). I can't help but be a little sad that they're moving away and Hawaii loses an awesome 'ohana.

(I overheard Sweet "M" asking "Why is she taking pictures of our feet?" I had to giggle)

Sneak Peek: Kacie's Maternity

2009-06-16T16:57:00.001-07:00

So, let's see. Those who have taken it upon themselves to police my "Live with Less" challenge (see previous post)...I'm only trying to meet the three bolded goals.

I'm realistic...those three are a big enough challenge for me. But I appreciate the friendly scoldings I've gotten from like John-John when I try to buy lunch from McDonalds. But (said sweetly) back off, JJ, I want my fries and ice cream!!! =) I try to plan anything I can for the hours of 4 to 6 to fill in those two empty hours without a tv or computer. I sprained my ankle last week and I'm still hobbling around so it definitely puts a damper on any real activities. Scott seems to think we've switched the two hours of tv time for two hours of daily napping. But I really like the challenge so far. Try it with us, people!!! You can come over and we all sit together in my quiet living room. And I've been sticking to the <8 minute showers but I wonder if it counts because I've been averaging two showers a day.

I did sprain my ankle a week ago. Stupid running. That'll teach me to run ever. And this weekend was pretty busy with two family shoots. I usually try to space them out but timing wouldn't allow it. So, what a blessing, that God brought me a second shooter in the form of my super awesome friend, Joy. After visiting family in Ohio for a vacation that extended to SIX MONTHS, she finally returned to us. And she came to help me carry props and get more shots as I hobbled around the beach getting sand stuck to the velcro of my ankle brace. Hey, people really luck out when I can bribe her into tagging along, they get two for the price of one. And she's just a sweetheart who charms people while I'm off the to the side staring at my LCD display and grunting at the controls. It's a a great partnership.

This is just a quick sneak peek from a maternity/family shoot we did at Kalama Beach Park. I can't wait to blog about it since it was made even more colorful by my husband and our good friends tagging along so they could play in the surf at the same time. Here's a hint...me crouching in the vines and bushes.... squinting through my camera to get the shot of the couple kissing on a sandy path under the outstretched branches of two framing trees with the sky and ocean behind them...which is right when my husband choosed to rise out of the surf directly behind the couple with water glistening off his studly bare (and hairy) chest and bright yellow surf shorts. Suh-weet!!!

This was at the end of the session after we had dragged them all over the beach and I asked "hey, I know you're pregnant and all...but how would you like to lie down on the sand in a dress?" Thank goodness Kacie rocks...because she said yes and I got my favorite picture. The ocean and sky was so pretty that it almost looks like a painting.

Taking the challenge

2009-06-13T12:59:00.000-07:00

Now I'm not an Oprah watcher...but man, sometimes you jump halfway into one of her episodes while channel flipping and get sucked in. The other night, the theme was a "Live with Less" challenge, she had a challenge for families. Here's the letter she sent to families willing to take on the challenge...

Dear Family,

Thanks for agreeing to live with less for a week. Your challenge starts now!

This week, you will be eating at home every meal. No more eating out, no more takeout. And you have to eat your leftovers. If you throw food in the trash, you've got to 'fess up.

For one week, you're going to give up the bottled water habit. Get a water filter—time to get to know your tap.

No more disposable plates, cups, napkins or paper towels. Try cloth—you might like it!For entertainment, you'll have to rely on each other.

For one week, I'm asking you to give up your iPods and video games, and your computers only get turned on for homework. TV is limited to one hour per night—one TV only.

That thermostat is going way down…to 69 degrees. If you get cold, put on a sweater.

Give your washing machine a break—try to wash only clothes that are TRULY dirty.

When you leave a room, lights out. Ditto for fans. When you're done using an appliance, unplug it. Don't forget your computer and cell phone chargers too.

Showers are going to be shorter—eight minutes max. Use a kitchen timer to help you keep track.

Want to go shopping? Head to your closets. That's your wardrobe for the week. The mall is off-limits.Your final challenge—no buying anything other than food for seven days.
Good luck,Oprah

It was a really cool episode...and basically proved what I probably knew already. That, despite our complaints that we're overburdened and don't have enough time, if you cut out tv and internet distractions then you free up tons of time. I excitedly turned to Scott and said "let's totally do this challenge." And then 23 seconds later I said "well....maybe we could modify it a little." Scott laughed. I'm just being realistic...I'm a tv addict. I love just having the sound in the background while I do things.

So, for the next two weeks (and hopefully, I can keep it going longer).

1. No tv, internet, or phone for two hours (4 to 6 pm). Let's not go crazy, people, that's going to be a huge struggle for me.

2. 8 minute showers. Oh my goodness, I love showers. I don't know how long I usually take...I know I'm finished when there's not a drop of hot water left.

3. Turning lights and fans off when I leave the room.

I tend to run the washer a lot but in, my defense, I have bad allergies and you have to wash things often to kill dust mites. And we just drink tap water that we fill up water bottles so that's one easy. Um, we do use paper napkins, I would hate to use a towel...then you have to worry about ants. I'll start with these three.

So yesterday, I turned the tv off at 4 pm. I think the tv went into shock since that never happens. Scott was taking his customary afternoon nap so I read some chapters out of Crazy Love...then finished another book "Bleachers" by John Grisham. Felt like forever and a day had passed. Looked up...it was 5 pm. Oh, sheesh.

She's Back!!!

2009-06-11T17:53:00.000-07:00

I was just thinking that it's been a while since I had a session with one of my favorite models, little HB. This cute little girl with blue eyes, chubby cheeks, and heart-shaped smile just shines in photographs. Her mom wanted to update her pics so I met HB and her dad, Mike, at Kalama Beach Park. Scott came along so he and Mike sat together shaded from the afternoon sun and talked...aw, they talk at least once or twice every day. Sheesh. Haley and I roamed the grass and sandy shore. Sixteen month olds will give you a work out. I discovered that she loves loves LOVES the sand. She literally just spread out on her stomach and dug her hands and feet into the sand. It was hilarious.

I think this is a challenging age to photograph toddlers because they're mobile and their attention span is 1.8 seconds long. I'd run, sprawl out on the grass, hold the camera up...bam, too late, she's up and moved away 7 feet already. A lot of it was predicting what direction she might go in next and running to get there ahead of her. Patience. Patience will always pay off. It's advantageous that I love kids and have babysat HB before so she's comfortable with me. I sometimes consider children's sessions half-babysitting. I spend half the time just playing with toys and games with them and when I catch a moment, I take a picture. I wonder if I should just advertise that...babysitting-with-some-photography-involved sessions.

I'm sitting here with my ankle propped up. I hadn't worked out much in May so I was trying to get back on the right track. I go to a boot-camp style workout at our church with my husband...and I totally rolled my ankle while we were running in the parking lot. I'm a klutz, I've sprained my ankles tons of time. Yesterday, I could only get around by crutches or by crawling (I'm now thinking I really want to sweep and mop our house floors), but it's already tons better. Now I can put more weight on it. It's really nice to have Scott be such an attentive nurse. He took a day off from work yesterday to be my nurse and take care of our dog, Charlie, who just had surgery. Scott is so unbelievable helpful although his enthusiasm has waned a little. Hee hee.

The wedding of Trevor and Sarah

2009-06-03T14:40:00.001-07:00

What: Wedding of Trevor and Sarah
Where: Hale Koa Hotel, Luau Gardens
When: A late Sunday afternoon with May, with the heat of summer creeping in
Details for bridal party:
Hair styled by Elizabeth Worden of The Cutting Zone
Makeup by Lexi Chadwick
Flowers by Elsie Kobayashi

I love June. I've been looking forward to June and I can't believe it's here already. I prepared myself for the craziness of May, three weddings, a big birthday luau for my twin nieces, camp, a women's worship night, out-of-town family staying at our house...May certainly lived up to the hype.

And it all began with the wedding of Trevor and Sarah. Trevor works at the church with my husband and leads worship at our weekend services. He sang the communion song at my wedding. It was the greatest gift, and I am still thankful to this day. Sarah and her family are near and dear to our hearts. They are my husband's tailgating warriors every fall during UH football season. We have spent some very fun Saint Patrick's nights at their house accompanied by raucous karaoke singing. You may see Sarah's niece often on this blog, probably my most popular model (see the header pictures above). I said a lot of prayers before and during the wedding that things, because this one would mean more than photographing any other wedding before...because it was my first wedding with friends.

When I arrived, the girls were packed in a hotel room getting ready and I'll always remember that Sarah got ready last. She spent all her time helping her bridesmaids get ready. Her expertise is fashion, and she went over her bridesmaids attire meticulously, personally tying the sash on each bridesmaid dress. Her artistic eye showed itself in the colors she chose for the bridesmaids bouquets. They reminded me of the sunset. With ten minutes to go, her bridesmaids swarmed around her like mother bees as she stepped into her gorgeous dress. As we made our way to the ceremony site, her bridesmaids even threw themselves in front of her to shield her from the view of late-arriving wedding guests.

Every wedding is beautiful. We always say that you can never screw up a wedding. So it is the little things that linger in your memory. Like the little flower girls with their angel wings. We knew that the family was anxiously waiting to see if little Haley would be walking by wedding day. Alas, she almost made it but saved her first steps for later. She and the other cutesy flowergirl, Emma, were escorted down the aisle. Or the secret handshake that Sarah exchanged with her father after their walk down the aisle right before he gave away. Then during the ceremony, Trevor and Sarah took communion in their first act together as a married couple while Stephen Augustin ( of Our Distance) sang.

The reception was outside with dance floor set up on the lawn. And everyone teared up (even me with a camera pressed to my face) during the father-daugher dance with Sarah and her father, Rob. Against the night sky, they had a slideshow set up with pictures of their younger years and I remember listening to the words of one of the background songs "Tiny Dancer by Elton John" and thinking how perfectly it fit the couple. The joining of two lives, a fashion designer and her music man.

Blue Jean baby
L.A. lady, seamstress for the band
Pretty eyed, pirate smile
You'll marry a music man

Congratulations, Sarah and Trevor!!! You two are just beautiful, inside and out. Sorry, there's a lot of pics...too many faves, I love em all.

To view these images and more, you can view the online album at http://www.keaosphotography.instaproofs.com/ and also enjoy the video below.

The wedding of Joel and Rachel (May 20 '09)

2009-05-28T12:42:00.001-07:00

I can't believe it's been a year since I received an email from a lovely bride wanting to hold her wedding day on the sandy shores of Oahu. A perfect idea complicated by the small fact that she and her fiancee live in Missouri. She heard of us from a couple of friends at our church who moved here from Missouri, and she wanted us to provide officiating and photography. It is always a blessing to be able to work side-by-side with my husband, Scott. We do a fair number of weddings on our own individually so it's a real treat for us to be able to team up.

This sweet young couple (I'm starting to feel old at thirty years of age) were so excited about their Hawaiian wedding. Joel and Rachel are fun, carefree, and wanted to make their commitment solidly planted on their shared love for God.

Rachel and Joel didn't want a big fussy much-to-do wedding. Rachel had only three small requests.

1. To get married on Kailua Beach
2. To have an arch on the sand
3. To have a bouquet of her favorite flower, plumerias

That was it, all she asked for. Let see...

#1. To get married on Kailua Beach- Kailua beach, gorgeous. But for the past two years, Kailua beach has been suffering from drastic sand erosion, even unearthing old walls once hidden under the dunes of sand. She was a trouper and chose Lanikai beach, just a step farther down the same shore and one of the most beautiful beaches in Hawaii (some people might put it at #1 but we are a little biased).

#2. Arches are absurdly expensive to rent. Sigh...no arch.

#3. A plumeria bouqet. I admit it now. I was the fool who tried who even advised her against it. Plumerias are gorgeous but the most fragile flower ever. I've seen tons of weddings with plumerias as the accent flower but never as the primary bouquet, because they wilt so quickly and drastically. Rachel had an exquisite bouqet of plumerias nestled in baby's breath. It took some extra caution in preserving it the night before but it was breath-taking. It was handmade (well, I guess all bouquets are handmade huh) by Pauline of Weddings By Pauline. If you are interested, contact us for details on how to purchase.

I think you can learn so much from a couple by watching their emotions play across their faces. They were joined only by Rachel's parents, Richard and Ramonda, with the rest of their family and friends at home unable to make the long trip to Hawaii. And even though it was a Wednesday afternoon, the beach was shockingly busy, with tons of beachgoers planted on the sand, canoes (a fave local sport) sliding across the water in the background...yes, even a canoe with six young boys flipping in the water right behind the couple during the ceremony. Rachel and Joel were sharing their vows all while the boys could be seen in the distance bailing water out of their canoe. But Joel and Rachel only had eyes for each other and they couldn't even wipe the smiles off their face. It was heartwarming to watch, and their love and joy was so obvious. Their unintentional wedding guests, the fellow beachgoers, all watched intently and shouted out "Congratulations" to the newly married couple.

I would also like to say CONGRATULATIONS!!! As my husband likes to say "Marriage is wonderful, I highly recommend it to anyone." And come back to Hawaii soon!!!

The local canoe club unwittingly became wedding guests...

Not your typical church aisle...and the bride's procession was heralded by young beach-goers

Joel had this giddy smile he couldn't shake...even when I was trying to get him to take a serious pic. =)

Look for that smile again.

Plumeria bouquet from Weddings By Pauline.

I fell on my ass today

2009-05-11T23:10:00.001-07:00

I've been told to blog more...so, Dina...this one is for you. And you best be leaving some sort of acknowledgement, sistah.

I'm deliriously stumbling in Unmotivated Land here, folks. I have emails to return, wedding pictures to process, baby slideshows to finish...a house to clean. and that job thing. Ugh, i want a free assistant.

Today I had to testify in court...quick and out of there. But i couldn't find my regular court shoes so I had to wear the only other nice pair (I had my black pair break on me), which was the white heels with fake bling bling that I wore on my wedding day. Since they are kind of low and my pants are kind of long, I had vague concerns about tripping and falling on my face in front of the jury. I kind of highstepped it to the stand which probably looked insane but kept me upright. Hah, you thought this was going to be a great story of utter humuliation before a honorable judge. Nope. How did my court appearance go? My verdict...um, I'm a perfectionist, I wasn't thrilled with my testimony. Talked too much, went into too much details. There has to be a nice balance.

No the real fun happened when i returned home to find Scott chilling with his best bud, Mike, and my best bud, Haley. I think I might have made some offhand comment that I wished my hammock chair (lying in a crumpled heap on the living room floor) was up and twisting in the wind outside so I could rock away. Two men to the rescue. They spent quite a bit of time, grappling with problems like an inadequate rope, a place to hang it, it being too high and too low. They finally called me out and unveiled the hammock chair hanging from the mango tree...the seat probablly a good 4-5 ft off the ground. I tried to jump up into it and managed to get one knee on top but then I was swinging on my knees facing backwards. I want to twist around but I'm also swinging erratically at some insane height off the ground. I think I'll try to do a quick, jump, twist. So I grasped the ropes and tried to jump off my knee and twist...and...

...bammm, i'm suddenly transported to the a heap on the ground with the broken swing now on top of me. One of the ropes gave out under my monstrous weight (sheesh, boot camp, kick in soon) and the chair literally disappeared under me. At least, Mikey pulled the swing off of me...Scott was too busy doubled over in laughter mumbling something about "oh, if I only had a camera...if I only had a camera." I asked him how come he didn't rush to my side and he gave some excuse about holding Haley or something like that. So I stood up and looked at my ex-chair swing-now a cushion dangling by one cord from the tree branch and i see the culprit...they used zip ties to bind the chair hook to the metal chain. That's what you get when two grown men decide all of the sudden they are MacGyvers.

But I can't complain, because after much time and effort, my green hammock chair now swings softly from the porch beam and I spent 20 minutes swaying in the wind...nursing my bruised ego. All is well with the world.

New to the World: 2nd portfolio building newborn session baby Gabriel

2009-05-02T05:47:00.001-07:00

Hello folks. I'm back. I can't believe it but tonight is the last night on my midnight shift. I'm actually switching next week to regular business hours at work and thus the concept of ....SLEEPING AT NIGHT. Whoa...shocking. I'm super excited and super nervous because I have a big wedding in less than two days. So I took some time to finish up the session for baby Gabriel's newborn session.

Who: John Victor Gabriel
Proud parents: John and Whitni
Birth Stats: 6.13 oz and 18 inches long on a blistery Hawaiian Thursday (maybe not blistery) in April
Lifetime Achievements: MORE hair than most grown men
Session Age: (7 days old)

I recruited friend, Abby, to take me to photograph Gabriel's newborn session on-location at his home on Kaneohe Marine Corps Base. We were greeted by sweet smiling, but slightly tired mommy "Whitni." It seems that little Gabriel loves eating and did so for hours and hours the night before. She said he just fell asleep an hour or so earlier. She fed him a little more and than brought him down. I hadn't had a chance to see him (only through cell phone pictures) because of my persistent cold, but he was even cuter than the pictures. Thick silky dark hair and his mom's nose. He seemed to be awake but didn't want to open his eyes, instead he just yawned and smiled as if he was telling himself non-stop knock-knock jokes.

We were joined by our other friend (man this house is social and busy for 8 in the morning), Stacy, who lived nearby and just walked over. She's majoring in photography so she brought her film SLR. We only managed to get through half the poses because when we started to reposition him, little Gabriel decided he was ready for meal number 7 of the day. He started knawing on the blanket and chewing away with his little adorable gums. "Um...Whitni...I think he might be hungry again."

Behind the scenes: Now this is the second newborn session I've tried to practice with. And they are tough!!! I so need more practice. Hmmm, who else is giving birth soon that would trust their 8 day old baby with me. Kacie is the next on but her baby girl isn't coming until the end of summer. There is a variety of poses that are like this one

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kelleyryden/3488001710/

So unreal. Newborn photographers do it all the time. Apparently you have to have a newborn under the age of 10 days because they sleep really deeply and can fall asleep in these poses. I read to use a beanbag and I bought one (hard to find)...but the first newborn kept sinking. I found a tip to use a rubber band to make the beanbag more firm. All set to try it again. Except, Gabriel was hungry so as soon as I tried to flip on his stomach, he started chewing the blanket. Session over. I don't know if I'll ever be able to master this area of photography. Kelley Ryden is amazing though.

Here's my faves from the day. I hope they captured how sweet and easy-going he is. He already shows such a sunny disposition and smiles away the day. (BTW, check out the new logo)

*(the second is one of my favorites. Look at him chomping on his fingers!!!)

(this one was all John and Whitni's idea...pretty creative on such little sleep)

New To the World: Welcome Baby Gabriel

2009-04-25T07:36:00.000-07:00

If you see me wearing my glasses instead of contacts to work, you know I'm tired. Last night was worship practice, tonight was dinner for the in-law's 22nd anniversary, tomorrow morning is boot camp (exercise class that makes it hard for me to get up from a prone position for days), and then a photo session in the afternoon. And before all this, I stopped by to finally visit my friends, Whitni and John, and their baby boy, Gabriel. Gabriel just hit his 1 week mark when I finally got to see him, I was sidelined due to a persistent cold and hacking cough that lingered.

Speaking of which, Scott and I believed that we got sick from watching our favorite little girl, Miss HB, who was dreadfully sick. She had recovered fully when I babysat her this past week and she was soooo adorable, as usual. I gave her plenty of hugs and kisses. A few days later, Scott told me that her parents wouldn't be joining us for a bbq because little Miss HB had developed some sort of "hacking cough." To which, Scott pointedly looked at me and said "Hmmm, I wonder who else I know with a hacking cough." I don't know. I was just as confused as him.

Anyways, here's a sneak peek...this is my favorite and probably the best image from Baby Gabriel's debut session.

In case you forgot, here's where he was a month ago...

From two people blissfully in love....

comes one blessing content to be loved.

The rest of his session to come....stay tuned.

John and Whitni-A Maternity Session

2009-04-20T17:04:00.000-07:00

John and Whitni, a couple waaaaaayyyyy younger than Scott and me (well way more younger than Scott at least) but married twice as long. They are high school sweethearts from Alaska. Interesting, huh? I think anyone from Alaska automatically earns 50 cool points. They joined our minichurch. One Wednesday night, we were sharing prayer requests and they shared that they really wanted a baby. Seriously, the next week they came back and said "guess what, we're pregnant!!!" They made it look so easy.

I have so much respect for military couples. What a lifestyle, one that I can't even begin to comprehend. They uproot their lives, move to a completely different state and start fresh. Finding churches. Finding jobs. Making friends. Three years later and it's back to square one. And then Whitni was in her third trimester when they learned that John would be deployed and it looked like he would leave right before the birth of their first child. Whitni was simply amazing. Just took it in stride and was never anything but her positive, sweet self.

So I met them on base at their home. We aimed for early morning but I think I'm going to aim for late afternoons now. We didn't get going until nine and then the sun was up and beating down on us. We finally headed inside, hot and sweaty, and finished the session crammed in the corner of what would become baby Gabriel's room.

Can you tell I'm busy, because I took these pictures when she still had a month to go. And they are now parents...of a little bouncing and beautiful baby boy, Gabriel. And a praise report, John's orders were changed and he was and is NOT being deployed. Yah Yah!!!

Troy and Bow have a baby girl

2009-04-11T11:32:00.000-07:00

My dad used to tell me that beautiful people have ugly kids...then joking-ly say "too bad for you kids that me and mom are so good-looking." At least, I hope he was joking. But, alas, I don't believe him for a second because, time after time, I see beautiful people with even more beautiful babies. Troy and Bow who rocked their maternity session a month ago are now the official beautiful parents of an even more beautiful baby girl, Mikaela.

Mikaela has tons of soft, silky black hair and I caught her sneaking some smiles in her sleep. These pics were taken in the family living room and accented by the tantalizing smell of what appeared to be home-made meat jun cooked by proud grandma, visiting all the way from Thailand. Mom was on hand to help me pose little Mikaela. Scott and I don't have kids yet so I'm still nervous handling such small little newborns. They look so delicate. Everytime we got her where we wanted, I could finally breathe again. Seriously, this session was just practice for me...and it was way harder than I thought it would be. I was sweating bullets. And the pink box pose, at one point, she started to wake up and roll off...whoa nelly. Bow didn't freak out which I was thankful for, I think I was more nervous.

And the first two are shots that I really like from other photographer's streams and was real excited to try. I spent forever trying to find a beanbag which I read is the key. But, then I got lost. After putting the baby on top of the beanbag, she would immediately start sinking into it. What to do? I had to cheat and put books under the beanbag to try to make it more firm and then I ended up adding a little pillow. Hmm, I may have to ask people. Seriously Bow was so helpful. I would show her what I was trying to go for and she would try her best to pose Mikaela. And even though they just fed her before i got there, she was fidgety and hungry until they fed her again and then she fell deeply asleep. So much easier once she was full and asleep.

Here is little Mikaela...

Irish and dylan at Kualoa Ranch

2009-04-09T11:51:00.000-07:00

What: Senior Portrait Session with Dylan and his sis, Irish
When: Prince Kuhio Day, March 26th, 2009
8:00 am
Where: Kualoa Ranch

I have to give props to bow, Bow, whose maternity session . She worked it by sending out emails linking to her maternity session post and it really generated great word of mouth. She also gave birth to a beautiful little baby girl, Mikaela (not one of the two spellings we were working with in their session hee hee). Stay tuned for some pics for little Mikaela's newborn session.

Anyways, after Bow's maternity session, I received an email from Gina, a friend of Bow and a friend of mine. I've known Gina for a few years already, we both volunteer in the baby nursery at Hope Chapel Kaneohe Bay every other Sunday. She's also a good friend of Bow's and loved the pictures. She asked if I would consider taking senior pictures of her son, Dylan, and doing a portrait session with her daughter,Irish, on the same day. Um, Gina, of course. I knew Irish because she, like her mom, also volunteers in the nursery but I hadn't met Dylan before so mom had to email me his school picture. We set the day for Prince Kuhio Day, a State of Hawaii holiday, for which I'm not really sure why. Scott is going to mock my hawaiian education, considering I went to a school only for part-Native Hawaiians, but I don't know who or what Prince Kuhio did. I think Kuhio was from the Big Island too because we have a mall named after him in Hilo.

It was realy awesome for me because Gina chose the day and the location. When people leave it up to me, it's so much harder...you can go in so many different directions depending on the location. Beach casual? Urban sidewalks? Woods? I was super nervous and I studied up (flickr my favorite place) on poses and angles. Gina chose an awesome location, she knew someone at Kualoa Ranch and was able to get a permit. Good thing, because it's got so much variety, I went on overload. And they are pretty strict, someone drove up to kick us out but Gina shouted out the magic word "permit." I met her, Dylan and Irish there at 8 in the morning. Poor things, having to wake up so early when you don't have school. And I was a little nervous because Gina claimed that Dylan and Irish didn't like taking pictures. If that's the case, I don't know who she swapped in for them because these two teens were complete hams. Seriously, you can never call these two shy. The location was so awesome and just fun to explore. They climbed trees and walls so I had the easy job of just chasing after them. We were done in no time at all and I LOVED their pictures.

My biggest downfall, I used a really small fstop which means completely short depth of field. It makes for great blurry backgrounds. But, up close, their eyes would be in focus but not their mouth. I should have closed down my aperture a bit. Lesson learned.

Dylan is laid-back, his mom says always reading a book or playing a video game. Once the camera turned on him, he gave Zoolander a run for his money.

We don't have fields of wheat but I finally found a field that I could get this shot. I'm always tempted to let our yard get seriously overgrown so i can use my backyard, but I think my neighbors would glare at me.

I love this next one...I don't know why. He just looks like he's the king of the castle.

Irish, the slightly younger sister, is not shy at all. She's an avid volleyball player and you can see her every other Sunday in a room full of 2 year olds at church. She's also gorgeous, just look at the photos.

Irish was resisting the urge to play up her farmer side...she cracked me up.

I love this next shot, I wish I had taken a few more and had them pose. But Irish was just climbing up and I got nervous and had her come down. There was a significant drop on the other side.

This one...MY FAVORITE!!!

This was my first senior portrait session and my subjects are usually well over twenty or under the age of three, so I was a tad nervous. Can I just say, that was the most fun session ever!!! I had to call Scott on the way home and just gush about the entire experience. Thanks to Gina for raising beautiful kids, and Dylan and Irish for being totally cool with my crazy ideas and going with it. You guys rock!!!

PS. Scott and I both have sore throats. Pray for us.

Growing Up: Sneak Peek at Dylan and Irish Portraits

2009-04-01T13:59:00.001-07:00

Here's my absolute top two faves from this session with Dylan and Irish. I promised their mom I would post my faves as soon as possible.

Okay, Gina. I'm getting right back to work. You have such cute kids and they were so much fun (just like their mom)!!!

Just Me: Black Eggs and Ham

2009-03-28T04:30:00.001-07:00

I'm a forgetful person, I've come to grips with it. There's a reason why I wear everything important on a lanyard and hang it around my neck like a crazy person. I'm not a dumb person. I went to graduate school and got a master's degree in Cell and Molecular Biology. Ten years later, I can still describe in detail the expression of DNA to the production of proteins. I can remember those things, but ask me where I put my keys and I draw a blank. You can literally hand me my cell phone and wait five minutes. If it's not in my pocket, most likely, I will have absolutely no memory of putting it down anywhere. I really have to focus on mundane tasks and repeat it to myself "check on the desk" a couple of times to make some sort of memory impression. Okay, that's the background, here's the story.

This past week, I woke up at three in the morning after falling asleep at 6 pm the day before. Energized, I hit my to-do list with unbridled energy. By the time lunchtime had arrived, I had done three loads of laundry, vacuumed, swept and mopped...it was awesome. In the midst of all that, I had also put some eggs on the stove to hardboil for my salads at work. Remember that detail...because I didn't.

My sister asked me to meet her at the mall on the other side of the island. I had taken some pictures of her twin daughters for her to use for their 1st birthday invitations. We met at the mall, designed some invitations...and then she asked if I wanted to eat lunch. Sure. I love lunch. We went to California Pizza Kitchen, one of absolute faves, and had the most scrumptious lunch. Oh, diet begone...I had the artichoke dip and fettucine alfredo pasta. So, almost three hours after leaving home, I finally get in my car to make the drive home...stuffed and content.

Should I stop at the store? Do I need anything? I know I have enough eggs....eggs...why does eggs keep nagging my mind...

OMG!!!

I have a clear memory of putting eggs in a small pot of water on the stove to boil and I KNOW i never went back. It's now three hours later. I called Scott...no answer. I called my mother-in-law...she's at work. I called my brother-in-law....wait, Scott is finally calling me back. He's at church. I tell him to race home. He hangs up immediately and I'm left driving on the H-3 with white knuckles clutching the steering wheel. I call my sister and explain what I did and there's some frightening silence interrupted by "Oh no"s. I ask for prayer...but what do I pray for. What's the minimum damage I can pray for. We just got a new roommate who is in Maui on spring break. How bad would I feel having to say "hey there, I'm sorry but your stuff kind of got burned up in a small house fire." And, wait, if the kitchen did catch fire, wouldn't our neighbors notice and call the fire department. How come no one called us? Wait, they don't have our phone numbers....These are the thoughts that cross my mind. Expect the worst, pray for the best.

The most scared twenty minute drive of my life.

Scott got home ten minutes before I did. A scorched pot...a really bad smell...but that was it. God is great...AMEN!!! I know that God delivered me out of this one. So, thankfully, my wonderful husband was just shaking his head in bewilderment and looking at the exploded egg pieces over our kitchen. He also brought up that last week, I called him at four in the morning because I remembered that I had left a chicken baking in the oven six hours prior (that he had already discovered and taken out). And I haven't used the stove since this little incident, I am going to come up with some system...maybe a big stop sign on our front door.

It's odd because I swear I put three eggs in the pot but now there's only two. And we found small pieces of egg and egg shells on the floor and walls...some by the piano which is not only ten feet away from the stove, but it's not even in eyesight of the stove...somehow the egg piece must have had a curved flight. Still, all the egg shards don't quite add up to the missing egg.

Eggs anyone? (we added the water to cool it down before trashing it)

And yesterday, I found some still on the wall and on top of the fridge:
(top of fridge)

(cupboard door)

Wedding: T and B north shore

2009-03-27T00:53:00.000-07:00

What: Wedding of Tiffany and Bill
Where: North shore of Oahu's coast
When: March 20th, 2009, 4:00 pm

Scott and I had the chance to work together again. A local wedding planner requested our services, this time on the north shore at Kawela Bay. Scott and I have never been there. He drove, 1) cause I like when he drives and 2) because I was still half asleep having to cut my sleep in half to get to this wedding on time. We drove past the acces path the first time, probably thrown off by the "No trespassing" signs posted over the fence.

The sun was blazing overhead which I thoroughly dislike for photos because it's too harsh. I tried using my flash as a fill flash but it just kept blowing out the exposure. I am watching a lighting DVD and am trying to learn, but when the pressure is on and time is running out, you start getting frantic. However, before the ceremony, I took pictures of the flower girl and bride in the shade of a banyon grove and I loved it. For the formal pictures, I had scott hold a screen to provide some shade and relief to the wedding party.

There was a man there playing ukulele and singing accompaniment music for the ceremony. The ceremony was really small and quick so he was finished after like 20 seconds...so he just kept playing while I took pictures of the bride and groom and family. It was really nice...mood music. I sang harmony (softly of course so only I could hear). After we were finished, he came up and turns out he was my classmate from Farrington upper campus. He said "i know you never recognize me cause I was wearing da sunglasses. I'm the one with da nice eyes. See, still got em!!!" And he pulled off his shades to reveal green eyes. Scott and I thought that was funny. It's true, at a school with all part-Hawaiian, green or blue eyes really distinguished you.

I finally put up $24 bucks for the next year to upgrade my flickr account just so I can control the sizes of the images I blog. On the free account, you're only given three sizes and if you try to resize it, you risk getting pixelly. I've finally learned that the web only cares about pixel size, not inches. So all these images are 800 pixels on the long side. Finally, after how long, I've learned. It was just freaky because on high resolution, 800 pixels wide means that these photos are only like an inch high.

I'll post soon about a cooking mishap. Stay tuned.

Wedding: Sneak Peek of Tiffany and Bill

2009-03-23T06:47:00.000-07:00

Wedding of Tiffany and Bill
Where: North Shore, Oahu
When: March 20th, 2009 at 4 pm

This was the flower girl, I believe she was the groom's daughter. This was in the banyan grove between the road and the beach. This was before the ceremony so I didn't want her to waste or dirty too many flower petals. So, she only tossed about four in the air and I cloned/copied the petals to create a shower. It was a little easier because the background was blurred enough so the petals had a defined outline. I used the magnetic lasso tool to trace around a petal, copied it to a new layer...then moved and distorted the size and angle of the petal. Repeat a couple times.

I played around with this trick with Sammie's confetti shower. There was a light background so I copied/cloned groups of stars and spread them around. Sometimes I would rotate or invert the group. Here's a game, draw circles around similar groups...you heard me. Pick up that permanent pen and go to it. I'm sure you can figure a way to scrape it off the computer screen later.

My thoughts: Black and White conversions

2009-03-21T06:18:00.001-07:00

So I know I posted this in the previous post, but I love it. And it brings to mind black and white conversions. Black and white conversions are key when you're trying to achieve a certain look, add an artistic flair, and it's also an escape if your colors are off in your photograph. Black and white is very forgiving for skin tones or color casts. The problem is that I suck at black and whites. If you just convert your color photograph to black and white (grayscale or desaturated), it looks blah. And all my black and whites look blah. They will look very flat, very gray. You have to adjust it to get deep blacks and bright whites and add in interest. I couldn't for figure it out for the life of me. I added blacks but the skin still just looked gray.

My last post had tons of black and white, cause I found an action I really like. I downloaded a free set of photoshop actions from Pioneer Woman http://thepioneerwoman.com/photography/2008/04/actions/. She has two black and white conversions, but I found I like to use the "soft and faded" action and just turn off the sepia "tweak" layer. So awesome, I just select, hit play....and voila. I do adjust the "soft and faded" layer which is a screen layer (lightening layer). And then after I flatten all the layers into one image, I use selective color to bump up the blacks a little. Still working on it, but at least my black and whites are finally showing improvement.

Growing Up: Sammie's 1st Birthday

2009-03-21T06:03:00.000-07:00

Today is Samantha's 1st birthday. Sammie turns 1. Her mom and I have been trying to get together to take pictures of this little girl for a while. With six days to her first birthday, we just scraped it in. Before she was born, Kanani showed me pics of her other kids when they were babies and told me "my babies don't have hair but they're the cutest babies you'll ever see." I thought she was just speaking with a mother's bias, but she was right. Sammie has these big eyes with the longest lashes, simply striking.

I showed up at their house early Monday morning. Sammie is not my biggest fan, she usually clings to mom constantly (and I'm not exaggerating with the word "constantly"). However, since I met them on location at their house, she was in her comfort zone. And when I unpacked my bags of goodies...alphabet blocks...my lens and flashes, she became my best bud. And since mom was adventurous and let us try all sorts of poses, Sammie was delighted to find that she could now climb on anything she wanted. All rules went out the door. But the real delight, was when mom brought out the cupcake with yummy pink frosting. Too bad, she dropped it frosting side down and spent ten minutes digging through the cupcake trying to find it. I hope I got enough good ones. She's a smiler but quick...she mastered walking weeks ago and has moved on to jogging.

Wedding

2009-03-14T06:56:00.001-07:00

Just me and my life-Trying to get fit

2009-03-06T02:30:00.000-08:00

Following Scott and my adventure doing the Great Aloha Run (see Scott's blog), I was inspired.

Early sunday morning, the first morning of March 2009, I found myself at Kapiolani Park surrounded by a crowd of women all wearing pastel dry weave running tanks and black shorts. I actually used to love running, I ran track, soccer, and mostly just for fun. The only community runs I did was the Straub Women's 10K race back in high school. Fifteen years later, and 20...30...maybe 40 lbs heavier, I signed up again. I've been running a little frequently but I mix it in with a lot of walking so I wasn't sure how I'd do, but I was really curious to find out.

Sunday, March 1st 2009

5:00 phone alarm goes off
5:00-5:15 Hitting snooze alarm multiple times...even lying on cell phone to muffle sound
5:30 rushing to the car with tons of stuff for church
5:31 stopping to toss some stuff into Scott's car
5:32 In car and going going going
5:42 Pondering "I did toss my running shoes in the car, right? Yah, I definitely did."
6:10 Finding a sweet parking spot only 1/4 mile from the race start
6:10 Sitting in my car realizing that I maybe didn't bring my shoes after all

Yup, I'm sitting, all decked out in my workout clothes...and my black rubbah slippahs. Hmm. I called Scott and woke him up all distraught. Even in a deep sleep, he was able to offer insightful advice. He thought I should go to the officials and ask if I could borrow their shoes. He was really serious. When I didn't jump at the idea of asking strangers to lend me their shoes, he volunteered to jump in the car and bring me my shoes. Yah, Scottie, my hero!!!

While waiting, I jumped in line for the bathroom at Kapiolani Park which took forever...scott actually had drive from Kaneohe to Waikiki before I got to the front of the line...and that's even with the women taking over the men side as well. Much to the dismay of the very drunk weird guy who kept yelling "what? You got to be kidding me!!!" even as he patiently stood at the end of the line. And Scott got there five minutes before the starting gun went off, bless my bestest husband ever.

As I stood in the crowd of maybe a couple hundred women and waited nervously for the race start, I started to get the feel that perhaps I'm a little behind the times. All these girls that these earbuds with cords that disappeared into these cute little miniscule white mp3 players on armbands or in some pocket.

Here's my music player of choice:

I can't believe these are out of style already...I finally made the big switch from a walkman to the discman a few years ago. Scott and I hosted a dinner at someone else's house and the host apologized that the stereo system was broken but offered IPOD speakers. Scott and I had to scoff a little and say "IPOD? We don't have IPODS."

I also can't stand having things in my pockets. So, guess what was clenched in my sweaty hand for 6 miles.

And let's face it, I'm not in the best shape. Check out these chubby legs. Do they look like capable of speed? I think not. These babies are meant for sitting on the couch watching Top Chef.

During the run, I tried to pace myself but I pushed myself too hard in the middle section cause I died at the end. I had to start walking at the end but then people kept stopping and encouraging me to run with them. So, when I crossed the line, I felt like I was going to throw up. And they have volunteers that form a tunnel and channel you to the middle of the park. They were waving their hands in my face and I pushed through them praying "please don't throw up on them...don't throw up...don't throw up." Thankfully I finally calmed down and got my breath back.

I'm so proud of myself and I want to keep going with this.
Final Time ~ 1 hr 7 min (10.8 min/mile)

Straub Women's 10K Run-Check

2009-03-02T20:08:00.000-08:00

Following Scott and my adventure doing the Great Aloha Run (see Scott's blog), I was inspired.

Early sunday morning, the first morning of March 2009, I found myself at Kapiolani Park surrounded by a crowd of women all wearing pastel dry weave running tanks and black shorts. I actually used to love running, I ran track, soccer, and mostly just for fun. The only community runs I did was the Straub Women's 10K race back in high school. Fifteen years later, and 20...30...maybe 40 lbs heavier, I signed up again. I've been running a little frequently but I mix it in with a lot of walking so I wasn't sure how I'd do, but I was really curious to find out.

Sunday, March 1st 2009

5:00 phone alarm goes off
5:00-5:15 Hitting snooze alarm multiple times...even lying on cell phone to muffle sound
5:30 rushing to the car with tons of stuff for church
5:31 stopping to toss some stuff into Scott's car
5:32 In car and going going going
5:42 Pondering "I did toss my running shoes in the car, right? Yah, I definitely did."
6:10 Finding a sweet parking spot only 1/4 mile from the race start
6:10 Sitting in my car realizing that I maybe didn't bring my shoes after all

Yup, I'm sitting, all decked out in my workout clothes...and my black rubbah slippahs. Hmm. I called Scott and woke him up all distraught. Do I just give up and come home? I don't think I can run in slippers and I have to be at church soon so I don't have time to just walk. Scott to the rescue. He jumped in his Saturn and volunteered to drop off my shoes.

While waiting, I jumped in line for the bathroom at Kapiolani Park which took forever...scott actually had drive from Kaneohe to Waikiki before I got to the front of the line...and that's even with the women taking over the men side as well. Much to the dismay of the very drunk weird guy who kept yelling "what? You got to be kidding me!!!" even as he patiently stood at the end of the line. And Scott got there five minutes before the starting gun went off, bless my bestest husband ever.

As I stood in the crowd of maybe a couple hundred women and waited nervously for the race start, I started to get the feel that perhaps I'm a little behind the times. All these girls that these earbuds with cords that disappeared into these cute little miniscule white mp3 players on armbands or in some pocket.

Here's my music player of choice:

I can't believe these are out of style already...I finally made the big switch from a walkman to the discman a few years ago. Scott and I hosted a dinner at someone else's house and the host apologized that the sterio system was broken but offered IPOD speakers. Scott and I had to scoff a little and say "IPOD? We don't have IPODS."

I also can't stand having things in my pockets. So, guess what was clenched in my sweaty hand for 6 miles.

And let's face it, I'm not in the best shape. Check out these chubby legs. Do they look like capable of speed? I think not. These babies are meant for sitting on the couch watching Top Chef.

You can't handle the truth

2009-02-27T02:56:00.000-08:00

So, a part of my job is being able to testify in court. It was a part of my training, I had to testify in a mock trial. I thought I did really well, but my coworker and I got blasted out of the water in our evaluation and it depressed me. I've gotten subpoena-d (what is the past tense of subpoena?)twenty times at least but have goten away with never having to testify in the last year and half.

My luck ran out this past Monday. I can't go into details. I can tell you this. I had to wake up freaking early to check in a circuit court at 8:30 in the morning. I met a coworker at work at seven am to ride together. So, first, I had to find my court clothes...thankfully I found the pants in the back of our closet. Then I was running out of time, and i couldn't find my makeup bag. I found part of it and just grabbed it and ran to my car.

It wasn't until I got to work that I really started to evaluate my "court" attire. I guess my pinstriped pants doesn't really match my nice fitted gray jacket. In fact, in the sunlight, the pants look way more brown than gray. The worst is when I opened my makeup bag and discovered that I had stocked it for make-up for my last big event...my 80's themed birthday party in October. No lipstick and only a palette of bright neon eyeshadows. I kid you not, not a subtle color anywhere there. I had to settle with the fuschia and hope it melded in..especially when I started to turn red on stand. I also used some of the eyeshadow as a hint of lip color. I was the MacGyver of make-up. But, if you got past all that...I looked good!!!

I did have to resist the urge to blurt out "You can't handle the truth" when I was asked my name and occupation. And I have no idea what I was saying sometimes because I just kept fixating on whether I should fold my hands on my lap or on the counter. I wish I wasn't such a nervous dork sometimes.

Troy and Bow-A Valentine's Maternity Session

2009-02-22T19:04:00.001-08:00

Who: Troy and Bow a.k.a. "Expecting Parents"
Where: Their beautiful hale on the shore of Kaneohe Bay
Oahu, Hawaii
When: February 14th, 2009, 9 am

A year or two ago, Scott and I were filmed in this little skit about couples and love life with another couple from our church, Troy and Bow. One 2 minute ditty and I still see pictures from that clip at church everywhere I turn. Now a few years later, and Troy and Bow are just a few weeks away from their first little blessing. Bow is a petite woman and I was really worried about getting too close to her due date and having her feel too uncomfortable. I didn't have to worry...she climbed on piers and sat over the water for me. She was such a trooper. And I had to be careful to pose her to show her belly because you couldn't even tell she was pregnant from a lot of angles. She photographed beautifully...absolutely beautiful. I think I have my model for any portfolio building.

I had asked them prior to the session what they planned to name their baby daughter, but I wasn't sure what the exact spelling. I was still confused when I arrived because I hadn't heard a definitive answer, and I found out why. They are still on the fence with two alternative spellings for the name. I didn't want to pressure them to make a life-long decision in the next ten minutes so...if you see multiple versions of the same shot...that's why!! And their property is right on Kaneohe Bay. Gorgeous. And windy. So when a gust of wind tossed my reflector over the wall onto the shore...I jumped over a little too hastily to retrieve it before it rolled into the water. Big mistake. Apparently, the "shore" was really just a dry crust over thick swampy mud. Oi!!! I sank to my ankles. I had to wave off Troy, the gentleman, who was moving to jump down to help me. I'm Big Island. Mud don't scare me.

Hah, I really love this one...

See, can YOU tell that she's pregnant?
I
I almost forgot it was Valentine's Day (Scott and I are such the romantics) until I saw all the balloons Troy had set up everywhere for Bow. Aw...and he made us both breakfast.

This is them just being cutesy while I was trying to get my camera set up.

Look, they had such fun locations on their property.

Look, A DOCK!!! They said I could use it anytime....sweet.

These are just my favorites.

Sneak Peek-Troy and Bow's Blessing-In-Waiting

2009-02-18T13:23:00.001-08:00

I just got back from a weekend in Maui so I'm using my first minutes back in civilization (not a knock on Maui, Kelii!!!) to upload some sneak peek photos from a maternity session from this past weekend. I went straight from this session to a one-year birthday party to work on Saturday...running...ahem, I mean slow jogging/moderate walking 8 miles in Monday's Great Aloha Run followed by a 36 hour trip to Maui. Can't believe I made it and dreading the return to my hum-ho every day life. Here's my favorites so far from an awesome session with two very excited expectant parents.

Adventures in Babysitting

2009-02-12T03:10:00.000-08:00

I have kind of an odd job...if you watch CSI...my job is a deglamorized version of that. Most people are pretty surprised when they find out...they seem to put me in the category of preschool teachers or librarians (which I admit I would love to do either). However, my job is very practical, stress-free, and very secure. I am so blessed, especially in this rough patch in the economy. My days off are pretty variable so I had yesterday and today off.

So, I went to my older sister's and watched her 9 month old twin girls so she could get out and run errand.Man, my nieces are adorable...but, oh, boy...they can wreak havoc. They are now mobile...they can crawl. They can pull themselves up and thus pull things down. And their new favorite snack is paper. They kept me busy and sometimes I just sat and watched them destroy things together because it was just fascinating to watch. I came home and told Scott "I want twins." He said "okay, as long as they are born two years apart."

Hmmm, I guess that's a no.

I'm trying to blog but I'm a little distracted watching Top Chef. I definitely have a crush on Fabio. Scott knows...I must tell him 10 times during every episode.

I'm back at work

2009-02-05T19:46:00.000-08:00

I took a week of vacation... I didn't go anywhere but I did have a wonderful time.
And now here I am...back at work. *Sigh. It's not too bad.

This month will be pretty filled with change. Stanton is trying to close on a townhouse and then he'll be moving out. We're getting a new roommate, a girl from our church whose lease is running out this month. But, it looks like it's both up in the air when the moves are happening. But it is a blessing to me and Scott because I was pretty worried about financially trying to make it when Stanton moves out.

Anybody want to see "He's Just Not That Into You?"

Wedding Bells-Heather and Brandon

2009-02-05T19:41:00.000-08:00

A month ago, I got an call from Moana Bjur, from Sands of Time Weddings. I've photographed weddings for her before and I have always loved her weddings. They're beautiful down to the smallest details and so well-organized, which I love (I'm a high S and C in the DISC personality tests). This time was different because she also needed an officiant and so, my hubby, Scott got a call too and we got to work together. The couple, Heather and Brandon, had asked for the officiant to wear a solid colored shirt, preferably blue. I was thinking a muted blue or maybe a navy. But, no, the morning of the wedding Scott pulled out this bright, vivid blue shirt. He insisted on it, saying it was a "non-aloha" aloha shirt. I don't know what that means. Thankfully, he didn't steal the spotlight because all eyes were on the Heather and Brandon. The groom, Brandon, is stationed nearby on the Kaneohe Bay Marine and the men were in their dress blues. I've never been to a Marine wedding. Although we had colder weather this past few months, the morning was pretty warm and I didn't envy the groomsment in their uniforms.

Kailua Beach is our stomping grounds but I have never been to a wedding there. It was a young, fun wedding...including the classical procession music played from the groom's jeep, the bride going barefoot under her beautiful strapless gown, and of course, the family having way too much fun with the formal portraits. We also had a few beach-goers who sat nearby and watched the whole wedding. That's Kailua, my old hometown for you. I tried my best to try to photoshop out the shirtless old man sitting in the sand behind the whole ceremony

The Worden Family

2009-01-25T01:30:00.000-08:00

Well, she's been the star for the past 11.5 months and now it's time to show off her Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes lookalike parents. I wanted to do an urban feel with this family, actually, Mikey wanted to take the pictures in a bowling alley. I thought...hmmm, maybe that can be my next challenge...for this one, I just wanted a nice red brick wall. Easy to say, hard to find. So, instead, I drove around my house and found some pretty good locations. Longs, Zia's and a park, all within 0.7 miles of my house...perfect.

These took a lot of work just because I couldn't even think of the best ways to pose Mike and Liz, I was too focused on getting a picture where all three of them were looking at the camera. I had to do a bit of PSing to create those pics where I get all three straight on. Still, I have even more pictures that I want to work on because they are really good...but I have to catch up with some actual work (you know, my actual job) first. I wish Scott would get a great raise...and be the sole breadwinnder. Come on, Scott.

Sleep just gets in the way of living

2009-01-22T02:40:00.000-08:00

I have so much I want to do that I wish I could just skip a night of sleep every week just to get more time to do those things. Like tonight, so excited...stuff I want to read, things I want to look up, things I want to write...ugh, stupid sleep. I know Scott feels the exact opposite. If he could find a way to sleep more, he would quit his job.

I haven't posted anything in a while. I'm on third watch and I do miss hanging out with people. I have less time so I have to do the basics and put socializing second. But I did have a Sunday off and I got to walk Maluhia Gardens with Abby and Jen. I've never been there before. They are so much fun to talk to. It's like being in high school where you just gab about the boys you like, except now you just talk about your husbands. Same thing, we're just a little older and walk a little slower.

Tomorrow, I'm taking photographs of Haley and her creators...whoa, that sounds weird. I had this idea of a beach shoot, writing Haley's name in the sand...blue sky and oceans, vast white sands. Mikey said "that's not us, we don't go to the beach." So, I drove around today and found three possible sites we are going to try out tomorrow. Here's crossing my fingers.

I'm essential!!!

2009-01-16T18:14:00.001-08:00

Not always good news.

Oahu is kicking up a windstorm. Yesterday morning, Scott and I woke to find a lot of items previously not on the floor now on the floor. After I dragged Scott to the gym and then went to work, I started hearing whispers of some Mayor-given directive. We're isolating two floors below ground so we're in a little cocoon. But later in the night, the higher-ups actually drove back in to town and our director came to talk to us. Apparently, because of the impending high winds still to come, Mayor Mufi had issued the day off for all non-essential city workers. And our supervisor told us "technically, you guys are NON-essential." Yah!!! I was pretty happy being non-essential.

Then our director came in later and said "No, technically, you guys are still non-essential, but we want you guys to come into work anyway." So, everyone else is home, and I'm here at work. Aaww, darn being so important.

Woke up this morning, not even a breeze.

Haley's First Christmas

2009-01-10T06:08:00.000-08:00

We barely scraped in time to do Haley's Christmas session. Her proud papa asked that it get done sometime in November, and I just made it. Liz brought her over on New Year's Eve. It's been overcast for all of December and I don't have anything that really suffices as an indoor studio. So, I pushed our dining room table into the corner and taped Christmas paper to the wall, and then played around a LOT in photoshop to work out the color and white balance.

The other challenge was Haley's quick mobility. She wasn't interested at all in sitting still. We had to start feeding her mum mum crackers non-stop. Then we took her outside for a change in scenery.

Happy New Years!!! Silly fun on a rooftop

2009-01-03T01:16:00.000-08:00

I keep repeating myself but we are still shorthanded at work. There's only two of us on my midnight shift so we were required to work all holidays, Christmas and New Year's Eve. I managed to get out of Thanksgiving only because I had already pre-purchased a ticket to the big island. So I brought in the New Year 2009 with the people I love, my coworkers. Hee hee...that's what I kept telling Jasmina. She was on the shift before but she stayed late to watch the fireworks with me. I kept saying "oh, to spend New Years Eve with the person I love" and then sighing..."and I guess it's Jasmina. She actually came up with an idea of going up on the helipad to watch the fireworks at midnight and we got real excited. We took up our cameras and tripods and it really made the night so much more fun.

Unfortunately, the two big public firework displays (Off Sand Island and off Waikiki) were both blocked by tall apartment buildings in our view. However, we can count on the good people of Hawaii to have choke 'illegal aerial fireworks. Jasmina had a shutter cord so she didn't have to press the actual camera button, to cut down on the camera shake (because we used long shutters for the night lights). But, I don't have a shutter cord. So, I kept my camera on a tripod and used a timer. I'd press the timer...listen to the beeping for six seconds...and pray that there would be fireworks going off when the shutter actually opened. It was hit-or-miss with a lot of misses. And town definitely didn't have as much illegal fireworks as Kaneohe would have...I guess the lack of yards might be a factor.

(Thank you for illegal aerial fireworks...the haze was so thick you couldn't see the mountains in the distance)

(I was worried that we would get in trouble for being up on the roof...but now, instead we were joined by a crowd of other poor souls working on New Year's Eve)

(Hey, I have a twin)
I used a long exposure on my camera to get the city lights...then held the flash in my hand and fired it on myself by pressing the flash button. Then I ran to the other side and flashed again before the shutter closed. Because I move, the city lights also shine through the picture giving it the ghost look.

Jasmina trying to do the "Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil"
Except that when she covered her eyes, she couldn't tell when I fired the flash so she ran out of time to do the third one.

(I love 2009 already!!!)
Used hand-held flash to light up ourselves and a flaslight to draw a heart.

BTW, good thing this cheered me up...because the rest of the night was crazy hard. I never want to work New Year's Eve again. Alcohol...fireworks....people roaming around all night...not good.

Turn off the lights (Dec 26)

2008-12-30T23:25:00.001-08:00

What do you do when the lights go out? Nothing. Living on an island, especially growing up on the Big Island, power outages are frequent. Earthquakes because of volcanic activity can knock the power out so I should be used to it by now. This time, the source of our blackout may have been a freak lightning storm. But it knocked out the power on the entire island.

Friday night before 7 pm, I was at home watching tv and the lights kept flickering until they finally died and never came back on. It was a pretty entertaining night. Scott and I drove up to church to see if they needed help running or shutting down the Friday night service and to grab lanterns that Scott had in his office. When we got there, we found service was canceled and we almost didn't even get up the driveway because the person they appointed to stand at the gate was a little too into their job and literally stood in front of our car frantically waving the flashlight in our faces yelling "NO CHURCH TONIGHT!!!" "It's okay, he works here...he has to be here" we yelled back until we finally were allowed to drive up. It was chaotic trying to bustle a bunch of junior high kids down the driveway in the dark and in the rain so they could wait for their parents to pick them up.

Lesson's learned from power outage:

1. Keep your gas tank filled (the emergency radio station was flooded with callers looking for open gas stations to get gas...I assume for their generators)

2. Keep your cell phone charged

I didn't have to work but I knew they might get swamped so I told them to call me if they needed assistance. Then i watched as my cell phone died permanently. Oh, well, at least the thought counts.

3. Keep your DVD players charged.

Because of my sleep schedule, I woke up at five in the morning and watched a DVD on my laptop until it died. Thankfully, the sun had just risen so I at least could get up and move around...but I wished I had thought to keep my other DVD players charged and ready.

4. come to our house for food and showers.

We have gas water heater and gas stove so we have hot water and we can cook. I was up since 5 am so by 8 am I was bored to no end. I annoyed Scott until he relented and called our friends to come over and we cooked up all our leftovers for a deluxe breakfast. Then the Garlands taught us the funnest game I've played in years "Telephone Pictionary." At one point, I was laughing so hard that tears were streaming down my face and I couldn't breathe. Aw, good times.

I didn't take any pictures...so I had to borrow from another fellow flickr member.

Oahu Blackout 2008, originally uploaded by colleeninhawaii.

Our power finally came back on after noon Saturday. A good 16 - 18 hours of blackness in our house came to a close. Thank you!!!

Jen and Frank's Wedding

2008-12-30T23:12:00.000-08:00

Following the island-wide power outage, Scott and I went straight from a lunch birthday party for my niece, Lauren, to a formal-clad celebration of Jen and Frank's wedding. Frank and Jen are high school sweethearts and seem to have been literally just waiting to be old enough to make a lifelong commitment. Jen just graduated with her college degree and Frank now works on staff at Hope Chapel as the junior high pastor.

Scott and I were really late as we drove into Waikiki when we saw Carl, Kanani, and Stanton in the car ahead of us pulling into the parking garage. Let's just say that someone was beeping their horn and yelling and someone else was giving the bird. I'll give you a hint...neither was me.

Fortunately, the wedding ceremony didn't start until well after we arrived. I have never been to the Crystal Chapel but I remember hearing that Jen always knew that's where she wanted to get married. It was small and quaint so we squished ourselves in the back against the door.

These are just my photographs I snapped with my work camera (hey, we were told to practice with it). The wedding was professionally photographed by Marina Miller of Red Heart Photography. She's an absolutely amazing photographer who also photographed the wedding of Jen and Frank's officiant. I had a chance to meet her at that wedding when we were sitting on the same table. I was watching her work (okay, only slightly stalker-sounding) during the ceremony and I really don't know how she seems so calm and collected. I know the thing nowadays is to have a second shooter or carry two bodies but she breezed through it solo. I saw a sneak peek on her blog. Damn, she's so good. And she's absolutely the sweetest thing.

(Pastor Scott, Pastor Stanton, Pastor Kanani, and Pastor Carl)

(I thought it was so endearing a third of the crowd was from Jen and Frank's ministry)

(The day that was 8 years in the making)

Pastor Tom, the high school pastor, was the officiant. He just had his own wedding back in June of this year and Jen was a bridesmaid. Tom and his wife, Grace, did the decorations in the reception hall. No pictures there...I was too busy eating and trying to get Scott to dance.

(during their personal vows)

Most couples decline when asked if they want to do their own vows. Frank looked like he was fighting back tears during his vow. I didn't even hear Jen's. She leaned into him, looked him in the eye, and whispered her vows to him. It was obvious that they were sharing that moment and reveling in the commitment they were making, it was so endearing.

(the trendy couple)

(Scott with his second favorite girl-Haley)

(Rob and Deb and their grand-daughter, Haley)

(some of the men of Hope Chapel: Rob, Scott, Carl, Frank, Tom, Stanton, and Trevor)

Third times the charm- Merry Christmas

2008-12-24T07:48:00.000-08:00

I'm scared to even start this post. The last two times I've started, I've literally been at this point when the phone rings and a big case has come in. Ooops, have I unwittingly divulged that I might be blogging from work. Not true, I completely deny it.

Well, Merry Merry Christmas. Isn't my husband a doll? I couldn't believe he was so agreeable in letting me try out my idea for this year's Christmas card. It was the Thursday that it was gushing buckets from the skies and we had no electricity the entire day. The rain stopped for 30 minutes and I rushed us outside. Absolutely no sun in the sky and Scott kept squinting in every picture and claiming "It's too bright...it's too bright, I can't open my eyes." So, I gave up on trying to find a "open eyes/smile" shot and we used this one. I love it, it's one of my favorites. He makes me laugh...every day.

He can also make me cry. I blogged earlier about the recession and us deciding to forgo a Christmas tree. Well, several days later, I came home about 8 in the morning from work...opened the door, and there was this beautiful Christmas tree standing right in front of me. I must have been tired because I instantly started crying. It was the sweetest gift Scott could ever have given me. I'm walking around, tears in my eyes, taking off my backpack...when I think....wait, what if this is Stanton's tree and I'm crying over my brother-in-law getting himself a Christmas tree. So, I creep into our dim bedroom and sniffle as I nudge Scott gently "who..sniff sniff...whose tree is that?" I don't remember, but I think that even half-asleep, he had some wise-ass reply...but I didn't care because I was right...it was our tree and I cried even more. I love our beautiful beautiful, already brown and dying Christmas tree...it is be-yu-ti-ful.

To all my friends and family...and you too, I wish you a Merry Christmas. Despite the hard times of the economy, this Christmas is proving to be completely filled with joy and laughter. Last night, I opened the gift from my sister. She got me a huge case of Coke and Scott a huge case of Dr. Pepper. Hee hee, she knows us so well.

Shhh...another secret blog by me

2008-12-12T10:36:00.000-08:00

I wanted this blog to be about my journey and mistakes and I try to learn the art of photography combined with posts about nothingness and my random daily life.

However, I do have my name attached to the blog and posts and I fear that future prospective clients find this blog. I feel like I can't be completely open.

I created a new blog, still linked to my gmail account but hopefully not as obvious to find.

http://reallifeweddingpics.blogspot.com/

It's a more honest and revealing blog about my mistakes, my weaknesses, and experiences in learning photography. Bookmark it, google reader subscribe...I'm going to remove this referring post in a few days.

The calm after the storm

2008-12-12T07:07:00.000-08:00

I'm up...at five in the morning...and its eerily quiet. Yesterday's monster winds and gushing rainfall has finally abated. I just had my two nights off and, yesterday, I woke up at four in the morning. I was feeling super productive so I started doing laundrey which meant I had to carefully slide through the pool of water on the back patio in my rubba slippahs. I also couldn't close the glass door in the back so I had to blast the TV to hear it over the thunderous rain. I got an IM from one our friends, Abbey. It is her first Christmas in Hawaii and she asked if this was normal for Hawaii. I told her this was our "Hawaiian Snow." Enjoy.

Then our power went in the middle of my watching TV/working on my computer/washing clothes/drying clothes. Agh, it was so sad. Scott and I spent the rest of the day in darkness until about five pm. We tried to think of all the things to do that didn't require electricity. I realized how dependant we are on electricity. Because of the storm, it was very dark even in the middle of the day. We decorated our Christmas tree with lights and our seven ornaments..it was pretty hard to without being able to see where we were putting the lights in the dim living room. We're trying to get an ornament every time we visit someplace so our tree looks pretty sparse. We had to spread them all out on the side of the tree that faces the door, about 1/4 of the tree surface.

So, we ended up leaving and trying to run errands in the rest of town that had electricity. We got to see the Garland's infamous Leaning Tower of Christmas Tree and visit Mike, Liz, and Haley. I had some pictures from her last month milestone. All in all, it was a great day off!!

Haley's Thanksgiving/Fall Session (taken on location at HCKB church)

Tonight is the first Hope Chapel Kaneohe Bay Children's Church Christmas special music. My choir/worship team will be at all the services. It's going to be a fast-paced weekend. =)

Darilyn's trial run-Junior Pictures

2008-12-10T12:31:00.000-08:00

My niece Darilyn just turned sixteen on Thanksgiving Day. Last year as a sophomore, she asked if I would take her senior pictures. I loved that she gave me two years to prepare. While standing near the golf course outside our vacation rental, I made her do some quick poses.

Happy Thanksgiving Part 2 of 2

2008-12-08T07:44:00.000-08:00

I'm so tired...I only slept two hours yesterday. Just so much to do and I have a hard time falling asleep knowing how hard it is going to be when you have to wake up in the middle of a deep sleep. Scott is on vacation so its so nice that when I'm actually home, he's home too. Today he helped with the children's worship team practice. They're so cute...I took pics, I'll blog after their christmas performances this weekend.

I can't believe that Christmas is coming up in two weeks already...no christmas shopping even attempted. We're not going to get a Christmas tree this year to cuts some corners...that's probably the biggest disappointment. Maybe next year we'll get two. And there's not much room in our budget at all so we're just going to pray and make do...you may expect some beautiful hand-made Christmas cards decorated with crayon masterpieces this Christmas. Nah, we'll be creative and you will love it.

These pics are for my family...the last installment from our thanksgiving family reunion. Pray for my dad, after months of spotty jobs with his construction crew, he was laid off three weeks ago. Such a common story amongst people we know in our islands, it's tough times. The thing I love and admire about my dad is his faith. It's not a blind irresponsible faith, he's resourceful and hard-working but he's not beat down or discouraged. He really trusts in God.

(Lauren was really fascinated with Papa Jim's mustache...probably not used to seeing that much gray!!!)

(Jordan and his girlfriend, Caroline, holding Cassandra's twins. I think the twins became completely spoiled in that three day vacation...they never touched the ground)

(What's more cute, that they are holding hands or that they are both watching tv intently?)

(Papa Jim looks a little distracted while trying to watch football. Notice Lauren nail him with her stuffed "Nemo.")

Happy Turkey-Day

2008-12-01T08:13:00.000-08:00

I feel like I've told this story too many times already, but it's a winner so let's document it for the ages:

My younger sister came up with the idea of having my older sister, her family, and me and Scott fly down to the Big Island for Thanksgiving as a surprise for my dad. So we flew into Hilo on Wednesday. My sister found a really great deal and her whole family was staying in a beautiful two bedroom condo in Waikoloa. I stayed at Scott's family one bedroom studio in Waimea. I flew straight after work so I was exhausted and went to bed at four in the afternoon.

My younger siblings, Genesis and Jordan, were driving dad to Waikoloa. They told him they were taking him to A-bay, he hates that beach so he wasn't really thrilled but they were really going to drive him to Cassandra's unit. So, I woke up at four in the morning after 12 hours of glorious sleep...oh, and freezing my butt off by the way. It gets into the fifties during the night in Waimea and Hawaiian houses offer no resistance at all to cold and do nothing in the ways of retaining heat. I proceeded to drive to Waikoloa at around seven thirty on Thanksgiving morning on the high road (there's two ways from Waimea to Kona, the low road and the high road).

I'm cruising along at 55 mph along the rolling hills through Parker Ranch with nothing but pasture-painted slopes when I spot a lone wild turkey sitting on the side of the road. I ponder whether I should turn around and try to find my camera in the trunk. I mean, it was a picture perfect postcard...almost like he was trying to get into the thanksgiving spirit as well. About five minutes later on the same road, this time I see a group of three turkeys on the left side of the road and two on the right...hmmm, I hope none of them try ...
NO, DON'T DO THAT".

I see one of the turkeys on the right decided it was time to cross the road, he started to dash across the road right in front of my car. I tried to slow down and veer but it was too late...I clipped him and he tumbled...onto my hood...over my windshield...I could hear him rolling on my hood towards the back...whoa.

Thankfully, as I looked in my rear view mirror, I saw him scampering across the road as he finished his cross. Turkeys are tough birds. So, yes, I almost hammered a turkey with the front end of my car on Thanksgiving. Happy Turkey Day!!! What irony.

Here are some pics of the fun we had. More pics and stories to come soon.
What was the highlight of your thanksgiving?

(my dad holding his youngest grand-daughter, Chayne)

(my younger sister, Genesis, teaching our niece, Lauren, how to fly

Sarah and Ava

2008-11-24T02:26:00.000-08:00

Little Ava, when will you be joining us? When I first started to become really good friends with Scott, he was working at Hope Chapel with another young guy, Russell. I remember the church sent them both to a conference in Florida and Scott would call me to talk...and his roommie, Russell, would be chatting on the phone with his "friend," Sarah. Well, three years later, they've been married for about two years and are expecting to grow their family by one beautiful baby girl. They moved to a different church, Grace Bible (hey, I used to go there with Josh), but they hit me up with an email asking if I would want to take maternity pictures of Sarah. Would I? So cool!!! Something completely foreign to me but what an opportunity because it is becoming very popular nowadays. So, I had to do some research on my favorite flickr site to look at possible maternity shots...and it's so much better to go in with at least a few shots already lined up in your head. And fortunately, Sarah had done some research on her own and had some ideas of her own. The one thing that I learned when I had her sit on the grass is that hapai women will be uncomfortable in certain sitting positions. I had no experience of that so I definitely learned quickly that you can't ask them to be doing the splits.

(this one was just a casual snapshot...and I can't stand the stone wall in the background. I did a blatant and ugly blur but it's still there. However, Sarah and the little "nameplate" is super cute...and I was really surprised that this photo rapidly got 37 hits on my flickr site in one day. wow! the "name plate" is also an idea from my flickr research.

(hee hee...no, this session was at Sarah's mom's house in Kaneohe...we didn't rapidly jump to Waimanalo beach...I shamelessly photoshopped the background. I'm usually not a big fan because it adds a fake touch to things...but I felt it made this one more dreamy and artsy)

(taken against the side of the house...so simple...but I really like this one)

(here's also why researching poses can be rewarding. I saw the idea of using an ultrasound with the parents holding it on flickr...and I just changed it up to appear more like a window into Ava's life right now. Absolutely one of my favorites. I would put this on our walls but I think Scott and Stanton might not approve.
(from the beginning, Sarah wanted to take pictures in this little separate living room. It was such a cloudy day that I didn't think there would be enough light so I kept it for last...she was right, it was perfect lighting. Every shot was absolutely beautiful.)
(the most popular pose for maternity shots...I don't care...so worth it. So cute)

An Aussie vow renewal by the sea

2008-11-23T03:28:00.000-08:00

I'm in shock...I came home from work, showered, laid down to watch tv, fell asleep...and didn't wake up until Scott woke me up to go back to work again. Well, that wastn't exactly what I had planned to do. So, just trying to make up for lost time. This was a while ago but Scott did a very small vow renewal. He does weddings through our church but he also has a friend who plans destination weddings and these are usually simple, quick affairs. We met the couple at their Waikiki hotel and walked down to Waikiki beach at sunset. They didn't ask for photographs but I used the chance to practice. And John and Abbey were with us, so the three of us played on the sand nearby.

The couple renewing their vows were from Australia. Not only were they beautiful, but they had the cutest accents, as if they couldn't even get cuter. Like our other vow renewal, even being from gorgeous Australia, they said they were fulfilling the dream they always had of getting married in Hawaii.

(I love how I see the little girl playing in the sand in this pic)

(A waikiki sunset -Straight out of the camera)

(A Waikiki Sunset- processed)

Is it Halloween or Easter? (HB at 8 months)

2008-11-11T02:32:00.000-08:00

I admit...I am not creative when it comes to dressing up for Halloween. One, my parents didn't let us dress up when we were younger and by the time they stopped caring, so did we. And, two, I don't like spending money. So, I really thought it would be another costume-less Halloween when I remembered I had a summer kimono from my Japan Mission Trip. So I was a Japanese girl...one year of being married into a Japanese family and I fully converted. Halloween fell on a Friday so we wore our costumes to church but we were the rare few. Then we went bowling afterwards with our good friends from Ignite. It was a blast. I was having like one of the best games ever but I had to leave halfway through the game to go to work.

Speaking of dressing up, here's one little girl who is definitely started early and set the standards high with her creativity.

BEFORE

AFTER

Last October Wedding-Machel and Chris

2008-11-04T06:32:00.000-08:00

Still trying to play catch up...today was my productive day off and I think I made a lot of headway. I got derailed a little by some phone calls that took a long time and a lot of energy...but here are some photos from the last October wedding. It was a small, intimate wedding with just three witnesses (one being the proud mama of the bride). This couple was fun. When they were left to their own devices, they were doing these fun crazy poses that I always wanted to photograph but most couples are too shy to try. He picked her up...she even tried to pick him up...well, she did kind of piggy-back him. They were totally carefree and I think they were completely relaxed the entire day. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the day.

A sneak peek at Haley's First Halloween

2008-10-30T11:36:00.000-07:00

I'm still working on my last wedding's batch but Halloween is tomorrow and I couldn't resist a quick foray into Monday's shoot with Miss Haley. It's her first Halloween. Liz brought over in this adorable outfit with striped stockings. She can crawl now so she's mobile and it makes it a little more challenging to keep up with her. Boy, I love the stage where they can sit but not crawl.

Next time: Photos of Haley in her costume.

Thirty going on 13

2008-10-29T09:20:00.000-07:00

I dragged myself to work tonight. I slept for about 2.5 hours and then drove to meet Russell's very hapai wife, Sarah, for my first ever attempt at maternity photographs. It was shaky in the beginning because there was a viscous blanket of vog (sorry, Joy) covering Kaneohe. But, I got just a few that I think I love already but will have to wait until next week to really look at. And did you know that I could not find those little wooden blocks that have the painted alphabet letters on them. I saw a lot of photogs use them as props so I ran to Ross before the shoot. Nope. Running late, I ran into windward mall to check out Kaybee Toy Store. Nope, they don't have. I even tried the small little specialty kids store in the mall. Nope. I was so surprised. I thought they were a classic.

Then Scott and I drove separately to Waikiki for Keiko and Derek's wedding rehearsal. I had to come back to Kaneohe early for the Hope Chapel Women's Worship Night for this Thursday's worhsip night on Kailua Beach. Stanton, Scott, and I are supposed to sing Keiko down the aisle...and we have never really practiced together and Stanton is on the mainland right now. I should have known better than to think that I could sing with Scott and get through the entire song. While we were just running through it for practice, I noticed that he plays the guitar great during his part...when it's my part, he gets bored and starts doing dramatic pauses before each strum. Then he even just stopped and mocked my singing and asked if I planned on "singing it with soul" on Saturday. I almost stormed off. Well, it ended too late to make it back to the worship practice so I went to the rehearsal dinner and had a fun dinner with Justin and Megan, Tracy(Scott's childhood friend) and Emily, and Kelly and Eric.

I showed up at work completely prepared to tell Johnny that I was useless for the night and not to expect too much from me...oh, we already had a case waiting for us. So we had to immediate jump in the cars and drive to...Kaneohe...a place I'm very familiar. In fact, it was a scary-a*% wooded area on the corner of Kahekili and Keahala (my church is off of Keaahala). Now, amongst my high school friends, it's the running joke that everyone from high school recognizes me everwhere we meet up. So, it's pitch black, we're carrying three flashlights between the six of us...and I'm reminded that even turning thirty...I still look the same. There were some bystander standing on the side of the road and one of them came up to talk to the officer..I recognized as her my old neighbor from Kailua. I figured she might not recognize me because I'm in a different setting, it's dark, I'm wearking work clothes. She said "Hi Keao" without hesitation. Then, we had to call the fire department out to come help us and here comes six firemen stomping through the woods. One guy starts beaming when he saw me (and I'm seriously standing in the woods in a dark corner behind the floodlights)...I thought it was just my good looks. He came over and excitedly asked how I was doing. I thought maybe he knew me from church. Back at the squad cars, he came over again to talk story and asked "You know who I am?" When I'm tired, I'm real honest. "No" So, he mentions that I graduated from Kamehameha in '96. I introduce myself (kind of stupid since he seems to know who I am)...and he still has not given out his name...there's some silence and then he finally gives me his first name, Josiah. Ah, I recognize the name...I never would have come up with that name on my own but I was able to pull his last name out because he was the only Josiah in my grade. Damn it, I suck at remembering people. Plus, he looks completely different. I, apparently still look like I did when I was fifteen, just chubbier, and will always be recognized.

I've been ousted

2008-10-26T18:12:00.000-07:00

I love going to church on Friday nights. I've been trying to pick up my one and half year old niece, Lauren, every Friday and take her to church too. But this past Friday, I was so exhausted from lack of sleep. I took some melatonin when I came home in the morning and slept from nine in the morning until Scott woke me up after he came home from church at 9:30 pm. He had a wicked, gleeful smile on his face and woke me up by saying "guess what, Keao, you've been ousted." Our friends' youngest daughter, Aliya, has always stolen our hearts. Not only is she adorable, but she is super loving and sweet. We've always gone crazy over her from when she was a baby and Pua has nicknamed me "Auntie Mama." Scott always tells me that if he goest to church without me, Aliya's first sentence is "Where's Auntie Mama?" I think he gets a tad jealous. SO, he seemed a little too excited as he pranced around the room and told me that I was ousted. He said Aliya has replaced me and now only asks "Where's Lauren?" Oh, she's Lauren's friend. So cute. I don't mind.

Introducing Joy and Light Photography

2008-10-26T15:47:00.000-07:00

Trying to catch up...when you pray for rain...better be happy when it pours. Here I've been struggling to find work and practice for my photography and photoshop processing skills. And, the month of October has offered multiple weddings. As soon as I finished with one wedding, it's already time for the next one.

I had an assistant for this wedding, I corraled Joy Pishcura into accompanying me and second shooting. It was awesome because we could get different perspectives at the same time. i hope that one day we can go into business together, I've heard a lot of wedding photography businesses are married couples, but Scott is pretty happy in his pastoral job. I think Joy and I could come up with a business name like "Joyful Light Photography" or "Joy and Light Photography." (My name means light in case you were wondering). This couple was Shannon and Robert from Alaska. Hey, I've been to Alaska. I joked with them that I'm from Hawaii and went to Alaska for my honeymoon and they did the exact opposite. Shannon gave me these beautiful moments when she laughed and I caught her giving this look right at the camera. Looking at the pictures, it made you feel so included in their intimate ceremony.

Look who I caught being all profesionall photographer-ey.

The following photo is courtesy of Joy Pishcura

I don't know what she whispered to the bridesmaids but I'm still curious

The following photo is courtesy of Joy Pishcura.

A hawaiian lei ceremony.

What? Is it picnic time already? I think there might be something else in there.

They also released two butterflies that flittered around and landed nearby. So beautiful.

there's that over the shoulder glances that made me feel like she was sharing a secret with me.

The friends and family of Shannon and Robert, married October 20th 2008 at Ko Olina.

E and A's Wedding

2008-10-23T06:16:00.000-07:00

I smell like the ash at the bottom of a firepit at camp. Last night, I had to go to the scene of a fire at the preschool at Central Union Church on Punahou Street. It was overnight so no one was present at the time of the fire. Apparently it took about forty firemen and two oceans of water to put it out because there was a nice lake in the rooms when I got there. I wear crappy shoes to work and they are pretty absorbent so they sucked in all the ashy water and I was squishing around while I took photographs. We're supposed to be issued galoshes for this reason but the never issued 'em to me. My shoes dried out but they still smell like the remnants of a campfire. Not a horrible smell so I guess it will just fade away. When I got there, there was tons of firemen roaming around rolling up their hoses and cleaning up. The Det. joked "Hey, Keao, look at all these young strapping men here for you to look at." I replied "No way!!! I'm married. I can't look.......too slowly. Just a few quick looks and that's it." None of them can compare to Scottie!!!

Here are photos from my third wedding. This one was at Ko Olina...I had absolutely no clue that if you walk to the right when facing the lagoon, you would find these beaches that people use for weddings. Apparently, everyone else on Oahu knows because during this wedding, there was another wedding going on, two brides/grooms and their photog shadows were clambering on the rocks behind us as well as two more couples having their photographs taken for what I assume are their engagement sessions. Crazy. The sun was going down towards the end and created this eerie blue cast in the photos which I actually really dug.

the maid of honor

I should crop the following in more...I love these bouquet shots but I don't love the headless look

Oh, she started to tear up during her vows...so touching. It reminded me of Scott bawling his eyes out during our wedding....aaaahhh

the following is a merge of two photos, one underexposed to get the sunset merged with one exposed for the beaming couple

The following is probably my favorite shot...like ever.

Sad that UH lost but not surprised

2008-10-18T05:40:00.000-07:00

This morning we took Charlie to the vet and discovered that he has to continue wearing the cone for an unspecified amount of time and now we have to change his foot bandaging every day. *SIGH* And then I went to "Pinky's restauraunt" in Kailua with Scott, Joy, and Abbey. Mikey, Stanton, and John came and met us after work. I think some of us were more there for the opportunity to eat appetizers. we had a fun round robin where tried to order a different appetizer every quarter (or more every Funaki interception). The restaurant was a little empty when we first got there...shocking for two on a Friday afternoon. But it filled up fast. We sat at a table surrounded by three tvs and there were some people at the bar watching a high definition tv. We figured out that there was a slight four second delay when we would start yelling at an unbelievable catch or tackle and the ten heads at the bar would whip around to look at us. Oh, sorry...i guess it's kind of like shouting out what's going to happen in a movie. So, we tried very hard to delay our yells and look over to the bar's tv to see when we could lay it out....I tried to just yell twice to throw them off and Scott was just yelling for no good reason.

Watching TV: there is on scary infomercial for a product called "Smooth Away" a crystal covered pad that "smooths away" unwanted hair. That looks scary.

I do want to buy that "peticure" thing though...that infomerical has me sold.

L an N Wedding-Waialae Beach

2008-10-18T05:26:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in my earlier post that I had three weddings in two days. This was the second wedding on that Friday at Waialae Beach. I had charged up my canon batteries overnight but I forgot that Scott keeps the power strip off to conserve electricity...so my trusty canon died as we were gearing up for the second ceremony to start. Horrors. Fortunately, we just got new digital cameras at work, a very nice higher-end Nikon digital camera. It's going to take a while before we can actually use them at work, they have to come up with protocols for usage and photo submission, and then with training, so our boss told us we could take it home and practice with it. It just has a stock lens but man, it still takes great pictures. It saved my butt.

It was kind of a hurried day so I never even found out the second couples' names. So I walked up to the bride, held out my hand and said "Hi, I'm Keao...I'm your photographer for today." She shook my hand and said "Hi." Darn it, no name. I moved on and walked over to the groom and tried again...again, I was met with a "Hi, nice to meet you." Darn, no names again. So, I had to just hope I would overhear their names, and I called them Liz and Noah the whole time, only to find out his name was Noel. Ooooh, so close. Photography Tip #2: Always find out their names...their correct names. Hee hee. She had beautiful skin and this red hair that was gorgeous. I wonder if she ever dressed up as the Little Mermaid. They even had a dove release in their ceremony and I made sure to up my shutter speed super high to catch the birds. It caught them perfectly still...I almost wish I could play around with the shutter speed so that I could get a little blur on the wings to show movement. hmmm, maybe i can convince Scott to catch me some birds and then practice releasing them one at a time.

this is the the type of shot I see on a lot of photog's shots...the urban bride look

Achtung!!! Wedding

2008-10-16T06:46:00.000-07:00

So, while trying to drum up business for Scottie, who is a licensed wedding officiant (it's hard times, got to work everything you have), I inadvertently got myself a part-time gig with a local wedding business who help with small destination weddings. It's a great opportunity for me to get more experience and build my portfolio. And I had to jump in this past weekend by doing three weddings in two days. The ceremonies are short so it isn't as outlandish as it sounds.

The first two weddings were at Waialae Beach which I've never been to. Apparently, I drove past it maybe twice in my life. I had no idea this place was such a hotbed of weddings. I got there a little early and as I was waiting on a picnic bench, I sneakily took some shots of the wedding party as they relaxed under the pavilion. Only to find out later, that wasn't our couple. There were at least three other bridal parties that walked by. Our couple was from Germany and they had such cool accents. The groom, Mario, had these amazing blue eyes and he had this beaming smile. Of course, I was mainly focused on the bride, Sabina, who was pretty radiant herself.

The afternoon was a bit gloomy so I had to work in processing to try to add any kind of sky color.

My first real wedding without Scott there. It was a hard baby step to take.

Online chatting and Charlie

2008-10-10T01:01:00.000-07:00

Pray for me, peoples. Well, my shift at work is naturally the smaller shift and we're even shorter this week so I'm working by myself tonight and tomorrow. So, far it's not that bad, I get to blast the music as loud as I want. But, I have three small quick weddings to do in the next two days. Um, I bought a camera which is coming but now I have to work hard to get money together for it. So, I have two small ones tomorrow afternoon and then one Saturday. I'm going to sleep so good on Saturday, and then Sunday is my birthday!!!

My dad (on the Big Island) has no phone so he is now forced to try to learn to use the email I set up for him a year ago. And he has sent a whopping three emails to me that consisted of about 4 sentences each. It's a work in progress. In gmail, you have the ability to chat with your contacts who have gmail also and are logged into their gmail. So, Joy Pishcura came over this afternoon and I was talking to her, I looked down and saw that my dad had logged onto gmail. I know email is foreign so this whole IM/chatting thing is going to be hard for him to grasp so I try to ease him into it...here are some clips from our brief conversation:

me: hi dad
click in the little box and type to talk to me
the little box here down in the right corner
or click on my name and chat away
Sent at 4:28 PM on Thursday

James: Hi ,_____ are you there

me: yes, hi dad
Sent at 4:33 PM on Thursday

James: How come I can't hear you me
(I don't know quite what he means...let's jump ahead...and let me explain, that like all instant messengers, you can set your gmail status to availabe or away or busy or a custom message...)

James: You should be working? How come it says in the chat box on the left that your sleeping.

me: i was sleeping

James: How does my computer know that?

Oh, so adorable. He thinks his computer is a real example of artificial intelligence.

Scott already beat me to the punch by blogging about it. But I had to take Charlie to the vet this morning. He had what the vet thought might be a tumor on his toe and the vet removed it on Friday. He had stitches and has to wear a cone for at least 2 weeks. He's really depressed about it. We try to take the cone off when we can watch him and but the cone goes back on for the rest of the day. Yesterday, Charlie figured out how to still reach his bandaged foot and he chewed through his bandage and on his foot a little...so gross. The vet was closed yesterday so she said to rebandage it for the time being until we could bring him in and to extend his cone to prevent him from doing any more damage. So, the only thing we could find in our house was the folders that you buy photo paper in. We made sure that we really EXTENDED THAT CONE OUT.

(we have satellite cable now!!!)

i know scott already made that joke but I

used it yesterday too

Now when we open the patio door, Charlie jumps.

I think all sound is now amplified to him.

Toy Stories-Created by members of the Hope Chapel AllStars Worship Team

2008-10-05T18:15:00.000-07:00

Oh, boy, I am dying. Friday night (or morning), I got a call for a case exactly one hour before I was ready to leave for my weekend. So I had to work overtime and there weren't my idea of getting a nap to get ready for my busy day. Scott and I helped Ronnie and Robyn move from their Kaneohe home to a place in town. So, by the time I got home and showered, it was four in the afternoon and I couldn't stay awake. I slept until eleven pm Saturday night and I've been up every since (3:18 pm and counting). So, my sleep is all jacked up. Actually, it's fine if I was working tonight but I'm not. So I stay up all night doing laundrey and roaming ebay, not a good idea to do at four in the morning. Well, I bought a camera...one I wasn't planning on buying for another year. Things seem like a real good idea when it's four in the morning and no one else is up to talk to but the dog (who has a plastic cone around his head and only three functioning feet at the moment). There's more the the ebay story but I'm not saying and neither is Scott (warning eye).

So, I'm falling asleep but I'm trying to stay up as much as possible. I had to cancel on a birthday dinner for Kelehua...i'm going to miss out on all the fun. Hey, my birthday is next week Sunday and you're invited to my party. Uh, huh. Jasen guys are out camping and I didn't even get to go. I didn't think i could drive out there in the middle of the night.

Last weekend, the kids I work with in the Hope Chapel AllStars Worship Team performed on stage for all five main services. It was a doozy. I'm tempted to post pictures and videos but I'm technically not supposed to. They have really strict policies in the children's church. so, instead, these are some storyboards we created with toys in the children's church off. We have actual video clips but I also took still pictures.

Worship Video- 3 days down

2008-10-03T07:01:00.000-07:00

My two favorite girls posted another youtube worship video...they seem to just hunker down in their dorm stairwell and spell out beautiful harmonies. You have to watch the videos in succession:

"Healer/All I Need Is You"

I just recently learned of the unfortunate story behind the song. Unfortunate in more ways than one:

I don't care the circumstances, the song and the words are so powerful.

Joy said she's anxiously awaiting a blog about this past weekend (the Hope Chapel Kiddies singing). Tonight would have a been great night to work on those but I left my camera at home so I still haven't downloaded those pictures yet. But I shalll...you wait and see.

Rest of wedding renewal

2008-09-30T06:39:00.000-07:00

The rest of last week's vow renewal. I know they're no real facing front poses...I have those....but these are my favorite.

I had another wedding on Wednesday but it has been postponed until Wednesday. Oh, boo. Well, maybe more sleep for me. I'm back at work tonight after a lovely weekend (more to tell you later). I'm feeling pretty good. I slept in and watched little Haley for a little while. And when she took a nap, I took a nap. Lovely. Scott is more than a little jealous that I got to sleep so much He's making up for it as we speak. Haley was adorable...she has the cutest toothless smile with all gums. That's my day in a nutshell. We also bought a new mini-fridge...the old one makes a constant thrumming noise that bores into my skull. I think it was giving my fish a complex.

Sneak Peak- Surprise Vow Renewal

2008-09-26T09:30:00.000-07:00

I think I mentioned it already, but Scott had a request to do a surprise vow renewal. Never heard of a surprise vow renewal? Well, neither have we. Ross, married for 6 years with 2 kids and one on the way, was taking his wife on a long-anticipated vacation to Hawaii. He emailed me asking if we could help him organize a surprise vow renewal for his wife. He wanted to give her the beautiful wedding in paradise that she never had. It was completely sweet. Scott was in Japan most of the time we were corresponding and only came back the day before. Ross and his pregnant wife, Jeannine, were actually vacationing on the Big Island but were coming to Oahu for one day and one day only. So I forwarded my phone to Scott's phone the day of the event because I would be sleeping during the day. When I woke up, Scott told me that Ross had called. I had been wondering when he was going to tell his wife about the vow renewal. I figured he would when they arrived in Hawaii or even just that morning. You know, give her some time to process and prepare for it. Turns out his plan was to take her to the beach and propose to her all over again right before we arrived. Hmmm, I told Scott "She's either going to love it or she's not going to take the surprise very well."

It had been raining all morning so I prayed for the weather and it was perfect afternoon with a soft sunlight falling on Waimanalo beach. We saw Ross walking on the beach and we introduced himself. I told him I thought I saw a woman in a convertible that I suspected was his wife. His response "oh, the crying woman? yes, that's her." Oh.

She did not take the "hey, surprise, you may've been sightseeing all day, you're hungry, you have raging pregnancy hormones, you're tired, probably feeling like you need to take a shower...but we're going to have a surprise ceremony and take pictures that will last forever." So, initially, Ross told us that she really didn't want to do the ceremony or pictures and was having a tough time. Scott and I felt so bad. We told him it was totally okay to cancel but we would stick around in case they wanted to just take a few pictures to capture their trip to Oahu. We were more concerned that he cheer her up so we told him that we would just cruise on the beach and they should go for a walk along the shore together. This husband had such good intentions, I mean, his emails raved about his wife and how he wanted to pull out all the stops and give her the best day ever. We womenfolk can be complicated. Scott didn't quite get it but I understood and I hoped she would start to feel better. So, Scott and I sat in the sand and talked story and twenty minutes late they came over together. She was such a trooper. We offered to just shoot a few pictures but she actually wanted to have the ceremony after all. She was so sweet. And, he was obviously still head over heels for her after all these years. He was constantly gazing at her and kissing her forehead. I love kisses on the forehead... I wonder why. So, there was a happy ending. Thank goodness.

Up for 27 hours straight!!!

2008-09-24T03:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I prepared for the switch to midnight I stayed up til four in the morning and slept until noon. I wished I slept longer because it would be 27 hours before I would get to go back to bed. I worked midnight shift last night and had some laughs at some drunk car thiefs in the cellblock. I have to take pictures to help use as identification photos and that includes taking pictures of identifying marks like scars or tattoos. One slightly intoxicated kid turned and pulled his shirt off his shoulder to let me take a picture of the tattoo...when I had to lean in and inspect it closely before putting my camera down and informing him "Sir, that's not a tattoo, that's just a drawing with pen." *sigh* There's this show on Tuesday nights on channel 5 called "Jail." You should watch it, you might have a lot more sympathy for officers.

Besides that, I was dragging the whole night. I was fighting to stay up on my way home from work and I still had 8 hours to go. At nine, I was up at Hope Chapel finishing up the staff photos with the staff that just returned from a trip around Europe. Actually, it was awesome because the adrenaline woke me up. It's such a rush. I'm checking the display, the light, trying to find different angles. Plus, they're such a fun group, I just had to get them talking to loosen them up and then they were making each other laugh with jokes and stories. This is a sample of the shoot, sweet Auntie Colleen. I actually had to work hard to get her to stop talking to Uncle Al over my shoulder and to look at me. Apparently, according to her husband and Pastor Ralph, she broke a few hearts in Italy. Of course, I am a believer.

Kind of reminds me of those "got milk" commercials.

Then I watched Haley for a few hours just while Mike was getting some training done in Kailua. Now Haley is the most easy-going, mellow baby, but she had a rough spell. I think it just hit her that she was tired and that she wasn't at home because she started crying and nothing would console her. It broke my heart. Poor thing, cried until she finally fell asleep and then her sleep was accentuated by these little shuddering hiccups...you know the ones you get after a long hard cry.

Once she woke up, it was *snap* and she was the smiling, giggling Haley. I would have taken pictures of her then but then Scott called from his last night in Japan so she just sat on my lap and amused herself with her hands while I talked with Scott. After she left, I went to sleep but only slept for four hours. I couldn't help it, I just woke up feeling rested so that was that.

Scott comes back tomorrow...so excited. So much has happened while he's gone and it's always a comfort to have someone to share these things with. That's why I'm glad you're here too. (YES YOU)

So Excited about a Destination Wedding

2008-09-23T04:52:00.000-07:00

We just booked a small destination wedding on Thursday, actually, a vow renewal. We don't have too many vow renewals. Scott had his first vow renewal about two months ago and he came home beaming, he loved the couple. He was re-inspired by their love and their dedication to each other after years of being together. So, I was really fired up when I received an email from Ross. He's been married for four years and he's taking his wife on a well-deserved vacation to Hawaii. He came up with the idea of giving her the wedding in paradise that she never had as a surprise. Isn't that the sweetest thing you've ever heard. They are actually vacationing on the Big Island but are visiting Oahu for the day. For selfish reasons, I'm also getting so excited to take pictures. Wedding season slows down after summer's ends and I miss the thrill of photo sessions. I wish it was Thursday already.

Now what?

2008-09-21T18:01:00.000-07:00

The past two days, my mantra was "If I can just make it to sunday afternoon...If I can just make it to Sunday afternoon...If I can just make it...." You get the picture. Well, it's sunday afternoon and now my mind is confused and rambling "...now what?....now what?...."

I'm so mad I couldn't find my video camera....I have no idea where it is. This is when I need Scott because he always seems to know where my stuff is. We had our rehearsal for our children's worship team and I wish I could show you a video. I keep calling them the "choir" but they're actually called the AllStars Worship Team. Can I first give props to my angels, Kevin and Joy!!! I mean, Joy's a little more obvious as an angel but you might as well stick a halo on Kevin's head and glue some wings to his back because he was an angel today. Kevin ran the sound which means he set up and broke down all the sound equipment (even helped me carry Scott's amp from the car). Joy was my kid-herder and gave me constant feedback. Scott wasn't here so I had to play the guitar which put me on the stage behind the kids so I kept having to yell "What does that sound like, Joy?"

It was a loooonnnggg rehearsal. I think they're a lot better with the mics than they were at the Mother's Day Rehearsal. And Joy gave me a lot of ideas because my whole vision went out the door, it was just too complicated. So we tried four different ways and then we just made a line. A line. All my plans (I even drew a formation diagram) and we're just making a line. *sigh* But the simple way is so much easier. And Kevin, what would we do without Kevin? He's always so willing to help and always with a smile.

Come to church next weekend to see their performance: Try come on Sunday, Friday might be a rough one since it will be their first real time.

Manoa raindrops falling on my head

2008-09-18T22:31:00.000-07:00

Be careful, if you open the door and say "hey keao, what do you want to do?" I'm most likely going to jump on that opportunity and involuntarily sign you up for a beautiful hike through a hot and muggy forest. With Scott being 55% complete with his trip away in Japan, Abbey has been offering to keep me company while he's gone. Hah, little did she know what she was signing up for. I think she partly expected leisurely hours spent window-shopping or friendly girl talk over coffee (I hate coffee)...nope, she asked...and I said " all right, let's ZUMBA!!!"

So Monday we went to the latin music inspired exercise class "ZUMBA" (you have to shout it everytime you say it) at hope chapel. We managed to survive and Abbey even attended on Wednesday....hey, hey I see a future ZUMBA instructor. Today, I took Abbey and Joy(see her blog for more pictures and her side of the story) to the other side of the island to my favorite hike on the whole island, the Manoa Falls Hike. When I went to UH, I used to go up and do this hike on just a whim any time I wanted to see some beautiful natural wonders. I convinced them it was an easy hike...which wasn't a total lie, it is considered a beginner level hike. It starts with a beautiful open field in the beginning, then it leads you through the forest, you wind through a bamboo grove, before you finally end up near a tall waterfall emptying into a placid pool of water. See, *sigh* doesn't it sound dreamy.

I agreed to drive because the only downfall is that it is not the most safest of places to drive your car. I was willing to risk my ride. It was definitely a muggy day, it was hot and humid. I remember I used to run this trail in college for exercise...I am definitely not in that kind of shape. Luckily, we took a lot of photo and "oooh" and "aaah"-breaks.

(just the beginning of a bit of stairs and climbing)

(the real waterfall is much taller but this one is just as cool)

(this one is not focused well but the light is so pretty)

(my favorite picture of the day...a bamboo heaven!!!)

(They were such good troopers...they even sat on wet mossy rocks for me. Thanks girlies!)

I met Abbey in my couples minichurch. We've met so many cool new couples. Kelli started a tradition of preparing a dinner for us so we can fellowship before minichurch and now we've all started to chip in as we jump in on the trend. My friend, Leilani, and her minichurch have wonderful traditions as well. But, besides just hanging out, they have moved into doing something with more purpose. Inspired by the amazing acts of kindness we saw in this movie called "Lord, Save Us From Your People," their minichurch was moved to mend the problems we walk by sometimes in our daily lives. They are creating and organizing a benefit dinner with a silent auction, and ALL of the proceeds are going to the River of Life Mission. They've created a website with more info (www.hopechapel.com/livingthroughfaith). Please check out information on how to purchase tickets and donate services/gifts for the silent auction. And send the link to friends and family!!! I'm so amazed at their passion and determination to create change.

The twins at 4 months

2008-09-13T22:15:00.000-07:00

So, Scottie has gone to his native land, Yapan as he likes to call it. It was complicated by the fact that I lost my license and credit card about a week ago. Figured it was just somewhere but I just really couldn't find it. Worse, because they were doing inspections at work and they check your work ID and your license. Thank God they must have overlooked my watch because they didn't show up in the three nerve-wracking days they were supposed to come. So Scott left me with some cash to survive on while he was gone...with questionable concerns about how I would get more money since I have no ID for the bank. To get a new license, my birth certificate and passport are in Scott's safety deposit box (I'm not on the account, his mom is...but she's on a trip) and they're both in my maiden name anyways. Sheesh. Yesterday, my sister needed me to take Lauren for the night while she went to a birthday dinner.

So, Lauren's in my car, I'm trying to run to church...stop by the in-laws to feed the dog...run back to my house to get candles and matches for Pete's birthday cupcakes...trying to call Jasen to see if Pete is really at church...and suddenly, I can't find my cell phone. WHAT? No license, no credit card, and now no phone. If I could have called Scott, I am sure he would have had a better idea of where my stuff was than I did. I'm using the house phone to call it, running around in the dark of night and... nothing. Then I whacked my head trying to get in the car (I must have misjudged my own height) and my vision did get a little gray for two seconds. On the short chance it fell out of the car at the in-laws, I take a flashlight and I'm searching their driveway with Lauren sitting in the car. This, of course, draws the attention of their neighbor whose house is five feet from their house. I must have looked like a maniac. I found my phone after church. It was in my car...the ringer wasn't off, it had just acquired this weird red circle sign that I never saw before.

So found my phone, and today, while meticulously cleaning my room, i found my license and credit card in our closet. What a turn-around from last night. I think the wind is changing.

The twins turned 4 months old a week ago. I always take pictures of them in Darilyn's room because she has the most light. This week, I was a little surprised to see she had a black sheet on her bed so it was a new background for me. I used Darilyn's hot pink laundry basket with a pillow in it and a white puffy "winter coat?" she had. Why does she need a winter coat? She lives in Waipahu!!! Well, it worked in my favor.

(Cheyenne)

(Chayne)

I think sibling rivalry is setting in a little more as the twins get older. Lauren, who for a year and a half was my only photography subject now finds herself sharing the spotlight with not just one, but two more girls. I think she misses being the center of attention, what do you think?

I said "WHAT!!!" at the vet

2008-09-08T23:59:00.000-07:00

Our dog, Charlie, had a lump on his toe. We noticed it about two months ago when we saw that he was favoring his foot when we took him on walks (hey it happens once in a blue moon). My auntie, Sally, is an avid "Dog Person." She used to breed and train dogs in North Carolina. Her and girlfriend are crazy about dogs, they are taking care of like 8 dogs right now and I go to them with all my canine problems. My auntie Sally had raving reviews of a vet she recommended in Kalihi. She said to drop her her girlfriend's name and we would get in.

So Scott and I took Charlie in to the vet. The vet examined him and told us that it was a tumor on his foot and would need to be removed. She insisted it was probably benign, but I still teared a little when no one was looking. As she was finishing his physical exam, she asked who referred us and I brought up my Betty's name. The vet asked, oh, I've known Betty for a long time, how do you know Betty?

Me "Oh, my auntie sally is dating her."

Vet: "What?"

Me: (LOUDER) My auntie Sally is dating her."

Vet: (now looking at me weird) "What?"

Me: (quieter, unsure) My auntie Sally is friends with her?"

Hmmm, could I possibly have shoved someone out of the closet in a most inappropiate way. I can't believe it. It's clearly not a secret. But, even Scott gave me the eye. Oh, boy. Hey, let me know if I'm not supposed to mention things or if certain things are supposed to be a secret. Otherwise, who knows when it will come flying out of my mouth.

Lauren at 20 months and the Hope Chapel Kids Worship Team

2008-09-08T22:34:00.000-07:00

My sister and I tried to take my niece Lauren to the Discovery Center, but it was closed. So we took her to the Waikele Community Park Playground.

On Sundays, I have a group of cute kids that sing together as a choir. Yes, we spend half our time playing musical chairs, but they are quite the characters. Can you tell?

Roommate Wars

2008-09-05T03:27:00.000-07:00

Stanton, Scott, and I were in the kitchen...I should give myself an "S" name too...how about "Seao?" Very samoan sounding...it might fit. Anyways, Stanton went to wash his dishes and Scott protested "Put the dry dishes away before you put wet dishes in there." I chimed in "yah, Stanton, you know that's his pet peeve." Stanton insisted he had no idea. But it got me thinking. It's been over a year of marriage, and thus, over a year of living together as one big happy Sunaoka 'ohana.

Scott's biggest pet peeve (he may be more of an expert on this):
1. Putting wet dishes in the strainer (or dish rack as some call it) when there's dry dishes in there already because now it makes the dry dishes wet all over again.

Vying for the top spot is also.
2. Hanging up your bath towel on a fan.
3. Putting other dishes to soak in the water already being used to soak a dirty rice cooker (that's a big no-no)
4. Not resetting the microwave clock/timer to zero when you're finished using it.

How do I do with these? I pretty much bomb on all of these but at least Scott usually blames Stanton first.

My pet peeves:
1. Hair...I hate it. I spend a lot of time every day cleaning it off of things. I sweep often, I wipe down the sinks, clean the hairbrush on the counter every day, and even use a lint roller on our bed and pillows every day. I clean the bath soap every day too. Yup, I even quickly swept up someone's bathroom floor on an impulse while at their house.

2. Fluffing up my rice in the rice cooker. GIVE ME MY WEDGE.

3. Not bringing in my laundry basket when you bring in all the clean dry clothes.

Stanton's Pet Peeves:

Nah, I have no clue.

But, all in all, I hope the two other boys can say the same but I've had a pretty wonderful living experience in my new home. And I'm glad, after living with roommates (not counting my family) since seventh grade (Boarding at Kamehameha followed by college followed by pure living)...I"m glad to say good-bye to the roommate dramas that I and everyone I know has endured in our younger years. Hooponopono's with crying and confessions. Silent treatments...one particular bad experience where campus police was called to my dorm room. Yup, so glad it's over. I have tried to learn from all of it, but I know I probably drove some people crazy. What peculiarities could I possibly have? I know, there are some...hard to believe.

I can't go to sleep unless I'm sufficiently cold enough. At Boston College, with heated rooms, it meant that I had to open the window at least 4-6 inches to cool the room down enough for me to slumber. My roommate HATED it. But I still did it...well, she fell asleep first so it was super easy to avoid arguments about it. Of course, sufficiently cool 60 degrees very quickly drops to a freezing 30 degrees by dawn and you could probably hear the crackling of my leftover can of Coke slowly freezing in our dorm room. Course, it didn't concern me too much because my roommate had to get up first and would close the window, thus allowing the room to warm up before my awakening hours later. I could see why she might have been tempted to warm my face up with my own pillow.

That wasn't mean intent on my behalf, simply selfish intent. But I did have some slightly more sinister methods for dealing with unlikable roommates.

1. My dorm phone ringer was obnoxious (we all had our own phone lines)....so I used to call myself from my work place just to irritate the heck out of my roommate. When she turned the ringer off (even when I was home), I glued it so it was permanently on. Yah, she just unplugged my phone...but it was a small victory.

2. Our suitemate was never home on weekends and her phone rang constantly. So my roommate and I forwarded her phone to an unusable extension. I don't think she even noticed that her phone never rang anymore.

Stupid...but that was just the drama that was my life. Dorm life it seemed. I knew a girl freshman year of college that put a tape down the middle of the room...trash can, door knob...etc. Was that in a Brady Bunch episode? I'm much better now..you might almost say more mature. I would never call my phone anymore to bug Scott. Heck, I don't even know where my phone is half the time. Anyone ever had a horrible roommate? Or been the horrible roommate?

Warrior Football Season Has Begun!!!!

2008-09-03T03:52:00.000-07:00

If you have seen the glowing anticipation on particular faces and been reading Scott's blog, you know that UH football season has begun. As Scott informed me while we were doing our pre-marital sessions, he said "keao, when you marry me, you marry UH football." And, yes, UH did get trounced in their first game away against the Florida Gators (was that really such a shocker?), my marriage vows did promise through better or worse.

To welcome Scott back, we spent our first morning babysitting little miss "Haley." Her dad, uncle, grandpa...well, she comes from a heritage of UH football fans. So, Scott and I set up this shoot as a gift to "Grandpa Rob." Little Haley was a little tired so she didn't stay too long in our set-up. She doesn't quite cry, she makes disgruntled grunts...until eventually she cries. And it was so stinking hot today...when does this heat go away? I can't wait until winter.

She seems to love the taste of plastic. She sampled all our remotes. This is my lens backing.

In Photoshop, I experimented with Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask. On the last picture, it gave her shirt all that beautiful texture. Then I just masked the rest and removed the sharpening effect on the rest of the photo. On the first photo, I used the "unsharp mask" to accent her eyes and I really like the effect.

Scott leaves for Japan in a week so I took a few days off for this weekend. So I have five whole days to relax and enjoy myself while Scott apparently goes to the UH football game this Saturday. Tomorrow, my older sister and I are taking the toddler, Lauren, and one of the twins to the Children's Discovery Center. Tonight, we got some news someone in our family is having a tough time so pray for my family, it's not a good week for us.

Single again (for now)

2008-08-29T04:22:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't been blogging this week but it's a pretty-hum ho week. My week pales in comparision to Scott's "man-trip" week. I'm pretty jealous of his daily escapades. What was the highlight of my day? Hmmm...let's see. I stay up until three in the morning every night and tonight I found Stanton had a open bag of those "2 flavors in 1 bag" doritoes. So, I spent five minutes picking out and snacking on just the "pizza" flavor chips. Just to mess with his head. He has no proof, not unless he remembered the original ratio of "pizza' to "ranch" flavor chips. And why does "pizza" just taste like the original "nacho cheese" chips? And when did "cool ranch" get downgraded to just "ranch?" Bad advertising move. You never want to downgrade your adjectives. Always go bigger. "cold ranch" or "arctic tundra ranch"

I'm just watching "paycheck" on TBS. I don't care what people say, Ben Affleck is a acting genius. Good thing he's handsome. With Scott gone, the only thing I can take comfort in is that I can sleep on his side of the bed which is directly in front of the TV.

So Scott's birthday was this past week. I love Scott but he is so hard to shop for. It's made worse that he always gets me great gifts. One year, he got enrolled me in a scuba diving certification class that...I still haven't taken. Little fear about breathing through a big straw. I'll admit that I get buyer's block when it comes to Scott. So here's been my unlucky traverse through finding the "perfect gift."

1. Wracked my brains trying to think what he brings up. A month (he says a couple of months ago), my wrist band on my watch broke. A watch is pretty mandatory for my job since everything is date/time stamped down to when you pick up something. So he let me use one of his watches...I assumed while he got my watch fixed. Lo and behold, turns out he thought I was going to get my own watch fixed. I firmly believe we should go with our strengths and that's not one of mine. So he kept bringing it up over and over again about how much he loves his watch. so, the friday before he left, I figured...as a PART (not the whole thing) of his birthday gift, I would go to Windward Mall and try to get my watch fixed so he could get his back. Aren't I sweet? Well, that darned boy, that morning, he tells me..."today, let's go to the mall and get your watch fixed." Hello, you ruined my whole surprise!!! When I told him my plan, he wasn't as thrilled as I thought he might be. He didn't seem to appreciate the depth of my gift...that I listened to what he really wanted. I might have mentioned that I considered the fact that if my watch band couldn't be fixed, I might have to buy myself a new watch to get him back his watch. I just considered it, I probably wouldn't have done it.

2. A few weeks before, I checked out his Amazon wishlist and bought a couple of things that he had on his list. That darned boy...if he doesn't go "Hey, just check out my amazon wishlist if you need ideas for my birthday. By the way, what did you buy today from Amazon for $....." Yes, because Scott checks out every single transaction that goes through our bank or credit card. How are you supposed to buy something for your husband in secrecy if he sees how much you spend every day? tell me please.

3. I actually thought of a great gift. Scott loves "Top Chef" and it just so happens that the winner of Season 1 has a restaurant in New York. So I called John-John and got the lowdown on their schedule...and then I tried to book reservations online. AAARGGGHHH!!! The restaurant in only open for dinner and Scott's nights are fully booked. I dunno, I think it's the thought that counts and this was my best idea EVER. Since it wouldn't work out, I told Scott my idea so maybe I at least could earn brownie points for it.

Future President/VP?

2008-08-23T17:01:00.000-07:00

I like to read yahoo news, this was the title of one of the latest article posts.

"OBAMA, BIDEN kick off next phase of campaign."

Anyone ever realised that if you just add a "nla" to their names, you show a remarkable similarity to a character by the name "osama bin laden?" Just a random thought. In case this post ever gets noticed by civil service, I don't mean it in any way shape or form of treason. Please don't make me pay. Now that I think about it, they're completely different. Yup, off the chart different.

Collision at Kakaako

2008-08-23T14:31:00.000-07:00

This past Wednesday was our church all-worship night under the stars in the outdoor ampitheatre at Kakaako Park. This is hands-down one of my favorite things the church does. I love anything that is outdoors at night, movies, hikes, and worship nights. Plus I have fond memories of Kakaako. We used to go there in high school with cardboard boxes and go sleddin' da hawaiian way. I have a lot of pictures of Ui's two cuties but i've kept asking her if i could practice taking pictures of her kids. Koko, more of a ham, was ready. Actually, Uncle Clinton and I both told her way back on Wednesday that she had to get ready because I was going to be taking pictures of her on Wednesday. She responded by instantly striking a "one hand on the hip, head tilt, big teethy smile." Okay, Koko, not now. Wait til wednesday. So Clinton and I kept telling her that she couldn't smile until Wednesday or her mouth would get tired out. She looked all serious and you could tell she was concentrating and she pressed her lips together in a straight line. It lasted 3 seconds before she started giggling again. But, as you can see from the pictures, she got a fresh supply of smiles. That girl can find a camera anywhere...she would be sliding down the hill and she could sense when a camera was on her...full eye contact and big smile.

Ha'o was a little more camera shy...actually, I just got the "not now, I want to slide" look a lot but at the end, he totally gave me the poses. Awesome. The vertical pictures look pixelly...I don't know why but sometimes it does that when I enter them into my blog. They're fine on my flickr site. I have two yahoo accounts so I use both of them in flickr to upload and store photos cause I'm too cheap to spend 25 dollars a year for unlimited account. Well, for some reason, I am locked out of one of my accounts. My password no longer works out of the blue. I tried to log in the back way but i can't bypass my own security measures. It's the first email account I ever set up and i was in college in boston. I have no idea what zip code I used because I tend to use Honokaa for everything but I was living in boston and staying in oahu for the summers. I think I also lied about my birth year because I didn't want people seeing my personal information (I didn't know it was for security). So, it sucks, I can't get back into my own email account. I had to create a third yahoo account just to upload more pics.

A fine mist of pulverised "you don't want to know"

2008-08-19T21:35:00.000-07:00

Here's our marriage deal:

I mow the lawn, Scott weedwacks (I don't know why but I always want to put a "H" in "wHeed").

I try to mow the lawn before I go to work so I had to split it by mowing half yesterday and half today. Unfortunately, it's been blazing hot and as I've been sweating it out pushing that lawnmower around, two things strike me. Me and my sisters all had to mow the lawn growing up on the Big Island, mainly because my dad didn't hit the "son" mark until the fourth kid came around. So, for a good decade, it was the Loftus girlies mowing that lawn. I actually like mowing the lawn because I like seeing the clear difference it makes. However, there are two vast differences between my childhood mowing escapades and my current situation.

1. "You don't want to know" piles
Past: Our dog Lassie's um...contributions laid out on the lawn were not left there. Part of lawn duty was to take the shovel, scoop, and toss it into the lot next door. When you live country Big Island, chances are your lawn is going to neighbor some sort of wilderness where "you don't want to know" will disappear in some sort of weird Hawaiian triangle. It was kind of fun when you could see how far you could fling it...and then someone bought the lot and built their house on it...strangely, I don't remember what we did with the poo then.

Present: Scott's dog Charlie also makes daily contributions. But these you leave lying around the lawn like some sort of landmine. I guess it makes sense, our neighbors would really hate us if I tried to clean the lawn Big Island style.

2. Lawnmowers
Past: Our lawnmower was your standard chop-it, spit-it-out-the-side lawnmower. It made for the tedious task of then having to rake up the cut grass. Considering I lived in Honoka'a where it rains 4 days out of every week, it was quite an ordeal. And, then, you guessed it, toss the cuttings into the lot next door...nah, I don't remember what we did with it.

Present: Scott has this mulching lawnmower. It finely chops the grass into a dusting of grass mulch that you don't have to rake up. Love it, wouldn't you.

Except, I realized, if you combine these two factors, you end up with something more than just pulverised grass. A mulching lawnmower combined with piles of "You-know-what" creates clouds of pulverised "you don't want to know." Gross. I tried different methods...I tried running with the lawnmower to rush through the clouds, I also tried squatting and trying to let the wind carry the cloud away...but I don't think there's any way to avoid it. You just have to shower immediately following and burn any clothes you were wearing.

I'm sorry if that was unappetizing and completely random, but this was what I had to think about for forty minutes in the hot sun.

Tomorrow is our church outdoors live worship night at Kaka'ako Park at seven. It's going to be awesome. I wonder if my sister will want to come. Here's a storyboard of Chayne's rolling...Cheyenne hasn't learned how yet(probably because she insists on being carried every waking minute). Chayne is real smart...she tucks her knees under her butt until she's off-balance and then her body just naturally rolls over. I watched her do it three times.

Hoop Jam and the Ch-Ch twins

2008-08-17T21:03:00.000-07:00

Can you tell them apart? They obviously look different when placed side-by-side but I can see how it may be difficult in individual pictures. Cheyenne is in pictures #2 and #4 and Chayne is in pictures #3 and #5. I love flickr, yahoo's picture forum, and the Hawaii flickr group just had a meet-up in a downtown studio. I had lunch but it made me aware of the fact that I have never taken a picture in a studio with studio lighting. These are taken in my niece, Darilyn's, room. I choose it because it's on the side of the house facing the hot Waipahu sun. I just her bed with it's slightly yellow sheet (they don't have white sheets) so the background isn't perfectly white. I overexpose the images a little so the fabrics are a little lighter, and my nieces are pretty naturally dark already. They both like to smile. Chayne will laugh out loud. Both of them like to look at you and talk (garbling intently). My sister does not raise shy girls ever.

The Hoop Jam tournament wrapped up today. Hope Chapel provides volunteers for this island basketball tournament and the proceeds are donated to the Dominican Republic missions. Scott runs a three point shoot-out game and those funds are used for the Japan Mission team. Yesterday, the Aloha Stadium was overwhelmed with Hoop Jam, the swap meet, and a mass amount of people trying to do a big group hug or something like that. Jasen's girls kept calling me because they were hot and bored, so I just swung by and picked them up and took them to my sister's to visit the babies. Cheyenne was sleeping so only Chayne was up. Kelia kept bugging me to wake up Cheyenne so I told her cross her eyes at Chayne and she would see two babies, same thing.

Today I did make it to the tournament, straight from church so it has been a long day. There were such cute little kids playing our 3 point shoot out game. They actually gave the "old"er players a run for their money. Soccer is in my family's blood but little boys look so cute with their basketball shorts down to their knees and their socks pulled all the way up to the knees. A-dor-able.

HB turns 6 months

2008-08-17T01:00:00.000-07:00

Olympics are jacking up my sleep schedule. I get home late and then I just have to watch the Olympics we recorded on our TiVo. Even with fast-forwarding, I've been staying up to three in the morning. Whenever I watch the Olympics, I always get inspired. As I get older, my options of realistically making it to the Olympics get more limited. I remember when the Utah Olympics had that sport where you slid a "thingee" on the ice to try to make it onto a target...that may be my best chance if that ever returns to the Olympics. I like to sweep. I'm going to have to start training, I wonder if Ice Palace will let me bring in my own broom.

Last night, we had this HUGE flying cockroach in our living room. If only I had thought to videotape the shenanigans that followed. Scott tells me to get the RAID as he starts to roll up the newspaper. Why? I ask as I watch his fist clench his 5" long newspaper tube. "To back me up, Keao." Hmmm, I wonder if this was in our wedding vows. I really should have paid more attention. I grab the Raid and I watch as Scott takes the first try. This huge "moth-like" creature is flying figure eights in our living room and Scott is trying to swat it...crippled by his fear of roaches...as he cringes and ducks as he futilely swings his short little newspaper tube. He's nowhere near the roach. But he seems to be creating updrafts that the roach is now cruising in. It landed on the wall and Scott ran and swatted the wall, but he flinches at the last moment and hits the wall a full two feet below the roach. Then, I jump in the mix with the RAID trying to spray it as it flies erratically around our heads, thus creating a mist of pesticide around our heads. It was a good five minutes of Scott frantically swatting at air with his eyes closed and me trying to spray an almost empty RAID can before we managed to decimate that sucker. Oh, I hate flying roaches.

Hey, little HB turned six months old. Although, you can probably figure out her real name from the pictures. She's so cute. She sits perfectly and I think six months of picture-taking has trained her well. Liz was trying to feed her but everytime she heard the shutter clicking, she instantly looked at the camera. That-a-girl!!! Her blue eyes are more gray by now, so stunning.

Hey, tomorrow is Hoops Jam if anyone wants to help out.