upandaway

Well speaking of up and away… up and away Darryl and I go tomorrow morning (at the lovely hour of 4:30am) to Hawaii!!!! It has been far too long since I have had a holiday. We do a lot of traveling but most of it involves some sort of either photographic work or gig (Darryl besides being an excellent photographer is also a full time musician). Even if I am not shooting I am normally photoshopping at least a few days. But not this trip. I am bringing my camera but I will only take pictures for fun… 

We are excited to go back to Hawaii because this is where we got engaged (november 2006). Incase you are interested the story goes something like this Darryl was in Hawaii to play some shows and he was able to get me to come along for the ride (lucky me!). We arrived a few days before the concerts so that we could enjoy the island. Darryl thought it would be fun to rent a little jeep so we could get around the whole island ourselves. The first day we went out with his road manager, Phil and his wife Shanell. We had a great time driving all around taking everything in and snapping lots of shots. I had no clue that Darryl was actual doing this mostly so he could scout out the “perfect” location to propose. So the next day we went out alone, the first place we went to was a great look out point of the island. Darryl told me later he had heard it was a great spot and had to check it out to see if it was a better spot than his other option. We took some pictures which are very funny to me now because I can now fully see how nervous Darryl was in them.  You might be able to see what I am talking about in the photo below. The next spot was the side of a mountain that we had spotted the day before and thought would be great to go back to and spend a bit of time hiking around it. We got to quite a nice ledge and Darryl said we should take a self timer photo, which was not out of character as we always were taking self timer pictures. His goal was to get the timer to capture his accept moment when he went down on his knee to propose. Sadly he couldn’t get the ring out of the cooler bag he had it in (along with celebratory drinks) and the flash captured him kind of half way in between. But the moment was still perfect.He got down on his knee and asked me for my hand. I was shocked, I had  no idea he was going to pop the question. Of course I said yes, I knew what a catch I had.  We had quite the whirlwind relationship, it all happened so quick (it’s quite the fairy tale story, maybe I will share the rest of it in another post someday). I never thought he would propose to me that soon, everything I had heard about guys is that they need lots of time… I am so glad he proposed when he still had the full element of surprise. 

The whole proposal experience was surreal! We were the happiest couple in the whole world. There has not been one moment I have regretted us being together. Not one. I love Darryl more than sparks and shining dragons… and everything else in between and beyond. 

Sorry about the long story. Here are some pictures from our epic engagement day… Do check back while I am gone because I am getting so organized I have some posts already queued and ready to go up at a magical time. 

ALOHA!!!

 Above is us touring on the first day… for fans of Lost, that is a location they use often. Below is Darryl looking very nervous… about an hour before popping the question.

 The view from where we got engaged taken with my professional camera. That photo is probably one of my best selling stock images. Fully paid for that trip and more with just that one photo. 

 It was such an amazing sunset that night!