Aunt Dinner

Every few weeks (sometimes due to schedules it turns into every few months), my Aunt, mom and I get together after work for a fun catch-up happy hour. This past Friday we were able to add a few more to our chat fest - my cousin Chelsea was in town, plus Alicia and Avery were there as well. Even though I wasn't in the best mood (it took me one hour to drive from Petaluma to downtown Santa Rosa and I even left work 30 minutes early!), it is always so lovely to be in the presence of such beautiful women that I am so proud to claim as a part of my family.

The Dance Center June Show

Dance will always have a special place in my heart. Every week, multiple times a week, I would arrive at the dance studio on College Avenue in Santa Rosa and dance my little heart out as a member of the Katherine Wheeler Dancers from the age of 5 to 16. It was a lot of dedication, a lot of investment on my parents part, and a whole lot of fun. Our annual June Shows were amazing experiences and I take every chance that I can get to support others in the dance world, so I was thrilled to cheer on my little friend Julia during her Dance Center Steppin' Out show on June 10th.

She is the third zebra print gal from the left in the photo below (with the hot pink shoes - love them!)

Michelle and I were all set on purchasing a flower for Julia in the lobby like we did last year - much to our disappointment they were not selling flowers in the lobby this year. We were bummed - but, thankfully, Julia didn't even notice that we didn't have something for her - she was just excited that we were there! Julia and her mom...

With me...

With Michelle and I (and Alex in the background)...

Rumor has it that next year she wants to do tap and might just join Katherine Wheeler - oh my goodness I am really excited if that rumor comes true! Thanks for the invite Vicki and Michelle - I had a blast reliving my old pasttime with you! xoxo

More Avery :)

I know that ya'll can never get enough of sweet little Avery - here are some more pictures of her during a family dinner of fresh (and yummy) abalone from this past Saturday.

Chillin' with her Uncle D...

Damon is so freakin' cute with her it is unbelievable...he was super cute with Ryanne as well - but I think that his comfort level with newborn babies has grown since then (I know that mine has as well.)

A little bumbo action...

xoxo

Avery :)

After work on Monday, June 7th Damon and I met my family at Mary's for dinner. It turned out to be a big celebration dinner - since both my sister and Geoff accepted job offers that day. Geoff is working at his old company selling in a San Francisco to Monterey sales territory and Alicia will be teaching third grade at Binkely Elementary in Rincon Valley in Santa Rosa. Very exciting news for the Hildebrandt family!

I decided to perch Avery up on Uncle Damon's shoulders for a little while and she really liked it -she kept grabbing at his hair :)

And then she decided that she hated it - you can tell that I am a little scared in this photo - I hate it when she crys around me, I feel so horrible! She reminds me of Ryanne with her big fat bottom lip - Ryanne was the queen of the lip pout and now Avery does it too :)

Happy Anniversary Morgan and Justin

Yippee - today is Morgan and Justin's three year wedding anniversary! What a fabulous day we all had three years ago. My favorite part of the day was hanging out at the Manor all day long with the worlds calmest bride ever. We got all prettied-up, enjoyed the breathtaking view and chatted about the exciting evening before us.

http://dm-morelli.blogspot.com/2007/06/congrats-morgan-and-justin.html

I love seeing my friends in love with their perfect mate.

xoxo

Update on 101 in 1,001 List

Completed #1 - Photograph a Wedding

On May 15th, I completed the first goal on my 101 goals in 1,001 days and photographed a wedding for someone who booked me through a referral. Aimee did not meet with me ahead of time, she booked me for her wedding strictly through email correspondence. Honestly, I thought that I would be more nervous throughout the day, but I got into 'go' mode and go into my element. The best part was that my sister came to hang out with me during the ceremony as my second shooter. We had a lot of fun and it was great having her there. I even let her use my new camera, which I still haven't quite figured out how to use - I just love my Canon 5D so much that holding a different camera feels a little too foreign, even though my new one has so many more advanced features.

Here are two blog posts from the wedding:

http://mamphotography.squarespace.com/blog/2010/5/25/myers-wedding-sonoma-wedding-photographer.html

http://mamphotography.squarespace.com/blog/2010/5/24/myers-wedding-sonoma-wedding-photographer.html

Completed #21 - Play a New Board Game

I should have marked this one off a long time ago, I bought Damon Wheel of Fortune, since we love that television show, plus we have also played a new game that Leana got me for Christmas, Bananas. My favorite board game is still Scrabble :)

Completed #40 - Learn Lightroom

I purchased Abode Lightroom years ago and just couldn't get into it. I had even purchased different editing actions and just never uploaded them. So, when I upgraded - well, it might have been a little more than an upgrade - my computer, I made myself use it. And I love it. That coupled with the massive quickness of my new huge mac computer have cut my editing down by 50%. And for proof, here is little Ryan, an adorable little man I photographed a few weeks ago, editing in Lightroom.

Slowly, but surely, I am making my way through the silly list. Although, I think that I am going to allow myself the ability to edit a few of the goals again soon :)

Happy Story

I saw this on a blog (don't remember which one) and thought that I would share it here...I really like it!

_______________

The truth is, there’s no better time to be happy than right now.

If not now … when? Your life will always be filled with challenges.It’s best to admit this to yourself and decide to be happy anyway.

…

You can’t do today’s job with yesterday’s methodsand be in business tomorrow.

So stop waiting until you finish school

until you go back to school

until you lose ten pounds

until you gain ten pounds

until you have kids

until your kids leave the house

until you start work

until you retire

until you get married

until you get divorced

until Friday night

until Sunday morning

until you get a new car or homeu

until your car or home is paid off

until spring,

until summer

until fall

until winter

until you are off welfare

until the first or fifteenth

until your song comes on

until you’ve had a drink

until you’ve sobered up

until you die

until you are born again to decide that there is no better time than right now to be happy

Happiness is a journey … not a destination!!

Remember if you are not happy with your work, it is very hard to be happy with rest of you life.

Lisa's Scottsdale Bachelorette Party

Last Thursday evening I flew over to Phoenix, jumped in a rental car and then headed over to my counsin Diana's new house that she purchased in Chandler. After staying up way too late and trying to get used to the drastic change in temperature, I departed on Friday morning to pick up Morgan and her mom at the airport - and the festivites of Lisa's Scottsdale Bachelorette Party began. We rented a fabulous house about 30 minutes north of downtown, almost in the mountains a little. And there were 14 of us to celebrate Lisa's upcoming wedding. On the agenda was alot of relaxing and laying by the pool soaking in the 105 degree warmth :) The house backed up to the Troon golf course and there was an empty lot next to us, so there was lots of privacy and nature to take in.

We also had a nice, although quick, visit with our friend Bri - who lives in Scottsdale and stopped by to say hello and catch up. We didn't get any pictures, but I promise she was there!

Love this picture of the adorable bride to be with her fancy hat from Morgan's mom store, Bella, in Healdsburg.

Lisa and Elizabeth...

Morgan and Lisa...

Lisa gave everyone adorable bags from Crate and Barrel that are the exact size needed to carry on toiletries through security at the airport, and the little zipper is an airplane. So cute!

Here are some pictures of the house...

The huge master bathroom....

The shower...

Us Ursuline girls after a late night out and getting ready to head to the airport...

More pictures from my other camera later!

Another Flashback Post

Here are some more old photos that I scanned and wanted to share.

When I was little my family and I took a one to two week long camping trip with the Gomes family every summer up to Burney Falls. The area holds so many memories for me and I love returning there. In addition to the childhood memories, at the foot of the falls is where Damon asked me to marry him :) We have visited several times since then and each time I fall in love with the area even more. You can read about some of my past falls adventures here and here and the engagement pictures here. In the picture below are Angela, Alicia, myself and Marc.

I talked about my obsession with double decker buses in this post, my 25th birthday, from our 2007 cruise to Alaska and just had to share this photo of my 4th birthday, where I was also in Victoria, Canada. Apparently I felt that Shera (is that how you spell her name?) was as equally important as the double decker bus :)

The following picture makes me laugh and then laugh some more. I scanned this one a few weeks ago and titled it 'favorite things.' This was SOOO Lisa and I in college - we loved our Diet Pepsi and ketchup, so, of course, we took a photo. I also love that you can see parts of our fun Chico house...Big Mouth Bass Billy on the wall, the disco ball in the kitchen and the photos all over the fridge. The funny part is that just the other week Lisa B sent me a photo text message with a picture of Gardetto's and told me she was thinking of me, since those are another personal fav. I am so lucky to have such lovely memories with such lovely ladies.

This picture also made me laugh since I am the one inside that bunny costume and that adorable little girl is Olivia Bertacco (she is in this recent post almost at the end). I was the Easter bunny for The Press Democrat easter egg hunts for years, I even came home from college to carry on the traditional. It was always a blast and the kiddos were either super excited or super scared. The only hard part was that it is a million degrees in the head piece, especially when the weather was good, when I was finished I looked like I ran a marathon (or what I would image I would look like after running a marathon.)

Monterey for Memorial Day Weekend

Damon and I headed down to Monterey for the Memorial Day weekend with our favorite lil' gal Shasta. We love taking her to explore with us. In fact, during her 3.5 years of life she has been to Tahoe several times (one, two, three), Cedarville twice, Mendocino, Oregon hunting, Reno, Chico, Burney Falls (and one more time), Redwood Trails/Trinidad and Colusa more times than the lil' gal can count. What a lucky dog!

The hotel that we stay at was super nice, Casa Munras, and they had complimentary movies in the lobby. Shasta had to wait outside with Damon and she was crying for me through the window. My two little loves! We ended up watching 'Escape from Alcatraz' (one of the movies we learned about while on our Alcatraz tour and some other Clint Eastwood movie that I forget the title of. 'Escape from Alcatraz' was really good and so much fun since we were just at the location site during our last weekend away.

The hotel is built around an old adobe, I wasn't quite prepared for all of the history in the area and was really amazed.

We arrived on Saturday afternoon after taking our time driving along the coast. After taking a nap we drove around to get a lay of the land, had dinner sitting outdoors over looking the sailboats and then took Shasta on a long evening walk (ending with milkshakes for everyone). On Sunday we headed to the aquarium and then to the beach for Shasta to play.

Our self timer family photo...

Some views of our room...

I loved the windows and shutters, very fun!

We had to stop for a few photos during our Sunday evening walk as well...

Shasta and I in a boat :)

A few more night-time shots...

I think that I have more photos on my big gal camera to share :) More later!

Mom's Birthday

On Monday, May 17th my family (plus my grandparents) met at El Torito to celebrate my mom's birthday. As always, the day was made even more special since Avery was there to celebrate with us. We love going to El Torito and ordering a bunch of appetizers (and margaritas) to share. Yummy!

Do you think that Avery is wrapped around my Grandpa's finger?

Love this picture...

She was super excited about my salad and kept on staring at it, so Damon tried to feed her some. Haha - just kidding!

These two pictures are from another family dinner at Mary's - we are enjoying how well Avery does in restaurants. She is definitely a keeper!