MOVING

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some day my prince will come...

so one day my cousin hannah (well.. hannah's not really my cousin. She's my cousin Ashley's best friend. But due to this she's come on almost every family vacation.  i've  pretty much grown up with her. so i just call her my cousin now. it's less confusing, especially when you have 2 hannah's in your life and neither have nick names) anyway, back to my cousin. So Hannah asks me if I will dress up like Cinderella for her friend Sommer's daughter Lana's 4th birthday. after a little begging i agreed. I mean i had nothing better to do that day so why not fulfill a little girls fantasies! at first i was a little apprehensive. what would cinderella say? what if the kids ask me a question and i can't answer? how long do i have to stay in character? this is SCARY!


so the day of the party arrived. i showed up around 3 and started to get ready. & i must admit, getting ready was a lot like what i imagine getting ready for your wedding day would be like: a little champagne and lots of people helping you with EVERYTHING. it was actually really FUN!
first was hair & makeup. 

since i now have brown hair and cinderella is a blond sommer let me use her blond wig. once i put this bad boy on i REALLY felt like cinderella. then we put on the dress, choker, gloves, and the best part was the hoop skirt underneath! now i was without a doubt Cinderella! at that point the entire character just clicked. i no longer had to ask what to say or do but i WAS Cinderella now. 

then came time to make my grand entrance. i was on my way to the "grand ball" but wanted to stop by and give Lana a present!

im pretty sure all of the kids pooped their pants out of excitement! most of them just stared because they were too nervous to talk to me. it was so cute. they were like OMG ITS CINDERELLA!

the kids loved me.  snow white even tried to set me up with her dad!

this boy had a crush on Cinderella. he asked her to stay for the pinata!

so if you need to hire a cinderella for your next party. CALL ME!

unemployed

i am officially unemployed now. 

in most cases unemployment is really bad.

however i am taking this as an opportunity for a vacation. 

although i am still job hunting i am trying to make the most of my time off. not to mention i've been working nonstop for a long time now and i need a break. people keep telling me this is the world's way of giving me a break so i should take advantage and i AM!

im taking this time to do all of the things i used to love doing but never had time for anymore.

like photography!

& in honor of new my new job as an assistant photographer/second shooter to Megan Finley I have been inspired me to share some photos from the first wedding i ever shot!

mark & linda's wedding

mark & linda got married on a beach in san clemente

the wedding party

the reception

see more at my flickr!  

the time has come the walrus said

i'm starting to get the itch again. the "i've-been-in-one-place-for-to-long" itch. 

i'm feeling the need for travel, the need for adventure. maybe it's because i fell asleep to the lizzie mcguire movie last night.


who knows? but for some reason i really want to go somewhere tropical. although i've been to a few tropical places, hawaii, fiji, it's usually not my idea. my ideal travel destinations are typically places like Spain, Iceland, India: places that have history, culture, and beautiful landscapes. i like vacations where i try to pack in as much sight seeing and exploring as possible.


however, this is not the case right now. im not sure why but i really just want to go somewhere with a beach. so that i can go to that beach and never leave for the entire vacation. i want to do nothing, which is SO NOT me! 


anyway, this has inspired me to share some stories/photos from our family trip to fiji. every summer marta  tooma leads a mission trip to fiji. since the tooma's are our good family friends we got lucky enough to tag along! 

this was the village where we stayed for 10 days! the building on the left behind the boat is the medical/dental clinic.

all the women on the trip stayed in two dorms. each dorm had 12 beds.

we had to sleep with mosquito nets over our beds as to not get eaten alive.

luxurious showers/bathrooms not attached to the dorm.

so here is the bathroom story.  during our trip we drank so much water (because it was SO FREAKING HOT) that every night in the middle of the night i would have to get up to pee. well it's pitch black out there, and night time means mosquitos, loud scary frogs, and other creepy crawlies. in the beginning of the trip each night i would get up and make the scary trip to the bathroom with only my flash light and myself sometimes when i just couldn't brave it alone i'd wake my mom up. well one day i shared this with a few other people on the trip. turns out everyone had that same fear/problem. so we made a rule, if you woke up in the middle of the night and needed to go to the bathroom, you would get up quietly, flash your flashlight a few times, say bathroom twice, and see if anyone else needed to go. at first people were still hesitant to say bathroom as not to wake anyone else up. however, on the second to last night there one girl got up whispered bathroom twice and soon practically our entire dorm got up to pee!

on the way to the cannibal caves. yes thats a spider. yes i touched it. (our fijian "tour guide" said nothing in fiji is poisonous. he lied) 

sea cucumber...

... on veronica's hand.

anyway, i need a vacation. i need an adventure.