Better late than never!

Jana — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 23:38:33 +0000

Ok, so it’s summertime and you’d think that’d mean MORE time to catch up on things and spend time on the computer but so far this summer seems to mean the opposite for me! However, it IS my goal to get caught up on posting pics from sessions, trips, etc. and I thought a good place to start would be with our family vacation to Mexico that we took in February (yes, February. I know, pathetic that I’m just now posting pics, right?!). The boys had never been on a cruise before and Texas is actually a pretty good place to live if you’re into cruises since we can just drive a few short hours to the coast and hop on board a ship so that’s what we did. We took a short Carnival cruise out of Galveston to Cozumel and although the cruise itself was very nice, it was sad to see the devistation that Cozumel endured at the hands of Hurricane Wilma in 2005. Very little of the island has been rebuilt although if you didn’t leave port then you might not even know that but since we couldn’t do our original water excursion because of high tides, we took a bus tour around the island and saw first-hand what a hurricane can do to a previously gorgeous tropical paradise.

The weather on our trip started out looking like this. NOT good, not good at all.

After a bumpy night at sea, thankfully we awoke to a lovely morning! (I was having a Titanic moment at the front of the ship taking this photo!)

We toured the ship and decided it was time to heard to the pool like everyone else since we were still out at sea….

We staked out our spots around the pool and soaked in some rays since it was still cool & rainy back home…..

…..and this is pretty much where I stayed for most of the day since it was cool & rainy back home.

The next day we headed into Cozumel for bus tour. Plenty to see but few beautiful photo ops unfortunately, I had to see beauty where I could find it. In a lone palm tree….

In the eyes of my oldest son…..

Even found beauty in a case of old Coca Cola bottles in a small village……

Even found beauty in this huge lizard who was sunbathing & quite camouflaged in this small Mexican village model….

And in a small local souvenir stand…….

And all too quickly our day was over and it was time to head back to the ship and back home to reality. *sigh*

Bye Carnival Ecstasy, we’re going to miss you and your 24 hr. pizza buffet!

California Dreamin’ {Brown-Eyed Girl Photography}

Jana — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:05:51 +0000

As I’m sitting here in my nice cool house dreading going outside because we’ve hit yet ANOTHER day of 100+ degree temps (think this makes 60+ days of 100+ temps so far this summer) I often find myself daydreaming about being back in California again. The hubby and I took a trip to Napa Valley & San Francisco last month to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary which is coming up in September and oh my, I just loved it out there. Although it did get quite warm in Napa, generally the temps were still much cooler than what we have to endure here in south Texas and the foliage & landscape there was certainly much prettier & greener than what we have to look at here thanks to the drought. As we drove into San Francisco from Napa, we watched the temps dip down 30 degrees on the car thermometer within the short drive which was pretty freaky I must say! Sure enough, we got out of the car at the top of a hill near the Golden Gate bridge and it was fa-reezing!! Even though the winds were whipping us around and were quite intense I was secretly thinking about how nice it was to be COLD again. We spent 3 days in San Francisco and I don’t think the temperature ever got above 75 degrees but was typically much cooler than that. Ahhhhhhhh!! Along w/the cool temps came the clouds & fog so we never really had a nice clear view of the bay or bridge but the fog did provide a lovely backdrop for the Golden Gate I suppose, VERY San Francisco. Was looking back through some shots from our trip to reminisce and thought I’d share some with you too. Enjoy.

Brown-Eyed Girl Photography » travel

Better late than never!

California Dreamin’ {Brown-Eyed Girl Photography}