mackinac: children

I had the pleasure of sharing my trip with some of the most adorable children!

cousinly fun!



nature lesson



Ooo, a caterpillar!





mackinac: views

Mackinac Island is surrounded by Lake Huron, and let me tell you, it's grrrreat!  Ok, ok. That was a lame Great Lakes pun. But what's not lame is the view! 

I don't have a panoramic setting on my camera (at least, not that I know of), so I took series of photos and attempted to combine them into one...  The panorama attempt didn't work out very well, but enjoy the view!


panorama attempt #1, view overlooking grand hotel

panorama attempt #2, view from fort mackinac
I really need better photo editing software...

 (sorry the panoramas bleed into the side,
but I thought making them smaller would be too hard to see...)

mackinac: wedding

Unfortunately, I don't have many pictures of the actual wedding, since I was holding my nephew most of the time (this is not a complaint in any way, I adore both of my nephews more than words can express).  The wedding was beautiful! It was an outdoor ceremony (with gorgeous weather that day!) and the wedding party and all of the flowers and colors and everything was wonderfully coordinated. The food was good too ;-)

It's not much, but here's what I've got... :-) 





I especially love the back of her dress!



Congrats Dave & Renee!!!
May your life together be filled with nothing but happiness!

mackinac

Fear not my photography followers!  I have not abandoned my blog, I was simply on vacation :-)  I accompanied my sister, brother-in-law and nephews on their trip to Mackinac Island, Michigan (pronounced mack-in-naw) for a wedding.  Congrats to the newlyweds, Dave & Renee!!!!  While the journey was long (plane to car to ferry boat to horse drawn carriage), the island and the wedding were beautiful!  In fact, I took over 1400 photos! Since it would be a ridiculously long blog post trying to include all of my favorites, I will be spreading out the photos over multiple, themed blog posts - so keep checking back for more!

First up - The Grand Hotel

The Grand Hotel is the heart of Mackinac Island. It owns several other restaurants around the island and is famous for having the worlds longest front porch. It also infamously appeared in the film Somewhere in Time with Jane Seymour and Christopher Reeves. Despite the excellent reputation of these two actors, the film is truly horrible. But apparently there's a large contingent of people who love it and they have a huge fan club gathering on the island every year. What can I say, taste is subjective :-p  But I digress...

The hotel itself certainly lives up to its name. It's very elegant and somehow manages to pull off ornate decorations that probably would not work in any other location.  We were even lucky enough to have a fancy shmancy 5-course dinner there our last night on the island (extra special thanks to Dave & Renee for that!).  If you find yourself on Mackinac and get to eat at the Grand or any of its restaurants try the 'grand pecan ball'. Seriously, you won't be disappointed (I'm afraid I don't have any pictures of it though, so you'll just have to take my word for it).



rocking chairs line the world's longest front porch



zoo miami

Had a great time at Zoo Miami last weekend... 

 

 Nothing like a trip to the zoo to reaffirm your appreciation of mother nature :-)

 

sweet!

Today I got my first "payment" for photography!  My landlord and his wife dropped by and gave my some yummy chocolates as a thank you.  I thought it was so nice that I just had to share :-)

(not the most artistic picture, but bound to be tasty one! :-D)