What yesterday afternoon and evening was filled with.  It truly was filled with friendship, laughter (lots of laughter), yummy dining and a nice visit into the evening hours.

I was invited up to my friend’s place (Beth) in downtown San Diego.  It was a nice low-key afternoon in her condo.  I also got to see her son AJ as he’s in town visiting for the summer.  I met AJ’s friend (Ethan) who is also staying with Beth as he’s working on an internship for the Navy this summer.

And I got to see sweet Mitzy again.  She could very well be the most well-behaved, loveable  pup on the face of the earth.  I totally wish I had taken another shot of her with the lighting in front of her.  But she’s too cute not to make the blog.

I love this shot of Beth and Mitzy with my phone and the fun app used to create the drawing.

Beth took this shot of me and used the drawing app.  Can you tell we were having fun?

Here we are in Old Town visiting Fred’s for Taco Tuesday.  AJ’s in the red shirt on the left, Beth is at the hostess station and Ethan is in the beige shirt on the right.

Yay for Fred’s good food!

Beth, AJ and Ethan

We enjoyed the outdoor seating.

AJ and Ethan – “Is you mean with wid it”

Two cool dudes – these two kept us laughing all night.  We laughed so hard our tummies hurt.

These two did not sign up for having their pictures taken together.  However, I had plans to at least take a stab at it.  I didn’t position them, just kindly asked them for a picture up there on the stairs.  Thank you AJ and Ethan!

My photographer brain was screaming “no gaps”.  I wanted to see if I could get them a bit closer.  This is the reaction I got.  Ethan giving the, are you serious look with a grin and AJ cracked up at the notion.  I like this raw emotion shot.

And one last shot of AJ (Ethan was already outta there) – The idea of “no gaps” didn’t go so well but I truly enjoyed the expressions so much more.  How fun.

Ethan did express an interest in getting a fun shot holding the sun at sunset.  He had it all planned out, all the way down to his expression and holding his chin with his other hand while looking at the sun in deep thought.  Or something like that, great idea Ethan.  As you can see, it was not working out as planned.

What do?  Ah, bring him into the picture as a silhouette, now that will work.

Ok Ethan, now bring your hand in towards you a little more while dropping it a couple of inches and kiss the sun.  That’s it…

Depending on the focus point, I had a crisp background and blurred subject like below.

Or a nice crisp subject with a blurred background as seen in this picture below.

This is the part I asked Ethan to pucker up and kiss the sun.  At that point the entire room broke in laughter, including him.  Cool pic tho, very cool.

He laughed so hard that he could no longer hold the sun or kiss it.

But we managed to stop laughing for just a bit to snap some more…

There are no words to express the amount of fun we all had.  I can still hear Beth in the background saying “I wish we were recording this”

And one last shot with the focus on the sun/background and the subject (Ethan) blurred.

The boys carried on with video games after this fun photo shoot and Beth and I dried our eyes from laughter and carried on with a nice little visit into the evening hours.

I hope I get to see these guys before they leave this summer.  If not, I enjoyed and will always remember the fun we had last evening.

Blessings – Debbie