I know I’ve been a little light on posts so far this year, but I blame the awful cold I battled and also the amount of time it takes for me to edit video footage, which is what I’ve been working on instead of writing. That said, I just finished compiling a bunch of video clips from our trip to Ireland and have uploaded a short movie for your viewing pleasure! Bonus points if you recognize where else (hint: in what movie) you might have heard the song.
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A Bit of Beach Therapy
It’s that time of the year, when it has turned unbearably cold in Virginia and I’m dreaming of sun and sand. Chris and I don’t tend to try to get away to the islands during our winter months because we typically use our free time to play in the snow, but right now we’re at the point where it’s bitterly cold without any snow. When that happens, I turn my daydreams toward beaches. Thankfully I can look back on my images of sandy shorelines, and look forward to island trips ahead (Mexico is calling our name this year)! So on that note, here are some of my most favorite beach photos from the past several years. It’s the closest to beach therapy I can get at the moment!
Outer Banks, NC
Would you believe the first time I remember ever going to the beach wasn’t until I was twenty years old? I grew up in land-locked Missouri and Colorado, and when I lived in Texas we were a good five hours from any sandy coastlines. My family took plenty of vacations, but not to the beach, so it wasn’t a familiar sight to me when I went on my first trip to the Outer Banks with Chris. It has taken me many many years to get used to the water, but this first trip to Corolla will always be special to me.
Oahu, HI
A few years later Chris and I found ourselves on Oahu for a conference. Despite my adventurous nature and love for exploring, I still harbored a pretty serious fear of ocean creatures at this point. So after seeing a sign on Waikiki Beach warning swimmers not to go in the water due to jellyfish swarms, that was it for me. I didn’t get in the water the entire trip! But I enjoyed gazing at the water from a distance, and of course I took pictures of the enchanting colors. These photos are actually from our return trip to Oahu in 2008 for a friend’s wedding.
St. John, USVI
When Chris’s dad invited us to spend a week with him on St. John, it began our love affair with the island and we ended up returning two more times after that. I don’t have photos of my favorite beach, Cinnamon Bay (where we went for a short snorkel before a sting ray freaked me out), but I do have a photo of one of the most photographed beaches in the Virgin Islands. Trunk Bay is the one that shows up most frequently on postcards from St. John. I snapped this photo on our third visit after a tropical storm had just visited the island.
And it’s easy to get that view of Trunk Bay – there is a road that passes by overlooking the beach, and there’s plenty of room to pull off for a photo op!
Virgin Gorda, BVI
Without meaning to, I turned this post into a timeline of my ocean phobia, but this day trip to Virgin Gorda (from Tortola) was a huge turning point for me. Chris talked me into getting in the water at The Baths because he knew I’d be crazy about the cute, brightly colored fish. Sure enough, I put my face in the water to see a school of blue tangs trailing nearby, and it was enough to make my fears melt away. I’ve been more and more curious about the sea ever since.
Tortola, BVI
Smuggler’s Cove on Tortola is still one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen. Being able to see everything around me is key to my comfort while swimming, and the crystal-clear water at Smuggler’s Cove put me right at ease.
Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands
By the time we booked a trip to Grand Cayman in 2014, I was ready to go all-in with snorkeling, diving, and playing with sting rays in the water. We missed the chance to dive on this trip, but we did get to see some stunning beaches. Seven Mile Beach and Starfish Point stand out in my mind as favorite stretches of sand on the island.
Vik, Iceland
When you think of Iceland you probably don’t think of beaches, but our visit to the shores of Vik was my first sighting ever of dramatic black sand.
Ambergris Caye, Belize
This long, narrow island in Belize isn’t typically known for its beaches, but we did enjoy the little strip of beach outside our villa on Ambergris Caye.
Vieques, Puerto Rico
Even though this beach wasn’t really swimmable, Chris, my sister, my brother-in-law, and I loved the view from our villa in Vieques along the northern shore.
Derrynane, Ireland
Speaking of unswimmable beaches, Chris and I had a great time exploring the rocky coastline of Ireland when we stopped at Derrynane Beach off the Ring of Kerry. It was too cold to even dip a toe in the water while we were there (and signs warn visitors not to swim there due to strong currents), but it was beautiful to photograph.
Islay, United Kingdom
Last but not least, one of my favorites of the favorites: Saligo Bay on the Isle of Islay in Scotland. I just didn’t realize we would find such pretty beaches in Scotland, but lo and behold they’re all over, and here is one of them.
Even thinking about beaches that are too chilly for swimming makes me feel warmer on this blustery day in Virginia. I’m hoping to add some more shoreline images to my collection this year with a visit to Isla Mujeres, and I’m hoping even more that we have warm, sunny weather while we’re there. Something to look forward to, for sure!
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2015 in Review
Happy New Year to you and yours! I hope you had a warm and cozy holiday season and wrapped up 2015 on a high note. I ended up with a really bad respiratory infection (gross!) and had to postpone our trip to Colorado, so it wasn’t my favorite way to end the year. That’s also the reason I haven’t posted a single thing here in weeks. Thankfully I’m on the mend now after a round of antibiotics, although I still have bit of a stubborn cough. Bring on the new year with fewer germs, please!
2015 was pretty good to Chris and me in general and we had our share of fun highlights. We both started off the year really strong in our resolve to study hard and get a few professional certifications (work stuff, not pictured below), and we then spent the rest of the year doing my favorite thing: gallivanting around the world together! Our travels took us to West Virginia, Belize, Ireland, Scotland, and Toronto. We also shared a wonderful trip to Vieques with my sister and brother-in-law, something we don’t get to do nearly often enough. Perhaps my biggest moment in travel though was conquering a huge fear and checking off a bucket-list item: scuba diving! Combine that with our swimming with sharks adventure and I have almost gotten over my fear of the ocean.
The award for Most Improved goes to our master bathroom – I finally painted the vanity and it made a huge difference. And speaking of improvements, I went through a refinement round of Invisalign and finally finished treatment for good. Last but not least, Marty feels pretty accomplished this year for learning quite a few new words and phrases. One of his new favorites is, “Let’s go Caps!”
Of course, along with peaks come valleys. From the keeping-it-real files, 2015 contained the following low moments: an icky parasite from Belize (I was the lucky winner of that one), falling into a fresh cow patty while on a hike in Scotland (me again), and missing Christmas in Colorado while I nearly coughed up both lungs. But really, that’s not so bad at all and we feel very fortunate.
Here’s to hoping 2016 brings you peace, good health, love, and happiness!
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Tourist at Home: Antiques Hunting
Chris and I spent the day in D.C. last Saturday trying out a new-to-us self-guided walking tour app called GPSmyCity. We downloaded the Washington D.C. version on my iPhone and selected the Antiques Hunting Tour 2 since I’m always on the lookout for vintage cameras. We ended up discovering some fun shops that we might not have otherwise visited!
Our tour started off in the Logan Circle area and the first stop brought us to Miss Pixie’s, full of the most interesting knick-knacks, furnishings, and used books.
My favorite find was this bin full of old film prints! I looked through it for a good ten minutes or so before I had to pull myself away. Some of the photos were marked on the back with names and dates while others weren’t marked at all, leaving me to wonder who these people were. I wanted to buy the whole lot (prints should have a home!), but at $1 per print it would have added up to quite a bit. And I don’t even have my own prints super organized, so maybe I should start with that project instead.
Next on the tour we stopped into GoodWood on U Street. I could have wandered around in here for quite a while, perusing the beautiful furniture and unique objects. And oh how I wish we had room in our tiny house for more furniture! I’m not sure what I would do with a shelving unit full of outstretched arms, but the display intrigued me and made for a good photo.
Legendary Beast sits on top of a comic book store also on U Street and it was the third stop on our tour. We only popped in for a moment since we were running short on time, but I’d love to go back and pour over the decades worth of fun baubles. It’s a small store, but it’s packed to the brim with vintage jewelry.
In addition to discovering antique shops, thanks to our self-guided walking tour we stumbled upon CakeLove and self-guided our hungry selves right into the shop. Holy sugar fix in a portable container, Batman. Is cake-in-a-jar the new cupcake?! Or has this been a thing for a while and I’m just now hearing about it? Either way, it’s an amazing treat and it hit the spot after wandering around the city. I highly recommend the Salty Caramel.
Our afternoon also included plans for visiting two of the local breweries so we had to cut the tour short and miss the last couple of stops, but we can easily pick up where we left off next time. And there are several other walks in D.C. that I’d love to do in the future, not to mention tons of other cities I’d love to tour with GPSmyCity. We found the app to be simple and intuitive, and effective for navigating around the city. I think one of the stores may have closed since the Antiques Shopping 2 walk was created (or else we were too hopped up on cake to find it), but we loved the ease of finding everything else. I’ll definitely be downloading apps for each of the cities we’re visiting next year!
Thank you to GPSmyCity for providing me with a complimentary code to try the app. The thoughts and opinions in this blog are my own.
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Portraits in Washington, D.C.
For anyone who is new here (welcome!), I’ll start by explaining that I used to be a wedding and portrait photographer. Not too long ago, I had a very busy business for six years (before I decided to close that chapter), and one of my favorite parts about the job was the opportunity to explore the areas around me. I live in Northern Virginia just a hop, skip, and a jump outside of Washington, D.C.
Offering such a photogenic background, portrait sessions in D.C. were always in high demand and I found myself photographing couples in front of the city’s quintessential monuments and memorials on the regular. Those sessions inspired me to explore the city further outside of client work and I’ve made it a point to visit more often. I loved my photography business even though I had to let it go, so I thought it would be fun to reminisce by revisiting some of my favorite iconic D.C. portraits!
Washington Monument
It doesn’t get much more iconic than the Washington Monument. At over 555 feet tall, the obelisk can easily be spotted from so many vantage points in the city and it showed up frequently in my photography.
District of Columbia War Memorial
Tucked away in the foliage along Independence Avenue, the War Memorial is a little less traveled by the tourist crowd, so it made a perfect spot for images without a lot of people in the background.
Thomas Jefferson Memorial
This is another one where we could often find a quiet spot among the columns for portraits, especially around the back of the building. The Jefferson also offers a beautiful view of the Tidal Basin and the Washington Monument in the distance.
Lincoln Memorial
I’m no longer up-to-date on the current photo permit requirements, but when I was doing weddings and portraits you were not allowed to photograph inside the Lincoln Memorial without a permit, and the security guards were very strict about it. If they saw a photographer carrying professional gear with a bride and groom in tow, they turned you away immediately! Every once in a while I was able to get away with a casual engagement portrait if we were discreet. But I’ll never forget taking this photo of Nick and Marjorie in front of the memorial (which is totally allowed) in the rain. It’s one of my absolute favorites.
Capitol Building
My very first time doing an engagement session (eee! nerves!), I was photographing a couple who had access to the Russell Senate Office Building (Shawn worked there) and we were able to get a cool shot of the Capitol from inside, but there are so many other great spots in D.C. to photograph our Capitol.
Cherry Blossoms
Last but not least, and while they aren’t technically a monument, I can’t write about my sessions in the District without mentioning the Cherry Blossoms. Spring is a magical time in the city and the blossoms were the perfect backdrop for magical photos!
