Photography deals exquisitely with appearances, but nothing is what it appears to be. ~Duane Michals
“Even when freshly washed and relieved of all obvious confections, children tend to be sticky.” Fran Lebowitz
And Sticky she is!
We decorated Christmas cookies which, of course, ended up more on her than in her. I love the look in her eyes as she’s licking the frosting and sprinkles from her fingers. It would be very interesting to crawl inside her little head and see the world through her eyes.
And she loved bath time as much as she did decorating the cookies . . .
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“The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.” Burton Hillis
This is baby girl’s second Christmas . . . she still doesn’t quite get what is going on but it sure was special for us to be here to experience her joy in “her party”. She loved opening “her presents”. She didn’t wake up until 8am . . . and even then was only interested in watching Dora on my iPad snuggled in bed with Papa G and YaYa. By time Daddy and Mommy were up and moving around . . . we checked out stockings. As per our tradition, we had our traditional Christmas Breakfast of Hungarian Bubble Ring, scrambled eggs and bacon before opening the regular presents. I took this shot after all the presents had been opened, in the midst of the chaos. She was more excited to rip the paper off the packages than she was in what was inside.
So cute, and so much fun!
The amazing thing about this shot is that both she and her Daddy are smiling . . . and at the same time!
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“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” Charles Caleb Colton
I love this shot.
We got Ella all dressed up to go around to the neighbors delivering Christmas goodies. When we got back from charming everyone completely, I had to get a few shots of her all dressed up. She was fine at first, but then wanted my nice expensive camera to play with. I found my little point and shoot for her instead . . . and this is the result!
Not only is this a DNA shot, but she is completely imitating what I am doing as I am shooting her! Every time she pressed the button to take another picture, she would look at the screen and say “Perfect!”
How much more adorable can you get than that???
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“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.” Charles Dickens
Merry Christmas to One and All!
We’re back in the Bay Area for Christmas with our family. Not much to write today as we are are trying to get organized for Christmas, and suffering from jet lag!
Wishes for wonderful celebrations with family and friends . . .
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“Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit.” Bern Williams
We got up bright and early this morning hoping to catch the sunrise on our way down to the airport in Lihue. Unfortunately, it was raining cats and dogs so we missed the sunset. We did however find this really neat spot near the airport with this old pier that is mostly in ruins. The rain stopped and the sun even came out quite briefly while we were there. We spent some time wandering and watching the surf crashing on the levy. Fisherman were out with rods in the surf, and turtles swam in the bay. We finally had to pack up the camera gear and head for our flight back to the mainland. Three and a half weeks on this Island = bliss. We’re going home well rested and ready to take on whatever the New Year has to offer.
Bring it on!
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“We make the world we live in and shape our own environment.” Orison Swett Marden
And . . . today is our last day in this gorgeous paradise.
It’s been a wonderful adventure for us, with lots of new discoveries, visits to old haunts, and just plain relaxation and kickin’ it! Tomorrow morning early we head back to San Francisco Bay area for Christmas with family. I think I’m ready. The only reason I could stay longer at this point is if family could join us. That’s not possible, so we will go to them. Because there is nothing more important to me than my family. It will be a magical Christmas this year with our little 2 year old Grand Daughter. How can I possibly miss that??
I can’t and I won’t!
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“It’s ironic, but until you can free those final monsters within the jungle of yourself, your life, your soul is up for grabs.” Rona Barrett
Our second to last day here on this beautiful paradise found us walking through the Limahuli Botanical Gardens on the North Shore of Kauai. These gardens are built upon an ancient Hawaiian community. They’ve done an amazing job preserving and showcasing many of the indigenous plant species, as well as many others that were introduced over the years.
The tour today was self guided – which meant we took four hours to go about a mile! It’s a nice wandering trail that is a nice hike up the mountain to a beautiful vista of the ocean, and then a nice meandering path back down to the bottom. It was completely different from the tour we took the other day at Kauai Botanical Gardens, and very well worth our effort. We took tons and tons of photos.
I’ll be posting a few of the photos on my other blog: Me’n My D800e.
The weather co-operated as well . . . it was windy but didn’t rain on us once. At least not until we arrived back at the Villa’s.
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“Know what you want to do, hold the thought firmly, and do every day what should be done, and every sunset will see you that much nearer the goal.” Elbert Hubbard
We’ve had so much rain lately, it was pure pleasure to see such a stunningly gorgeous sunset tonight! Every year on our visits to Kauai, we make it a point to have dinner at a wonderful restaurant in Poipu called Beach House Restaurant. They have the best seafood that I’ve eaten just about anywhere. I particularly love their Macadamia Nut Crusted Mahi Mahi. Yum! We were fortunate enough to get a “front row seat” with an unobstructed view of the sunset. I set the camera on our table on self timer and took this shot of us looking in to the sunset. Just a beautiful memorable moment for us. And a great way to round out this really wonderful trip. We head back to San Francisco Bay Area on Saturday so our time here is quickly winding down.
Aloha!
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“Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.” Ashley Smith
It’s yet another windy, rainy day here on Kauai’s beautiful North Shore. I feel like a stuck record! We headed out for a tour of a local Botanical Garden. It’s a privately run enterprise just a short distance from where we are staying in Princeville. We took the 3 hour guided tour (highly recommended!) which included tastings of many of the local fruits, as well as a very interesting Chocolate tasting and presentation. Despite the downpours that happened frequently during the tour – we really enjoyed ourselves and learned about the local fauna.
My husband and I lagged behind the group most of the time as we stopped to take many photo’s of the beautiful plant life.
I think we look a little soggy here in this shot. Luckily, umbrella’s were provided but we still got wet!
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“Fear less, hope more, eat less, chew more, whine less, breathe more, talk less, say more, hate less, love more, and good things will be yours.” Swedish Proverb
We had great plans today to tour the McBride Botanical Gardens in Poipu, Kauai. We woke up to dark, stormy skies. It had stormed all night long with stretches of heavy rain. We hoped that perhaps it was a bit calmer and clearer on the south part of the Island, as it so often can be. However when we arrived at the Gardens, the tours had been closed due to wind gusts up to 50mph.
Instead, we drove around to a few spots that we’d visited before.
My shot for today is at the Spouting Horn. The surf is quite high right now so the Spouting Horn was giving off a good display. I decided to get away from the crowds at the lookout, and walked down around the end of the fence and on to the lava rocks to get this better vantage point.
The sun even came out for a few minutes!
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