day 049. [senior photos: brandon]

First off: Happy 7 weeks to me :D

Today was such an awesome day :) I got to hang out with the little kids from Summer Deployment, I got to hang out with an old friend from middle/high school (I really miss her!), and I did my first rounds of Senior Photos today, which was really exciting to start.

So I originally had plans today to hang out with my good friend Kristen, who I haven't gotten to hang out with since we've both been back from school. There's seriously something wrong with that, ha. Plans were changed last minute for her, which in the end turned out to be alright because I ended up hanging out with my friend Sarah Newsome. I honestly miss this girl to death. She moved from Oak Harbor to Maine after 9th Grade. We only really became friends sometime in like 8th Grade, but we've been such good friends since then. In fact, we re-did a photo that was from like 9th Grade; talk about 4 years later!

We had breakfast, went to Starbucks, and then had lunch at my house. I then dropped her off to Saiku's house, which was perfect timing for me because when I left his house I got to the church right in time to help out with whatever I needed to help out to get the church ready for the BBQ.

With the BBQ we just got the church set up for all these kids and their parents to come by. It was kind of sad that we didn't have a bouncy house this year like we did last year. In the end though it might have been a good thing because with the bouncy house last year we weren't able to really hang out with the kids. That's a bummer because we spent almost that whole week building these relationships with them and we don't actually get to even continue that relationship to the last day. But not having the bouncy house made it so we actually spent time with the kids, which reinforced the relationship that was built over the week. Having this end though was kind of like a weight lifted off my shoulders, but at the same time I'm definitely going to miss spending a week with some of these kids, especially the ones that don't go to our church.

When that got done I ended up getting myself ready to do some senior photos. I ended up taking Brandon today to Anacortes and doing some shots there before we came back to Oak Harbor to do some more shots. Something about Brandon that I really liked was that he has a Portland-feel to him, which made it easy to shoot some of his shots. At first I could tell that he was somewhat nervous just because this was something new to him. He got into it and we both ended up just having fun with them. He's definitely someone who is just a goofball and I really did try and capture his goofiness in the pictures.

Be sure to check out two other shots on my flickr.

Tomorrow's Senior: Allison Duvenez

day 037. [america]

As promised, a photo of the fireworks from tonight!

Today's shot is definitely another shot dealing with long exposures. If I were you, click on it to enlarge it :)

Now that that's done, HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!! I hope all of you had safe 4th of July's. I know I did, it was a hectic one with last minute planning. If you know me one bit you know very well that last minute planning kind of makes me anxious. Don't know why, but it just does, always has.

I started today, obviously, at church and I must say I miss Living Word. I've got all of my spiritual roots planted into that church that Living Word is the next best thing to my own house. There's definite changes going on, but that's God moving in people and putting them places where they need to be. It's a new season in their lives and we just have to be able to embrace that and be excited for the changes going on at Living Word itself!

When church got over I joined a few friends, seeing as my parents were out of town (again!) for a BBQ. Just like how I have a second home, I've got myself a second family that's always willing to accept me when my parents ditch me ... haha. BBQ was awesome, all of us, for sure, got tired from food. That didn't stop us from going out to eat again at this restaurant called Flyers. Good thing was, there was some separation in time from the BBQ to Flyers.

Now, usually I go to the carnival and walk around, scope out some friends, and occasionally hit the rides. I forgot to add in that I'd visit all the Filipino aunties who had tents set up and food cooking! Free food = the best kind of food! This year was different, no carnival, no walking around, no scoping out some friends, no rides, and definitely no visiting the aunties for free food; not that I'd be able to eat it seeing as I'm all vegetarian now, ha. Instead, I just hung out with friends in a house, a restaurant, and an apartment. It wasn't until close to 10 did we leave for City Beach (aka Windjammer Park) to watch the fireworks. Pretty sweet, kind of the same as many past firework shows, but you know it was good. I definitely got some sweet shots, this is only one of them (obviously). It's late, so I don't plan on putting the other ones up on flickr until tomorrow. Be sure to check that out though!

Again, I hope all of you had some awesome 4th of July's. I'm just kind of glad it's over, bahaha.

GO AMERICA!!!!