Melinda Holland Photography

07/13/2009

Destin Pointe Vacation

Filed under: Family Portraits,Personal,Travel — Tags: , , , , , — Melinda @ 5:22 am

Destin Pointe - Panorama (left side) - ...yes, I could've cropped the raw edges...but for whatever reason I kinda like them...

Destin Pointe - Panorama (left side) - ...yes, I could've cropped the raw edges...but for whatever reason I kinda like them...

Ah…The beauty of Destin Pointe, FL.

Destin is relatively unknown by many folk in the good ‘ole U.S. of A. When asked, I tell people that my husband and I honeymooned in Destin, FL after our beach wedding in Destin to which I often receive many blank stares. I was at a lunch gathering once with a bunch of older couples and somehow we got on the topic of  weddings and honeymoons. They were all reminiscing about their days before kids and how each couple had honeymooned in Hawaii. They talked amongst themselves for about 40 minutes as I listened and enjoyed the delicious vittles. Then came the question to me, “Where did you honeymoon?”

“Destin, Florida,” I piped up.

“oh…” Crickets and silence.

And before I could say more, the lady next to me–bless her heart for trying–quickly added, “Oh but her husband took her to Hawaii for her birthday!”

Oh how I chuckle to myself every time I think of this. What most people don’t know is that Destin can be every bit of paradise as Hawaii. It may not have the tropical grandeur of Hawaiian waterfalls and guava filled hiking trails, but the Gulf Coast is warm and clear with sugary white sand and a laid-back, peaceful and idyllic atmosphere. Oh…writing about it makes me want to go back!

If you haven’t been there, Go!

Destin Pointe - Panorama (right side)

Destin Pointe - Panorama (right side)

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Now for more vacation pics from lovely Destin.  Let’s start, shall we? Here we go:

I went out with my extended family one evening at sunset and took some beach portraits. They turned out beautifully and can be seen in a previous posting here.

I love this candid.Destin Candid

Left to right: Chas, Tyler, Jon and Emily.

I love the dynamic motion of the pair in the middle flanked by the lovely stances of Chas and Emily. I particularly love the line of Chas’ stance with his left arm up and the way he’s turned just so. Beautiful.

…Anyway…onto the next photo:

Three generations of Hollands right here folks.Holland Boys

Chas & Tyler - 4 up

I LOVE the following shot:chas_tyler8blog

Tyler & Aaron. Aren’t they cute?

I just love the faint red punch stains on Aaron’s shirt. It’s so…boy.  Little boys are so cute!Tyler & Aaron

Girls will be girls and boys will be boys.Girls and Boysdestin_pointe_pano2highpass_blog

More Destin pics to come!

07/07/2009

Cherry Pie

Filed under: Food,Personal — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Melinda @ 3:39 pm
Homemade cherry pie with fresh-picked pie cherries.

Homemade cherry pie with fresh-picked pie cherries.

My friend, Heidi, has an aunt with a very happy pie cherry tree.  That thing puts out cherries all over the place! Heidi, her husband, Heidi’s aunt and I spent a few hours one morning picking, washing, pitting, sugaring, ‘ziplocking’ and freezing those succulent cherries for later use.

I couldn’t resist and quickly made a pie about 2 days after freezing the cherries and –oh boy!!– I discovered I’m good at making pies! …or maybe they’re just easy to make.  I dunno…for some reason, I always thought making pie crust was too much of an involved process, but apparently it’s quite easy–and hard to mess up! For this particular pie, I decided to have some fun with little heart shapes making up the top crust.

One thing that makes a good, flaky crust?

Butter.

Lots of it.

The fitness-inclined shouldn’t eat this pie.

Anywho, my first attempt was divine and now I’m all about making pies. Fresh fruit is so hard to beat when it comes to pie filling!

cherry_pie_blog2

The pie in progress. Before and after.

Progression of the pie photographed with our little pocket camera.

Progression of the pie. I shot these four photos with greasy, "flour-y" hands on the little pocket camera ...so don't expect anything special 😉

Yum-Yum Getcha Some.

07/05/2009

July 4th Weekend

Filed under: Personal — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — Melinda @ 10:49 am
Fireworks on Oahu

Fireworks on Oahu

Hope your 4th was relaxing and awe-inspiring. Since I didn’t photograph fireworks this year, I grabbed one of my favorite firework photos from my archive and that’s the photo you see above. This photo also made it into Hawaii Magazine. See the blog posting here.

This Fouth of July, we were out on the Oregon coast camping with our friends Heidi & Jason.  And what a great camp spot we snagged just a couple days before the busy July 4th weekend!  What a blessing to grab the last open spot–it was a NICE spot, too.  Somebody must’ve canceled.  We built a fire on the beach two nights in a row and let me just say that it was AWESOME.

Here’s a pic of Heidi & Jason in a sizzlin’, steamin’, “you’re-almost-barbeque” lip-lock next to the second beach fire we made.

I took this with their pocket camera and I must say I’m impressed with the quality of that little thing. Pretty good. I’ll have to get me one of those.

P1010870blog

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