So lately I have been spending a lot of time at my parent's rental house. The renter's left the place quite a mess with trash, holes in walls, damaged valves, leaks, dead trees, grass, etc... The place needs a lot of work. Anyways, so I have been doing a lot of repairs, cleaning, landscaping, etc... I wish I would have taken some before photos, but oh well. The place is starting to finally look habitable again.

Last night after working all day at the house I got to hang out with my nieces Aspen and Aeralyn. It was pretty fun cuz they have such funny personalities. So I was hungry (as usual) and decided we would go out to eat. When I brought up Chinese food, aspen yelled, "YAY! Chinese food!." Aeralyn then screamed, "Chinese Toys!" HAHAHA They crack me up. After long deliberation we were decided to eat at McDonalds for the deciding factor that McDonalds had "My Little Pony," for toys with the kids meals.

Ok well I am off to edit some pictures, and then go work at the house some more or go for a bike ride...

This week I noticed that I received my first international visitors to my blog. It makes me wonder how they found my blog, but I am happy they stopped by and hope they were at least mildly entertained.

Here are the countries that swung by this week:

Hong Kong
Kazakhstan
Finland
Italy
Netherlands
U.K.

Check out ClustrMaps to get your own map for your blog...

Well this week has been busy. It doesn't seem like I should be as busy as I am but here I sit behind on things. Saturday I worked and then saw a late movie (11:50 p.m. start time) with a co-worker. We saw "Yes Man," with Jim Carrey which was pretty funny. After that we headed to Denny's for some late night chow and craziness.

Sunday I woke up around 930 and after only 4.5 hours of sleep, I drug myself to my parents rental house to some fix things that the previous renters had destroyed. Let's just say the scene was not pretty and there is a lot of work to be done before it will be ready to rent out again. However, I do have more free time now that I am not in school so hopefully by the second week of January it will be ready to be shown.

After I left there I hung out with my friend Diane for a little bit. We both share a deep passion for photography so we share a lot of stories, tips etc... We are also in business together for weddings so if you know of anyone getting married pass the info along! :) You can check out her work here.

After that I headed to the location where I was to meet up with the Cordova family for some family portraits. They recently adopted a beautiful little girl named Malia.

Here is one from the shoot:

More Pics & story about the photo to come later... and Yes that is a rock in mid air being thrown by Malia...

After that I met back up with Diane to shoot with her for a little bit. She was shooting a young girl named Gracie and her older brother Tyler. Here is a shot from that quick little shoot...


It looks like I will have a white Christmas this year. With a little snow from the rain today and it looks like more to come on Wednesday and Thursday. I am headed up to the mountains and will spend the next few days there. So I am not sure if I will get to my blog before the big Holiday, so if I don't talk to you before then...

Happy Holidays and have a Merry Christmas!

So as many of you know, I have a 3rd job as 2 jobs and going to school full time just left me with too much free time, haha

Anyway, so we have a big box in the front full of toys for the "Toys for Tots" drive. Well I guess the other night some guy thought he would help himself to the large (like 3') Winnie The Pooh. Apparently he walked out like it was no big deal and the toys were there for the taking.

A couple of minutes later he came back in and people sighed in relief thinking that he would be returning the giant stuffed animal. Maybe the guilty conscience had got to him?? But NO! He actually went and grabbed another toy of some sort and walked out the door again. Hearing about it just left me dumbfounded. I couldn't believe it. The nerve of people...

Ok my rant is over.... On the righter side of news, I aced my final in Geology. Before my lab score was even entered I already had sealed the A grade. So I got a 98% in the class. I am still waiting on my other grades... I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

It's a funny feeling being done with my Finals now. It feels like I should be studying, lol Kinda weird I know.

I am starting to toss around ideas of where i want to go camping/exploring this next year. I am open to any suggestions. However, I wont be bale to travel too far so keep them limited to the Western U.S.

Here are some images from some of the places I was thinking of going....

(Images below are not mine and belong their respective owners...)

So I took my art final this morning and completely bombed the test. What sucks is I studied hard for it and knew the information, but just not how to identify the "isms" and pieces of art which was instrumental in being able to answer the questions that would follow it. I hope my term paper is good enough to hold my grade up to a decent level.

On another note... my pinky finger is black and blue from jamming it last night. Ouch! :(

Sunday was quite the busy day for me. I had some work to do in the morning, so I was up early around 6a.m. Then later I had to head to downtown L.A. for an awards ceremony that the Midnight Mission was putting together to thank some of their donors and volunteers. Learn more about the Midnight Mission here. I am lucky enough to be invited to some of their dinners, awards ceremonies etc, and I always have a great time and there is always some celebrities in attendance. Although I am only one of maybe 2 or perhaps 3 photographers I sometimes feel like a pseudo paparazzi, lol.

Anyways, a regular celebrity is Dick Van Dyke. Who is always in incredibly great spirits, and will even sing and do a little dance too if the mood strikes him. Anthony Hopkins was also in attendance so it was a great time for everyone at the event. I am not the "star struck" type, but I have to admit meeting Anthony Hopkins was pretty cool. He is also a very down to earth individual and genuinely interested in giving back to the community.

Well I have an extremely busy day ahead of me so I have to run for now, but here are some photos...