Better late than never! :D

Hello Friends, its been awhile. :) Actually its been about 4 months..yikes! A lot has happened since my last post. We ditched the islands for a colder climate (and wide-open spaces), the husband transfered offices, I signed up for school in January and last night it snowed 5 inches! Ahh Home, its good to be back.

I realize that I am a VERY inconsistent blogger and for that Im sorry dear readers (all 7 of you...). I guess my problem lies in the fact that I feel the need to always write something and that something needs to be worth reading (as in profound and thought provoking) because I dont think my photos can stand by themselves (this is probably not the case, and most of you are rolling your eyes and thinking good grief! as you read this). Most of the time I just dont have anything to say (for those of you that know me, you may find that shocking...), and so I wait. Even if I have photos to post, I still wait, thinking I will come up with something interesting to say. Then, before I know it, 4 months goes by and here I am explaining my psychological issues to you (which is neither profound or thought provoking..ha!) Well anyways, Im back and hopefully I can get over my stage fright induced writers block and post more often then every 4 months!

Now, if you are still here after all my incoherent babbeling I actually do have some photos to share! You might remember from back in the summer I did some baby pics for a friend of mine. Well this is her again, a few months older and still so adorable!

Johanna Rose Wolfe







Hello Kewpie Doll!


*Stay tuned for a couple holiday recipes, some pretty landscapes, and of course Roxie!

Into the Jungle

These are just a few pics from our hike to Manoa Falls last weekend. I would have taken more of the scenery but this hot man kept following me around so I decided to take pictures of him instead.... :D







Hello Gorgeous!

Little Baby Jo

My very first baby shoot! This little sweetheart is Johanna Rose Wolfe. I had so much fun taking pictures of her, she is such a cutie pie!

Birthday Lilys

I recently discovered that the light that comes through my bedroom window is absolutely wonderful for photographic purposes. It has caused me to turn my room into a makeshift studio! Woo Hoo! :D
Anyways, these are some flowers my husband got me for my birthday. I decided to give Roxie a break. I think she was getting pretty sick of me shoving a camera in her face.
Enjoy!
On a side note, I finally figured out how to make my own actions AND how to use layer masks!(the old fashioned way..as in trial and error) For those of you who don't know photoshop, it wasn't an easy thing to figure out and I'm very excited. Yay for me!
Sooo yeah...here they are! :)

My Little Dog

Today it has been exactly 3 years since we adopted little Roxie. She was my birthday present from my wonderful husband on my first birthday after our wedding. She is a hysterically neurotic bundle of fluff and I honestly believe my life would be a lot more boring without her. My Dog, lover of coffee, carrots and outside, Queen of the bed, the covers and anything else she decides is worthy of being hers. She thinks she's a human and has just as much say in the goings on of our house as we do. Slightly neurotic when it comes to her food; she sometimes needs to play with it before she can eat it, other times she cant eat it directly from her bowl but it needs to be moved three feet away before its safe to eat. Its Her way or the highway around here, and don't even think about ignoring her, she won't let you (even as I write this, she is protesting my lack of attention to her).
She is my weird little spastic fur ball with a tiny nose and I love her dearly.

Birds!

So there's this hotel here that has all these different birds just wandering around in their different habitats. It's almost like being at the zoo! It's weird... but also cool because they're free roaming and totally used to millions of people everywhere so I was able to get pretty close. :)

It was so cute, everyone was in pairs!






Except this guy. But I think that's because he's cranky. No one wants to be around a cranky bird!


Also, I like this flower.

Spring!

Since spring is here and I love spring, I thought I would share some of my favorite photos that make me think of Spring. Enjoy!

"If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall." ~Nadine Stair


















"In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt." ~Margaret Atwood

Dogs

This weekend when I was at my parents house, (I surprised my Dad for his birthday!), I had a lot of fun hanging out with my family and my dog! Shadow (black lab/german shepherd) has been in our family since I was in third grade! He is soooo old but he doesn't act like it. He just moves a little slower :) The little dog is my parents puppy Bear. He's a weird-o.

This is Bear. He always likes to know what's going on everywhere....


Including in Shadows mouth...


Shadow, Our old dog. I love him. :)

Snorkeling!

I finally got around to going snorkeling with my new underwater camera case! It was great. Although, the water was a little murky and choppy I was still able to get a few good shots :)
Hope you like! There will definitely be more to come!







Also, on our way to snorkel we walked by this cool sand castle village! :)

Ode to a Vanilla Bean

Yesterday I spent some time in the kitchen experimenting, it was actually pretty fun. And the results were yummy!
It all started when I ran out of coffee syrup and didn't feel like forking over 10 bucks for another bottle. I found a site that said I could make my own syrup with a vanilla bean pod. It seemed pretty easy, so I went in search of a bean. When I finally found one, I was a little perturbed to find that it was almost as much as half a bottle of store bought syrup! Oh well, it was still worth a try.

Since the syrup only called for the pod, I had to figure out how to use the seeds inside the bean. I wanted to get as much use out of that thing as I could. :) Then I had a light bulb moment! Scones! When she was here, Alyssa and I made some cranberry scones. They were so good, they only lasted about 5 minutes so I decided to try my hand at baking. It was a little iffy...and sticky...but it all turned out! Yummy vanilla bean scones.

And the best part, I had a vanilla latte with a vanilla bean scone for breakfast this morning! YAY!

YUMYUMYUM

This week David and Alyssa are here visiting and Alyssa and I have been having fun making various homemade meals and goodies. (For those of you who dont know, they are my brother-in-law and sister-in-law). Anyways, Alyssa showed me this cupcake recipe she found online from The Pioneer Woman called Life By Chocolate and let me tell you, they are the most amazing cupcakes oozing with chocolatey goodness that you will ever eat! Did I mention that we made them completely from SCRATCH! Oh yes, we are that good.... :D hehe
I took some pics of the process because I thought it was worth documenting, seriously my mouth is watering just writing about them!


Yes, those are Hersheys Kisses!


After they were done baking we dunked them in this. Chocolate Ganache! (We melted baking chocolate, more kisses, and some Nesquick with hot whipping cream!)


The Finished Product.