greetings from…carmel, ca! where did i last leave you? LA? yes. after catching up with one of my oldest friends and her new, beautiful nugget, i hopped a plane to san francisco where i met up with my mom and grandma. josh, dean and anna met up with us by thursday and on friday we headed down the coast, via highway 1 (aka, the windiest, narrowest, most beautiful, most scary road ever), to ragged point in the heart of big sur where we witnessed (and i photographed) my cousin suzy say “i do” to her love, lanz. then yesterday, we packed up, once again, and backtracked to carmel, where we’ll be until tomorrow.

now that we’re all caught up, onto things of note from the past week:

• now that i can finally say i’m a “destination photographer”, i just have to say that i am in LOVE with shooting outside my comfortable confines of southern indiana. i felt so energized (as energized as a pregnant woman can be) and inspired to be shooting somewhere SO different.

• san francisco remains a city i really never tire of visiting. our visit this past week was all too short and since i was there with people who had never been, i saw many of the same sites i’ve seen before, but that’s ok. i’ll never turn down the chance to spend time in an energetic city like san francisco.

• as you can see from the photo above, the fog cleared and after 3 trips to the city, i finally got a great view of the golden gate bridge!

• after a very, very unfortunate dinner gone to waste, i know now that baby p does NOT like chili.

• virgin airlines is a pretty rad airline. does that instantly make me uncool for using the word “rad”? whatever. they had me at purple and blue lights.

• la and west hollywood are such a fantasy land for me. really. every time i go, i feel like i’m on the set of entourage or californication. ahhh….if only i bumped into david duchovny while walking past the chateau marmont. i stayed at the andaz west hollywood and i truly can’t recommend it enough. it was cool without being stuck up, rooms were huge, i had a breathtaking view and they offer free snacks in the rooms. helloooooo.

• on the baby front, i’m looking very pregnant these days. i guess you should at 6 months, right?! baby p is the size of an ear of corn and i feel her every move, which usually makes me need to use the restroom. we’ve done a lot of driving this trip which is uncomfortable for me between my back and the fact that she must get cramped when i sit for too long bc she usually lets me know it’s time to stand up or lie down. 🙂 feeling pretty good, though, other than the aforementioned chili incident.

• i had my first in-n-out experience a couple days ago. verdict? shake shack is still tops (by MILES), but it was a fun experience, that’s for sure. hearing my grandmother order a “double double, animal style” made my life.

• and finally, the setting for suzy and lanz’s wedding saturday was truly breathtaking. literally. you should have seen how steep the drop-off was all around the inn. in all seriousness, it was a true joy to not only be part of such an intimate wedding, but to photograph it as well. i can’t thank s+l enough for bringing me out to ragged point to be part of their day.