Another camera? Why not?

I love my Canon SD870IS, but I've been using it pretty heavily over almost the last 2 years now, so it was getting about time to be ready for an upgrade. I had my eye on a little bit of a different model. A lot of my photographer friends use the Canon G series for their Point & Shoot cameras because it has so many other options.

So, over Christmas, when I got a surprise check from Dell for my portion of a $9.1M class action settlement, Brett suggested that I use that to get the new camera. Great idea!!

I decided on the G11 and it arrived today!! I let Brett open the box....he gets so much more enjoyment than I do out of opening things like that...and he got it charged up to take a few shots.

This camera has a screen on it that flips....so now we can cheat on our self portraits. Not sure if we'll use that feature all that often, since it's more fun to accomplish it on your own....but it's a nifty little tool. We did in this picture, which is quite obvious, because I was looking at the screen, and not the camera, when we snapped the shot. Oops!!

I'd seen this many times before, but most recently on BD's blog...so I thought to give it a shot. I'd never done this before myself, so I had no idea what to expect.

Set yourself up with a flashlight, 7-15 second exposure, and turn off all the lights. After you press the button....write!

My attempts weren't that great. I was trying to write I heart Brett, and then just his name on my 2nd try. Brett did pretty good at his B heart A. Show off.

I'm sure at some point I'll read the manual on this camera to understand all the fun things I can do with the settings.....but for now, I'm super happy just using the big AUTO button. :)

Say CHEESE!!!

Today I got to play photographer at work and take some shots of our executives for the updated website. I had snapped a few pictures of some of our team before, but hadn't really done anything like this before. I honestly wasn't exactly sure what I was doing.

I had used this wall outside of our office before, and thought that it would be good again. Jonathan had asked me if I had a tripod, so I brought one with me, and had it all setup. It was in the shade, so that worked for me. :)


After the first person, I lost the tripod. It is so much easier for me to just shoot instead of trying to work with a piece of equipment that is a little hindering to fluid movement.

They didn't turn out half bad. I'm really happy to be part of a team of folks that is so awesome!! I love that all of them are so smiley!! We don't have any stuffy execs at our company, that's for sure. It'll be fun to see these on the updated site when it's all finished! :)

Love Sundays

I slept in...which makes ANY day pretty wonderful, but not too long. I was up by around 930 and doddled around the house to get ready for church. Brett came to get me, and we were off to another great service at Reality. Today is the day when Dave and Ashley Lomas have their first service at Reality SF. So exciting!! Can't wait to hear how it went!!

After church, it was almost 2, and we were starved. The Axxess Card has come in handly lately, providing us new ideas on where to grab a quick bite to eat. So, we found Danny's Deli on the list and it was right there in Carp. Their specialty was the tri-tip with bacon and avacado. It was as good as it sounds, and looks!!

We hung out at Brett's for a bit and wrote some overdue thank you notes from Christmas. He and Kyle went to throw the baseball to get Brett in shape for the upcoming Alumni game at Westmont....and so I went to join some fellow word lovers.

Janey's comment on Facebook from the night before made a few of us realize that there was more than one Scrabble lover in town. So, after church, a plan was brewing to get a few folks together for a game.

I played against Camille, Jeff and Tara. It was a very poor showing on my part...I blame it on bad letters. I did manage to help Jeff make a slight comeback at the end with an X, playing it for 51 points. I did not, however, have any plays like that of my own.

Emily had fun creating her initials with the tiles...and I'm sure you can tell from the picture below who was the victorious one from our game. :)

The First One!

So, it's been not even two weeks yet, and I am already driving Brett a little crazy with the wedding planning. Well...not crazy so much, but he thinks I'm nuts for doing all of the planning at one time. I hadn't looked at anything wedding related before we were engaged, and so now it's wedding planning overload and I'm all over the place with all that we have to do! He is working on getting us a plan. Heehee.

Naturally, one of those things that I went straight to planning was for my dress!! Duh!!

I saw one online that was going to be perfect. I'd found it at David's Bridal, of all places, and since they don't have one in Santa Barbara, I made plans to go the closest one in Northbridge. I asked Emily to come with me, and Dayna planned on meeting us there.

After we arrived, the lady at the front asked me to take the catalog and earmark the pages of dresses I wanted to try on. I told her that I already knew which one I wanted, and was there to try that one on, but I went ahead and took a look anyways. I knew that I didn't want strapless, so that immediately cut out about 85% of the dresses in there. I did manage to find 3 that I thought I'd like to try.

Well, the first one she brought out to me wasn't the one that I thought I was going to get when I went in there. But, I told her that I'd go ahead and try it on anyways. They just got it in that day, it was brand new. I was the first person to try it on ever....and......well.....I loved it.

I tried it on.....and it was "my dress". I tried on the other one, the one that I thought I wanted....and ick!! It was horrible.

So, I left with my dress. And, it was about a third of the cost of the one that I thought I wanted - score!!!

That is all I'm going to say about that.....but I'm super excited about it and can't wait for Brett to see it...on our wedding day!! I had to hide the pictures on my computer, and I already deleted them from my camera. He wants to be surprised, and I don't want him to accidentally find out. :)

Afterwards, the girls and I had super yummy Jersey Mike's subs for dinner. It was the perfect shopping experience and I was glad to have Emily and Dayna with me! So fun!! :)


Now...if only I can find everything else with this much ease!! :)

Food and Fellowship

We ran into DJ at church this morning....it had been forever since we'd seen him last. He mentioned getting together later that night. When we got an email mid afternoon saying that Christianne was going to cook up some food, and for some of us to join them....we jumped on it. We were excited to hang out and catch up on how everyone's Christmas and New Year's had been.

Christianne cooked up some yummy pasta and shrimp, and Amy made the salad. It was a lovely night of good food and good fellowship. Thumbs up all around.


Every time I look at this picture....I am reminded that I really should put more effort into how I dress. Ugh. Does anyone else just loathe their wardrobe every time they see a picture of themselves like I do these days??

The Spot

Brett and I both agreed that one of the first things we had to do was find a spot to get married. After we agreed that Santa Barbara would be the place to have it, we started to look at our options. We did a lot of looking online while the families were here over Christmas.

We went back and forth on what we wanted, but came to a conclusion that we wanted something open, that had a pretty view. I really thought that the Santa Barbara Zoo was a neat idea, but Brett wasn't too keen on the idea about having giraffes at our ceremony. So, we started to search out other spots, and then thought to look at some of the local wineries.

There were so many options, but we managed to narrow it down to a few, and thought that Saturday would be a good day to go check some of them out. We both really liked 2 of the options that Firestone had, so we made an appointment to go out there.

The entire drive out to Los Olivos, I kept looking out the window and saying "Man, this is so pretty!!! I can't wait for our guests to make this drive to our wedding!!". Of course, this was all before we'd even seen the place, but I was already imaging it all working out. It was the scenery that did it to me.

See what I mean!! Gorgeous!!

I got excited when we saw the sign off the 101 guiding us towards all the wineries. Did I mention that I'd never been out this way before? I mean, I'd been to Solvang and to downtown Los Olivos with Bethany last year, but never to any of the wineries.

We pulled into Firestone and I was still in awe of the surrounding area. All so beautiful...and the vines aren't even in season!

We met up with Rachel, and she was so kind to show us around the property. We first saw the spot where the ceremonies are held....and to be honest, we were very underwhelmed. It was much smaller than I was expecting, and more of a long narrow alley, think two bowling lanes put together, with a metal gazebo at the end. I am sure it can be beautiful, but it just wasn't what either of us envisioned for our day.

She took us around the rest of the area, and it was all great. The barrel room was awesome. The courtyard for the reception was so nice, and I could see the lights and tables and dancing there already. We were still just a little bummed about the ceremony site area. We jokingly asked her if the hills behind the tasting room were also owned by Firestone, and if we could use one of those for the ceremony part.

It was then that she said "Well, maybe you'll like the other spot that we have on the property for ceremonies. We have to drive, but it's like 10 seconds down the road.".

So, we agreed to see it, and hopped in our car to follow Rachel for the long trip. We got in, drove less than 100 yards, and parked. I think that both Brett and I said, in unison, "Now THIS is what we're talking about!".

We got out of the truck, and immediately fell in love with the spot that they call the Vineyard Mesa. It was exactly what we were picturing. A big open lawn, with the rolling hills in the background, the oak trees....and as a bonus, the vines to the side.

At that moment, I'd made up my mind (in my head) that this was the spot where I wanted to marry Brett. Under those oak trees (or maybe in between....details, details) in front of our friends and family.

We went ahead and followed Rachel out to the other spot, which was about 20 minutes away, just to see it. It just solidified that the first spot was THE spot, and we told her to hold a date for us.

Afterwards, we went back to Firestone for me to do a wine tasting. I figured, if we're going to get married here, I might as well try the wines that our guests will get to try too!! Everything was yummy and I was very happy!!

We stopped by the lawn to grab a few pictures. We were smiling so big and already starting to see it how it would be on the big day!!! We can't wait!!

To finish out the story of the day.....we drove by a few other wineries, and even got out at one, but none of them stacked up to what we'd already seen as the spot for our wedding.

We stopped to grab some food back in town, and then went to hang out at Brett's place and figure out more stuff that we have to do to make this day happen! :) Seriously...I cannot wait!!

Should auld forgottences be acquainted...

Brett and I invited Dave & Dayna to come spend New Year's Eve with us a few weeks back. This year I just wanted to have a nice evening in, with good friends, good food and good conversation to ring in 2010.

After I had a really great end of my year at work (I hit my quota...which I was tickled to death about), I met up with the rest of the gang and we went around town getting what we needed for our evening. Groceries, firewood and a quick trip to Old Navy...and then we were all set for our night.

Brett got the fire going and we were ready for our crazy New Year's Eve. Heehee! :)

First off was Rook. Brett showed us all how to play and we caught on fast. I don't think any of us were that pleased with our beginner's luck performances...but we'll be ready next time.

You know I love a good self portrait. Thank goodness for the wide angle lens or this wouldn't have been possible. :)

It was a group effort for dinner....and it was so neat how it all came together. We had the steaks already, and had bought brussel sprouts at the store. But then, it was like I was Laura or something, because I had leftover goodies from Christmas dinner, and so we used the onions and some garlic to saute with the brussel sprouts. Then I remembered the red potatoes and chives and whipped us up another great side.

Brett cooked us up the steaks.....and had some fun while doing so.

We had quite a spread (and later realized that we'd forgotten about the salad) and it was a wonderful joint effort to get it all together. We dined by candlelight as we thanked God for a blessed 2009 and prayed for the same of the coming year. All of us have lots to look forward to in 2010....the birth of Dave and Dayna's daughter.....Brett and my wedding.....and I'm sure many other memorable moments will occur in the next 365 days.

After dinner....we decided to give Hoopla another run. We were all pretty good at it, and for our second round let the timer run all the way through without stopping for the 15 minutes. We managed to beat the clock and gave ourselves high fives for that.

We killed some time waiting for midnight by eating up the brownies that we had made with some yummy ice cream. Yummmy indeed!

We made it to midnight.....barely. The TV was turned on so we could join Ryan Seacrest in our weak attempt at trying to pretend we cared about the countdown.

2009 was a great year. I'm so blessed. Here's to 2010. I can't wait to spend it with all of you.