The rest of Wed, Thurs, Fri and Sat

Wednesday Part 2:  I drove (on the left side of the road!) to the Divi Resort and had some lunch.  Food is crazy expensive is STX!  A drink and an appetizer of coconut shrimp was over $20.  I took my drink (a painkiller) to the beach and fell asleep in the sun!  It was so relaxing.  I got a tiny bit sunburned on my  legs where I forgot to put sunscreen! Oops!  I went back to Shera's condo and got some work done until Noah came home and cooked us lamb chops for dinner.

 My spot at the Divi:

Thursday:  Since I didn't see Shera the day before, Noah and I headed to the hospital first thing.  We visited with her for awhile until she forced Noah to take me site seeing.  Our first stop was a pizza place called Napoleons.  It was really good!  Then we drove to Fredericksted to check out the Cruzan Rum Distillery.  The Captain Morgan Rum company just built a distillery on the island which is a huge deal.  Anyways, the tour was pretty interesting. They take you right next to the fermenting rum...so close you could accidentally touch or spit in it!  I tried to get my phone out in time for a pic but wasn't fast enough.  After, they make you any rum drink you want. I had a cheesecake! The rum is in these barrels for 2.5 years!

Cheesecake :)

My happy place

Noah then drove me to the Fredericksted pier which was beautiful. The water was so blue and clear it was unreal! 

We headed back to the hospital to see Shera and their friend Laura drove me home. Friday:  Went to the hospital early to say my goodbyes to Shera.  My plane left around noon for Puerto Rico.  It was the same small 8 seater plane but this time I got to sit right next to the pilot!  Essentially I was the co-pilot. haha  It was raining pretty hard which was really cool to see in such a small plane.  When we de-boarded I said to the pilot "I hope I did ok for my first time as co-pilot" and his response was "Hell Ya you did!" I laughed. My view:

I landed in Orlando around 6pm and the hotel took forever to pick me up.  I relaxed and got some work done the rest of the night.
Saturday (today!): I woke up early and got some editing done.  Around lunch time I walked to the only place around...The Waffle House. That was interesting!  My whole lunch cost me $6.99 including a hefty tip! haha  Not bad.  I've been in the hotel the rest of the day working.  Shawna (my bride this week) came by to introduce herself earlier and now i'm waiting for Mandi's flight to come in around 10pm.  Tomorrow we get on the cruise ship!! 

Mon & Tues...and a little Wed!

Monday - I decided to get a little sleep...woke up about 3:30am and drove to Milawaukee.  Got my flight to Orlando and was in the humidity by 11am!  A shuttle picked me up and brought me to the hotel for the night.  I decided since I didn't have a car to keep it a low key day and play some catch up with emails and editing.  I ordered pizza and stayed in my PJs all day!  Of course I couldnt sleep at all so I was awake until 3am...and up again at 6:30 for my flight to Puerto Rico. 

Tuesday - Flying Jet Blue to Puerto Rico was super easy.  They gave me a seat with priority boarding and extra leg room!  I slept most of the way down.  Once in Puerto Rico it was a little confusing because I had to switch airlines and never had a boarding pass.  But there were helpful signs in English and Spanish and I found Cape Air.  I had a good 3 hours until my next flight so I stopped for a margarita.

Flying in to PR

Flying to St Croix was an experience!!  There were about 8 of us and they had asked us our weight and weighed our carry ons!  They had to distribute the weight throughout the plane.  The smaller carry on items were placed inside the wing of the plane.  I was in awe the whole plane ride.  What a gorgeous view!

 My friends hubby Noah picked me up at the airport.  Once we got in the car he explained that Shera had emergency surgery that morning and was in the hospital for an undetermined amount of days.  We went straight to the hospital to see her.  She was still sore from the surgery and not feeling too well.  After a few hours, and being able to get out of bed, she seemed to be doing a lot better!  She arranged to have her girlfriends pick me up and take me to a movie that night.  

One of Shera's friends dropped me off at their house, where Noah was up waiting for me.  I fell asleep pretty fast...slept with the windows open and a fan on me, its warm and humid here!

Wednesday (today):

I woke up the next morning to this view out their front window:

Wow! How gorgeous!  Noah drove me around the Eastern side of the island showing me a few cool beaches I could hang out at today.  He took me to this cool private beach called Smugglers Cove

And then to the Millennium sundial which is the Eastern most part of the United States!  For a few minutes I was the most-Eastern person in the US. How cool is that???

I'm off to explore a beach or two now!  Wish me luck driving on the opposite side of the road!!

Wed-Sun

Wednesday: I had lunch with Nichole at a Mexican place in the Willis Tower. I decided to drive down there and ended up paying a ton in parking. Oh well. I relaxed and got some work done the rest of the day!  That night Beth and Cris made some bomb fajitas for dinner!

Thursday:  I met up with Bryan and his good friend Nick for some lunch at XOCO (Bryan's fav place).  It was super yummy!  Its owned by Rick Bayliss.  I took the bus downtown and we walked quite a bit.  We went to see American Gothic at the Art Institue and wandered around for awhile.  After we sat in Millennium Park for awhile and chatted.  I headed back to Beth's and we went for Jimmy Johns and mani/pedis and a spray tan (traumatic!).  At 9pm I picked up Ann Marie and the airport.  We walked down the street to a local bar for a few drinks.  We cheers'd with a shot at midnight for my birthday :)

Friday: My birthday!!!  I woke up super early (730am) and watched a movie (Time Travelers Wife) and did some work.  Around noon, Ann Marie and I drove downtown and got Jimmy Johns for lunch. We had to pick something up at Tiffany's for Beth, and I ended up splurging on a diamond necklace for myself.  So in love with it, I haven't taken it off once!  After we did a little more shopping and I got my makeup done.  We picked Bryan up at his brothers place and went back to Beths to get ready.  We drove down to the tapas restaurant and waited for everyone to show up.  There were about 10 of us total. The food (and sangria) was sooooo good!

After we went to the bar next door, Beaumont. It was totally dead.  But we made it fun, had more drinks and even danced.  Around 1am, everyone had left except for me, Ann Marie and Bryan.  We sat for awhile and then AM and I danced until about 3am. (At this point the bar was packed with 21 year olds!)  We came outside to a parking ticket (my fault - booo) but overall it was a great 30th birthday!

Saturday: Wedding day!  Bryan and I headed to the suburbs for a wedding. It was crazy windy (and sometimes rainy) but it turned out beautifully.  The reception was in Geneva overlooking the river - very nice!  Bryan's dad lives right outside Geneva (how random is that?) so I dropped him off and came back to finish off the reception.  Beth and Cris were guests so I drove them back to the city...almost falling asleep at the wheel!  Beth did everything in her power to stay awake and keep me awake - even hitting me at some points.  But we made it home safely!

Sunday (today):  It was a nice lazy morning.  We picked up Kate and went to Goose Island for beer and food. It was really good!  They let you choose what beers to have in your flight which is awesome! We went by Sweet Mandy B's cupcakes after for some dessert.  The rest of the evening as been lazy other than taking AM back to the airport.  Its crazy thunder and lightening here too!  I have to be at the Milwaukee aiport in about 5 hours so I'm debating if I should sleep or not at the moment. :)

Kate, Beth, AM and me

Off to Orlando in the morning...to be continued!!!

Photos!

From our road trip to Peoria :)

Playing tourist at the Bean:

Sun, Mon & Tues!

Sunday morning we got up and went to One World for some breakfast.  After we met Brett, Kirsten and baby Kyle at the Bradley campus.  Kyle had about 20 mins of shooting in him so we captured that!

After we went to the day after brunch for the bride and groom.  It was nice to say goodbye in a much more sober way (for them).  haha  We had to sneak out early to meet with some of my girlfriends for lunch at Avanti's.  It was nice hanging out with Rachel (and Brooke), Kirsten, Nikki (and Addy).

After we shot Addy's annual photos at Bradley.  This was my 4th time shooting photos of her! 

We decided to hit the road back to Chicago at that point with the plan to stop along the way at anything that caught our interest.  We ended up stopping two times at two different barns.  I got some beautiful silhouette shots that I don't have time to post today (sorry!)  I will post them very soon in a new blog!  Excited to see what Bryan got too.  He took some new headshots of me as well, so those will be debuting soon! :)  Of course we stopped at Jimmy Johns for dinner!


Monday I ran some errands with Beth, got some cute new shoes and went to see The Social Network. Such a good movie...but kinda sad.  Well acted, well written. 

Yesterday, I picked Bryan up and we explored Wicker Park, where he has a shoot next week.  We dropped off the car and set out to master the CTA. ha!

First stop was the Shedd aquarium.  We walked up and there was a sign that said they closed at 1pm that day and the last ticket sold was 12:15.  Bryan looked at the clock...it was 12:16. No freaking joke!  So we went over to the Field museum instead.  We explored Egypt, saw Sue and checked out the East African exhibit.

We picked up some Jimmy Johns and took the El over to Millennium Park and had a picnic...which quickly turned super cold when the sun went behind the buildings!  We headed back to Bryan's brothers place and hung out there until Beth and Cris picked us up.

I had bought tickets on Groupon to an Improv show in Wrigleyville.  We grabbed some dinner at the Pasta Bowl first (with dessert at Molly's cupcakes) and had a blast at the show.  It had some really funny parts!  Glad we went!

Checking in

Allie pointed out tonight that I haven't blogged since I got here! Oops! I've been non-stop since my plane landed.

I flew in to MKE and drove to the closest Jimmy Johns.  Then I made the 2 hour trek to Chicago and picked Beth up at work.  We went to her house , got Cris and had the best gelato ever!  I passed out pretty early since i had no sleep the night before.

The next day (yesterday) I picked up Bryan at his brothers and we drove to Peoria.  Bryan had his first Avanti's experience and it went well. We went to the rehearsal and dinner and then met Jenny, Kirsten and Sara at Old Chicago.  We ended up staying out until 3:30am and I was paying for it today!!  We went to Sulys and SOPs.

Today was the wedding. it was quite an amazing shooting day. I very rarely come away from a shoot thinking the images are good.  Today was an unusual day, the light, location, couple...everything just fell in to place and I know I got good stuff!

More updates soon!!

Back in the airport

I notice when I'm extra exhausted things tend to annoy me more than usual.  For example, the lady to my right who keeps slurping her coffee.  And the lady to my left who is having a very enthusiastic conversation with her cell phone.  I just want to get on the airplane and sleep!!!

First stop, Denver.  Then a quick layover and another leg to Milwaukee.  It was a few hundred $$ cheaper to fly in to MKE so I'll deal with the 1 hour drive.  And if you know me, you know what my very first stop will be...JIMMY JOHNS.  I can almost taste my #4 no tomato, add avo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stress

I get so crazy stressed before a trip.  Today I'm triple stressed because I'm leaving for 3 weeks!  I can work from the road, but it sort of throws a wrench in my routine so I'm a bit slower.  I'm really looking forward to my next few weeks, but I'm already feeling a bit overwhelmed!

Deep breaths...its going to be a long night!

North Carolina Recap

I was a horrible blogger while I was on the East Coast this time!  To my defense I think I got a total of 10 hours of sleep that week!  We would go to bed about 4am every night and be up between 9 and 10am for a full day of learning and shooting!  It was incredibly intense but I learned alot.

The house itself was awesome!  Maggie and I tried to count the rooms but got lost. Or gave up, I can't remember.  It was 3.5 stories (the half was a small loft) and if I had to guess it had about 10 bedrooms. I shared with an awesome Floridian named Maggie.  Everyone at the workshop got along and we all had a blast together!

The view from the 3rd floor balcony

 Ben and Erin demonstrating

 Our hot couple!  Its hard to get creative shooting around 14 people, but I tried!

 Front of the house and David photobombing me!

 Me and my roomie, Maggie

 These two seriously rock!  Ben and Erin

The drive back to Baltimore was absolutely horrific. I considered pulling over and waiting it out a few times but who knows how long the rain would have continued!  A 5 hour drive turned in to a 9 hour drive!  I was scared out of my mind.  I got to Ann Marie's around 9pm and we sat up and laughed our asses off until 5:30am when I had to leave for the airport.  I <3 my friends so much!

I slept the entire plane ride home and got to San Diego around noon. SO worth getting up early to have an entire day to do whatever I want!

Overall the trip was a really great experience.  I got some great advice on my business and shooting style and made some great new friends!  Excited for WPPI so I can see some of them again!!