When a friend had approached me to attend their employee fair at BCBG a few months back I was nervous about it. Mostly because I didn’t have any of the materials needed to display a booth. The response was amazing, people who were not even interested in photography just wanted to look through my business cards which display photos on the back or wanted to view the wedding album. I’m so glad I did it. It was a really good learning experience.

Thanks Darlene for inviting me to participate, you’re awesome! A huge thank you to the bestie for assisting me that day, I couldn’t have done it without her.

Last Saturday Socorro and I carpooled together to visit our friend Vy who lives two blocks from the beach, yes, two blocks! You might remember her from the shoot I did of her and the family last year here. She is moving up north to Sacramento temporarily and I wanted to visit her one last time. Just because. She is just one cool gal and her family is too, so it’s just a good combo. Plus, I wanted her to make me her famous garlic shrimp with noodles. Delicious as it sounds, can’t wait to try the recipe myself at home. Sadly, I was helping with the prep work and immediately after indulged in the dish so no photos here, next time.

The day was perfect. Gloomy, but kind of nice since we had two days of heat. We had so much fun seeing the kids playing and interacting. It was the typical boy meets girl: boy is a little aggressive, girl is annoyed and both want to play together, but are hesitant. Cuteness! Add a few treats and small talk with a side of laughs and that pretty much sums up our afternoon.

Julia is the sweetest. She wanted her picture taken she said, just like last time.

Hey, I kind of like this.

Vy, thank you for the invite and making us lunch. You’re the best-love & hugs!

Wow, you are 30 on the 30th-lucky you! To think that I know you since the age of 5 and you still like me… still looking forward to growing old with you. Just like we planned it all out in the 6th grade. You are looking great and taking it gracefully, funny how it just sneaks up on you, right?

Not sure how we’ll celebrate, but as always with plenty of laughter and the occasional “Remember when in 3rd grade…” oh the good ol” days!

Love you girly!

Growing up my parents did the whole fireworks, block party with the barbecuing and all. Up until my little brothers were about twelve or thirteen. From there it became just a holiday where we relaxed and barbecued, but little by little we all started doing our own thing.

The last two years Kris has worked stand by which keeps us tied to our home or only a five mile radius within of our home. Luckily we have a pool in our condo community and so we decided that swimming and barbecue would do this year. We were lucky enough that Socorro wanted to visit so we were able to finally see Ubaldo and spend some quality time together. Annie came by later and joined us later in the evening and I was in bestie heaven. We were able to enjoy fireworks from the high school nearby which Ubaldo studied very intensely and was excited to see them although a bit scared at first of the noise. Understandable for an almost two year old, he’s getting so big.

Because we were hosting and too relaxed I only got these following shots of Socorro and her family at the pool.

Of all the toys Socorro bought him he was most inthralled with these squishy balls that soak up the water and float. He enjoyed it every single time he squirted his parents!

This is the face of a little firecracker!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend.

This kept him entertained for a little while, but we had to convince him that it was not okay to go in with the horses.

My second favorite shot of the day. What was that mommy?

My favorite, I miss him already.

He is as much fun as these photos prove, he’s got so much expression and attitude and even said my name for the first time. It sounds like NANNY since he can’t pronounce the C. Kris is officially jealous and is currently working on getting Ubaldo to say his name too.

Sunday we saw Alice in Wonderland in the afternoon to avoid crowds and I really enjoyed it, while Kris was not as impressed, but all in all a good time. Afterwards we met up with the family for dinner at Cajun Swamp in Fullerton, such a hidden gem. I highly recommend if you love cajun food, very low key, but the food is delicious! Mom was sick at home and with my brother Erik at UCLA it felt a bit weird at first to have dinner without them, just something to get used to I suppose. I managed to get a few shots, but these boys don’t like photos.

Getting ready for another mamalita session this Thursday and a wedding this Saturday, this month is off to a good start. Just got to keep the energy level up with some good workouts and healthy food. My mind is going 150 miles per hour, you should see my business and personal journals, you would be scared. Thank goodness for baths and red wine.

The staycation officially started that Sunday night which was Valentine’s Day and we’re not big celebrators of it, just not our thing. We should have avoided the crowds that day, but we had our tax appointment that afternoon and Socorro and Ubaldo came along since we go to the same accountant. The office is in Rancho Cucamonga so afterwards we headed to Victoria Gardens (she had never been!) and her and Ubaldo loved it, of course. We did a train ride with Ubaldo and took him to the playground, that’s it as simple as that. We had already taken him earlier to Boston Market for some dinner while Socorro had her appointment, he was so funny because of course his favorite activity is dining, just like his auntie. He was so funny in fact that I wish I would of had a video camera. This was my favorite shot of them both (a little blurry, but gotta love that bokeh), I think this is their signature pose because I have so many photos of them in this exact pose.

The rest of the week was spent doing fun stuff throughout LA. Starting with a day at Santa Monica Beach, one of our favorite spots in LA! We explored their downtown on Main St. for the first time, window shopped and checked out a few boutique shops. Made a stop at the 3-story Barnes & Noble on 3rd St. Promenade, can we say heaven? After a few hours there ( yes I said hours, we love reading the magazines and checking out books before we buy) we headed to our favorite wine bar for dinner, 4th & Jane and tried some of their crawfish boil. Very yummy and fun, a great way to end the day there.

Thursday we had booked massages at Burke Williams Spa in Pasadena courtesy of a gift, this is the perfect way to end our staycation… I felt 10 pounds lighter and refreshed and Kris loved all the pampering, who wouldn’t? It was still early so we headed to Silver Lake Wine to do a tasting and try Let’s Be Frank , a gourmet hot dog truck with %100 organic products that parks at their wine shop on Thursdays – foodie & wino heaven! We’re already planning another tasting on a Sunday when they do it in a group format with a local chef doing cooking demonstrations which we get to try, all for only $20! We both had such a great time talking with the workers and mingling amongst other winos. I love LA, there is so much to discover and explore, but I love that they have some of the best food and wine in So Cal.

All in all it was a wonderful staycation. Sorry for the lack of photos, but although I love capturing all the lovely moments I didn’t carry the camera while exploring. I really wanted to just ignore the phone, all my normal “doings” even stayed off of Facebook and Twitter and you know what? It felt very liberating and I enjoyed every minute.

I hope you have a great day and get to enjoy your favorite, carrot cake. Love you!

It’s a beautiful thing to photograph the ones you love and share your life with, there’s a deep connection that allows for a great creative flow. We had fun from start to finish and I am pleased to have captured her true beauty and simple grace. She’s an amazing mother, friend, someone you can always count on for a great laugh and her smile is really contagious.

We ended our shoot with a yummy lunch at Rutabegorz … it was the perfect Saturday afternoon, weather and all! Thank you Socorro for this amazing experience, I have the best clients in the world and it’s only the beginning.