I've Got a Secret {New Braunfels Wedding Photography}

So far this summer has been pretty cool. Business slows down a bit at the end of May. All the 2012 seniors are pretty much done and it's still a bit early for the 2013 seniors. Weddings for the summer are all booked and we're just waiting for the big days to roll around. All that's left to do is finish up a few orders, build a few albums, shoot a family session every now and then and spend the rest of the time chilling.

We have passes to Schlitterbahn, which is fun to do on a lazy mid-week afternoon. We avoid the weekends and we spend just a couple of hours, tops, on any given day.

We took a little mini vacation to Houston last weekend. The Beach Boys are having their 50-year reunion tour and we wouldn't have missed it. The Beach Boys' music is an iconic symbol of summertime so we couldn't think of a better way to kick it off with the family. We also caught a live performance of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and hung out at the Houston aquarium for a while.

But that's just the start of our summer fun. The big grand vacation to talk about will be in about a week or so. It's so amazing the kids will drop their jaws and scream in hysterics. And the reason I know they will is because they have no idea what it is yet.

I thought it would be fun this year to plan our vacation without telling them a thing about it. I've given nothing away. I'm horrible at keeping secrets. When I give presents away I usually can't stand the suspense and give it to them early. That's why I'm so proud of my resolve on this issue. They have no clue! Our conversations about it usually go something like this:

Them: "Are we flying or driving?"
Me: "Yes"
Them: "So which is it, flying or driving?"
Me: "One of those options."
Them: "Is it Disneyworld?"
Me: "Maybe"
Them: "Is it Hollywood?"
Me: "Maybe"
Them: "Is it a cruise?"
Me: "Maybe"
Them: "You're mean."
Me: "I love you too."

So that's pretty much our daily conversation on the topic. I will say that I'm impressed with their guessing ability. One of them has actually guessed it among the hundreds of guesses that have been made. But I didn't give it away.

And now you can wonder as well. "Where oh where is Lisa taking the family for their vacation this summer?" How about this: I'll write a blog and set it to post at exactly the same moment that the kids find out where we're going -- like when we actually arrive there. That way you'll find out at the exact same time as them. I'd hate to have you sit in the dark for all that time waiting for our return to find out where we went.

But until then I'll give you a hint. It's going to be So. Much. Fun!

Lisa On Location Photography

Where there's smoke there's fire {New Braunfels destination photography}

After leaving the squabbles of Petrified Forest and enjoying the sanctioned silence from the backseat, it wasn't long before a plume of smoke could be seen on the horizon. We had passed some fires previously on our trip through Arizona and had seen a little news coverage of the problems Arizona was facing with wildfires throughout the state. But the fire that we were approaching in the Alpine area was one monster of a creature.

We passed about 20 miles to the north of this smoke stack but it seemed like it was breathing down our necks for a couple of hours. We have since heard that this, the Wallow Fire, became the largest forest fire in Arizona history and it continues to burn more than three weeks later (it had already been burning for almost a week before we came upon it).

We passed through the town of Springerville on the edge of the Apache National Forest. The people of the town went about their daily lives with the blackest sky I'd ever seen in the middle of the day to the south and the bluest blue to the north. I shot a photo of the statute of the Madonna of the Trail against that black sky.

The stretch of highway from Springerville and across New Mexico border was some of the eeriest driving we'd ever done. The sky got black with a ghostly red horizon all around us. The words "apocolyptic," and "spooky" were used. Logically, I knew for a fact that the road ahead us was clear and that we were getting away from the fire. Yet, there was still that thread of worry as everything around us turned darker and more ominous -- the five of us strapped in our seats as we, perhaps, unwittingly made a wrong turn onto the highway to hell.

The air finally started to clear as we reached the interior of New Mexico and were able to turn around and see the scary plume of smoke in our rear window. It was suddenly late afternoon again after our brief trip through midnight in the smoke cloud. The Very Large Array lay a couple of hours ahead of us and we wanted to make it there by sunset. We sat in silence for a while, fearing for the safety of the townspeople we'd seen in the little communities we'd passed. How big would this fire get? Turns out it got pretty darn big. It has burned 825 square miles of forest and forced evacuations of 10,000 people so far. It's only about half contained right now. Only time will tell how bad it really got.









Lisa On Location Photography