Tag Archives: lake lopez

Behind The Scenes

by Adel Posted on September 15, 2012

I was looking through Grizz’s latest shots he dumped from his camera and came across these. They make me laugh so I thought I’d share them here.

A peek behind the scenes of what the Butterfly Twins mini-shoot looked like!

I’m not sure what I was doing here…
It tickles me to see me photographing and setting up my subjects. I’m glad Grizz got his camera! When I look through his image dump, I love seeing me with my family in them <3

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Nerf Blaster Duel At Sunset

by Adel Posted on September 13, 2012

Last year I took the 2 older kids down to the dock for a lightsaber duel at sunset. Even though I know so much more about lighting and composition today, I still love that set of photos of my son and his god-sister on the lake.
This year, I decided to do it again. But with different weapons! I can’t begin to tell you how much it warms my heart to see how much they’ve grown and yet it’s hard to believe a whole year has passed between the shot above and this one below. And also amazing how I’ve learned NOT to tilt my horizon anymore! Yeah that took a whole year for sure!
In most ways they are still the same babies we brought camping 6 years ago. Their bond is really special to watch grow over the years.
It’s obvious that they are getting older and more acutely aware of the opposite sex and each other. Pretty funny to observe. Especially whenever I requested they stand/sit close together!
These two. So hilarious trying to photograph them. And so different than photographing their younger siblings!
I managed to catch some special moments despite their best efforts to move as quick as lightning on that narrow dock.
I’m thinking I’ll try and do this little shoot every year and watch them grow through these images.

And then play it at their respective weddings! That’s what us Asian parents do right?
Love them so much.

Posted in Photography | Tagged camping, duel, lake lopez, sunset | Leave a comment

Butterfly (almost) Twins

by Adel Posted on September 12, 2012

The two littlest campers in our group are 2 this year.
They were born about 2 weeks apart. How cool is that?
Well they’re at that adorably cute age where (almost) everything they do is just precious. So of course their moms would want to put together a mini photo shoot like this one. Thank you Walmart for $8 outfits and accessories! (See why we love Walmart??)
Kim cleaned them them up a little, did her daughter’s hair and put them in their outfits one evening. And then just let them wander around our campsite. Ta-da!
Some of my favorite shots of the year right here.
I just adore this age. And by the way, don’t they look alike just a teeny bit?
And there may or may not have been a little candy bribery going on to get these shots…
Regardless, Kim and I had such fun with this little shoot of our baby girls! <3

Posted in Photography | Tagged camping, lake lopez, photo shoot | 1 Comment

Family Portraits While Camping

by Adel Posted on September 11, 2012

In general, attempting to get portraits of my family with me in them is pretty painful. While camping it’s even harder. The kids are more interested in everything else except sitting still for a few photos with mom.
We managed to get this one. Yes it’s the best one But hey at least we’re all in the shot. And it’s in focus. (I had messed up the settings when I handed the camera off so a lot of them were out of focus. *sigh*). But my motto with family portraits is that I take what I can get!
And then one always escapes and we’re down to just 3.
And then there were two.
Oh well. We went camping. And I was there too. Win.

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Annual Lake Lopez Camping Trip

by Adel Posted on September 11, 2012

Yes I realize I’ve been MIA from here for awhile. I got caught up with life the last week. But I finally got caught up with our camping photos too. Well most of them at least. So this post is pretty image-heavy and light on text
Every year, on Labor Day weekend we meet up with our good friends who live in OC for our annual camping trip. At Lake Lopez. I look forward to it every summer. We’ve been doing this for 10 years now (more I think) and have only skipped the years where we’ve been pregnant!
If you’re interested, here is the post from last year’s Lopez trip. I was not even shooting in RAW yet at the time! How much things have changed in a year. But you know what? Some things, even over 10 years, never change. Our friendship with them! And now we see it grow even more with our kids.
As with most years, we usually rent a boat and spend a lazy afternoon on the gorgeous lake. Just motoring around. And fishing.
The first year we did it our oldests were just toddlers and stuck pretty close to us the whole time. Now they jump around the boat like it’s an obstacle course. And even find a way to play hide and seek on it.
I imagine we’ll need a bigger boat next year when the two toddlers are all over the place too!
One other highlight of our weekend is always a trip to Walmart! Ha! I LOVE Walmart. And you know what? So do our friends! So we always find an excuse to hit it up and stock up on supplies.
We spend a lot of time just lazing around at the campsite too. This year, we got our nails done, built muddy volcanoes, played in the dirt…
And soaked each other with the Nerf water blasters “someone” brought for the kids!
Of course the evenings are filled with yummy foil packet desserts, hot chocolate and s’mores!
The weekend goes by too quick as usual.
This time though was a much sadder parting than usual. I think we’re all feeling the effects of life’s changes and curveballs that it throws us. We began this tradition when it was just us four. We’ve doubled our numbers and are getting older and busier. However, I am hopeful and optimistic than we can keep up this special tradition we started over a decade ago.

I do have more pictures to share, but I thought I’d break them up into several posts. Look for some family portraits (and failed attempts) later today!

Posted in Family | Tagged camping, labor day weekend, lake lopez | Leave a comment

Back From Camping

by Adel Posted on September 4, 2012

We are back from our last camping trip of the year. It was such an awesome weekend with really close friends of ours. I’m working on all the shots. As usual there are a ton. They should start creeping on to the blog as I edit over the next few days.

We took a pimping boat out on the lake one afternoon. Here’s a shot of both our pilots.
Stay tuned for more soon!

Posted in Family | Tagged boat, camping, lake lopez | Leave a comment

Lakeside Sunsets

by Adel Posted on June 29, 2012

There are not enough words to describe the beautiful sunsets we got each evening we were there.

Of all the 5 kids that were there I could only trick, um I mean CONVINCE, one to come with me down to the water for some of the golden hour. My sweet little baby Jack-Jack. I’m really happy she’s still up for hanging out with her mama wherever that may be.

I will say this though, she doesn’t care to look at the camera too much so I get a lot of these type of shots!

Oh well, at least I had a cute subject

*sigh* What I wouldn’t give to have sunsets like these every day.

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Lake Lopez Camping – Part 2

by Adel Posted on June 28, 2012

As promised, here is the 2nd batch of pictures from our camping trip. Our friends arrived on the 2nd day.

It is always fun to camp with another family. Especially when all the kids are so close in age.

There’s so much to do for the short amount a time we were there it felt like we had to cram everything in.

I always wish we could stay for at least 5 nights every time we do this. It takes a night or two just to unwind from the city pace.

And the sunsets, well they’re just unreal. Nothing like our foggy SF sunsets. Our site was right by the lake so we had these breathtaking views the entire weekend while we played, ate and woke up.

My city kids. Even they forgot their iPhones and iPads after the first day or so.

Well Lopez, even though I always feel our visits are way too short, this time we’ll be back sooner than later. Yes for our annual trip in September!

Posted in Family | Tagged camping, lake lopez | 1 Comment

Lake Lopez Camping – Part 1

by Adel Posted on June 27, 2012

I’m still here It’s been a few days since I’ve popped my head in over here. We took a much needed break from city life and headed to one of our favorite spots to camp over the weekend – Lake Lopez. I took over 800 shots! So yeah, going through them and selecting the ones I want to keep and edit has been a huge task.

And I’m still not done.

But I figured I’d share some of what I have finished working on here first.

These shots are from our first day there. We camped with another family that didn’t arrive until a day later.

I love how Rex loves helping in the setting up of all our tents and equipment. And for the first time, he is actually helpful. Before he’d always been too young to really be able to manage all the little tasks his dad gave him. I love watching him grow and do more each year we camp. We’ve been taking him with us camping since he was 6 months!

This is Jack-Jack’s 2nd year camping. Last year she was a new walker and was constantly tripping and falling over the uneven ground. This time, she’s quite the pro-camper. Hat, fanny-pack and all.