fuji faves.

//They do//

Here are the scans of some of my fuji faves from our San Diego weekend.

//Groom's side with the happy couple//

//With our old pet snake Monty//

 //Corona del Mar//

//Sweetwater Marsh NWR//

san diego, a wedding, and some photo recovery.

This Labor Day weekend was one of the best I've ever had – I got to go home! Not home home but home. Since I fully plan on moving to SD when we're ready to settle down and buy a house, I feel it's safe to call it home. It's especially safe to call it home since there's family there... and home is where the heart is, right?

We made the trek to the amazing west coast to witness Dave's little brother, Michael, get married to his girlfriend of years, Rebecca. Thursday night, we went straight from the airport to Dave and Buster's for a bachelor party of sorts. Though it wasn't a wild and crazy night... and it had a girl (me) in tow... it was a lot of fun.

The ceremony was held on Friday at the San Diego Court House. If you've never seen this building, look it up! Gorgeous with amazing views. There was a sailboat festival on the bay adding to the beauty of it all. The reception was held in the backyard at home. The transformation of that backyard by adding lights and tables was amazing. I've always loved that backyard for how lush and green it is. But adding the tables and lights... amazing.

We tried to pack in as much as we could on Saturday and Sunday. Corona del Mar, Board N Brew, Sweetwater Marsh, In N Out (animal style fries, I've missed you so!), sushi, family time, legit Mexican food (Dave got brain and tongue), seeing friends, and whatever else we could do/get that we can't out here in DC.

It was tough to say "see ya soon" to SD since we're not sure when we'll be able to go back, but it was great to get away and just enjoy with no responsibilities and no real plans. Plus, you can't beat the coast line and weather!

As for the photo recovery part of the post title... I flubbed and deleted all of the photos on my memory card after Dave put some of the photos on his parents' computer. In my head, they were all downloaded onto my computer. In reality, just a portion of the photos from the weekend were saved. Thankfully, I found a program that allowed me to recover ALL of my photos. Unfortunately, I was not able to recover the video file from the actual ceremony. Dave found a program that worked for that, but for some reason it only recovered a portion of the video. Still working on trying to save that little piece of the puzzle. In case it ever happens to you, PhotoRec is free and works on all systems. It says it can recover .avi files, which is what my video is, but it didn't work. Either way, it recovered all of my photos!

Update: Thankfully we put the wedding stuff on dropbox and the video was there! Thank goodness for technology. 

the proof is in the photos.

At the airport in San Diego getting ready to head back to DC. Though it was a quick little weekend, it was definitely a good one. California, my heart will always belong to you and your gorgeous coast line.

little miss...

The newest addition to our family

Holga! A few months ago, I fell in love with this little plastic gem of a camera after seeing photos like this and this and finally broke down and bought one. I love the fact that since it uses film you don't get the instant gratification like with digital cameras... making the big "reveal" that much more exciting. I remember developing film in high school and being so excited to see the end results because I'd forgotten what had been shot. With all of her little intricacies - learning how the color flash filters interacts with the light, figuring out where her light leaks are, how she changes with age, and the fact that she does what she want - I'm beyond excited to see what photos we get.

Since we got her over Christmas, we did a "practice" roll of sorts around SD. Gotta love how gorgeous SD Decembers are. Some oopsies were made (namely using the 12 frame mask with the 16 frame count thinking it was the 12 frame count... and not realizing it until we got to frame 13), but hey, that's what practice is for and it led to some awesome photos which I recently had developed (at Walmart for only $2.09!!!!!!).

a ruxin new year.

Welcome, 2012!

Happy 2012! I pray that you guys are having a great new year. After Christmas with my family in the Bay, I made the trek back to SD to ring in the new year with my love. We went on a few dates to Applebees thanks to our gift card Christmas gift from Kuya Russell and Ate Joyce, visited with Aunt Eva, Mama, and Papa, enjoyed the beach, and saw friends. We greeted the new year by partying at the Catamaran in PB, followed by walking back to our friend's house with a pit stop for some carne asada fries. YUM! They made amazing leftovers the next morning. Oh, and he let me wear his socks because my feet were hurting and PB streets are gross. The trip was interspersed with me catching up on The League (a must watch if you haven't seen it yet) and us attempting our best Ruxin face on multiple occasions. I failed. Big time. Thanks to Groupon, we had the best dinner at a Voce del Mare in La Jolla. Risotto allo Scoglio is amazingly delicious even if it looks and sounds less than appealing. He gave in and let me get a Big Mac one night. Oh, we even made ice cream from bananas! You must try it. Thank you, Pinterest, for forever inspiring me to create new things.

SD New Years 2012

christmas dates.

Christmas season at Qualcomm aka Snapdragon

I've spent the last week in San Diego with Dave for an early Christmas (celebrating Christmas with my folks). We celebrated by visiting the seals at La Jolla Cove, watched UCD basketball lose to UCLA (bummer!), enjoyed entertainment at the Feeding the Soul Foundation's Holiday Variety Show, watched the Chargers beat the Ravens with our friend Brent, watched the Niners game while eating sushi, toured the Leo Carrillo Ranch, went wine tasting at Bernardo Winery, went to the San Diego Concert Band's concert (which Dave's mom, Sandra, performed in), celebrated Hanukah, and went to the La Mesa College Concert Band's concert (which both Dave and Sandra performed in). We may not be able to spend Christmas day together, but I think those dates make up for it!