Let The Vacation Begin!

Us freezing at Isaac's soccer game.

Pit stop on the long drive in the lovely mountains of Virginia.

Isabel- thrilled by the car ride.

Annie- confused in our hammock outside of our room.

All of us at the bar at my cousin's birthday party.

We're having lots of fun here at the beach in North Carolina, more posts are soon to come!

Music for this post: Best Friend// Harry Nilsson

Wandering Around the Lake and the Park

We were hanging out at Annie's when we stumbled across her old digital camera.  

Doubtful that it would even turn on, we discovered that it was indeed still in working condition, 

despite being a relic of the past.  So we went to my house, scrounged around until we found her digital camera, and went exploring. As a last summer outing before we were confined to the humdrum of school, we decided to visit the beach in our town.  

            After exhausting the beach's photo opportunities, we trekked across the road to the park and continued the photo taking.  It was super fun to mess around with not-so-fancy cameras, and we had a blast shooting at anything we could, often blindly, as the sun was quite bright

 and the displays were hard to read in the sun.

The lake was super rough that day and we thought the waves looked cool crashing on the rocks.

The first thing we saw (after we ditched our shoes) was this feather sticking out of the sand.

    

This is the boat club in our city (it's pretty old).  

This is a dramatic view of a weed.

And this is a dramatic view of Isabel sitting.

Here's Annie being all bohemian.

 Annie being cute.

And me being a (cute) dork.

Loose braids and wildflowers.

I was really loving my flip flops that day, so in honor of my "bohemian-ism" I took a picture of them with a flower for dramatic effect.

We saw our shadows on the grass when we were on top of a hill and decided to see if we could make shapes with our arms.  This is our favorite of the many shots.

The sun was setting and there were pinecones on the ground, 

so naturally I combined the two 

A handful of pinecones.

It was a really fun day and a great way to end the summer.
I'm so lucky to have such a wonderful (and silly) best friend to do things like this with.  I think it's been almost 6 years since we first became friends and I swear she just gets better every year.
We're in North Carolina on vacation this week so we should have a fun post coming up soon, 
fingers crossed!

Music for this post:  Us// Regina Spektor

That Day I Needed a Break

A few weeks ago in the height of my moving excitement I decided I needed a bit of a break so I walked down to my favorite spot overlooking the lake and I took my old camera and my sketchpad.

I had my flannel and my backpack and I was enjoying the weather so I sat down and decided to sketch the skyline. I also made a portrait of myself but I don't think it's worthy of posting.  Isabel likes it and so does Ian but I think it's just mediocre.

I love the choppy-ness of the waves, it matched my feelings that day it was gray and gloomy but in a calm before the storm kind of way.

That day I was really loving vines growing up the trees. Something about the way they coexist is just beautiful to me.

I took my shoes off on the walk home because shoes are actually lame and wearing them is boring. 

Music for this post:  Mess is Mine// Vance Joy

Cascade in Dresses

For the second half of the cascade photo shoot, we put on dresses and hiked out to the waterfall in the park.

We stopped along the way at every cool rock, bridge, and tree, of course.

The rocks we're sitting on in these pictures were very high up and hard to get too. The person holding the camera had to precariously balance on a rock on the other side of the path just to get a decent angle!

When we were up on the rocks a couple walked by and asked if we were models.  We didn't really know what to say so we just gave each other befuddled looks and smiled vaguely...

We managed to get our dresses a little dirty from sitting on the ground so much, but it was totally worth it.

What's she looking at..?

Where is she going..?

It was really amusing taking this picture because there are about three before it that are of her squirming around trying to get comfortable on that corner.  This one turned out really beautifully though. 

Annie doesn't like this picture, I have no idea why because she looks like a princess rushing off to meet her prince or something.  I had to 'cross swords' with her to keep it on the post!

We wanted to go take pictures in front of the waterfall, the place we chose to take pictures was super slippery and treacherous to get to.

While we were there some girl jumped off the waterfall, we feared for her life! (lol)

The hike was really long and muddy (and we did it in dresses!) but it was worth it for the pictures we took along the way and the beautiful waterfall at the end.

Music for this post: Whistle for the Choir// The Fratellis