Happy Halloween!

It's almost Friday! Which really means nothing to me, because I never really take a day off, but I do lighten my workload on Saturdays usually so I still look forward to it. 

Last night Bryan and I sat down during a crappy scary movie marathon and decided to carve our pumpkin that's been sitting around for over a week. Okay, well I carved (or drilled I should say) he watched the crappy movies. This year instead of carving a pumpkin which I'm terrible at, I decided to do pumpkin drilling. I've seen it all over Pinterest and on FB and it looked fairly easy. You basically just take a drill and drill holes in your pumpkin and create designs. I did okay, not fantastic- here's how it went. 

 I thought it was pretty good, considering I'm terrible at decorating pumpkins. The B is a little messed up, but it's an alright pumpkin. Below are more pictures from the pumpkin carving - Bryan had to carve the top off because I can never do that for some reason. I always almost end up cutting my hand off. And yes, lol I do feed the dogs a little bit of the pumpkin every year. They seem to like it, so why not. 

Truthfully, the only thing that we really even do for Halloween is carve a pumpkin and sometimes give out candy. We used to go to parties and dress up in the past, but I'm really not into it a lot anymore and I'm guessing not many others are either due to the lack of parties/events that used to take place. I can't complain though! I'd much rather stay in my PJ's and work or get cozy on the couch and watch tv. 

What are you doing for Halloween tonight? 

Holiday Festivities

Hi everyone!

I'm in between work shifts right now so I thought I'd make a quick blog about some of the cool things to do around the Central FL area during the holidays. I'm leaving out the obvious theme park events because those already get a large amount of exposure. Some events we won't be attending because they are slightly too pricey for us right now, but they're worth the mention. Here we go:

 Festival of Trees at Orlando Museum of Art - Nov. 16th - 24th

• Tickets range in price from $50-$125. Click here to purchase. 

Holiday Tree Lighting in Winter Park - Dec. 6th 5:15p

• This is a free event that takes place at 251 S. Park Avenue, Winter Park, FL 32789. For more information, click here . 

Fifth Annual Nutcracker Ballet Tea at Rosen Shingle Creek - Dec. 8th 1:30p - 3:30p

• Cost of admission for event is $18.00 + tax. Children 3 and under are free. Click here for more Rosen Shingle Creek Orlando events. 

Candlelight Tour of Homes - Dec. 6th 6:00p-9:30p

• $25 dollars in advance, $30 dollars if purchased at the event. Event is held at 8th Street and Oak Avenue, Sanford, FL 32771. Click here to purchase. 

32nd Annual Light up Mt. Dora - Nov. 30th 5:30p; Light up at 6:30p

• This is a free event and takes place at Donnelly Park on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Donnelly Street. For more Mt. Dora holiday events, click here . 

The Nutcracker Ballet w/ the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra  -Dec. 19th - 21st 7:30p  and Dec.22nd - 2:00p

• Tickets range in price for this event. Click here to purchase.

Those are just a few of the holiday happenings around the area, but if you'd like to add more feel free to do so in the comment section! I haven't attended all of the fore-mentioned events, but we have been to a couple of them and the prices are worth it - especially the ballet. 

Hope you're all having a great day! 

Funerals, Family and New Beginnings

Hi everyone! I originally intended to break these events up into a couple of different posts, but things get busy and life happens and well, you get the idea anyway. 

A few months ago my papaw passed away due to lung cancer at his home in South Carolina. We had expected that this was going to happen, I mean literally expected - our bags were packed to leave in advance. As sad as it was, I don't think I'm going to go too much into it...maybe a little, but no one likes a dreary blog and I certainly don't like thinking about that visit too much. We left FL headed for South Carolina, got there, attended the funeral and then mulled around for a few days before my sister in law and I decided we needed to get out of the funk that we were in. So what did we do? 

This! 

And a little more of this...

 And then some of this...

 And then a little of that...

 Maybe a little more of that...

 And some more of this. 

Okay, before you get on my case about the quality of these photos, I know they aren't great. This was before I had my Nikon. It was like 300 degrees outside, humid and all I had was my iPhone. Now let's re-evaluate; not so bad right?

To anyone else, these pictures are just mediocre images. To me, they represent something completely different. They represent a sliver of happiness in what was a dark time. They remind me of the time that I remembered how much I loved photography and how important it was to pursue what I loved. It reminded me to start my new beginning. They made me realize that starting over was okay and that I could show my Granny that starting her new beginning was okay too. 

Pictures are not just worth 1,000 words. Pictures are memories, emotions, stories and much more. That's the best part about photography, you don't have to do any talking to get to know someone, you only have to look.