I’m currently in Pittsburgh visiting family and friends while Matt is working on a carrier in the Persian Gulf. I have a couple shoots schedule for this week but the main reason I came up here is for the SteelCity Mafia’s 3rd Annual Family Weekend.

I got in late Wednesday night so that I would be here in time for the first game of the pre-season. I didn’t go to the game, but you can bet I was downtown to tailgate with my friends and family:

My mom, brother, and cousin Kaitlyn

My friends Rochelle, Robbie, and new friend Shona

As we were tailgating, Franco Harris walked by! Just walking down the street like a normal guy past hundreds of Steeler fans. I couldn't believe it!

The highlight of the weekend is the Sit Down, a formal banquet at the gorgeous DiSalvo’s Station restaurant in Latrobe. Every year we are honored to have a featured guest speaker who is a former Steeler player, and this year we had the fortune of having Mike Wagner, safety for the Steelers from 1971-1980. He had some great stories to share and it was such an amazing experience to listen to one of our Steeler legends talk about playing with some of the greatest players in history to his observations of football today. What is always interesting is that even though these guys were such badasses on the field (especially back then when it was really physical and even, as Wagner admits, sometimes dirty) they are always humble and nice as can be in person. Plus they are still so connected to Pittsburgh, just like regular fans. We’re all sitting there in awe of him but I think he was just as much in awe of us as fans and the loyalty we have for the team. He was so surprised to find out that most of us were from all over the country.

Steeler great Mike Wagner

Every year at the Sit Down, a select group of SCM members are “made” for their contributions and dedication to the organization. They are pinned by the guest speaker and it’s such a nice recognition. Congratulations to the 2009 class of Made members!

After the pinning ceremony we all retreat to the cigar lounge to hang out and celebrate:

Me, Missy, and Cindy

Barry, Me, and Frank

It was another great year and I’m so eager to see the schedule of SteelCity Mafia events for this year! A lot of the games are going to be too far for me to travel to but hopefully I’ll be able to make it to the home game that they choose and we are definitely planning on going to the game in Miami! It’s still so hard to believe that football season is upon us! Here we go, Steelers, here we go!!

An hour to Georgia. About 2.5 hours in Georgia and then we’re in South Carolina. 3hours or so in SC and we hit NC. I consider Charlotte to roughly be the half way point. I get confused and always think “Are we in Virginia yet?” Usually that means we’re still in NC but less than an hour from Virginia. We’re only in Virginia for about an hour and I know I have to get gas because in West Virginia it’s going to be $0.30/gallon more. Also have to get some cash out of the ATM for the WV tolls (the only tolls on the whole drive). When we hit Morgantown, I know we’re only about an hour away from the place I call home!

That’s the drive to Pittsburgh. It’s such a piece of cake drive. Matt took the first shift while I tried to nap. He drove for a little over 5 hours and I took over the rest since I’m using to being up from midnight until the sun comes up. When we hit the Pennsvylvania border yesterday morning, the sky was slowly growing lighter. Soon I could see the beautiful hills and the farms with their big red, white or brown barns. So much of PA is just farm land and it’s so beautiful. I took in the moment alone. Matt was sleeping in the passenger sleep with both of the dogs laying on top of him. Cruising along passed the farms, the day was starting to come to life and I sighed knowing that it was only a little further until we reached home.

We arrived around 6:30am and my mom was getting up for work. I checked to see if we had bread from Mancini’s Bakery and sure enough, it was there! She asked the other day if I wanted her to pick up a loaf and I told her not to worry about it because we would go get some. It’s kinda tradition that when I come home the first thing I do is eat some Mancini’s bread! Ever since I was a little kid whenever we took a trip to Pittsburgh we always brought home loaves of Mancini’s. You can bet we will be bringing some home this time, too! : )

It’s going to be a busy trip, but I’m excited about being home! Promise to have pics soon!

This is the last personal post of our pics from the California trip! Definitely can’t wait to get back out there again!

On our last day (July 4th) we went to shoot photos at Point Loma in San Diego. Point Loma overlooks the base and has a great view of all of San Diego (well, a hazy view on this day, but still good). It also has two beautiful lighthouses! I’m such a lighthouse nut and kinda have a collection going of lighthouse photographs that I haven’t posted in a collection… yet!

All but this last picture are of the lighthouse at the top of the point. We weren’t able to get access to the other lighthouse (located down below the cliffs) because it was too late. Also, it’s on Coast Guard property so we wouldn’t have been able to get too close anyway. Next time we’ll be sure to get over there earlier, though!

For our California trip, we spent the first half of the week in San Diego and then planned to spend the 2nd half up near LA to see some friends we had up that way. Rather than stay in LA and pay more for a hotel that may be in a questionable neighborhood we decided to stay in the Inland Empire. It’s a short drive away from LA and just a beautiful area with some quiet towns and beautiful landscape.

We ended up staying in Rancho Cucamonga at a modern hotel chain called Aloft (a vision of W Hotels). It was a pretty neat concept and quite the hangout because of the bar downstairs. The hotel and rooms, though, felt like a college dorm to me. Basic but stylish. We chose to stay there because it was really close to Mira Loma and we planned on going wine tasting with my friend Jess at Mira Loma (her photo shoot images coming soon!!). Plus as a Starwood Preferred Guest I got 50% off the 2nd night. If you’re not an SPG member, you should definitely sign up!

So we went wine tasting Thursday and chilled with Jess at the hotel bar the rest of the night. It was a PAR-TAY! The place got so packed. At first it was just us, but I guess on Thursday nights they have a DJ playing live music (DJ Diva – female DJs are so hot!). It was a fun time!

We didn’t have any plans for Friday. LA was going to be a madhouse because of Michael Jackson’s death, so we didn’t want to head out there. Plus we’ve both done the touristy stuff out there so we didn’t really have anything we were dying to see. Matt mentioned Vegas at some point (which he denies now, but he did!) so I suggested we head out there. It’s not a very far drive from where we were staying, but the day before July 4th trying to leave at noon to go to Vegas – stupid idea! Considering the traffic (which there was A LOT of) it wasn’t too bad. I think it took us a little over 4 hours and there were times where the traffic came to a dead stop! We were pretty frustrated because the drive to Vegas goes through nothing but desert and there were only 2 lanes!! Seriously? You have ALL the space in the world and you can’t put in more than 2 lanes on a highway to one of the biggest destinations in the country? Just kinda stupid!

But I tried to take advantage of the situation by shooting some of the scenery. The drive was absolutely BEAUTIFUL! It would have been wonderful to just cruise along at 70mph the whole way.

At one point we noticed the temperature was a sweltering 112 degrees! YIKES! So happy we didn’t break down!

We finally made it to Vegas and I was surprised to find that it didn’t feel all that busy. Definitely tons of people, but it wasn’t that bad driving around. I was REALLY surprised to find out you can park on the strip for FREE! Woo hoo! I was thinking we’d pay $35 or more for premium parking but nope. They want you to spend money in other places and the strip is much longer than it appears. Chances are you aren’t going to walk too far from where you park, so they know they have a good chance of getting your money if you park at their venue. We parked at the Bellagio and thought it was not only the most beautiful hotel in Vegas of all the ones we saw but also the most interesting site to see. The fountain show was so captivating! We could have watched it for hours!

I edited these images with the super cool Lightroom Presets from Camera Dojo. I usually don’t do a whole lot of editing but this was a fun trip and I thought I’d have some fun with the pics Matt & I took. I used the Super Pop 2 preset for the evening shots. Totally drives up the contrast and vibrance and is perfect for these photos! For the daytime photos I played with the Dazzle preset and made some manual adjustments.

Okay, I promise I wouldn’t talk so much and show more pics, but I just wanted to share this info for anyone who might be traveling to LA or Vegas. We did Vegas on $100 (that’s for gas and $70 for dinner). You don’t have to be a big baller to enjoy the brights lights of Vegas! : )

We took a TON of photos of the fountains. Since we can’t really post them all individually, we made a video! There are two video clips in this slideshow – one at the beginning and one at the very end. The rest are still images. The clip at the end cracks me up because the music for the slideshow was NOT the same music that was played during the show, but it times out so well! I just watched it with Matt and we were cracking up sooo hard!

Hope you’ve enjoyed our Las Vegas photos! We just have one more post on our personal adventures in California and one more photoshoot (a super hot one with my friend Jessica) and then it’s back to weddings & engagements! : )

On my last trip to San Diego, I made a brief stop by Mission San Diego. It was late at night and I was alone and so scared out of my mind! I thought I was being ridiculous, but on this trip Matt and I both went to the mission (again, at night) and he even agreed with me it was a little creepy!

We were able to visit 3 of California’s missions and went on a tour of one of them. We definitely don’t have anything like this on the East Coast! Definitely worth checking out if you’re ever in California! There are 21 missions total beginning in San Diego and continuing up through San Francisco. Here’s a summary of the ones we visited…

I really hope one day we’ll be able to visit some of the other missions! Matt and I both love visiting historic sites whenever we go on a trip, so I’m sure we’ll keep the other missions on our list of places to see!

One place we always must see when we go to San Diego is La Jolla. The cliffs are stunning and we love watching the seals play on the beach. I also get a kick out of the “sea squirrels!” First of all, I LOVE squirrels because I am a nut. Such cute little tree rats! But I am so amused that these squirrels happen to be beach bums! They actually live at the beach in little holes in the cliffs. Crazy!

Sadly, there weren’t a lot of seals out this time (Matt thinks they were out feeding). I was hoping to get some great close-up shots of the seals like the ones I took last year. But it was still fun and I got a TON of squirrel shots to make up for the seal shots I didn’t get! Just call me the squirrel paparazzi!!

Before I post the pics, I have to share my favorite Super Bowl commercial of all time! Hehehe!

I hope you enjoyed that! It cracks me up every time! Now for the sea squirrels!

We also took a couple video clips of the seals. I love watching them ride the waves onto the shore… then getting stuck and having to flop the rest of the way! It’s so entertaining! They are so cute. It almost makes me forget that they are vicious and eat baby penguins…

More to come, including some of California’s missions and photos from Las Vegas!

We have tons of photos to share from our trip to California, but I thought I would share the BEST parts first – the food and wine of Southern California! Yeah, there are beautiful landscapes on the West Coast and the weather is perfect all year and there are so many historic sites that are worth seeing, but I was most anxious to eat the best Mexican food EVER and drink SoCal wines! We totally indulged ourselves in all the deliciousness that Cali has to offer!

Our first stop after we got our rental car was to Old Town San Diego to get guacamole and margaritas! We ended up at Cafe Coyote and the guacamole was pretty good. The Patron margarita was FANTASTIC, but the place is very touristy. Not a bad spot to stop if you want to drink and spend $10 on margaritas, but downtown San Diego does a ton of happy hour specials with half of margaritas and appetizers!

While Matt was at the first day of his conference, I went out to lunch alone and ended up at a sushi place in downtown San Diego called Ra. In addition to great Mexican food, California also has incredible sushi! The sushi at Ra was sooo fresh that I think it was still moving! Absolutely delicious! I was so excited about my experience that I brought Matt back with me the next day for lunch!

On Monday evening we grabbed dinner with Jenny & Miguel before heading out to the shoot their photos at the San Diego Fair. They were so sweet and treated us to dinner at Urban Bar & Grill. We were chatting so much the poor server had to keep coming back for our order because we’d never look at the menu! Good time! I had a great salad but mostly we enjoyed the company!

Jenny & Miguel educated us on San Diego happy hour, so the next night we went to La Puerta, a place they recommended. It was a tiny place but it was so packed! We quickly found out why. It happened to be Taco Tuesday and they had $2 street tacos (which are not the cheapest in town, believe it or not, but still a great deal) and half off ALL drinks. Even their $50 shot of their best tequila was half off (and no, I didn’t do one!). I did try all of their margaritas though. Had they been full price I would have been disappointed. They were okay for the price, but I tried all of them because none of them really wowed me. The street tacos were good and the guacamole was YUM! For half off it was definitely a great place to go!

On Wednesday we went to Matt’s #1 destination for food: World Famous in Mission Beach! Matt will tell anyone you have to go to World Famous on Wednesdays for the $1.50 lobster tacos. You have to order it in the bar area and you can get them from 4-11pm. We ended up eating 5 lobster tacos each. Sooooo delicious!! They are topped with shredded cabbage and ranch dressing. Mmmm!!! We even talked about going back again before 11pm. We didn’t, but the thought definitely crossed our minds!

We saved the best for last, though. Just before we headed to the airport we went back to Old Town (which is close to the airport) and went to Rancho La Lena. We went there on our first trip to San Diego for lunch and forgot just how good the food was. Honestly, the place was empty and doesn’t have the atmosphere that some of the more touristy places in Old Town. But what they DO have is THE BEST guacamole we had our whole trip and just amazing food overall! We were also serenaded while we enjoyed our last meal in San Diego. We are kicking ourselves for not going to Rancho La Lena on our first day. It was definitely the best of the trip! 2367 San Diego Ave – check it out if you head to San Diego!

Now on to THE WINES! Matt & I LOVE Temecula. Since our first visit to Temecula things have changed a bit. I would say Temecula was a little more humble on our first trip and even when I was there about a year ago, but this trip I noticed that the cost for a tasting has gone up (used to be $5 now most places are $10) and most bottles are more around $30 when before we’d bring back bottles for under $20 each. It’s still a great way to spend the day. We found several coupons on the Temecula Valley Winegrowers Association website for 2-for-1 tastings, so we were able to save some money on the tastings. We visited three wineries: Thornton, Miramonte, and La Cereza. The tasting at Thornton was relaxing (sitting on a patio with the wines being brought out to us), but we didn’t actually like any of the wines we tasted enough to bring some home. Nice place to start, though, and have a little snack before going on to the other wineries. Miramonte was a fun place. The wines were pretty good but the people who worked there were very friendly. Probably my favorite of our stops in Temecula. La Cereza’s wines were pretty good. At first the lady who served us wasn’t very chatty, but she warmed up a bit.

Pics from Thornton Winery:

Three wineries in the span of a couple hours is A LOT of drinking, so be careful. I always seem to get a little too tipsy when I go to Temecula. Before heading up to meet my friend Jess in Mira Loma at another winery (about 45 minutes away), we stopped for lunch at La Cacita Nueva in Temecula. Killer food, but it was an INSANE amount! I think I took 2 bites out of the burrito and I couldn’t eat the rest. Just thought I would give it a mention, though.

La Cacita Nueva – the plates of food were ridiculous!

I think my favorite stop was Galleano Winery in Mira Loma. The tasting is FREE! You can’t beat that. And they changed my view of zins completely. Their Dos Rancheros Zinfandel is great and I brought some home last time.

Here are the wines we picked up:

Miramonte – Numero Uno Sangria and the Four Torch Red
La Cereza – Sangiovese, Shiraz, and Raspberry Champagne (20% off 3 or more bottles, so the last one paid for itself)
Galleano – Syrah and Almond Champagne (Wiebel Vineyards label)

We also made another stop in Mira Loma. I don’t know if you have ever seen the movie “Changeling” with Angelina Jolie, but the town where the murders took place was actually Mira Loma. It used to be called Wineville but after the murders and all of the bad press they changed their name. Actually, during the movie I was thinking “Oh, I went to wine country not far from LA” and it turned out to be the same town. Creepy! Anyway, the house that the killer lived in is still standing. The chicken coops are all gone but the house is there. I saw an interview of the woman who lived there after the movie came out and she didn’t even know the history of the house! Can you imagine? She has since moved out and when we went by the house was being worked on. I’m not sure why they don’t just tear the thing down. I guess no matter what you do it’s still the site of where it all took place. Such a sad and scary story! Here’s the picture of the house as it looked last week:

I know that was a lengthy post but I promise the rest of our California posts will have more photos. Lots of beautiful scenery, critters, historic sites, and… VEGAS!! photos coming up soon!

On our way home from shooting Mika & Jonathan’s Atlanta wedding, we stopped to get gas off I-16. I’m not even sure what town we were in but when we pulled into the gas station we saw that there was an adjacent farm. I guess not so random when you’re in rural Georgia, but what was random about it was that it was set up so that visitors could feed the animals! Rock on!!

We inquired inside about feeding the animals, bought a bag of food, and fed the animals – a bull, a cow, a llama, some goats, a donkey, and lots of geese! We had such a blast in the 30 minutes we spent there!

Here’s a few shots of the adorable animals and of us feeding them. Matt really loved it when I freaked out as I fed them. I was so certain the animals (especially the bull) would bite off my hand, but they were very sweet! Still, my reaction is pretty hilarious!

The baby goat was so stinkin’ cute!!!!!

My hubby is so much braver than I am!

I fed the little cow straight out of the bag. Not so bad, so I built up my courage…

… and fed the bull from my hand! Ick! Bleh! Ew! He completely slobbered all over my hand. Fortunately, though, he did not bite my hand off as I feared!

And finally, the llama. Why is the llama last? Perhaps because it is my favorite? Nope. Perhaps because my hubby’s parents have an alpaca farm and llamas and alpacas look so much alike? Nope, not that one, either! I put it last because no picture of a llama is complete without…

… A FINALE TO INCLUDE THE LLAMA SONG!! Oh yes! It’s so addictive. Seriously, how many times are you going to listen to it trying to memorize the words so you can sing along?! Come on! The orange slayed the rake?? LOL! Don’t forget to pause the music player at the bottom of the blog before playing the video. Hope this brightens your day! : )