Did you read Part 1 of my spring break story? If not, catch up here. 

Our first port stop was Cozumel. The kids were so excited to visit a new country. And the disembarkation was crazy fun with music, dancing, balloon animals and more. The pier was long and we had another ship docked next to us. It was full of retired people and they seemed quite annoyed by our spring break party ship pulling up. 

We chose to do an excursion in each city. We had studied the choices and tried to take everyones likes and dislikes into consideration. We decided to do the water park. It had a little bit of everything. Pool, ocean, slides, hammocks, and sand. The kids loved the huge floating obstacle course. You had to swim out in the ocean to do it. It was not easy. For people who did not have a strong upper body, getting back up after falling off proved difficult. But, I don't know anyone like that. wink wink. 

Before going on the trip Eden decided that she REALLY wanted her hair braided. No matter how much of her spending money (thank you Grandma and the Smith superbowl pot)  it took. She sat for an hour as two women worked fast to get her big curly thick head of hair all braided up. 

I told you this place made us all happy, right? Let me show you why.....

I ain't no dummy. These massages were like $45 an hour as opposed to the ones on the ship which were like $125 or something absorbent like that. 

Next stop: Belize

The contest is live. Comment on this blog post. Pick your 3 favorite images from the site. Winner will be drawn May 1st. 

Sometimes you just need a little inspiration.... 

I was in a funk. 18 months in an RV can do that to you. Trust me. 

I am getting excited for the 2015 season to start. I can't wait to see my clients and get to work. 

This unplanned 10 mins in my backyard was just the ticket to get my mojo back. 

The spring newsletter is coming out this weekend, and there IS a CONTEST. With an awesome prize. Stay tuned. Make sure you are on the email list. 

WOW, almost a year since I blogged last. That is crazy. Are you still here? I understand if you have moved on. I have redone my website, moved into my office, and am FINALLY ready to go. Blog posts are coming. Regularily. Starting right now. 

We took a spring break vacation. After all the RV living and house building, we were ready for some R and R. We took a family cruise and got to stop at 3 port cities. I will do a short post on each port city and tell you a little about what we did. I know the grandparents and family are chomping at the bit to see the photos. 

If you are looking for beautiful travel photos, look elsewhere. For me to really relax, I left my big girl cameras and lenses at home. I only brought my phone camera and a point and shoot camera. None of these images will WOW you, but they will be enough to jog my memory and remember the awesome vacation. My kids love the photos no matter how grainy and poorly lit they are. That is what matters. 

We flew to Texas. My first time there. It was nothing like I had expected. It seemed just like home, only warmer and flat. We drove from DFW to a city called Pasadena (outside Houston). It was pretty and green. I had imagined desert and tumbleweeds and cowboys. I didn't see any of that. 

The boat was smaller than our last cruise ship, which was perfect for the kids. They could find their way around easily and felt confident without us glued to their sides. I was not as confident as they were. But, they proved to always stick togther and be on time. I guess they are growing up. The kids club on the ship was amazing. Think summer camp. They had counselors and theme nights and the kids never wanted to leave. Hubby and I had not expected that and were taken a little off guard. The kids did go to all the port cities with us, but when on the ship, they much preffered their new "best friends" they had made only days before. Its beautiful to watch kids make friends in 10 minutes and not think twice about it. 

Eden had little girls calling our room looking for her. Quite the social butterfly. Her favorite part of the cruise was all the fun kids acitivties and the friends she made. 

Elijah played a lot of basketball. His team even took first place in the 3 on 3 tournament. It did take awhile to get used to the fenced ceiling. He had to adjust his shot a bit. He also loved all the food. I don't think the cruise ship made any money on him. He consumed more bacon and sausage and burgers than I care to share. 

We had a basic room but did uprade to the balcony. I need to have air and windows. It was very small, but after RV living, we were not bothered by it. Actually, we laughed that our cruise ship bathroom was much bigger than our RV bathroom. I am sure were were the only family on the boat to think our bathroom was big. 

A small bed came down from the ceiling by lock and key for little miss and Elijah slept on the fold out chair. We had the double bed. It was really two small beds pushed together. As long as you didn't get close to the crack in the middle, it was great. The sky bed was put up every morning by our awesome room steward. Speaking of, he was quite a hit in our room with all his awesome towel animals. 

Can you figure out what they all are? top: cat and frog. left: monkey. center: dinosaur. right: bull dog. The elephant and mouse were awesome, but I didn't get a photo of them. 

Just to prove I was acutally on the trip

and the strangest food I saw on the boat:

Gross. None of us sampled that. 

Here is our boat. The Norwegian Jewel. 

Stay tuned to hear about all the fun we had in Cozumel, Belize, and Honduras. I promise to even tell you about the time I had to use the restroom REAL bad, on a bus, filled with people, in the middle of no where......

Remember when I started this blog, I had grandiose ideas of things to talk about.

I wanted to teach you how to take better photos, what kind of cameras to get, what to wear in sessions, etc etc.

I also wanted to explain all those buttons and bells and whistles on your DSLR. Even why you should get one.

Then I sold my house, moved into a rental, moved out of the rental, moved into a camping trailer and got really stressed.

I still have all those ideas rolling around in my head and have moved my office into a local building in town with lights and heat ....... I am finally feeling inspired enough to begin the above list. 

Lets get on with it! Sheesh. What took you so long? 

I think you should take your camera (either fancy point and shoot, or DSLR) off AUTO for MANY reasons. I plan to shove all of them down your throat, but lets start with one today, shall we? 

If for no other reason, I think you should switch your camrea off AUTO and take control of how it works because it allows you to change your focal points.

Are you confused yet? Stay with me. 

AUTO decides what you want in your photo and what you think is important enough to focus on. This can really affect the final image. 

I want to choose what I want in focus, what I want to draw attention to, I want to have control........

Here, I will show you.

I shot both sets of these photos seated in the same place. I didn't change any settings. I just told the camera to focus on different places in the frame. 

How, do you ask?

When you look through your view finder, do you see little boxes, or X's or circles placed around the screen? Sometimes you will have 4 or 6 or 11 or 59.

If you have a DSLR, often times you can search your manual and find that you have options of how many of these awesome points you can see in your viewfinder. Some like more choices than others. Gasp. A manual? Yep, you have to grab it and look up focus points. Even my point and shoot has some of these options. Get your manual out and come back. 

Here is another example. All I did was toggle from one of those poitns in my viewfinder to another one. I told the camera to focus on another part of the photo. 

Now, there are other factors to this fous point lesson. Because I am shooting with a longer lens and an open apetrure, the difference is much more drastic.

Don't know what lens length and apeture are? Don't worry, we will cover all that in the weeks to come. I had to start somewhere. And since I shot these images a few weeks ago while sitting on my backside in the sand with the kids, I thought it was a great place to start. 

Even if you just see the difference and look up focus points in your manual, thats a good start. 

Learn something new today? Hope so

p.s.- for those who want to know the geeky details... I shot these on my Nikon D700 with a 24-70 2.8 lens. ISO 200. F3.2. 1/4000. 70mm