Elephant Seals

We spent the day in Santa Cruz at a national park watching the Elephant Seals migrate. They are very interesting creatures. With there huge bodies and huge noses they make these horrible screeches for mating calls! We sat on the hill ant watched the males claim their territory over other males and we watched the woman protect their young from the crazy men. These women seals are always pregnant! they come to migrate when they are ready to have there baby and then they mate and get pregnant and go back out to the ocean. The whole thing is kinda weird. Here are some pictures I took so you can get a better idea of what they look like!

My New Home

After spending the day in San Fran we headed to San Jose to visit Chaz's cousin Dylan and her husband Darrell and their son Teagan. We spent the night with them hanging out at there house and playing with T, who by the way is sooo cute! The next day we headed up to Redding to hang out with Chaz's Mom and siblings. It was the first time in a while that Chaz had been home! WE spent the weekend hanging out and spending time with the family.. We even went with his sister to pick out a dress for an upcoming dance at school. What a nice brother! After the weekend it was back to San Jose to settle in!

Dylan mentioned to us before we left that Darrell's mom needed a roommate and it would be perfect for us.. so we moved in with Samy! Samy is awesome.. the cutest little lady with tons of spunk.. She is well known in the Bay area as Samy The Psychic! Look her up on Google and you can read all about her.

Sense We moved in we have been looking for jobs and trying to get settled! Its kinda hard with the way the economy is to find jobs but we are working on it! Chaz has been working endless hours on updating Samy's website for her psychic readings and also on creating a new website for her Faux Painting business that he is going to become a part of! I have been looking for nanny jobs and server jobs and finally got a server job at a really busy Cheesecake Factory near by.

It has been a lot of fun being here. This place is so beautiful and I cant wait to travel the Bay and take pictures! Chaz and I spent one afternoon at Half Moon Bay watching my first sunset over the Pacific! It was Beautiful!!

Well that's all for now.. I will keep you updated on everything as I get more photos to post and more stories to tell!

Our Drive West!

We left New Orleans and our first stop was Houston, TX to visit my friend Yvonne and Brianna who happened to be visiting from Minnesota. We stopped by just to say hi and grab lunch on our way to San Antonio. When we got to San Antonio we spent the night with a mutual friend of ours named Tamora. We spent the night hanging out and listening to music and chatting.

After leaving San Antonio we headed to Gilbert Arizona to stay with the Binstock's (My cousins). The kids loved Chaz! We hung out for the weekend playing with the kids and just relaxing. We spent a lot of time playing the Rock Band video game with the kids and Chaz even got them singing Kiss! We also got to take the kids to a movie that we were wanting to see. It was hard to leave the kids but we were off to Las Vegas to visit Chaz's family next.

We drove through the day and got to the Hoover Dam at night fall! It was cool to see the Hoover Dam for the first time at night.. I also got to drive in to Vegas at night and see all the cool lights! When we got to his cousin's house we went out to dinner with Karen and Kathy and then headed to bed. The next day we spent the day touring Vegas and even caught a live garden show at one of the Casinos and I enjoyed my first In-And-Out-Burger! We also stopped at the little wedding chapel and took a fake picture showing that we got married. They laughed at me because I had never had one! We planned on leaving that night but instead hung out with Karen and spent another night there! We ended up not leaving till late the next night! I had a great time with his a family and would love to go back for another visit!

Chaz planned on leaving late that night so that when we drove into San Fransisco It would be early in the morning and we could drive around San Fran before heading to San Jose. It was so cool to see the Pacific Ocean at sunrise and to see all of the Bay in general! He even drove me down the whindiest (sp?) road in San Fran. We had a blast driving around the city and seeing all of the beautiful things it had to offer!

My Adventure in New Orleans

Once we got to New Orleans it was right to work we went. Chaz was working on getting the kitchen set up in a new bar his friend was opening called the Green Room Ultra Lounge. We spent day and night getting ready for the new opening..We definitely worked more than we slept. We made it through the grand opening with good success. I even picked up a few bartending shifts one of which was New Years Eve.. I Had a blast! I was meeting tons of nice people and having a great time.

Chaz and I escaped for a day and went out taking pictures. We took the street car uptown and walked around taking tons of fun photos. It was the first time I really had taken out my camera sense I had gotten there and it was nice that Chaz wanted to take photos as well. He had a blast taking black and whites with my 35mm while I took pictures with my Digital. We spent the whole day walking around exploring and then headed the the French Quarter to take some night photos. I was awesome because as we got down the the river the fog was beginning to set in and set it up for a beautiful image of the dinner boat.

After long and hard thought, Chaz and I decided that New Orleans was not the place for us to thrive as individuals. We realized that working in the French Quarter was tons of fun but not a life style that was for us any more. Chaz had been there sense 2000 and he was ready to leave and really work on his writing and for me as a photographer I was ready to really find myself in my art. It was hard to say goodbye and I know I will be back to visit.. I know that I need to take my mother there to show her what I fell in love with and to show her how beautiful it is of a place!

So after a month of New Orleans, Chaz and I packed up my two door car and headed west!

The Journey Begins November 2008

Well where do I begin... A lot has happened sense I last blogged and I will never let that much time pass again between writings! After the gallery show from New Orleans I spent the next months getting ready to graduate. I worked many long hours to prepare and things turned out great! I graduated in June and from there I spent the summer getting ready for my big move to New Orleans But before my big jump there was one last scheduled trip to New Orleans for Halloween with My friend Jodie and her boyfriend Nick! The trip was one crazy adventure after another! We went to clubs and danced and drank, went to the Halloween parade and took some crazy photos of floats, and I spent one of the most amazing nights at a little jazz bar with Chaz (will tell you more about him in future writings). Well after a week of beautiful weather and lots of fun.. My heart was officially set on my move to New Orleans.

The next month crawled by and finally it came the day for Chaz to land in MN and for us to set sail on my new adventure to New Orleans. Chaz and I spent a few days in MN together before we left and I showed him around town! We went to the MOA, drove around town, ate at the Nook and Shamrocks (a few times) and I took him to his first NHL hockey game..We even got to sit on the glass for the 2nd period! We had a blast!

After hid tour of Minnesota we were both ready to get out of the snow!! We left Minnesota at around Noon and drove straight through to New Orleans and arrived ate about 8am the next morning... Chaz and I had a blast driving through the night, listening to music and chatting. The drive definitely didn't feel like 19 hours!
But as we drove through the fog and into the bayous of New Orleans I was so excited to be "Home"