Here are just a few more of my faves.  Then it’s on to Santorini !!

*Sigh* I heart Pronovias

Riot Police !  It’s time to go.

A little bit of “bling” at a museum in Athens

I called my Mom and Don at this phone booth.  Guy on the scooter waved for the photo

Darren taking out money.  We did that a LOT in Greece!

My mom and Don saw this man too when they were in Athens.

Neat old movie theatre entrance

]]> http://www.kimkalynphotographyblog.com/travel-snaps-tuesday-athens-continued/feed/ 3 http://www.kimkalynphotographyblog.com/travel-snaps-tuesday-food-focused/ http://www.kimkalynphotographyblog.com/travel-snaps-tuesday-food-focused/#comments Wed, 21 Jul 2010 03:15:28 +0000 admin http://www.kimkalynphotographyblog.com/?p=2071 It is no secret that I LOVE food.  I LOVE IT.  So when Darren and I were planning on where to go for our honeymoon, I was paying particular attention to the local cuisine I wanted to sample.  Greek food has always been a huge favourite of ours and so it was no surprise that we quickly settled on Greece.  Besides the food you can’t go wrong with that turquoise Mediterranean Sea, perfect cobblestone alleys, and picturesque views from every angle.  But really for me it was about the food in a big way.  I have to say that Darren and I have been fortunate enough to travel a lot.  And Greece wins HANDS DOWN for having the best food out of anywhere we have been so far.  I could have survived on the olives alone.  Or maybe just the baklava.  Ok, or the Moussaka.  No maybe just the Spanakopita.  You get the picture.  So I have decided to dedicate this post strictly to the food.  Here is just a few shots to give you an idea of some of what Greece and Turkey had to offer.

Yes that is a GIANT slab of Feta

Our favourite drink there the Freddocino

Turkish Delight YUM !

]]> http://www.kimkalynphotographyblog.com/travel-snaps-tuesday-food-focused/feed/ 14 http://www.kimkalynphotographyblog.com/travel-snaps-tuesday/ http://www.kimkalynphotographyblog.com/travel-snaps-tuesday/#comments Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:25:16 +0000 admin http://www.kimkalynphotographyblog.com/?p=2003 So here it is.  My first instalment of “Travel Snaps Tuesday”.  These shots are from our honeymoon.  Darren and I ventured to Greece and Turkey this past May for our incredible honeymoon.  I will be starting these snaps from the beginning.  I like order  So it begins in Greece.  Athens to be exact.

Greece is a magical place and it was everything I hoped for.  We spent our days exploring ruins.  Sipping lattes or white wine while nibbling on Baklava and enjoying the hustle and bustle of the Plaka and Montastraki districts, while in the shadow of the Parthenon.  Amazing.

Getting there was a dream come true.  I know I will go back.

In the airport in Brussels.  YUM!

Staying at our friend Katya’s place right in the most beautiful suburb in Athens.

Our first glimpse of the Parthenon.  Can you see it ??

What’s a post without a picture?? So I will leave you with a shot from our honeymoon in Santorini.  Gotta love self-timers!  See you Sunday!

I am just feeling so lucky and blessed.  Don’t you just love it when things feel like they are falling into place.  Sort of like there is this calm and peace that things are right where they are supposed to be and everything is in balance.

Well before I get too gushy on you I guess I should get on to the pics.  Speaking of gushy though … am I the only one who cannot watch the Olympics without bawling their eyes out ?!  Seriously, Darren is beginning to think that I have some emotional hypersensitivity disorder these days.  The commercials, medal ceremonies, victories, defeats … everything is making me cry !  In a good way though  I feel incredibly proud to be Canadian right now.

Those are all individual tea bags !

I have been meaning to post some random images from our travel time there and figured that these are about 4 months overdue, so here it goes.  Part 2 to come.  Enjoy!

Jo LOVES this home below

And she loves these cute cars … they are flipping adorable, right ?!

Jo and Dan’s home – yellow door on the right!

Jo & Dan !!!

Jo you are beauuuuuuuutiful !!!

Now I just hope that Lia and Bry just love them as much as I do

Darren and I like to pride ourselves on being relatively ‘green’.  I am a recycling guru and am always getting after him for putting anything that could be recycled into the garbage.  We use energy efficient lighting.  Un-plug any appliances when not in use (with the exception of our computers).  We keep our heat around 15 degrees and rarely use our electric fireplace.  All of our big appliances (stove, fridge, washer dryer etc) are all energy star rated.  I even compost for crying out loud !!  Sooooo I am baffled.  Unless Darren has a secret ‘grow-op’ that I am unaware of I am not sure what the heck is going on.  By the amount of type real estate and capital letters I have given to this topic I am sure you can tell I am a bit worked up about this.  So thank you for letting me vent

Now on to something much more exciting than my energy woes – more images from Lia and Bryan’s destination wedding in Mexico!!  I posted some teaser images for them a little while back, HERE.  But because I have fallen insanely in love with their wedding images, I decided to post some more.  In two parts as a matter of fact, as there is just that many images that I heart big time.

As you could probably tell from their teaser pictures that Lia and Bryan are not the most attractive people, in fact the camera really hated them.  Eeeeeeew – look at their perfect teeth, hair, complexions, smiles … YUCK!  Heee heee heeee  !!  I am being completely sarcastic !!  Lia and Bryan are a GORGEOUS couple, inside and out.  Anyone can tell from looking at these photos that I couldn’t have taken a bad picture of these two if I tried

Lia & Bryan decided to see each other before the wedding and do a “first look” which I am a HUGE fan of !! You can read more about ‘first looks’, HERE.  I will post images from their “first look” in Part 2 of this post.  Soooo cute !!  In this post I am just sticking to the getting ready shots as well as a few of the wedding party shots.

I’d love to know which shots are your favourites.  So feel free to leave me some comment love below.  Enjoy!

Lia you are the cutest !!!

The close family and friends who attended their fabulous wedding treated Darren and I like we were their own family.  They included us in everything they did and were so grateful and appreciative for us being there, which was just the sweetest.  Sometimes I just can’t get over how lucky I am.

On the day of the wedding I would describe Lia and Bryan as so completely content and calm and peaceful about the wonderful day ahead.  They definitely set this wonderful tone and their day unfolded in an amazing relaxed manner and it was such a pleasure to be apart of.  I am only posting a small teaser of some formals and a few from their trash the dress session and I promise there is much more to come.  I have to pack tonight as we fly out tomorrow for Dave and Colleen’s Maui wedding.

Lia and Bryan, I am so grateful that you chose me as your wedding photographer and that you allowed Darren and I to document your incredible wedding in paradise.  I hope these photos bring back some of the special memories of your day.

Lots of love,

Kim

The plan was to head up to Tofino after work on Friday with a friend of a friend, who I had only met once before, and I think I was more concerned that we were going to have awkward silence upon awkward silence and just generally not enough to talk about over the four hour drive, than the actual road conditions themselves.  Well that was my first mistake my friends (not trying to sound like John McCain there!)  Heidi and I totally hit it off and got so carried away chatting that we even thought we missed a couple of our exits, which unfortunately for our other friends who we were meeting up there was the case (for those of you who know how far Port Hardy is from Tofino, you can understand how severely lost they were….achemm pardon me had a cough there…achem 5 extra hours lost).   Oh doorbell just rang…hold on a sec.

It was Heidi !  Coming to pick up her bags that were held hostage in my car for a few days.  I’ll get to that later.

So anyways…Heidi and I set off around 4:00pm from downtown Victoria with an anticipated 4 hour drive ahead of us.   These days it’s getting dark around 5:30 or so, so basically from Naniamo on we were driving in the dark.   Driving in the dark in Nanaimo = no problemo.  Driving in the dark past Port Alberni = BIG FREAKING PROBLEMO !!! Those roads up to Tofino are insane !!!  I have driven them in the daylight and know how intense they can be, but I guess I just never thought of the third factor which made this drive hell.  SNOW, and plenty of it.  This damn white stuff, mixed with 2 ft visibility and blinding highbeams -seriously people are inept when it comes to turning them off – were all factors that were strongly challenging our ability to survive this drive.  I am not kidding people, it was that bad.  If Heidi wasn’t someone I had only just met, there would’ve been tears to the point of ugly sobbing.  My knucles were white, and I started seriously questioning whether I had developed cataracts overnight as I literally could not see 2 feet in front of the car.  I don’t think I am explaining the sheer terror well enough, so let me elaborate.  Picture 2 lanes for traffic, 1 coming and 1 going.  No room to pull over.  Sheer rocky cliffs on one side, where we would plummet to our death and rock croppings overhanging the road on the other side.  Now imagine not being able to see the centre line, or the edge of the road for that matter.  This = Kim going to vomit or cry.  Guys I held it together.   I was screaming on the inside, but held it together.

We finally arrive in Tofino 5.5 hours later.  And meet a couple of the other girls who were staying for the weekend as well.  We share war / survival stories  about the ride up and I proceed to down a bottle of wine faster than I thought humanly possible.  One hour passes, two hours pass and our other friends haven’t arrived yet.  We’re starting to get worried, when we finally get a phone call.  They ended up pass Woss BC, and into Port Hardy.  They wouldn’t arrive in Tofino until 11:30 pm.  They left at noon.  This is typically a 4 hour drive.  You get the picture.  Finally they arrive and more and more wine is consumed.

We ended up heading to bed somewhere in the wee hours of the morning.  And giggled like school girls for another few hours until we were told to be quiet.  Felt just like grade 7 sleepovers!

The next day in Tofino was just beautiful.  Sunny skies and mild temperatures.  We did some beachcombing.  Had a fabulous brunch.  Best baked french toast EVER.  Explored the town and hit up Breaker’s Deli for some coffee and a treat.   Then back to the fabulous Middle Beach Lodge where we were staying to do some more eating and drinking.  I think I consumed my weight in triple creme brie, goat’s cheese, french bread and wine.

Sunday I needed to leave fairly early as I had a photo session scheduled later that afternoon.  We were on the road with plenty of time accounted for in case we needed to drive extra slow again.  At least this time we could see the road.  Well about 20 minutes out of Tofino it starts snowing big time.  So everyone is creeping along.  Slow and steady wins the race though….right ?!  By the time we are almost at Nanaimo I started noticing that my clock was fading.  Hmmmm.  That’s weird I thought to myself, but didn’t really think anything of it.  Then it starts POURING and I go to flick on my windsheild wipers.  Nothing.  I had noticed earlier that they seemed a bit sluggish, but once again just thought – oh the motor just must be cold, and didn’t think anything of it.  I asked Heidi to pass me her cell phone, so I could call my 24 hour on call mechanic…AKA Darren.  Thank god he answered the phone, as his band practice was just about to start and there is NO WAY they would’ve heard the phone ring.

To make a long story a little bit shorter, while I am on the phone with Darren my car proceeds to die in the middle of the highway and Heidi and I have to push it over to the side of the road in the pouring rain.  A nice gentleman with a fabulous Scottish accent pulls over to help us push and offers us a ride back to Victoria.  As we are contemplating whether to accept this ride with a stranger…going against all the lectures my mom has provided over the years, we accept.  We both make note of his license plate and hold tight to our cell phones, as this man is wearing leather driving gloves, and our fear tells us that this is because he wants to chop us into little pieces and throw us into the river.  I have watched way too many horror movies, and I hate horror movies.  But to our pleasant surprise he drops us off at Woodgrove Mall in one piece and wouldn’t even accept our money for his trouble.  We hit up Blenz in the mall and wait until our other friend Cara can come to Heidi’s rescue.  Darren made it up to Nanaimo in record time.  This man is prepared. He arrives with 2 fully charged batteries, his tool kit, and is ready to go.  God I love this man.  He was my knight in shining armour.  We head back to my poor car on the side of the road and Darren tries to revive her to no avail.  We have to call a tow truck to tow us to the nearest car repair shop, which is closed, as they all are on Sundays.  I must have done something terribly wrong as karma is kicking my ass at this point.  We ditch my poor car and head back home.

A few days later my car was ready to be picked up and I am happy to report she is in perfect working condition.

That is officially my longest post yet.  I hope I haven’t bored you to tears.  But if I did, here are some pretty pics to lift your spirits