last week in seattle…
… these two became husband and wife.
Archive for the 'travel' Category
this summer was a nonstop wedding, photography and travel fest. it has been wonderful. i love what i do. it’s really fun. but honestly, i am wiped out.
thankfully, this past week has been slower. quieter. and it has been slightly unsettling. cause i’m always moving. i never slow down, and i have a hard time relaxing. so this week i took a day off.
what made it easier to take that day was the perfect escape: my dear friend wendy and her dog baxter were taking a trip to their friend’s farm in carmel to visit her pumpkins growing there, and they were going to go to the beach…
as soon as she said beach this southern california girl was sold. odin didn’t need any convincing either.
taking the drive there through the misty drizzly hills and catching up with my friend was wonderful. and the farm was gorgeous. it made me so excited that fall is here.
i like japanese things. i like that sometimes japanese products are adorable for no other reason than to just be adorable.
i went to the daiso japan store (japan’s equivalent to the 99cent store) in mountain view recently and picked up a few adorable things.
each little knick knack holds an inordinate amount of sentiment for me, because each item reminds me of the sweet year i spent in tokyo, japan after i graduated from UCLA in 2006.
i am reminded of the constant surprises and joys of new things in a strange and wonderful place.
i am reminded of the lifelong friends i made while working with college students there.
i am reminded of Aaron’s surprise proposal at the end of my year there, after many hard months of long distance calls, and i remember crying on that bridge, in the rain.
i cherish all those things.
they start to feel like a lifetime away, until i find a little japanese joy in the form of a sponge with a face:
shannon and i sat and talked excitedly about her upcoming wedding at the historic rengstorff house in mountain view in september. and she told me about this guy, this one that stole her heart, and she talked about beautiful south dakota.
i’ll just be real right now and say what i was thinking, “south dakota…beautiful?” see when you grow up in california you have this horrible tendency to think that anywhere that far from the ocean can’t be that beautiful.
how WRONG i was about south dakota!! and just in case any california girls out there are thinking to themselves, what is even in south dakota? i hope this blog post enlightens you about this gorgeous place.
but back to shannon and jeff…
jeff is the kind of guy who, in the words of shannon’s dad, you can’t help but like. he’s just so dang sweet and funny. and i was immediately predisposed to like him when i saw the way he looked at shannon. a man who looks at his woman with that kind of fondness and love, is a man i can get behind.
you’d never guess it started with one little facebook post…
jeff had just graduated from flight school in the air force, and lots of friends were congratulating him on the facebook. but none of them quite caught his attention the same way that one little post from a girl he kind of knew in college. shannon said something like “congratulations on graduating from flight school…that’s cooler than cool” because shannon is awesome like that.
jeff did a little facebook stalking and became more and more intrigued by this shannon, who he kind of knew in college. and so he sent her a message in response to one of her statuses (be careful, ladies what you post on facebook…) about wanting to go on an adventure. jeff suggested they go on an adventure together to south america, and ended with “that would be one crazy first date.”
and would you guess that shannon was intrigued as well? wouldn’t you be if a guy asked you out on a first date to south america? well they didn’t actually go but they did spend a weekend together while some mutual friends got married in davis where they both went to college, and that was all it took for jeff to be officially smitten.
after a lot of long distance, and trips to texas where jeff was stationed, and many hours on the phone, jeff proposed to shannon.
…here’s to many adventures my friends!
I know you are going to love your new life together in south dakota soon enough. Continue reading ‘shannon + jeff : south dakota engagement’
this past week I lived on a houseboat, along with 35 high school students. I am just as crazy as I sound.
It was incredibly refreshing and soul-restoring to get away from emails and spend time stargazing, swimming and laughing on beautiful Lake Shasta.
welcome to day 2 of my adventure in rapid city, south dakota!
so many new sights and sounds today. i am exhausted and exhilarated by it all.
jeff is a 1st lieutenant at ellsworth air force base; so he was able to show us around the base, and we had to get a few photos in front of the b1 bomber. jeff flies one of those beasts. it’s pretty stinkin’ awesome.
we then took a drive to badlands national park.
we took one million pictures. south dakota is just as scenic and breathtakingly beautiful as you imagine it would be.
i am so excited about all the photos we took and it was agonizing to choose just ONE to share for now, but here’s a little gem for you that shows a little of the badlands rock formation in the background.
gorgeous. am i right? i promise to share more later, you will love them.
for now, it’s time to get my beauty sleep.
mount rushmore tomorrow!!
xoxo
em
so some of you might have seen my tweets earlier and were wondering, “wait, emily is a boarding a flight to south dakota?” yep, it’s true.
i’m here to do some engagement photos for a (fun!) couple, friends of mine shannon and jeff. shannon and i are visiting jeff, who recently relocated for his job with the air force. i will be photographing their wedding this coming september, and we wanted to do their engagement photos in south dakota, where they will be spending their first few years of marriage together. i love that we will be creating photos for them in this place that is bound to hold so many new adventures for them.
i arrived tonight at 5:30pm and then we ate dinner and while jeff played in his soccer league shannon and i took a stroll in downtown rapid city.
downtown has a whole army of bronzed famous figures. 10 points to anyone who can correctly identify this dashing cowboy.
gem photo 
love