I’ve had a surprise party or two (or three) thrown for me in my life. Only one was truly a surprise. It’s not easy to pull those off. But this one was executed flawlessly…Michael was truly surprised (and delighted) when he arrived at the El Niguel Country Club to a huge party with lots and lots of guests (family and friends) who all managed to keep this grand event a total surprise! And everyone had a great time!  And when so many of family and friends come together, what better time to grab some quick portraits of everyone looking their best! Here’s just a little sampling of the snaps I shot!

My family and I were so delighted to be able to trade a fabulous tour at Backcountry Snowmobiling in exchange for some professional commercial photography for their website and promotional materials!  Even though this was a “working trip” I had such a fabulous time. The conditions were perfect – tons of fresh powder, gorgeous blue skies, gorgeous countryside and stunning vistas – all to ourselves!  Brad, our tour guide was super nice and helpful (and I might add, very patient with me – I had never been snowmobiling before and I had to learn a few basic concepts, such as lean into the turns and don’t take them too fast – or too slow).  They had plenty of snow gear for me and my family which kept us toasty warm. And even the kids had a blast!  As for the adults – well I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. I think you’ll see everyone had a great time!  Here are a few fav images from our beautiful excursion on Christmas day! Thanks guys for the opportunity. I hope I’ll get to do it again sometime … soon!

I met Henry and Annie a few years back when the asked me to take some portraits of them with their new puppy, Charlie. You can see the adorable results of that session here. Fast forward two years, and their family has grown by one notably adorable little girl, Katie  - who just turned one!
Annie explained to me that in in their Korean heritage, the first birthday is a grand celebration of great significance – and this party sure lived up to those expectations! It was more like a little mini wedding with the level of attention paid to details. The theme of this party revolved around the balloon creatures and creations. Eunice Doo of Balloon Sense did a fabulous job and her balloon creations were fantastic. Little Katie slept through a good portion of the party, but finally woke up to join us for a few photos and the rest of the birthday celebration. Fantastic fun was had by all at this great little 1st birthday party. Enjoy your sneak peek Henry and Annie!

So, my original plan was to blog these images last Saturday, just before Easter.  Well, that was before my trusty steed, Pax, decided to dump me on my head and shoulder during a (rather eventful) Saturday morning themed photo session (apparently the voluminous folds of my old fashioned riding habit snagging on a bush and flapping a branch under his belly and between his legs was a bit too much for him to take).  So rather than a calm, peaceful, afternoon of photo editing and blogging, I got am all-too-exciting trip in an ambulance to the local hospital’s trauma center and spend the next few days in the hospital with a concussion and dislocated shoulder. Thanks to the trusty trauma surgeons there at Mission Hospital, I can now tell you again what year and month it is and who our current president is.  But that little unplanned trip to the hospital kind of put a kink in my plans of getting lots of client work done this week. After finally being released from the hospital, I still felt the world spinning all around me and found it fairly difficult to even sit up or look at a screen for any length of time.  Thank goodness for some awesome friends, family and even clients – thanks to them I have managed to make it through this week  intact and without my children going insane!  The downside is that I am just now blogging the fun Easter/Spring portrait session that I meant to get up last Saturday.  Well, better late than never they say (and boy do I hope they are right!)  This session resulted in so many fun and fabulous image that I am breaking it into parts  - here is the Easter Egg hunt post. I love this client because she always makes having a photo session fun for her girls – and they always have something to look forward to.  And we’ve made a bit of a tradition out of documenting their annual Easter Egg Hunt in the Tunnel of Love at Sage Ranch in Aguanga (near Temecula). Here goes!

At the conclusion of the annual Easter Egg Hunt

According to Wikipedia, “The Sadie Hawkins dance is named after the Li’l Abner comic strip character Sadie Hawkins, created by cartoonist Al Capp. In the strip, Sadie Hawkins Day fell on a given day in November (Capp never specified an exact date). The unmarried women of Dogpatch got to chase the bachelors and “marry up” with the ones they caught. The event was introduced in a daily strip which ran on November 15, 1937. In the U.S. and Canada, this concept was popularized by establishing dance events to which the woman invited a man of her choosing, instead of demurely waiting for a man to ask her. The first known such event was held on November 9, 1938. Within a year hundreds of similar events followed suit. By 1952, the event was reportedly celebrated at 40,000 known venues. It became a woman-empowering rite at high schools and college campuses, and the tradition continues in some regional American cultures.”

This group of high school students going together to their school’s Sadie Hawkin’s dance decided it would be lots of fun to have some dance portraits taken at the beach ahead of time.  And in keeping with one fun tradition often associated with Sadie Hawkin’s dances…they dressed in coordinating outfits so everyone would know who is with whom.  I had a blast with this fun group of kids! Looks like they were on track to have a very memorable evening, in spite of the gloomy overcast weather that greeted us at the beach.  Enjoy your sneak peek!

“Wherever they may have come from, and wherever they may have gone, unicorns live inside the true believer’s heart. Which means as long as we can dream, there will be unicorns.”
–Bruce Coville

What would a unicorn party be without, well… unicorns?  Delightful ponies provided by Susan Remington at Pony Parties and horns provided by Renee!  Anyone who knows me knows that I am a horse lover through and through, so as far as I was concerned this was the big hit of the party! We had a great time with these ponies at our Valentine Session, and I was pretty happy to see them again! They are great with kids and seem to love the attention. I took way too many fun  photos of cute kiddos on the ponies to showcase here on the blog, so if you want to see more, visit my Facebook Page!

To arrange for your own fabulous ponies to come to a party of your own, you can contact Susan at Pony Parties here:

sremo53@aol.com

951-734-4694

One of my favorite parts of this birthday party was the amazing face painting done by Amy at enchantedbrushstrokes.com!  These were truly the most beautiful and intricate face paintings I had ever seen and they brought a fun splash of color onto every subjects face!  My own children were so tickled to find that she could paint virtually any request on face or arm – even a Phoenix, as my 11 year old son requested!  Many of the children lined up for a 2nd or 3rd painting – and all were wonderful! If you would like to have Amy work her magic for you or your own party you can reach her here:

Amy Enright Medina

951 .768 .4223

www.enchantedbrushstrokes.com

What would a party be without one’s friends? One of my favorite part about covering birthday parties is capturing the relationship between the person being honored and their friends. And with kids it’s so much fun to capture whole gamut of expressions and experiences.  For this post, I tried to show more of guests who were not prominently featured in the other posts of this party. Behind each image is a story  of its own!

Another must-have activity at a little kid’s birthday party – the pinata!  Who knows how the tradition of beating some poor cardboard creature into releasing all of it’s candy stores became so popular with the 10 and under set, but it does seem to be a crowd pleaser every time. And I think even a few of the 11-and-older set found themselves enjoying this childhood ritual!

No children’s party is complete without the  kid-friendly favorite – the bounce house!  But while Bounce Houses are great for kids, and even better for parents (fun places to jump = not needing to be entertained +sleeping well at night – bonus!), they are somewhat of a nightmare for photographers.  The fun, bright colors cast odd color casts on all of your subjects, the bright light coming in through the walls makes for harsh lighting, the space is so tight that it’s difficult to get a good angle, and there is a lot of chaos/fast motion going on, making it difficult to isolate one subject and capture them clearly. But when you can climb inside with a wide angle lens, there are always some fun shots to capture – candids at their essence – kids having a blast, and totally oblivious to you as a photographer.  Enjoy a few from this exuberant group of kids at the twin’s birthday party. And if you want to know where to rent one for your own party, you can try out: