Just a teaser for both of you.  More to follow tonight.

We get really excited when we hear it is Milan Flower & Gift Shop. Damian rocks! Unique. Fresh. Unexpected. Innovative. All are words I would use to describe their florals.

It was fun for me to do both the images and the advertisement for the June 2010 Gold Book for Tita’s Linens By Claudia.

In today’s world with Facebook, Twitter, websites, and a prolific amount of digital images abounding a la cell phone so often the images are poor quality.  Most men will shrug it off and forget it shortly after seeing a crappy image of themselves.  Women answer to a different standard.  So it is with my friend!

She is an amazing beautiful woman, wife, mother, and business owner.  Tita’s Linens By Claudia.  I have been bugging her for some time there were no pictures of Claudia on her site or in her advertising!  Yesterday I had my chance to remedy that.

This isn’t the portrait that will be chosen for her advertising nor her website.  I am waiting for the files to upload, but I snagged a couple while waiting.

Claudia………… wonderful shoot.  Can’t wait to see all of them and create the ad!

Alux Restaurant and Lounge in Playa del Carmen.   The food is excellent, the ambiance is seductively dark with jewel tones of light splashes, and you must ask for Alex.

2 people or 120……… you will have a wonderful time!   I will let their website images show you around.  Enjoy the menu.

This was a trip almost 3 years in the planning.  The fun part about Apple Tours is they can be planned, a deposit made, and the balance paid in full 30 days before departure.  Second factor is I happen to like “all-inclusive” vacations.  Long story short…it was planned for us to leave last November, but for health reasons we needed to postpone indefinitely.  Talk about a major disappointment.

Gulliver’s Travel in Duck Creek Plaza and Margie saved the day making it easy to cancel, and then get us all set up for the April departure.   Margie has handled several trips for me, and I won’t use anyone else!  She’s the best.

So!  Before May and the crazy part of the wedding season begins for Studio D, I packed my swimsuit, turned off my cell phone, left the laptop home and headed for Mexico and the Riu Palace Mexico for seven glorious days of hot and very high humidity.

As promised to a couple of friends……photos would be forthcoming.   There are a stack of things waiting for me to do them, so these two are just a down payment.  For the most part I avoided people shots and set myself a personal project of shooting shadows and lines.  I love wedding photography, but beyond my little assignment I wanted to take one camera and one lens…….no lugging all the equipment.  It was really fun to play tourist with a camera for a change…….ok………no point and shoot……….but still for me……bare bones.

I had to play paparazzi to get these shots.  They had their own cameraman posing tourists with them for $$$.   I quickly grabbed the shots and cropped out the tourist with each :).  The Mayan costuming is superb.

These are from 4 years ago.  We wll see how much it has changed.  I know they have a brand new beach.  Hot days, soft nights, sumptuous food, cute guys to photograph on the beach, plus lots to do!

Yippee!  Home to do laundry, pack, or shall I say repack.  There is way too much in the suitcase.  Need to simplify

Their signature burger off the lunch menu is to die for!  Best in the Quad Cities!

The conservatory was filled with color and beautiful cloudy light!

I refer to ownership of this blog.  It’s all mine!  I love to journal and some of it occurs here.  Recently me having two glasses of wine as opposed to a muscle relaxant for a spasm’ing back came up for discussion.

I being me, took the redheaded approach and stated my opinion with fireworks, verbal explosions and much dramatic license .  I didn’t win the discussion, but I will have the last word photographically!

Here’s to the wine I had today for lunch.   It tasted great!  I don’t need meds!    So I decided to post this image and tell you how much I love you for taking care of me.  I offer one piece of advice, “this redhead rollerskates on the ceiling and does so with reckless abandon.  She loves life and is never afraid to be outside the “normal box”!! She will never arrive at the end of her life with a lot of regrets for things she was afraid to do!”

Love you……..see you when I get back from Mexico!!