Category Archives: Sans Kids

Nine Years And Counting

by Adel Posted on March 27, 2013

9 years ago today, I put on a beautiful white dress…
9Years-1And rushed to a church to meet this dreamboat of a man…
9Years-2And vowed to love and honor him till the end of our days…
9Years-3Little did I know then, that the fairytale life I was convinced I had found with this amazing man, could be overshadowed by the great love I have today with him. One we’ve grown together through tears, laughter, heartache and oh so much joy.

9 years later.
Coll_9Year1That fairytale ending? Thank goodness there was no such thing. Because the life we have built in these last 9 years, is so much stronger and beautiful than anything that could be written in a storybook.
Coll_9Year2Happy 9 Years to the man of my dreams.

I chose us then.

I choose us now.

And I promise to choose us even when we’re old and grey.
9Years-4

The kids and I dug up our wedding video from the archives and watched it together this morning.

Yes I cried.

Watch it here.

(all photos by John Riedy Photography. Edited in 2013 by me!)

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Night Out

by Adel Posted on September 16, 2012

So we got dressed up and had a night out recently to celebrate a friend’s birthday.

And we remembered to bring the camera!
I love having the OM-D. It’s quite the powerful little thing packed in a tiny enough package to fit in my clutch.
You may see more shots of our random nights out make it on the blog now that I’m trying to learn to use it.

It was a fun night out with good friends, old and new.

Happy Birthday A!

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Pool Nights – My Weekly Outlet

by Adel Posted on November 7, 2011

I shoot pool in the San Francisco APA League once a week. But you already know that

I’ve been doing this for a few years now. And the nice part is Grizz and I both shoot together on the same team. It’s one little part of our lives that has nothing to do with our kids. And we love it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m exhausted every Wednesday morning because pool nights almost always run late. But the few guaranteed hours a week of non-kid activity I share with my husband is something I look forward to every week

I took improving my game much more seriously before Jack-Jack arrived. Then again, having only one child allowed me the luxury of actually getting out to shoot and practice several nights a week if I wanted to

Now? Not so much. In fact my game is not nearly as good as when I was pregnant. Yes I played competitively till 2 weeks before the Jack-Jack was born. Huge belly and all. These days I only play on the one night a week

We have a great team made up of a good group of friends that we enjoy hanging out with

In fact, we just spent the weekend with most of them on a private winery complete with a fabulous 9 foot pool table (among other luxuries)

This session our team is actually doing better than we have in a while. Which has made pool nights even more fun and competitive!

Bottom line, I love having my little outlet from my kids doing something I enjoy.

And these days, I occasionally bring the DSLR out for some interesting shots while I’m waiting for my turn at the table ;)

I hope you have something you can escape from your kids to every once in awhile as well :)

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When The Kids Are In Bed

by Adel Posted on September 1, 2011

This part of the day is all mine. Well I share it with Grizz but he doesn’t require diaper changes or meals fed so I have a few hours that’s all mine. Most of the time I spend it watching the currently God-awful Giants games, working on projects or updating this blog. Or just passing out at 8pm when we’ve given up like 5 runs in the 1st already.

Every now and then though I pretty up and hit the town (read one bar for 2 hours maybe) with a girlfriend or two.

I never bring the DSLR but I do carry my little Canon point and shoot in my clutch. Sometimes I’ll remember to snap a picture, sometimes I won’t. Well it’s been about a month since I dumped everything from that camera and I found all these from random nights out. They make me smile :)

I don’t remember the name of this bar but I do remember it was in the ‘hood. We left while it was still light out. You can see we were there early since there was NO ONE else around and all the fruits still look perfect!

I shoot pool about once a week in a league which I thoroughly enjoy. I have an awesome team. This session we made it to the playoff Finals but lost there. It was a good run though and most importantly we had loads of FUN!

One night even my girlfriends made it out to cheer us on. Now that was a fun evening ;)

My most recent night out was to a masquerade party. Not usually my thing but it turned out to be a blast! I think I stayed out till 11 that night. Woah!

And even made some new friends :)

Looking through some of these shots makes me happy that I’ve managed to find a little piece of this city that’s just for me. Motherhood can sometimes consume me. I’m happy that I still have the energy at least some nights to enjoy it like I did when I was 25. Well maybe not quite that way anymore, but you know what I mean :)

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Date Night Cocktails

by Adel Posted on August 29, 2011

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted about our date nights. Thank god it’s not because we haven’t been in that long. I’m not sure I can last too long without some adult time with my husband. I’ve just been too lazy to bring the camera when we go. I’ve also found it’s not really that romantic to be snapping pictures while you’re on a date.

This time though I thought I’d make an exception since I wanted to try capturing the city vibe after dark and sans kids.

After shooting my kids all day every day, it’s creatively refreshing to shoot… umm… bicycles? Laugh if you want, these particular bikes didn’t move. In my book that’s a win already.

I do love how the city completely changes from day to night. My state of mind and perspective is also vastly different from when I’m shooting the kids during the day.

I like being able to try random techniques I read on the web that I normally can’t with two little ones running around. This one was taken at a really low ISO (200) and I had the shutter on bulb. I didn’t time it but I think I had it open for about 10 seconds. It’s on the bar counter so there’s no shake

Since I brought the camera, my date and I discussed lots of different techniques. If I hadn’t already mentioned, Grizz is actually the family pro photographer (the 3rd shot from the top was taken by him) and I’ve learned a lot about our camera, skin tones and the importance of light from him.

After dinner we decided to stop at Beretta for some of their famous specialty cocktails. I’d been craving an alcoholic beverage with egg white in it all evening (not kidding). This is huge for us. We’re usually a ONE stop date night kind of couple. Well we felt like getting a little crrrazy that night. So Beretta it was.

I quickly located my egg-white-cocktail (The Airmail), ordered and watched the bartender put it together in front of me

I think he was enjoying the attention (the big camera focused on him) so from then on, he made all his drinks in front of me

Or maybe that’s just where his drink-making station is

My personal favorite part was the hearts he made on the drink using an eyedropper. Fancy stuff here.

We made it to 2 drinks each then called it a night. Yeah it was pretty wild :)
I think we were both just ready to get home and check on the kids. Yes we’re sticking to that story.

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A Winning Night

by Adel Posted on July 14, 2011

…for everyone but me. But I’m a team player so I’ll celebrate :)

I love how the sun goes down much later. It gives the illusion that it’s much earlier than it really is

Since we were there a little before game time, I took the opportunity to play around with the natural light flowing through our home bar. My husband was my unwilling model… or victim.

Our mascot/pocket marker for the night was the Hazmat Guy. My son decided to take a break from the Star Wars minifigs for the week I guess

Our team has been having a pretty dismal season so far, but we had a winning night going 4-1 for the night

Mine being the only loss (sigh)

I REALLY need to step up my game

I’m super happy our ace brought his other half to cheer me up though. There was lots of discussion over this scarf from what I remember.

It turned out to be a much more fun night with K there! :)

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Girls Night

by Adel Posted on July 2, 2011

What would I do if I didn’t have the occasional night to get away from my family with my ladies?

These were from a night out at The Press Club recently.

We sampled some wine and light food.

On a separate night I managed to squeeze in a little bit of girl time at the French Tuesday event


 Love my girls and our nights out. <3

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Playing With Bleach!

by Adel Posted on June 30, 2011

Yep I let my 5yo play with bleach. Under close supervision though.

While trying to figure out what to make for Fathers Day for daddy I came across this pin. I already follow her blog but this post was posted before I began following her so I hadn’t noticed it before. Ashley Campbell has SO MANY wonderful ideas with great photography to document them. I love her blog.

You can get the full instructions on her blog.

I had the hardest time EVER finding freezer paper in SF. I didn’t even know what it was until now. I called 4 grocery stores in the city and none carried them (or even knew what they were!) So I ordered it via Amazon of course!

Well after I finally had all my supplies, I printed the letters, traced them on the freezer paper, cut and ironed them on the shirts.

I filled a spray bottle and a water gun with bleach.

Made sure the kid (and myself) had the rubber gloves on

Now comes the fun part. First I used the spray bottle to spray around the letters to make sure there would be a nice defined shape once it was bleached.

Then I let him my future all-star spray till his heart’s content

Front and back.

Since it IS bleach I don’t recommend letting a young child who is not able to follow instructions closely yet work on this project.

After the spraying, I let it sit for about 5-10 minutes longer. It was an overcast day so it didn’t bleach the color as quickly as it would have had the sun been shining down.

I rinsed then threw them in the washer under the regular cycle. Most of the freezer came off in the wash. I peeled what was left and tossed them in the dryer.

And here is daddy and his boy with their new shirts on Fathers Day morning.

More action shots of the shirts at Del Mar beach later that day

I really love how they turned out. They look so trendy and cute at the same time.

Since I now have a whole roll of freezer paper I plan to do this with star wars themed cut-outs on maybe some black shirts. And we’ll have to make some for us girls too next time! :)

Posted in Crafts, Sans Kids | 3 Comments