This weekend I got to shoot Brian, Jen, and Wyatt.  What a great looking family, and fun to hang around with.  Brian and Jen are both in the military and it’s always a pleasure to take photographs of our hard working military members.  Thanks for your service.  Enjoy the pictures.

Wyatt was not a fan of the beach, but once he got his feet wet he started to have a good time.

Here is a great shot of Father and Son.

This is one of my favorite photos of the session.  Mom and Son going for a walk.

What a great looking family!!

How about this for a parting shot.

Its so nice to be back at home!  One of my favorite things to do is cook with my wife.  We have a great arrangement, I usually cook the main meal while she follows behind cleaning up the mess I make.  Then she cooks the sides, while I put the dishes away.  Then we eat!  My first meal back at home this time was, Opah fish taco’s with black bean mango salsa.  Then Becka baked up some banana bread.  We found the cherries at Whole Foods, and surprisingly they were less expensive then the cherries at the commissary.  Enjoy.

I have been to Guam around seven times in the last 10 years.  It has never been longer then just a day or two, and for most visits I have only had time to get something to eat, catch a few hours of sleep and then fly out the next day.  On this last trip I got almost 48 hours to explore.  It has been said that Guam is the poor mans Hawaii, I would say yes and no.   The restaurants on Guam cost just as much if not more then the restaurants in Hawaii.  The general upkeep of the buildings on Guam definitely don’t add up to the upkeep in Hawaii.  However, if you want to go to a store where you can shoot whatever size gun you want, then Guam might be the place for you.  I had the chance to go to underwater world, for the price of $11 you get to spend as much time as you want wandering through what is claimed to be the longest underwater tunnel in the world.  Im not sure about that claim but, the fish were awesome! Enjoy the pictures.

The flight into Guam was un-eventful so we took the time to take a crew picture at 25,000 feet.  This is what happens behind the locked door to the flight station on all commercial airlines

The vast Pacific ocean.

The poor mans Waikiki.

Underwater world!

It took me a while to get this shot, the Lion Fish kept swimming up to the glass and looking at me, because I was using manual focus every time I had it dialed in he would swim away.  Patience is the key to a good photograph, and I finally got him.

This last picture is the view from my hotel room, I was on the top floor, and even though the hotel was not the greatest one in Guam the view was nice.

I would venture to guess that most military people that come to Okinawa eventually wind up eating sushi at Yoshi’s.  Every time I have been there the place has been crowded with American looking people and they all had short, neat, haircuts.  Regardless of the cliental Yoshi’s does have some fantastic sushi.  On this trip I decided to expand my horizons and try some blowfish.  I have heard that if prepared incorrectly it could kill you.  So after one of the other people I was with ate some and did not die, I decided it would be safe to try.  Blowfish to me tastes like Yellowtail.  It was good with just a slight tougher texture then Yellowtail.  At least I can say I have tried it.  On a side note when taking a cab to Yoshi’s make sure you tell them Yoshihachi, not Yoshihara.  My friends found out there is a big difference between the two.  Enjoy the pictures.

I have not been to Okinawa in over seven years.  Not much has changed from the last time I was here, except this time Im armed with a camera.  The weather here is Hot, with what feels like %100 humidity.  That has not stopped me from going out and getting a few photographs of what the island has to offer.  Have fun, and feel free to leave a comment.

Ok ok this first one is not actually of Okinawa, it is the sunrise over Anderson AFB Guam.  I pretty much had no choice but to stop what I was doing and grab my camera for a shot of this.

I have no idea what this sign says but I liked the cool conji script…hope it does not say no pictures.

For those of you that have never seen a banana spider here you go. These things are pretty big, the hand in the picture on the left is closer to the camera then the spider so it should appear bigger, and the spider is almost the same size in the picture. So by my math that means the spider is about the size of an adult male hand. In the second picture the spider has caught what looks to be a beetle.

These little guys all over the island of Okinawa they are called “Shisha’s” there are two types ones with mouths open, and ones with mouths closed. The ones with mouths open are supposedly male and they ward off evil spirits, the ones with mouths closed are female and they keep good spirits in. So the moral here is in order to keep everyone happy women should…..

I had a chance to sample some of the local food…it is as good as the pictures make it look.

Im pretty sure the guy who invented the vending machine, made his fortune from Japan, there is a vending machine on every corner here. You can actually get fresh grilled hot dogs from one of the machines I saw.

These next couple of pictures show some of the signs I saw while walking around. I think they gave the people crossing sign to the lowest bidder, either that or they have aliens walking around here.

I passed on the banana omelet and waffle corn.

At first I thought these where packs of playing cards or gum…turns out they are condoms…and they stop AIDS.

I thought Spam had a monopoly on the smeat market guess I was wrong.

Lost in translation.

The other week I went to the Virginia Beach Aquarium its not the biggest one I have been to but I still got to see some pretty cool fish.  Just a few words about my camera, without it I would have had to use either a tripod or flash to get the pictures below.  But because of the outstanding low light performance of Nikon all I had to do was crank up the ISO and all these pictures were taken hand held.  Thanks Nikon!

If you drive from Fallon, NV to Coeur d’ Alene, ID you can take Highway 95 the whole way.  Even though its a 12 hour drive its worth it just for the scenery. Here are a few pictures from places I decided to get out and stretch the legs.

This is a test to see if I can post an image here, and also host it on the DPS weekly challenge.

For Easter weekend Becka and I went to the Big Island.  We stayed at the Four Seasons resort in Kona…it is ridiculous!  I really didn’t take to many pictures because it was more fun to just lounge around, but here are a few of the pictures I did take.

Saturday we drove up to the top of Mauna Kea so we could see the stars.  Mauna Kea is where all the major earth teliscopes are based and there is a reason for that.  Look at all these stars!

We also got a sneak peak of what our little eggs will turn into.  There are now eight in the pineapple plant.

Here are a few typical Island scenes.

The Four Seasons had this old car that they converted into a wedding transporter.  I just liked the vintage look and feel.

Over the last three days these two birds have been lurking around our back patio.

Then we noticed the mother bird hiding out in our pineapple plant.

While the papa bird stood guard in the middle of the yard.

Here is what they left behind in our pineapple plant.  Happy Easter!!