Last Day!

A long month of driving and traveling takes a toll on you, hence the photo. Notice how Alysia is hogging a large portion  of the mattress and how 'spongebob squarepants' is cuddling me off the bed. That's my whole vacation for ya.

Though our vacation was simply amazing, we survived cramped conditions and weather mood swings (yes, we actually camped and started a fire in the rain). Of course, we deserved a stay at an awesome hotel. So, to close our Summer adventure, we spent the night a CanadaInn in North Dakota. Equipped with a water-park and a spacious hotel room, our whole family had tons of fun.

The minute we entered the hotel room, we jumped into our bathing-suits and head for the waterpark ASAP. My mom and I listed a whole book of reasons why we loved this water play-ground.
-The water wasn't freakishly cold
-The variety. This waterpark included a pool, hot tub, water jungle, lazy river, and a descending slide that we called the 'toilet slide'
-The reasonable price of the food and accessibility of the waterpark

Once Alysia and I came down the 'toilet slide' for the millionth time, I spotted an adolescent boy giving me the 'I want you' look. Nasty kid. My inner hard-to-get woman lashed out (facially), and I gave him the 'you look at me again, you die' look. Haha! I've always wanted to do that!

Treasures in Grandma's Backyard

When my dad, Alysia and I came back from the Oregon Coast (which i will blog about eventually), my mom surprised me with a Nikon Coolpix camera! She said that the camera was hers, but that I can use it as long as I'm careful {squeal of joy}.

This is definitely a prayer answered. I would have never thought that I would ever be able to touch a camera like this. After reading the manual, playing around with the settings, and finding out what all the buttons did, I hit my grandma's backyard to practice.

Naughty at Badlands

Our Summer adventure began with a great start! Even though our approximate 10 hour drive through South Dakota was quite boring, the excitement of the rugged Badlands gave us a sample of how much fun we are going to have.

Even though Badlands was simply AMAZING, I think our family majorly disturbed the other tourists, because we were literally BAD at Badlands. I would rather not get into details. Considering that my dad yelled at the top of his lungs on top of a rock, "Hey! This is what my garden looks like!!"

We had fun anyway.

On an Inspiration Craze

Yesterday the full blast of confusion hit me when I realized that I had NO goals, NO homework, NO deadlines, and NO exceptions since school is over. So I got to work, scribbling goals in my journal related to running, writing, and etc. After I set down my notebook, I felt something watching me, pulling me like an overactive magnet. Glancing over, I noticed the stack of brand new Professional Photography magazines my mom bought me sitting in the corner of my room, luring me, urging me to take a look at them. So I did.

At that point in time, my hopes were almost drained dry about being a photographer when I grow up. The annoying inner-critique of mine kept on bothering me.

You don't even have a real camera yet... 

You're too shy to be taking pictures of other people...

Let alone, you're too shy to start your own photography business...

Businesses are boring anyway...

Scrambling to the magazines, I flipped open to a random page, finding an article talking about four different photographers and how they made their photography business great. I read through the article, soaking up the information like a dried up sponge being chucked into an ocean. One of the photographers that the article discussed was about a young, twenty-year-old, Canadian girl named Jamie Delaine. She definitely sparked my interest in the article because they described her to be...
A coffee lover, check...
In love with fashion and design, check...
Organized, check...
A photographer, check...
A runner, check...
Loves to write and blog, blog, and blog, check...
Obsessed with traveling, check...
And last but not least... a Christian! CHECK!!!!

Sound familiar anyone?

Well anyway, I checked out her blog, and I fell in love instantly. She taught me that Photography isn't just taking pictures, its showing your love, your faith and your personality. It's about being bright, colorful, and fun. It's a LOT of blogging, and showing love and caring for your customers. And most of all, it doesn't matter what age you are. She became a photographer when she was sixteen.

Thank you, Jamie Delaine, for injecting an extreme amount of hope, dreams and inspiration into me, to fuel me, so I could land on my planet of success.

Memorial Day Weekend

Last Friday evoked a whole new set of excitement and joy when I found out that my two aunts and cousin from Chicago spontaneously decided to come to our house! (Whoa, long sentence there...) Well anyway, We spent the weekend shopping, eating, sleeping and giving Daniel (the two year old cousin) a bath. But on Monday we had a blast at the Mall Of America while we had fun at Nickelodeon Universe.

I'll miss you Tia Sarah, Tia Alicia, and Daniel! I love you! (;

Me and Alysia on the funnest ride ever!

T.j. rocking out with some music on our way to MOA.

Switch it Up!

I have been given an extreme overdose of inspiration. Which explains the new template and theme color design. Since Summer is finally here, I decided to switch up the design a little bit to make it appear fresher. I don't want an ugly template scaring me away from blogging. Besides, I want a beautiful setting to blab about my Summer adventures!

I hope you guys have an AMAZING Summer as well! It's time to party! c:

My Mini Foot Locker

Reebok = I absolutely loved the design as well as the colors. These shoes provided comfort, lightness, flexibility, and let me rely more on my toes and mid-foot to run. These shoes are also totally versatile. Thank you Tia Sarah for buying them for me! Love ya! ( :

Asics = I totally adored how these shoes had the perfect balance of firmness and gushyness. They were a blessing during track season. The only thing I didn't like was the heavyness, and lack of flexiblility.