I would like to wish everybody a Happy Thanksgiving. I can’t wait for 1pm to roll around. Many of the people I am thankful to have in my life will be at my parent’s home celebrating. Good drinks, good food, good people, and good fun. It can’t get any better than that!

Coming up…

Yesterday I had the honor of capturing Taylor! She is the cutest little girl ever with such beautiful blue eyes. Renee and Bobby are her proud parents. They are such a loving family and I am so greatful that they allowed me to capture their wedding last year and included me in taking their family pictures this year.

Here is a teaser picture, stay tuned for more…

Kooza, Kooza, I don’t know why, but I like the way it sounds so I had to type it a few times. One of the things I wanted to do for my birthday was to see the Cirque du Soliel show happening out in Santa Monica. Whenever the Cirque people are in California or I am out in Vegas I make sure to see one of the shows. I recommend all of them, or all the ones I’ve seen. Zumanity, Corteo, Love, Mystere, and most recently Kooza.

The creativity of the story line, the vivid colors, the costumes, the lighting, the performances, my senses are just so mesmerized by it all. Back in high school I was in math class with a guy that said he was accepted into Barnum and Bailey’s Clown College. At the time I didn’t believe there was such a thing. But when I saw the previews and the ads for Kooza, there he was, one of the main clowns. What a cool experience that must be.

Anywho, before the show started, we walked around and I found this cool mask, I love how super tan I look and the way it hides my face. Of course I needed to get a picture. I think the next party we need to have should be a masquerade ball…not a bad way to ring in 2010????

Happy Friday the 13th

Today is the day, I am at the beginning of a new decade in my life, I am officially 30. To be more precise, I have been alive for 10,958 days, or 946,771,200 seconds, in minutes it’s 15,779,520, better yet 262,992 hours, it can also be translated to 1,565 weeks. No, I didn’t figure this out on my calculator, but if you wanna figure out yours look here.

Since November 2008 when I turned 29, I kinda became engrossed with my last year of being in my 20′s. I actually started a countdown, where I’d tell people I’m turing 30 in 365 days. It then turned into 200 days, to 99 days, to 30 days, to 1 day, to 0 days. Obviously, I wasn’t taking the news to well, lol. Sadly, in the past year I have picked out a couple grey strands of hair from my dark brown locks. Okay I’ll admit it, they were actually silver. In any event, I decided to not become obsessed or freaked out (just hysterical). I’m kidding.

As we can now laugh at my behavior, here I am, happy, healthy, and 30 years old. Today is gonna be a rockin day.

Here is me at my birthday party from way back when. If only I still had my crown.

Bach, Beethoven, Debussy, the list goes on and on. At the tender age of 7, I thought I was stuck playing the piano for life. I was beside myself sitting on that hard brown wooden piano bench with my little white timer staring at me flashing that I had 45 minutes left to look at those eighty-eight wanna-be ivory keys. The noise that my ten tiny fingers were able to express was ethereal.

Neighbors complimented on my playing as they originally thought a tape was playing the music. This went on for 11 years. I couldn’t do anything or go anywhere with friends until my daily practice time was complete. As nearly 12 years has passed since I sat and played, I can honestly say how much I miss it. As a child I hated it, but I loved it. Recently, a friend acquired a piano. Luckily, it wasn’t too foreign to me. I sat and played. Although it was choppy at the beginning, I was still able to read sheet music.

To be honest, I don’t even recall being given permission by my parents to quit. I just know I was 18, in high school, on the honor roll, had a part time job, and played sports. I guess there was too much going on to include another activity in my hectic schedule.

Surprisingly, I couldn’t find any pictures of me playing my piano, but I did find this one of me goofing around on a mini keyboard.

I found some school pictures of me from back in the day. Some I look chipper to be getting my picture taken, others not so much. Looking back I can’t believe how I dressed or how I chose to do my hair, but for the most part it was cool then.

The second picture on the top row with me in the ruffely dress was taken before I chose to drop out of pre-school. I attended for a few days but I knew how to work the system. I cried and cried until the teacher called my mom to come pick me up. Because the repetitious phone calls happened so often, my parents chose to no longer have me on the schools attendance and I never had to go to pre-school again. Score! For another year, I was able to stay home, play with my younger sister and watch cartoons all day.

I remember taking school pictures every year but these were the only ones I was able to find. Top left – not sure my age (in the red), pre-school, kindergarten, 2nd grade, Bottom left – 3rd grade, 5th grade, 8th grade, and 10th grade basketball.

Today is November 1st. It begins a small countdown to my birthday. My 30th birthday to be exact. Should I be excited or should I be depressed? It marks the end of my twenties and the beginning of my thirties, omg, my thirties! I still wanna see myself as that young girl playing tetherball at recess. You know, the good ol’ days where there were no responsiblites, no bills to pay, and that carefree life where my biggest worry was to get a good grade on my spelling test.

Really, where did all that time go and why did it have to go so fast? When I turned 13, I was all chill because I was finally a teenager. At 16, I thought I was the bomb because I was finally able to drive. I knew I was an adult at 18, but that didn’t matter so much to me. Then, when I turned 21, I thought it was the coolest thing because I was legally able to gamble and buy alcohol. After 21 though, I don’t really think there are any other birthdays to really look forward to. Well maybe my 100th birthday but I can’t even think that far along .

Well here is me a few days after I was born. Check out that full head of hair.