Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category

Lisa Nikole Monthly Blog July 2012

Saturday, August 4th, 2012

It’s been a really crazy emotional ride this past month. I’ll include a little of June as it leads up to July.

Lisa Nikole has been up to a few new things
1. Book writing and yes, we’ve been published HERE

2. We added portraits only to our wedding packages – we show up for an hour or two and shoot your most important wedding images. This allows you the freedom of setting the price and tone for the rest of your wedding pictures.

3. We had a lot of emotion bringing us to the end of July, but we made it through and happy we did.

Now on to the month in review

We shot a few amazing families this past month and one family even endured the hot hot weather to have their portraits done. We are always very thankful that people trust us with their images.

The end of June my mother passed away, the few years have been very rough for her and I am thankful now that her body now has rest and peace and she is a far better place.

The end of this month my step father and my mothers caregiver fell ill and as I write is still in the hospital recovering from congestive heart failure and a sepsis infection. He’s on the mend and we look forward to him visiting us soon in Missouri.

The book writing has been something both Raquel and I have talked about and I’m looking forward to presenting a few things she’s got on her mind to write as well. Look for more books from us in the future. Even one about frogs :-)

We ended up in Ohio the past week for a family vacation that ended up just being Raquel and I. Sometimes things just work out as did this entire vacation as things and time schedules just seem to fit into place.

So with that, it’s a close to our July 2012 and looking forward to August 2012.

How was your month? Let us know comment and who knows.. maybe someone will get a free copy to our new book!

For some reason I can’t get my images to upload right now.. I apologize for that and will try to find the issue before next months post.

Miami | Keys | Orlando | Florida

Saturday, September 18th, 2010

This trip started out as a trip to NYC, but as things have it… that trip got postponed, but, when you really want to get away, you just do what you have to do…

Change plans!

These were not even my plans… my friends Amanda and Madi asked me to go…believe it or not I did have to think twice because I am traveling the weekend I get back. I decided to go, I needed a break and shooting Florida would be fun!

Okay, do you know how long it is to drive to Florida from Saint Louis? Just asking! It’s a long long long long long time. I personally was not much of a help driving. I took my shift sometime in the early morning, was encouraged by a few friends to try the 5 hour energy drink, so about 15 minutes into it, I chug down an amazing taste alike of cough syrup. 15 minutes later I feel as if I’ve been sedated and I can no longer drive. I try to do what I can but finally cave in, crawl into the back seat and literally pass out for hours! What the crap is in that stuff?

We drive to Orlando to visit Ryan and Madi asks him to go with us to Miami and from that moment on Ryan was our driver! Ryan has an amazing nascar driving mentality. Can’t complain much, he did great and did not complain when he had to drive 4 starving woman around downtown Miami while we decided what we were going to eat for 2 plus hours!

We met up with Madi’s cousins who were wonderful hosts and I got to enjoy some amazing authentic Mexican food!

Woke up early to watch the sunrise and hooked up with Don Verger, who at the same time in Maine was photographing the sunrise! Check out Don’s website HERE!

I did get to see the new basketball (can you say HUGE) stadium being built for the “dream” team!

I got to the beach…we picked a beach in a very nice area of Ft. Lauderdale, pitched our tent (yes we did) and my goal.. tanning! Ryan and I stayed on the beach and learned some new phrases and Madi, Amanda and Lucy took to the water. The sand was soooooo hot!

The Keys: We went all the way to Key West and I’m sorry to say I am not impressed at all, its way too commercial. We stayed over night at the beautiful Key Largo Hilton, and that is where we caught Ami his Gecko!

I also made a pelican friend, I was shooting him at the end of a dock, left and was almost off the pier when he flew behind me and seriously was only a few inches from me. He was way cool, and I love these special encounters I get ever now and again!

It’s also where I photographed Amanda for her portfolio. Very tropical and beautiful!

We’re on our way home now, I’ve been blessed to be able to work in the car a little bit. Anxious to get back home, get the next weekend shoot done and back to life as usual for a bit, but that seems to be changing constantly!

So here’s to you Florida! Thank you for entertaining me!

Midwest Movement | Kalahari | Lisa Nikole

Monday, May 17th, 2010

Somewhere along the way we end up in Wisconsin at an amazing resort named Kalahari. No expense was sparred to allow for great fun, relaxation and enjoyment in this place. If anyone earned this “vacation” as sorts it was the people I had been with the last 8 days. They worked hard and did all they could to perfect what they had committed to do.

In our van alone as we pulled up around 10pm at night, there was shouts and screams and gasps at how massive this place is. If you’ve not seen it please check out the links. This place is amazing! We were honored to stay in an amazing condo, whose floor plan rocked with amazing decor and features that simply was a home I could have stayed in forever :-)

Can’t say enough about the park and amusements, food and fun. We even had a ice cream eating contest that Nathan swamped Jim on. I mean seriously how fast can you eat a half gallon of ice cream? I’m pretty sure Nathan can beat you!

Many many thanks to Church on the Rock, Pastors David and Kim Blunt for trusting me with driving these amazing people and allowing me just a tiny glimpse into the excellence of the people of MidWest Movement.