Those blue eyes melt me. I can take 100 photographs in a few minutes, be happy with what I shot and still not want to set the camera down for fear of missing my next most favorite photo of her. Parenthood is a crazy thing you guys.
Man I freakin LOVE this next photo below!! Gotta say my most favorite thing about it has gotta be how her crazy hair makes her and the lion look like they could be related. lol. Wild & untamed, she roars!
We had a little shin-diggg at our house celebrating the oncoming arrival of our son Sebastian Amadeus Martens…. [ kidding about the name] We actually still have no name yet. I mean we had a name we really liked but the parents voiced disapproval and killed it. So we have been searching for something new that gets us excited. No luck yet.
I wasnt going to post pics of this set up cause its a really poor attempt at documenting the day. truth. Yes, even husband & wife wedding photography super heroes take breaks from time to time. ha! Actually to be honest I dont think I took a single pic here? I was drinking whiskey and enjoying the party with friends that much… didnt think about it once. Ugh. Jess was bumming about it slightly cause in the end there are no pics of her [at her baby shower] and no pics of the beautiful cake our friend Corissa had made for us! and no documenting of the details. Really, like I said, I dropped the ball. BUT still as I was looking back through these pics of the day it made me smile, we have good friends. Thanks guys for being there and for being you.
Wow! I havent been to Sea World… since, forever. Take it back, we had prom there in high school but before that I was probably 6 or so. Still cool, but damn has it gotten expensive. Makes sense though, they have a LOT of animals to take care of!! The crazier part is that it costs the same for one day as it does for a year pass… take that back, now that I think back it actually ended up being cheaper by a couple bucks to get the year pass with a AAA discount. How does that even make any sense!? Capitalizing on the tourists there for one day apparently… and there were tons of them. I honestly didnt really notice that until we went to the Shamoo show later on in the afternoon. You know how they have the soak zone down in the front. The place where you just get drenched if you hang out and you would only expect to find kids and adventurous adults sitting. Well, when we got in for the last show of the day the place was packed and the soak zone was lined with people as well. I think they need to make the signs that say “WARNING, SOAK ZONE! YOU WILL GET WET IF YOU SIT HERE!” in Japanese too cause these poor families were clueless. Clearly they had no clue the impending doom of the front row when they sat there. They probably thought they had scored the BEST seat in the house and within minutes realized why those seats were all so easy to grab. Shamoo comes by and does a MASSIVE jump to back flop causing a tidal wave that soaks tourists young and old and nearly causes an “I’ve gotta get out of here” stampede [cameras in hand] up the aisle. I felt bad seeing these guys get all their photography gear drenched as well as the babies and elderly that were with them.
Anyway, we got to see polar bears, whales and Avalon even went into the shark exhibit. She loves Sea World and we scored the year pass thanks to Jessicas Dad… so it looks like we’ll be going back this summer when they open up the stingray exhibit. Got a ton of cool pics but not as many as I would have like of the exibits + Avalon in them, just didnt have a wide enough lens ;/ Now that I know what Im in for, next time this photographer in San Diego will be better prepared and strapping a wide angle / fish eye lens. Fortunately I had my go pro on me and was able to snag some cool video footage to compliment the photos.
Taking time off from wedding photography for the winter and enjoying some quality family time. Jessicas Dad is still in town from Alaska and he thought it would be fun to hit the beach so we headed to my old stomping ground… Ocean Beach. Stayed at the OB hotel right there on the strip. Cool place, pet friendly too so Pat was able to bring along Cheeto. I freakin love OB. If we could pick up and move to San Diego that would be the first place I’d look into… and as far as SD goes OB is pretty much centrally located between north county and south county while still being on the sand. The vibe is chill and its not as ghetto as Imperial Beach, as college party as Pacific Beach, or pretentious as La Jolla. My kind of place. Its got the right blend of hippy stoner friendly vibe goin on. Kinda like a mini Venice.
Anyhow, Jess, Avalon and I had fun getting out of town and spending a few days at the beach. Here are a few pics from one of our days out. Love my girls.
Thats what Avalon calls Jessicas Dad… cept it sounds more like “papa alaaaka”, its pretty cute. Jessica is from Alaska and her Dad still lives up there. He owns and runs an Anchorage Auto Repair Shop called Agen’s Automotive, which is big business up there. Its a million times colder than anyone from California could ever imagine and in turn it causes cars to have all kinds of problems… needless to say biz is good and he doesnt get down this way much. Cept this year he said f@#k it and hopped a plane to his brothers place in Oregon and picked up a motor home he had in storage and drove it down. Parked out front of our house for a few days and got tired of that scene and headed to the gem of the inland empire – Pechanga.
But that is a whole different story there… today was a beach day for Avi, Jess, Pat & Cheeto [fluffy sidekick]
