Go West, young (wo)man!

Right before Thanksgiving, I had the opportunity to go to California for the first time through the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative. We stayed in Irvine for the conference, and then I headed by Amtrak to San Diego to see Sarah and Nate for two nights. I can see why people move out there. It's absolutely beautiful. These photos don't do it justice, seriously.

At the beach. Oh yeah, the water is COLD.

 

 

My first In 'n Out burger. So good.

 

Then we headed back to Sarah's house to get ready for dinner - and find Oliver, the cat.

 

At the cemetery on the Naval Base in San Diego.

Hiking near the tidal pools.

 

One uber-delicious fried mushroom at dinner. No, that was not the only one I ate. 

Catchin' a few sea critters

I cooked shrimp for dinner tonight, so that's probably why I was thinking about this trip. Early this year (I think it was about February), I got to go on a real shrimp boat turned tour shrimp boat in Brunswick. It was so cool, and smooth. I didn't even need the dramamine that I took beforehand! The Lady Jane and her crew - captain Larry Credle, son Cliff and first mate - were awesome. And the birthday party I intruded upon was middle school boys. They were hilarious. Check out the Lady Jane and my article in Southscapes.

Here's what I wrote for the UGA-CAES magazine (Southscapes):

Cliff Credle swings the net over the catch table and tugs it open. Hundreds of fish, a few shrimp, some mud and a horseshoe crab spill out. Last year, the Lady Jane took 4,621 passengers on 167 trips off the coast of Brunswick. The 60-foot vessel was the first, and is currently the only commercial fishing trawler in the United States certified to carry passengers. She can take out up to 49 per trip.

Credle's ocean heritage goes back to Blackbeard, the notorious pirate who left three Credle brothers unemployed when he gave up his dastardly deeds in 1712. Blackbeard dropped them off at North Carolina’s Outer Banks, and their descendents have been fishing the East Coast ever since. Credle’s great-grandpa became a shrimper.“Everybody’s got water in their blood,” Credle said.

Pulling in the Lady Jane's net is “like Christmas,” Larry said. “You never know what you’re going to catch.” They’ve pulled up a prehistoric megalodon shark tooth, multitudes of sharks, eels, puffer fish and, of course, tons of shrimp.

And some of my favorite photos:

Swing, swang, swung

Back in February, I brought my camera along to Em's Canopy show. Canopy Studio specializes in teaching trapeze, but not the three-ring circus kind. This is more Cirque du Soleil. Very cool. I love the flow of some of these photos. And the light was pretty low in there (no flash. Blinding performers is not cool). So I played with a few of them.

Em's performance in memory of her mom. I love this shot.

A little cupcake experimenting

I love cupcakes! I love making cupcakes and eating cupcakes and dreaming of opening a cupcake cafe in Athens. I'm also loving trying out food photography. What a yummy combination!

These were a few flavors I experimented with last week. My favorites were the cinnamon chocolate with cinnamon buttercream and then the mocha with coffee buttercream.

Chocolate-almond cupcakes with almond buttercream

Cinnamon chocolate with cinnamon buttercream 
(note the cinnamon shavings from a cinnamon stick. Mmm, tasty!)

Mocha with coffee buttercream

the Simon's shoot

In June, I had the privilege of taking photos of the Simons for their first anniversary. They got married at the Taylor-Grady House, so that's where the photos were taken. Such fun! They are such a great, crazy-busy couple. Here are a few of my favorites.

 

Soup for the soul

Being that this weekend was the first cold one we've had in a while (and yucky rainy, which lately is not unusual), I made soup! Here's what was left - it was from a Cooking Light recipe for chicken and corn chowder. It's one of our favorite soups. Mmm.