No, I haven't been kidnapped...

Well, not exactly. You could say I've been kidnapped by my 900 (give or take) vacation photos though!! I've now gotten through the third day...I was a bit delayed by spending the holiday weekend with my family. :) To appease my silent-but-faithful readers, here's a sampling. :)
My cousin, Elisabeth with her 6-month-old baby, Theresa. In the 2 years since we've been there, she's gotten married, bought a new home and had a baby!

Some of the awesome food...always food! My grandmother won't ever let us stop eating!

The view from a road near my grandparent's apartment (it was pretty grey and stormy our first day):

Theresa again - she had the cutest baby double chin! :)

My dad and grandfather...gee, can you tell they're related? ;)

And that night luckily the storms blew through and the sun came out just in time for the summer solstice celebrations - bonfires up and down the coast, all over the country really. While we were at one celebration, we walked around a bit and found this old concrete jetty (probably left over from WW2):

And that's all you get. :P Off to make a new blog header - so behind!

Headin' Out, Movin' Out

It's stories like this one that give me hope about the future of our planet, and makes me proud of my people and heritage. :)

Leaving tomorrow - try not to miss me too much!

xoxo

Lars' Graduation

As I mentioned, last week was Lars' graduation from high school, and we all gathered for a big family to-do to celebrate. It was more of a week-long thing, actually, between all the family and friends coming and going. We love doing it, but you sure are exhausted when its done, right?

Wednesday night we started out with dinner at Lucille's BBQ (Lars' choice, of course) for some of Lars' friends as well as me, Chris, Cheryl, Elissa and my mom. Good times! Luckily they put us in this little side room so we wouldn't disturb too many other tables. :) I had some pretty darn good ribs.

Then Thursday was the pre-graduation luncheon, and we had a bunch of people wandering in and out of the house all afternoon. Turned out very nice, we had catering from the local Mexican restaurant that we love. I took a ton of photos of everyone hanging out, but I love that in this one Elissa is standing and Jacopo is hogging the chair! :)

Later on in the afternoon we got some beautiful light, and I love how this one of Dante turned out:

Then it was the big rush to get Lars over to the stadium in time for pre-ceremony photos (he's an International Baccalaureate graduate too, so they got special robes and took photos since they make up about 2% of the senior class). I'm surprised he remembered all the extra stuff he got to wear (Honor Society drape, extra tassel for Tiger of the Year nominee, etc etc etc the boy is ridiculous!), and amazed that he gave this big genuine smile (it might have helped that Uncle Karl was holding the camera instead of me):

Then once we were all parked and settled in the stands, there was still time to mess around before the ceremony started...and that means photos, of course! Can you see me, my dad and Chris? :)

My dad and I are the biggest hams!

And the most important part of the ceremony (for our cheering section, anyway), the announcement of his name:

I'm pretty sure they were making fun of me for taking so many photos, but at least I caught these hilarious expressions, right? ;) And all you fellow photogs out there can empathize that you have to take 25 to get 1 good one! Thank Thor for digital!!

This is what happens when I give the camera to Chris:

Unfortunately we got a sort of June gloom/marine layer that rolled in after all that great afternoon sun, so the rest of the photos aren't nearly as rich, but I still love the hilarity in this series - we didn't arrane a meeting spot and Lars forgot his cell phone, so it was a fun game of "find the graduate" afterwards. Lars is so expressive, these crack me up:


The whole damn fam - guess I didn't get the memo about the color scheme! :)

You can see the rest of the photos from that week at my Flickr.

Just one more day of work until I leave....wooo!

Busy, Busy, Busy

Last week was crazy but wonderful, because I got to see family and friends that I don't normally get to see! Tuesday I picked up my auntie Elissa from the airport, Wednesday our old family friend Cheryl arrived (she drove down from Sacramento) and we all went to dinner at Lars' favorite restaurant, Thursday was graduation with my uncle, aunt and cousins joining us for the day, and Friday our friends the Brinkmans came out from Phoenix for the weekend. Phew! I'm exhausted (although not nearly as much as my mom, the eternal hostess), but so glad that I made the time to hang out every night. Except Saturday...after hardly being home all week, I was ready to spend at night on the couch with Chris and the pups. Still working on all the photos I took, but here are my two new favorites, by far (with a little help from Nicole V's actions):

 
And yes, Chris' shirt really does say "Sometimes I worry about zombies". I ordered it for him for Christmas from Tinaseamonster, who has one of the coolest shops on Etsy (and does kids sizes too!). :)

This week I'm getting ready to leave for Norway on Saturday, and Chris officially starts the Warped Tour again on Friday. Can't believe it's snuck up on me so fast! Too much to do - this is the first time I have to make sure the pets are taken care of, apartment is secured, food is trashed, etc etc etc. Reminder to self - dig out the light timer. Gotta go!

I'm a fan...

and you should be too! Just had to share this photo, even though it looks like I have no neck. :)

This was right after she so willingly helped me get makeup out of the corner of my eye, and also after we had to yell for the lady to open up where we shot most of our photos. Good times! And did I mention that she was cool enough to compliment MY photos?? Yeah, talk about an awesome fan moment.

 
Someday, when I grow up, I want to be able to capture like she does. :)