Houston, we have a problem... not really

For you that don’t know my wife, she is a second grade teacher and the best one at that. Since I see her everyday, I know how hard she works and how much she loves her kids.

With my schedule, I get to come down to her class and help out. I always feel like a super star cause as soon as I walk in the class erupts- "MR. MAYER!!!!" what a great confidence booster.

I went down to Kelli's class three times last week to help out on the grading and various other task but I got to experience second grade book reports. Let me tell you, they are awesome. This book report was on a biography of someone famous. One of the students was Neil Armstrong and the student put their helmet on Kelli. What a moment. I never had a teacher come down to my level and make me laugh like Kelli does with her students.

I also took some photos for one of Kelli's art project for the class. Here are just a few pics of kids...

2nd best day ever!

Today was the 1-year anniversary from my kidney surgery...

This is my second most favorite day of my life, weird, I know. My favorite day is my wedding, obviously. But this was the day I felt the true meaning of marriage. This is where "in sickness and in health" came into play. If you know anything about Kelli, you know that she hates blood and won't do anything with medical stuff. Well... that all changed a year ago. After getting my kidney fixed and my internal plumbing reworked, I had some baggage, literally. For three months I had tube coming out of my side that was attached to my kidney on the inside and a bag on the outside. As I drank fluids, the bag filled up with urine and blood (gross to the max) and I was unable to empty it myself for a few weeks because I couldn’t bend over and reach the release valve. Kelli was there for my every need, gross as it may be. Blah blah blah, the whole reason for this post is to share how much I love my wife and how awesome she really is!

iphone, you phone

So today was a pretty fun day. I hung out with a fellow wedding photographer, Aaron Wilcox and his 2 year old son Riley. I brought my real camera to snap some photos but decided to leave it in the car and just use my iphone. Santa put a itunes gift card for 15 smackers in my stocking and it was burning a hole in my pocket, so I bought some apps for the iphone to make fun photos. I put the link for the app if you would like to use the same ones.... pretty fun stuff.

^http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tiltshift-generator-fake-dslr/id327716311?mt=8

^http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/quadcamera-multishot/id300911252?mt=8

^http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/panorama/id293001431?mt=8

i made it on surfline, kinda

So I was killing time today on Surfline and was peeking at the various surf photographer's portfolios that they feature on the site. I saw the first photo and thought to myself that looks really familiar, holy smokes... I’m in that photo! Well, actually the back of my head is in that photo. I was the whitest guy for 1000 miles and was covering my back with a towel trying not to get burnt from the Tahitian sun. I was able to recognize the photo because I had one that was very similar to it. The second image below is the image I got from my boat. The rest are some of my favs from my little trip to the southern hemisphere.

^thats me on the right shooting on a small day at Teahupoo

thank you Asics

So I work a lot with a photographer in OC name Mike Medby and I usually assist him on the photo shoots for Asics. Mike asked me to assist on this shoot but I couldn't commit to assisting because I had my own photo shoot in the afternoon so I took Buzz up to meet the Asics and photo crew.

Holy smokes, he was a HIT! They practically ripped Buzz out of my hands and stuck him in the shot. He behaved so stinking well. He just sat there and looked as cute as possible.

This is Buzz's last photo shoot. Kelli and I took him to the hospital that night and you know the rest.....

Buzz: to infinity and beyond

This is the hardest post and one I thought I wouldn’t have to do for a very long time. Last Friday night we rushed Buzz to the emergency Vet because Buzz wasn’t being himself and threw up twice earlier in the day. After getting to see the x-rays of Buzz's stomach, we knew it was going to be an uphill battle. We figured out that Buzz got into our friend's dog food that was super packed with fiber and it clogged his digestive tract. He ate so much that it was putting pressure on his little diaphragm and making hard for him to breathe. So we left him over night to get some enemas and clear out his system of all the food he ate. We thought that would be it but as it turned out when he vomited he inhaled some into his lungs causing him to get aspiration pneumonia and then it was all downhill from there. His little body did the best it could and tripled his white blood cell count to fight the infection. The vets gave him as many drugs as they could to help him out but it turned out to be too much.

His last day was the toughest. Buzz was in an oxygen tank and struggling for every little breath he could get. We left that morning with plans to come back at night but God had other plans. As we were down at Kelli’s work to get her substitute teacher plans ready, cause she wasn’t planning on going in due to Buzz’s condition, we got the call from the Vet that we were not expecting. Buzz stopped breathing. It was like my heart fell out of my chest and there was nothing we could do.

We drove up from Mira Mesa to San Marcos in record time to something we never wanted to go to. Knowing inside it wouldn’t make a difference, we gave it our best to see him one more time before his time was up. We didn’t make it in time. We walked into the Vet’s as they were wheeling him on the cart into a room so we could say our goodbyes. That was the toughest cause our little buzz wasn’t himself anymore, it was just his earthly body and not his joyful bouncy spirit which everyone loved him for. It was as if life was going so slow as I petted him and felt his little paws. I eventually lifted him off his metal bed and took him in my arms and sat on the sofa. It was so strange to feel a cold stiff body that was once warm and kissing me every chance he got. Fortunately, Kelli, my mom and James were there alongside me to comfort and console me but I still felt alone without my best four-legged friend there.

We went home after that and cried as we saw all his toys on the ground and collar on the counter sitting there as if it too was waiting for Buzz to come home. Holding his little stuffed bulldog and his collar, Kelli and cried ourselves to sleep till the afternoon. Knowing we weren’t going to be able to sleep in our own house for the night we went to our friends Debra and James’ house and slept on their floor. Sleeping that night was really tough and I dreamt of Buzz being Buzz only to be woken up by Debra yelling at me that she is pregnant. It is funny how God takes and gives.

So I made this video/slideshow of Buzz growing up. Its pretty close to his timeline give or take a few days here and there but it’s fun to see him grow up and become the Bulldog that stole everyone’s hearts. I ended the video with my favorite clip of Buzz where he is driving my car.

Thank you so much to the people that loved him as much as we did, or at least tried to love him as much as we did. Thank you for your love and prayers. Thank you Lord, for allowing us to be blessed by your little angel.

Please watch it and remember the good times and enjoy the happiest times of our lives… and his.

Dia de los Muertos

I came across this event while grabbing a bite to eat in Oceanside the other week and thought it would be super fun. Dia de los Muertos was really fun to shoot and was a learning experience because I am just not the familiar with Mexican traditions. 

I went to get one shot and was super stoked when I got it. I really wanted a photo of the lady in white with the full face makeup. She is part of a dance they do for their holiday, I wish I could give you more info  but I don't want to lead you astray and give you the wrong info so here is the video of the dance form last year (click). Super fun!

Halloween time!!!!

This was the best Halloween yet!!!!! Kelli and I usually don't do anything for Halloween but this year we co-hosted a party at our friends Deb and Jame's house and we rocked it out! we did a little rock band, which I'm terrible at, and a little ping pong and a photo booth. here are the pics from that an one extra for dessert.

I was bacon and James was eggs, get it- bacon and eggs :)

Bobby was a ghost

Buzz Version 3.5

Here he is again!!!!!!

I took Buzz on a little exploration trip into a grove of eucalyptus trees and he was in HEAVEN. This little guy loves twigs, sticks and leaves and this place was filled with them. He was so stinking funny running around cause he would get a mouth full of twigs then drop them and get another mouth full of twigs 5 inches to the left of him, I guess grass is greener on the other side. Being in he is own little dream world, he was barking for no apparent reason and running in circles chasing the leaves falling from trees due to the windy day. He was a little kid in a candy shop. 

^Buzz's big boy bark *woof woof*

^Buzz stalking his twigs

^Fav pic of the day

halloween prep

hahahahahah halloween time is coming!

Kelli and I are pretty darn excited for halloween this year for a few reasons. One because Buzz is going to dress up with us, and we have friends to spend the time with us. You cant have halloween without pumpkins so we each got one and did our best to create our little jack-o-lanterns. Unfortunately, all the pumpkin patches close a 9:00 so we had to go to Vons which actually had a pretty darn good selection, minus the one or two rotten ones that were stuck on the bottom.

Our friend Debra has never carved a pumpkin before. Weird, I know. I think she has been living in a cave for the last 20yrs. Anyways, we all had a great time and made some awesome pumps!

I did Jack form Nightmare before Christmas; Kelli did Mike from Monster's Inc; Debra did Minnie mouse, and James did a classic Jack-o-lantern :)