My nephew, Ashton

We were lucky this weekend...my nephew had a soccer tournament less than a mile from my parents house, so we got to see a couple of his games. His team came in second in the tournament.

Why Me?

So I'm sitting here eating my breakfast at 9:30 am trying to wake up so I can go into work. We got home at 2:30 am last night. I'll give you one good reason why....more flight issues! Seriously why do I have so many problems when I fly. I have been through countless delays, stuck in two foreign countries, had several cancellations, lost bags on xmas eve. It seems like I can not fly without some sort of issue. Its funny because Dave says he never had issues flying until he met me. It must be my luck!

So here's what happened. On the way out Thursday night we were delayed due to thunderstorms on the east coast. Ok not horrible, just means I can't get to sleep until later. I'm okay with that. Weather doesn't bother me to much, because that is out of everyones control. Then we get on the plane, plane leaves the gate, and drives around the tarmac for a while. Then the pilot tells us that we need to go back to the gate due to a mechanical issue. Thankfully they got it resolved and we didn't have to switch planes. So we did actually make it to DC on Friday morning, just tad bit late (hours late).

Then there was yesterday. So we arrive at Dulles, look at the board and see our flight says delayed but no estimate on time! That of course says to us that bad things are about to happen. Once we get through security the board changed to cancelled...again due to a mechanical issue. Actually they said it was mechanically challenged! So this is a 777, therefore the line to rebook your flight is huge. I told Dave we'd probably be better off calling the 800 number. So we get rebooked but into a different airport. There were no flights to LAX until the next day. The United reps told us they would provide transportation to LAX to get our car. So we agree to fly to Ontario because we really needed to get into the LA area that night. We take a flight to Denver and then on to Ontario. So at about midnight we finally arrive in Ontario. We are then informed that there is no one there to authorize transportation for us to LAX. So Dave spends 15 minutes on the phone with customer service while I talk to some lady at Baggage services. She has the nerve to tell me that they won't do ground transport because we VOLUNTARILY changed our flight. What are you talking about! Come one...like we wanted to end up in Ontario. That pushed me over the edge. I was calm until them. Two United reps before this told us all we would have to do is talk to United agent at Ontario they would look up the flights and see what happened and give us ground transport. Well, this lady was not willing to help us what so ever. They totally gave us the run around. The airport people said the 1-800 people had to approve the transport and the phone people said she had to approve it. Ridiculous! The supervisor on the phone finally tells us if we rent a car they will send us each united vouchers for $150. So we rent a car...which cost us $70 because all they had was an eclipse. Drive 45 minutes to LAX, pick up our car, drop off the rental and drive over an hour home. So that's how we got home at 2:30.

Now the funny part (ok, so not so funny part) Dave had a 6am United flight this morning out of Palmdale to San Fran. That was why we had to get back on Sunday night. I joking told him they were going to have a mechanical problem as well! So he got 2 hours of sleep. The United agent at Dulles was going to rebook him into San Fran. but he didn't have any clothes for the week. So he decided to stick with me and come home.

Ahh... well at lest we're home, right!

Wednesday Randomness

1. We'll be going away again. This time I'm photographing a backyard wedding in Maryland…my own brother's wedding! Can you believe it…he's getting married! We fly out just for the weekend. I'm looking forward to snowballs (Not Snow Cones..yes there is a huge difference) and Steamed Crabs with tons of Old Bay! Yummy! The things I can not get in Cali. I had to order a new camera bag to get all my gear out there. And guess what, it comes on Thursday. Guess what day we leave…Thursday! Guess I'll be repacking real quick. What I'm not looking forward to…East Coast Humidity! Yuck! One of the many reasons why we'll never live on the east coast again.

2. My photos came from WHCC yesterday to be entered in at the fair for the photo contest. I think they look pretty good. Although I'm not sure I chose the best of the best of my photos. Some of them are great others I think I could have chosen better. Maybe its just my indecisiveness. Oh well, we'll see if I can win anything this year. Wish me luck. Although its not a huge prize or anything. I think between I spent on the enlargements and entry fee I would just about break even. I went to a bigger photo size this year so I shouldn't get stuck at the bottom! Dave has one entered too! His looks awesome. I totally think he'll win. It's being entered in the amateur wedding category.

3. My new sleeping Bag for our backpacking trip came this week. It's really cute and comfy. I totally think it'll keep me warm on those cool nights. It's a mummy bag, which will take some getting used to. Now I just need to order something for Dave. Then go buy a backpacking stove and some cooking gear. I'm so excited about being in the middle of nowhere in a few weeks.

4. I'm so far behind in my Photoshoots! I have weddings and family sessions to work on. Aghhh! I can't keep up at all. But I see the light at the end of the tunnel in Sept when things should calm down. Just in time for my Nov wedding! I haven't even uploaded any photos to my personal smugmug site in months from all our trips. I still have photos from March that I have never gone through. I remember the days were I would go through everything within a week of going somewhere. Now I just can't find the time. It's a good thing I have one of those personalities that just loves to be busy.

5. Reading Melissa Jill's blog this week has completely made me ready to go on another vacation to Europe! I've been everywhere that she has been this week and its making me really want a nice long vacation again. I love Europe. Especially Ireland. Dave and I have actually been joking around/kicking around the idea of living in Ireland for a year or two. How incredibly sweet would that be. I feel so at home there…maybe its all the redheads. :)

6. Now that I have been watching the Olympics (I'm addicted to the swimming since I am a former competitive swimmer myself) I am really starting to miss swimming. I was on an adult swim team in Florida. But never joined the one out here when I moved. I think its time to get back in the pool! It's been 4 years! I so miss the adrenaline rush of being up on those blocks.

Another Weekend in the Sierras

Can you tell we love the sierras! This weekend we camped near Rock Creek Lake. What a beautiful location. I knew that most of the campgrounds were first come first served, so we left as early as we could to get up there. When we arrived we couldn't get a site at Rock Creek Lake so we headed down to the next campground and managed to snag the last spot there. Whew Hooh! Especially since we really liked the campground. It was small, only 10 sites but lots of trees and right on the river. Even though it was August, it was still chilly. The lows must have been in the 30s-40s, so I slept in several layers. Being that we live in a desert climate, I just love that we can get in the car during the summer and go to much cooler weather.

After setting up camp we went up to rock creek lake to hang out for a bit.

The lake was cold enough to refrigerate my beer!

Then in the evening we enjoyed this
and this by the campfire.
On Saturday, we woke up had breakfast and got on our way. What a gorgeous hike!


We went up over Morgan Pass (~11,150 ft) and hiked down to Lower Morgan Lake. This lake was wonderful! It was surrounded by a mountain on one side and trees and greenery on the rest. We reached here around noon, so we decided it was a great location for lunch. After lunch to headed back. I didn't have my garmin this time so I don't know the exact distance, but were thinking it was 9-10 miles. Once we got back to the campground we went to soak our feet in the river. This is something we love to do after a big hike. Then it was time for dinner and campfire!

On Sunday we decided to not do a second hike. So instead we drove up the road to Bodie Ghost Town. That was quite interesting. It was friends of Bodie day...so there were all these people dressed in 1800s attire and even some covered wagons! Here is some of what I shot at Bodie.

Rockin and Rollin

Yup...there was a 5.4 earthquake out here today. But we live about 80 miles away. Although that didn't stop us from feeling up here in the desert. I was enjoying my lunch at my desk when things started moving. It was the most I have felt up here before. It took me a while to get a hold of Dave. Actually he got a hold of me. But it appears he felt it a lot more in Burbank. But we are all A-ok out here in Cali.

Urban Workshop

I think my brain is completely on photography overload. I left the house at 6:30 yesterday to drive to Riverside for an urban photography workshop and I got home at about 11:30pm! What a day. But what an amazing day. This workshop helped me realize so much. Things I'm doing wrong, things I'm doing right, things I need to do better. OMG! And I got some of the best photos I have ever taken. Susan was a great teacher and the best part was there was only 5 of us so I felt like we all really knew each other by the end of the day. What a great experience. Now I just have a lot to think about. Check my photography blog a little later, I plan to post a few from the shoots yesterday . We pretty much did seniors and kids. But I realized on these shoots that I think I would really like to focus my efforts of shooting seniors.

Are you Serious?

So as some of you already know, I misplaced my cell phone quite a while ago. So this week I ordered a new phone. I get a free phone periodically and they are usually pretty decent phones since I get my corporate discount thingy too. So today I get an email that its been shipped from Ontario, CA. But it won't be here until Monday. Really....two days to get from Ontario, CA to Lancaster, CA! I could drive there in a little over an hour. Come on! I just want my phone already.

I've been working on a new photography blog...yes you read that right...a new one! Again! This time its hosted with my website. It's about 80-90% there. I have some more tweaks and stuff. But you can see it at www.micheleschankerphotography.com/blog.

Making Progress...

And it feels great!

I feel like I can breathe again.

Finally got the ALL the family photos done from a few weeks ago on Monday! That's like a huge sigh of relief. I've been feeling a bit stressed with that hanging over my head. So it was nice to send out the emails and say..they are all done! Now I just have to take care of the wedding photos and then it'll be back into sessions again in August. I'll be shooting an 11 year old in early August. She'll be in town visiting her grandparents. So I think the photos will be a bit of a surprise for the parents. Then I think I have a senior session at the end of August…another out of towner!

As a complete side note I'm getting really frustrated with photo editing on PC monitors! I have three monitors (dual monitors for my desktop and a laptop) which none of them completely match, even though they are calibrated. Erghh…I'm really thinking I may be switching to a mac by the end of the year, especially since it seems that my laptop is slowly coming to its demise. (although it seems to be working since we whacked it with a remote control!)
This Saturday I will be at a workshop all day. It's geared towards kids and seniors (just in time for my August sessions). There will be models so we get to shoot as well..plus lots of lightroom and photoshop techniques. Should be a good full day with lots to learn and absorb. I'm pretty excited about it.

Speaking of being excited...I'm so excited about vacation at the end of the year too. Although we still don't have a final destination figured out…but it looks like it will be Europe with 2 friends from the East Coast. It is pretty much guaranteed to be loads of fun. I think destinations on the plate right now are Greece, Austria or Switzerland for some skiing, or Spain. All those places sound great. I so can't wait. But I'm saving 4 vacation days to attend WPPI in Feb. Dave actually said to me this weekend when we went to Pechanaga, that he's not sure what he's going to do in Vegas for 5 days! Wow, can you believe that came out of Dave's mouth! I think he'll find plenty to do while I'm off at classes. :) I am getting pretty excited about my first WPPI expereince, even though I may not know anyone there. Should be a great experience and an oportunity to meet some of the people I admire so much.

A Weekend in San Diego

Since I have been so crazy busy lately with photography stuff, I decided that Dave and I should take Sat and Sun and do something fun together. Besides we LOVE to go places! So we got in the car sat morning and drove to the San Diego area. Dave really wanted to go to Del Mar for horse racing, but August is looking pretty full, so we didn't know how we would be able to make it down. So that is what we decide to do on Saturday. It was so crazy down there....tons of people. I knew that Del Mar was kind of a hard place to photograph the horses, so I rented a 100-400mm lens from Calumet. And I think I was able to get some pretty good shots from the second level. The 6th race was the "big race" o the day. Dave really liked this horse...Surf Cat (check out his tongue).

But unfortunately Surf Cat came in second and this horse won the race.
The last race we watched as a turf race so we went to the infield, where there were a lot less people.


After the races were over, we ate dinner in Del Mar overlooking the ocean at sunset. I'm not into the whole beachy thing, but I would say Del Mar and La Jolla are my top coastal southern cali locations. So beautiful! I wanted to take sunset photos, but my battery died after the last race and apparently my other battery didn't charge in the car like I thought it did.

We spent the night and took our time getting up/ready to go on Sunday. Then it was off to Temecula for a day of wine tasting. We ate lunch at Carol's restaurant at Baily's and it was a pretty good lunch! I had a pork loin sandwich with Cabernet barbecue sauce and Dave had a Reuben. We ended the day with a short visit to Pechanga Casino where Dave got to play some Let It Ride, but didn't come out as a big winner.

Post Without A Name

Wow can you believe the year is more than half over! Is it me or does it seem that time just flies by as you get older. Maybe its just that I love our life and all the great things we get to do. I do want summer over though. I really hate summer. Last week we had a day where it got up to 109, but only 7% humidity. I guess I'd rather have it dry and hot rather than humid and hot. I am going through vacation withdrawls though. It's been about 9 months since we went to Costa Rica. But we only have 2 months til our grand canyon hike! The big vacation won't be until the end of the year.

Some total random things:

- I updated my photography blog from the wedding this past Saturday.
- I had 125 hits on my photography blog yesterday….that set a daily record!
- I want to go hiking this weekend very badly, but I have so many photos to edit, so I don't know if it is feasible.
- Dave and I cooked dinner together on Sunday night…it was so yummy. 95% fat free Burgers (homemade and I used a sesame teriyaki marinade in the meat), garlic broccoli, and potatoes with old bay on the grill.
- I am attending a photography workshop next Saturday..all day…I can't wait. Should be lots of fun.
- Dave wants to start playing tennis, so I think we're going to try and go out twice a week. We used to play that and basketball when we lived in Florida.
- My mom called me at work this morning (she's in Florida right now at their new house) all freaked out because she found a gecko in the bathroom. I told her "welcome to Florida Mom, at least it wasn't a roach".
- My brother is actually getting married next month…I still can't believe it.
- I introduced myself to facebook for the first time yesterday when I got a "friend" invite from a college friend. Then two more people from college added me to their pages in the same day.
- Dave was so helpful on Sunday. I was feeling quite overwhelmed with the amount of photos I have to go through. So he ran errands, cleaned up the house some, and even bought me a calendar white board for the office. Now I've set due dates for myself on all my photo shoots. I need organization or else I don't function well at all!

Well, I guess that's about it going on around here.

Hope everyone had a good weekend.

More From Mammoth

Sorry ,I ran out of time last night, so here are a few more photos from the weekend. While we watched the fireworks from Crowley Lake the sky was doing some pretty neat colors and there was this little tiny crescent moon. I have some photos with orange in them, that are really cool, but we were in a not so great photo location. There were telephone poles in the way. Not that it makes the photo awful. I think the worst thing was the headlights heading down the road. So I'll see if I can clean it up a bit and post it later.
So the fireworks were much better than I expected. I figured being out in the middle of the mountains it wouldn't be all that great. Plus I usually have high expectations since I'm from Maryland (I used to watch fireworks in cities like Baltimore, DC, NYC, and Philly).


A few more lake footage photos from around Mammoth. For the first time I realized why the town is called "Mammoth Lakes". There are lot of lakes around there. I never knew since they are usually covered in snow!
We made one last stop before heading home...see if you recgonize it.
No clue....here let me give you a hint.

Does that help? Ok if not, think of a specific Nature Valley Granola Bar Commercial....

Yup you got it... Convict Lake.

Unfortunately the lighting was just horrendous while we were there. And I knew it would be, but I love that place and wanted to stop quickly. I think we're going to go back up in the fall for my birthday so maybe I can get some better photos then.

Best 4th of July Weekend Ever!

Warning...this post has a lot of photos!

This past weekend we rented a condo up at Mammoth Lakes, CA. We had an amazingly great time. But I don't think it's possible to not have a good time at Mammoth. It's an amazing place. For those of you that are not familiar it's a small town in the eastern sierras. It's where we spend our winters skiing. We've actually never been during the summer, so it was a new experience.

Dave and I left on Friday Morning and checked into the condo. Then headed up to Main Lodge to catch a shuttle to Devil's Postpile. We were really excited to see this since its closed in the winter (snow closure). Therefore, we've never been able to go.
After hiking to Devil's Postpile we continued on to Rainbow Falls. What a beautiful place! The entire hike was about 4 miles. Not bad, but I thought the hike was going to be really short. So I brought the camera bag. That turned out to be an ordeal since the bag is pretty heavy. We ended up trading off every half a mile or so. After hiking we headed over to the Yodler for a couple of glasses of Mammoth Double Nut Brown (local beer). Then it was back to the condo for some hot tub time and dinner. After dinner we drove to Crowley Lake to watch the fireworks. Watching the fireworks over Crowley Lake was awesome. Talk about secluded. Seeing the fireworks in the middle of the sierras was amazing. We found a good spot along the side of the road too.

On Saturday we decided to give Mountain Biking a try. It was a little weird riding bikes around the mountain we normally ski at. But we had a great day. It took a little getting used to, but once I got the hang of it I really liked it. We look about 4 different trails. During our second ride, we rode up to see the view of Twin Lakes and eat lunch. I loved mountain biking! But why wouldn't I...I love adventure and exercise!
Dave had the misguided expectation that mountain biking would be all downhill. At the end of the day we even took the gondola up to the top (over 11,000 feet) and rode down back to Main Lodge. At the end of biking we went back over to the Yodler for more double nut brown! Then again back to the hot tub. This time we ate dinner at the Village and watched fireworks there. (yup, mammoth had 2 nights of fireworks).

Sunday, we woke up and packed up the condo. Then did some "touristy" stuff we never get to do during the winter. We did two short hikes out to some mountain lakes. The last one was only a half a mile, but it turned out to be a pretty strenuous first 1/4 mile. Then it was time to head home. I was completely sad about that. I LOVE the sierras. I keep wondering if we could afford to get a condo and rent it out. Mammoth is totally my favorite place to go. Wonderful views, hiking, and skiing. What more could I ask for! We've been skiing at sooooo many places, but mammoth always reemerges as our favorite place.

I may have a few more photos tomorrow, since I haven't downloaded everything.