One Thousand: Kittens in bags and Running

Gift #141: Kittens in bags

This girl loves to sit in my camera bag in one of the slots. Don't worry, no camera is in there. But it just warms my heart every time!

Gift #142: Being able to walk

I am not a runner, nor have I ever been. But I'm trying to be! But I'm thankful that I have the ability to go out and run if I want to.

One Thousand: Fireworks and Old Friends

Gift #139: Freedom and Fireworks

Gift #140: Meeting up with old friends

Mica is my oldest friend from Middle School/High School in Egypt. After 9th grade we both parted ways...my family to Texas and her family to China. We would meet up in years to come in China, Scotland, Chicago, Minnesota, and now California. We hadn't seen each other in three years and I hadn't seen her family since my mom and I visited them in China after high school. Lucky for me, she and her family are visiting family just north of San Fran for a wedding so we made the trip to see them! I love this girl so much and I hope that with us both living on the west coast we will meet up more often! Bring on our backpacking trip to Croatia next summer! ;) 

One Thousand: Sparklers, pills, publications, wedding

It's me again! I feel like I'm being really slow at getting these gifts done. I really need to examine that because it means I'm not doing a very good job of paying attention to the world around me. But here are a few for today.

Gift #134: First time with sparklers 

I babysat my neighbors' children the other night and they did sparklers for the first time! They loved it. So happy I could be there for that! 

Gift #135: Pills for cramps

Gift #136: My first publication!

My photo is the bottom left one of the runner. :)

Gift #137: The scent of fresh lavender

Gift #138: Shooting my first wedding alone

One Thousand: Strawberries, watermelon, Emergency Room

Gift #129: Cheesecake stuffed strawberries

A few days ago I went to a local fruit vendor and bought a half flat of strawberries for $11. So cheap for that many strawberries! Since I knew I wouldn't be able to eat them all before they went bad, I made cheesecake stuffed strawberries. Yummy yummy. 

Gift #130: Fresh watermelon

Gift #131: Summer is here!

All the vineyards are green and luscious again! The vines all have little baby grapes.  

Gift #132: Emergency Rooms

I won't get into the details of why I had to go in but I just did. And I'm thankful that the ER is there. The doctor I was to  be having an appointment with a week later wouldn't offer me any help because I wasn't a patient yet and then the local clinic was all booked up. My only option was the ER. Not the most fun place but the nurses and doctors were so nice! 

Gift #133: Dramatic landscapes

One Thousand: Children, Sleeping Kittens, Crockpots

Gift #126: Hanging out with my neighbors

I adore my neighbor's children. I see them and play with them almost everyday. They are so precious to me!

Gift #127: When my kitten sleeps

We love Kevin. We really do. But she is a maniac! We are trying to teach her not to bite our fingers and toes so we really appreciate the times when she's asleep. Our fingers and toes are able to remain intact. 

Gift #128: My "new" crockpot so that I can make my mom's scrumptious triple chocolate surprise...and my "new" film camera

I have recently been given possession of my mom's recipe for a crockpot chocolate cake. It is AMAZING. Now I get to make it! Along with pulled pork. Mmmm....

And I have a nifty camera to add to my collection!

Both items cost $6 together.

One Thousand: My trip to Scotland

A few weeks ago I embarked on a spur of the moment trip to Scotland to visit my family. It was a trip to surprise my sister. I'm sure that after all of these years she is getting sick of all the surprises: the started when we lived in Egypt when various family members would suddenly show up at the door to surprise us with their presence. The shock is still going on today. Sadly, I am never the one to be surprised. Being the oldest child, my mom bestows upon me the privilege of knowing when people are going to visit. So all these years I've had to keep surprises! Grrr....

This time it was my turn to be the surpriser. I flew out on May 17th. The plan was to fly out of Sacramento to avoid the driving traffic in San Francisco. I was scheduled for a 3:00 flight from Sacramento to San Fran and then from San Fran to Frankfurt and then Frankfurt to Aberdeen. Unfortunately the weather in San Francisco was less than desirable. So while I booked my flights to avoid missing my flight out of San Francisco, I still managed to miss my flight out. Sigh. My flight leaving Sacramento was so late that I missed my flight out of SF and had to stay over night. After a long and drama filled evening of being passed off to every other airport staff, my bag not coming out, missing my flight by 10 minutes, having all the local hotels be booked because of a marathon, and having no money on me, I finally settled down for the night in a Marriott in the business district. 

My flight was rebooked for the next day at 7pm....! Basically, it would have taken me all day and all the next day to travel 90 miles. How depressing! My mom luckily pulled some strings and got me on an earlier flight the next day. Because I was booked with air miles, they didn't want to put me on the better flight. However, it all kind of worked out better because I got to go on a double decker plane and be on the second floor in my own little pod! While it ended in a great way, I tried to remind myself during the drama that this is an adventure and that I am blessed to even be able to take this trip. There were still many tears. 

SO I finally got to Aberdeen the next day (the 19th). 

Surprising my sister was fun! There were tears. 

The next 9 days were super busy. I had originally planned on having a relaxed time while I was there but it turned out to be anything but! In a good way though. I had photo shoots, days at the beach, lunches, dinners, venue walk throughs with a couple of my couples, and battled no sleep. So while these are all very relaxing activities I was doing them on very little sleep. 

It was a great time though and I am so glad I went! I got to see my sister off to prom and there was not a drop of rain the entire time I was there! Apparently we had better weather there than there was in Northern Cali. I like to think that I brought the beautiful weather with me. You're welcome Scotland!

Gift #108: Last minutes trips to Scotland

Gift #109: Fluffy pillows

Gift #110: Views out hotel rooms

Gift #111: Combs when I don't have a brush

Gift #112: Breakfast parfaits

Gift #113: Free wireless

Gift #114: Business class food

Gift #115: My family dogs

Gift #116: My mom

Gift #117: Walks with my sister

Gift #118: Days at the beach in Aberdeen

Gift #119: Teaching my sister to shoot

Gift #120: Cute cafes

Gift #121: Hummus with veggies

Gift #122: Scottish sunsets

Gift #123: Soup to support disabled school

Gift #124: Seeing my beautiful sister go to prom

One Thousand: Lots to catch up on! Part I

I haven't posted in AGES! So this will probably be a hefty post. I was writing up all the gifts I haven't posted yet because of being away and life and forgetfulness and I have 27 gifts to get caught up on! I promise this one post won't have 27 photos though. That would be quite a lot to get through. So I'll cut it down to twelve for now. I think that's more than enough! These are going to be slightly out of order! Sorry. I saved them as I came to them which wasn't in order. Oops. 

Gift #98 Pretty cocktails 

Gift #99: Orange juice in a mason jar

Gift #100: Flowers with stars

I have no idea what these little plants are called. I just think they are pretty! They are so delicate but also kind of vicious looking.

Gift #101: Tall wheat grass

I love the tall grass that grows this time of year. I love when it blows in the wind and I love the way it makes the fields have an idyllic presence.

Gift #102: Freshly cut flowers

I know I've done the gift of flowers in jars before so I will make this one simply about freshly cut flowers. Right outside of our house we have tons of rose bushes in a pretty pale pink. I love cutting them occasionally. 

Gift #105: My Birthday!!

Yay for birthdays! Mine was on May 13th. Same day as Mother's Day. I can't wait until I actually have kids because every four years, or something like that, I will get to celebrate my birthday and Mother's Day on the same day! How exciting! I love birthdays. 

Gift #104: Smoothies

Our first stop for my birthday after church was Jamba Juice. Yummy yummy. 

Gift #103: Gifts from neighbors

My lovely neighbors surprised me with a lovely bottle of champagne. It's actually still in our fridge. Haven't opened it yet! Need to do that soon I think. :)

Gift #106: Nice dinners out

For my birthday dinner we went to a new restaurant in St. Helena called Goose & Gander. It was very good. I loved the atmosphere. Reminded me of someone's posh study in their mansion. 

Gift #107: Birthday food

Kendall's food: starter - scallops with a jalapeno puree on avacado and bacon
main - halibut with shaved artichokes and a parmesan foam
dessert - chocolate torte with coffee ice cream

Gift #108: Funny cards

This card from my brother made me crack up!

Gift #97: Our new kitten

We love this girl! 

Meet our kitten, Kevin. She is, in fact, a girl, despite the name. We are huge Pixar fans and one of Scott's favorite Pixar movies is "UP". Hence, the name Kevin after the bird in the movie. 

We hadn't planned on getting a cat. A friend of mine had posted on Facebook that three kittens needed homes and posted their photos. I semi-jokingly mentioned on the photo of Kevin that I wanted her. But then at the end of the day I was like, no, if someone else wants her they can have her but if no one adopts her soon then we'll take her. Well, I thought she would have been adopted but sure enough, a few days later my friend gets in touch with me and says that no one has adopted her yet. Well, looks like we were getting a kitten! So on Friday morning we had no plans of getting a kitten and then on Friday night we had her. 

She was a nightmare to drive home with. I picked her up in Napa and brought a box with me so that she could sit in the front seat. Needless to say, we have a climber on our hands. I had to drive with her on my lap the whole way. 

We really love her though. She is super hyper but incredible sweet. She has learned how to climb up our pant legs (luckily we mainly wear shorts) and loves to run like crazy over our bed quilt attacking it. She also loves chewing fingers and toes. She's amazing though. Wouldn't trade her...spunkiness and all.

One Thousand: Scrabble Game

And....I'm back! Yay! My camera arrived back in to my hands yesterday afternoon. I'm SO happy to have it back. I've been a little lost without it. And it's now working better than it ever has! Ever since I got my camera it was having focusing issues and I kept thinking it was me: that I somehow just couldn't use my camera right. But now it's amazing. 

On another note, my birthday is tomorrow! Yes, it's on Mother's Day this year. I can't wait until I'm actually a mom and then I get to have an extra special day every few years! For one of my birthday presents Scott got me Scrabble. I kind of think he bought it more for himself but I'll take it! We had a little tournament last night and I won...by a lot. Scott spent the majority of the time trying to make up words and then use the dictionary to see if they were real. I know in official game play you can't put a word down and then look it up but we like to bend the rules a bit. By the end we were getting away with ridiculous things: my last words were ER and RV. Scott let is slide. 

So here's Scott trying out different versions of the word 'toque' before I finally told him to play that. It started out as 'maque' and then 'taque' and I'm pretty sure there was one other version. The good old dictionary app helped him out. 

Gift #96: Scrabble game with hubby

No camera

I will be taking a break from posting for a couple of weeks. :( I sadly had to send my camera in to be looked at. I won't get it back for a couple weeks. 

One Thousand: Flowers, Swings, Make believe, Yoga

First off, a disclaimer: Sorry about the placement of some of my watermarks! I'm learning out to use Lightroom 4 and for some reason it put them all in weird places. Guess I better fix that. 

Gift #91: Flowers in vases

I've been experimenting with black and white and cream tones lately. I normally never use them because I'm such a huge fan of color but sometimes photos just call for it. This picture originally had so many distractions in it because of color that I was forced to take all the color out. I love it in creams though! 

Gift #92: Pushing children on swings

This past week I have been babysitting for my next door neighbors. Little Julian wanted to go swing and wanted me to push him. Needless to say, I got a good little arm workout. Managed to capture this picture right in the middle of one of his outbound swings.

Gift #93: Playing make believe

You forget how to play when you don't have a child around. 

 My ailments were loss of voice and inability to walk.

Gift #94: Flowers from little girls

Again I was babysitting the neighbors' children (I see to always be babysitting, but you would too if you knew these kids!) and Olivia gifted me the best flowers from a bush in front of our houses. 

Gift #95: Being able to stretch

This gift is a bit random. I was lying on the floor today doing some crunches and it suddenly hit me how thankful I am for stretching. I have frequent back pain and stretching really helps me work it out.

I am not a yogi, although I wish I was, I just thought that yoga would be the best way of representing stretching. I've dabbled in and out of learning yoga but would love to devote some serious time to it.