Jamaica — Macro

As I mentioned last night, I LOVE the macro function on my awesome point and shoot camera Erik gave me for Christmas. :-) I'll start today with our dinner at Kimono's ... it was a Japanese steakhouse sort of place. If you've ever been to Kobe in Wichita, Kobe is better, but they sure put on a good show in Jamaica.

Check out their sassy red menus:


And plates:


And CHOPSTICKS! (This is my *favorite* photo!)


Check out the bee action here. They swarmed around a glass by the swim up bar. I think they put a glass of honey out to attract the bees and keep them away from the guests' drinks.


Las two photos (they are taken under VERY LOW LIGHT at a high ISO on the P&S) are from the main dinging room. More photos from that later, but these are awesome macros. First, the silverware. Not sure why I like it, but I do.


And this is a decorative plate or something. They put my dinner plate atop of it, but it sure had some fun repetition.

Jamaica — dinner in the main dining room

Check us out:


There were these awesome torches around our table!


This photo was taken HAND HELD, high ISO .... I have to say I dig my awesome Powershot! Thanks E!

Jamaica — Sandals the wedding machine

I was hitting the bathroom on our last day in Jamaica ... and check out their wedding board:


CRAZINESS!!!!!!! But they're smart puppies. I guess you gotta be in Jamaica about 3 days before you can get married there. So you gotta hand at the resort for those extra nights.


This cutie bride was on her way to her wedding when we were boarding the busses to go to the airport.

Jamaica — sunset beach

We selected Negril because it is on the western coast of Jamaica. We figured the sunsets would be fantastic. The only disappointment was there were clouds like EVERY night ... but here are photos:


There were tons of people who were willing to take a picture of us if we took a picture of them. :-)

I couldn't decide which image I liked better. Your thoughts?




They had sunset dinner on the beach. We opted to not do it b/c we wanted to do a different restaurant every night, then on the last night we had dinner on our terrace. :-)


Here's Erik chillin like a villian:



A few final ones from the beach at sunset:

Jamaica — da bar

Here's an overview of the main pool ... and our favorite swim-up bar is on the left hand side. :-)


Here's our favorite bartender, Andrew:


Of course, the tons of bottles:


And the best drink EVER, the Jamaican Smile:

Jamaica — Erik in the shower!

Woah! Are you scandalized by the title of this post? Well, don't be ... there are tons of outdoor showers in Jamaica, so deal people.

This is by the pool and I think it's super cute. :-) It also reminded me of showering outside whilst in Africa. Oh, how I love showering in nature.

This is by the beach ... and SO necessary! I tell you what, there was sand in every part of my body .... even in my eyebrows. Ugh.

Jamaica — scenic

A little wider view of the same scene. I couldn't decide which I like better, so here they both are!


Here's a life saver by the pool at sunset. I popped a little fill flash in and think it's a nice effect.


Erik and I spent ALL DAY under this little shade thingy one day. I'll have a bigger post about it later. :-)


Here's just the edge and sunset on the water.


We took one of these out and paddled around for awhile one day:


A sweet row of palm trees.


I'm not exactly sure what the function of these little beds by the water is, but there was a row of 4 or 5 of them. Nice idea, but none too private. ;-)

Jamaica — More Larry

One afternoon on our Honeymoon, Karen and I ran across Larry the Lizard (He actually might have been a relative of the chameleon since he could change colors to blend in with the background.)

We thought he might scoot away when we settled in, but Larry made it clear that this was HIS spot. We were welcome to share it with him, but he was going nowhere.

Since we all agreed to share the spot, I thought I'd offer Larry a taste of my Jamaican smile.

The only thing Larry loved more than frothy, rum-laced drinks was staring up at the thatch umbrella. We assured him that we wouldn't walk off with it, but he was still quite protective.

Finally, we tracked down some other Honeymooners to get a shot of the three new friends.

Jamaica — Larry

Yeah, I've been slacking on the Jamaica photos .... but I've been toning more of them (yay!).

I love this photo .... it's of Larry the LIzard. I'll let Erik tell you more about it. :-)

More to come, I promise! Oh, and there will be a full report on the macro function on the awesome camera (I used the Macro to take a photo of Larry).

Jamaica — Honeymooners part I

Ok, I'd originally intended to do all these at once, but life is INSANE right now, and so I'll share the first batch of photos of E and I in Jamaica.

Hopefully next week, I'll have some quality time to clear my head and get the rest of these edited. Hopefully ....


They had "sunset photo sessions" for a rediculious fee ... plus, they were using on camera strobe. Heck, I figured we could do the same thing w/ my little camera .... and the couples were awesome. Many were like "we'll trade photos with you. We'll take yours if you take ours." How awesome/friendly!





And, of course, some individuals:


This is the swim-up bar. It is my friend. :-)


TOTALLY love this photo (above)!


Being a dork:


Now, for the cynics out there who might think I won't show an unflattering photo of me ... Erik took these as I napped after an afternoon on the beach. Look at him grin like an imp:







• • • 
Closet update: A closet shelf fell on my face during instillation, eating my glasses. One of the shelves also cut my finger, drawing blood.

Closet: 2
Karen: 0

There is, however, one FULL shelf that's up ... the bar, too! So progress is being made, and a few clothes are back in the closet.

Maybe the score should now read:

Closet: 2
Karen: 1

I also hope to finish this bear of a project next week.

Jamaica — another teaser photo

Ok, ok, ok. So I know there are rumblings for more photos from our honeymoon. Sorry it's taken awhile to get to these. Well, I'm note even going to show anymore tonight. Sorry. :-(

But ... we've been BEYOND busy.

My fam came to celebrate Christmas Eve with us.

I've also been spending an INSANE amount of time preparing for the upcoming bridal shows. Heartland will have a booth in 3 shows (YAY!), but there are a TON of little details involved. Gotta get new cards w/ my new last name. Gotta have info sheets to hand out, gotta have more album samples, gotta have photos to hang/display, gotta HAVE a display .... you get the picture. There are a LOT of little things to do with this, so I've been up to my ears.

Oh, and as if I didn't have anything else to do, Erik had the last 3 days off, so we painted the front bedroom (YAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY!) . We've also primed the closet today. It seems freakin' insane, I know ... but in some small way, I totally needed this. Yes, NEEDED it. A lot of my projects have been things I don't really see visible progress on. So to do something and see it get COMPLETED, it's fantastic. And, yes, there are photos to share. :-)

AND I'll be on the road this week.

Tuesday = Hays for a friend's b-day
Wednesday = Manhattan for a funeral
Thursday-Saturday = Salina to get my act together
Saturday-Monday = Wichita for bridal show/baby portraits

I'll do my BESTEST to have more pix ready to share, but please DO understand I'm almost in over my head right now!

Oh, Erik is busy, too. He's giving his full vocabulary to the Mizzou bowl game tonight.

A few honeymoon pix

I'll start this post with what I believe is hands down, the best photo taken in Jamaica. And guess who took the pic?

ERIK!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was a little sore that he took a better picture than me, but I stroke my ego by telling myself he learned from the best. ;-)

The photos haven't really been edited yet, but I just grabbed a few favorites here.


The view from the stairs ... I like it.


Happy honeymooners. :-)

On a side note, I love, love, love my new "purse camera"!!!!!!!! I achieved this photo by setting it to the sunset setting, then forcing the flash to fire when a photo is taken. Don't have control over the fill flash, but I think it looks pretty good.


This is Erik with four, that's right FOUR, of our new favorite drink: Jamacian Smile.


Thought I'd close with this one ... it's comical. We were right next door to a nekkid resort. I'm sure Erik will have some colorful post later. ;-)