On the Lake

Hello, Monday. It's you again. I did not miss you. For today's post I will share pictures to reminisce about a beautiful day on the lake. Above, a couple petoskey stones and other random stones from the lake on the bathroom counter. Petoskey stones are a Michigan thing, lots of people collect them and there is also a little town of its namesake.

Moses & Meredith

Hello and happy hump day! Here are some pictures I took in Michigan of my cousin Tanya's friend and her kids at a park. Tanya asked before our trip if Stephen and I would like to take pictures of them so that is how we met. Meredith was very easy going and gave us a good 30 minutes of happiness and smiles before she called it a day and was done with all the fuss. And her big brother, Moses, was a total ham, which was great!

We said "give her a kiss," not "give her a squish!" (I can make as many bad jokes as I want; it's my blog! And if it were a party, I could cry, too. See, I can keep going and going and going...)

At the end of the shoot, Moses was still rearing to go and, as you can see, rolled himself into a burrito. I don't think this kid has a hard time entertaining himself. It was nice to meet you all and thank you for the great session!

Last Day in Chicago

Hope everyone is having a nice three-day weekend. I have been on a cooking kick this weekend so photos will not be far behind. I also have to go through my photos from Michigan as well. On Saturday I decided to make this bread found on Heidi's blog 101 Cookbooks. Then I made this lemon and herb chicken from the sophisticated gourmet with his cheese and chive twice baked potatoes. Today I am going to make this pasta salad, also from Heidi, because I have wanted to make it for a while and I am on a roll over here! I even made French toast this morning. No pictures, though. I was too hungry.

These two are from our last day in Chicago as we were leaving the art institute and on our way to Due for another round of deep dish pizza. Stephen bailed on me while I was taking the top picture because the metal walkway was so hot and he couldn't take it so that's why he's so far away from me in the bottom picture. I think he was also irritated because the security guard told him he better not skate the bridge on our way out the door in a really awkward way where we couldn't tell whether he was being serious or not but either way it was condescending and weird.

Accidental Zoo Encounter...

On this day we went to the Wrigleyville area for lunch and checked out the ball park. Then we took the train to Fullerton and walked down Halsted to Armitage to check out the shopping when we ended up at the zoo. We decided to take a look around (Stephen for the kangaroos and myself for the tigers) and found ourselves mesmerized by the primates and how similar some of their expressions and movements are. 

We almost expected them to say something to us because they were looking right at us. It was like they wanted to tell us something--or better yet, a secret. And probably also because Disney gave us false hopes that animals might break into song and dance at any given moment. Unfortunately, the bear didn't tech me about the bear necessities or the ways of the prickly pear either. Oh, how reality disappoints.

 

Stephen decided to compare his hand to that of an orangutan. I wouldn't touch it. Germs.

Happy Friday! I hope you have a nice long weekend! I know I'm excited about it.

A Boat, a Pizza and a Bean

Here are photos from our second day. We went on an architecture boat tour, which was much better than I expected.

Then we went to get pizza. Stephen insisted we try something called "jardiniere" which is different vegetables marinated in olive oil and cooked into the pizza. He tried a jardiniere style pizza with meatballs the night before when he met up with some people to shoot photos and he really liked it. I was definitely interesting but I'm not sold on it. Ours did not have have meatballs and it had jalapenos, which I had mixed feelings about. To his credit, the one he had the night before sounded better than the one we had.

And the crust was really good, like, buttery, flaky pizza pie good. Actually, as I ate the crust I thought, this must be why people say pizza pie. It was like the savory sister of regular pie crust. As far as pizza goes, I still prefer to keep it simple. While I did like deep dish, my favorite pizza is still a nice, fresh margherita pizza. Can't beat it.

Take a look at that crust! I can almost taste it.

Then we found the bean. And we played with our cameras for a bit before walking around the rest of the park and eventually back to our hotel.

First Impressions of Chicago

Here are some photos from my first day in Chicago starting with these really cool pedal buildings. I took this after we got off the train from the airport, you, know, when we completely misunderestimated (thanks for the word, Bush) the distance from the train station to our hotel. This would be at 5am Pacific time, just so you get the whole picture. I was a hot mess, and that's a compliment to 5am-after-a-redeye Nicole.

 This was the lunch dessert I enjoyed during a break from shopping after my well-deserved nap.

And these were taken after my second nap when I ventured out to find dinner while Stephen was shooting photos with some skateboarders across town. I couldn't find anything for takeout that was reasonable price or time-wise. I walked to Due but they said the wait for a takeout pizza would be an hour and fifteen minutes. Uh, no. I'm already ordering a pizza by myself I don't need to hang out for an hour by myself waiting for it. So I ended up stumbling into another place called Giordano's which was a twenty-five minute wait and much close to our hotel. Win.

 I liked this quote carved into the old Tribune building.

I See London!

Hello, Tuesday. Tell me, why can't you be Friday? I am tired again today because I had a soccer game last night (we won! and I assisted a goal!) and then I stayed up going through pictures from my trip and picking which ones I like and want to share with you. There are lots! We also did a family portrait shoot while we were there with the sweetest people so I will share some of my favorites from that too. And I did a little food session with some asparagus in my kitchen last week. Looks like it's time to sit down and to get through some pictures.

It's been kind of hard to get back into the swing of things, but I am forcing myself to get something done photography wise every night, sleep be damned. And I am making a few investments in photography gear (including a practical/geeky style backpack I have always tried to avoid) to get ready for the wedding I will be shooting in October. I'm super excited and nervous. And anxious. And nervous. I think you get the point.

Oh, by the way, the photo was taken in Chicago on Michigan Avenue. Marilyn is a traveling art piece so I'm not sure if it's still there but it was covered in people all day striking ridiculous poses and standing under her skirt. Did I make that sound creepy? Good. It's funny to me how people always want a picture of themselves standing in front everything they see. How many pictures can you possibly have of yourself standing in front of everything? When did that start anyway? And isn't anyone as paranoid as I am about handing over valuables to strangers? And germs?!