San Luis Obispo Wedding Photographer Katie DiSimone :: BLOG

In early December, I started to feel like I wanted to try a marathon again. I’d done one nearly 10 years ago with a friend in San Diego. I hadn’t trained very well for it, but I was in decent shape because I’d been swimming a lot at the time. I figured I was in “good enough” shape to run a marathon. My friend and I crossed the 19 mile mark together, but it all went to crud after that for me. I started feeling muscle fatigue that I had never imagined before. My quads were so heavy and tired. I stopped to walk the water stations, which eventually turned into walking nearly a quarter-mile each time. My finish time went from a predicted 4:15 to an actual finish of 4:50.

This time I wanted to try a marathon where I’d trained properly for it. I had been solidly running for months when I amazingly won an entry into the LA Marathon for March 20, 2011. Jason and I drove down there and I was excited (and nervous) to try marathon #2. My goals for the race? Don’t poop my pants, run the whole distance, and possibly finish sub-4 hours. I figured the first one would be a gimme (although I did learn that port-a-potties are in HIGH demand on a race course and thus the first goal could have been more difficult than I’d imagined), and the second goal should be manageable. The last goal was a stretch. If I had a great day, I expected that a sub-4 hour finish would be a small possibility.

Compressing a long story into a short one…it rained 2.5 inches during the marathon. The wind was howling. Conditions sucked. The first drop of rain fell just as I took my second step in the race. Nearly 26.2 miles later, I had seen countless runners huddled in medical tents shivering from the cold. A road barrier got blown into a runner in front of me and took him off his feet at the finish line. I barely remember any of the sights from the race except for the rain-swollen road drainages that I tried to side-step. I do remember Jason and my family coming out to see me at 4 locations on the route. In the pouring rain, they came out to support me and it meant the world. I finished in 4:01, but it was a 3:58 if you take off the time for a potty break. So I’m gonna say that I met all my goals for the race and then some. I never expected to run a race like that in the pouring rain.

What was high on your list of dream honeymoon destinations? For me (and my friend Liz and her husband Jake), it was a Mediterranean Cruise to see Italy and Greece. But, for Liz and I both…we didn’t get that honeymoon. Jason and I ended up with a fantastic honeymoon in Grand Cayman in the Caribbean. Why Grand Cayman? My parents gifted us a timeshare week and we happened to luck out with a trade-up to Grand Cayman. We had a glorious week in paradise and in retrospect I think it was the perfect place for a honeymoon. So relaxing and lazy. I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

And now that I’ve been married for nearly 10 years, I understand just how much Jason hates to take long plane flights and big travel itineraries. I know that he really doesn’t want to see European museums and I’m ok with that. The wonderful trade-off is that he’s more than fine if I go to these far away places without him. I look for opportunities to tag-along when other friends go on vacation, and it’s cheaper because we’re only paying for one person to travel.

So when Liz and Jake booked their dream vacation (a 12-day Mediterranean cruise), I was drooling with jealousy. Luckily, they wanted company and thought that I’d be fun to have along. I got such an unbelievably smoking deal and it made the trip possible! We went in late October for a 12-day cruise with 2 days in Rome and 2 days in Venice on the ends of the trip. The itinerary included the ports of Rome, Naples, Santorini, Rhodes, Mykonos, Ephesus, Athens, Olympia, Corfu, Dubrovnik, and Venice. Liz did a great job of previewing each port and planning our excursions and sight-seeing. It was truly the most amazing trip for us all. I cannot thank them enough for generously including me in their plans. It was the trip of a lifetime.

We saw incredible art by Van Gogh.
We got lost in Rome, but had the most amazing pizza ever.
We got into a car accident in Rome, but luckily weren’t driving.
We got into a (small) ATV accident in Santorini, but this time we were driving.
We rode donkeys up 550 steps of an island cliff.
We bargained for a leather jacket in Rhodes.
We saw incredible ancient ruins everywhere.
We walked Pompeii for hours and it was amazing.
We got a little drunk at an authentic Greek lunch. OOOH-PA!
We fed homeless cats everywhere.
We found private beaches with incredible views.
We ran around the original Olympic track.
We ate delicious food on the boat, like the best fettuccine alfredo ever.
We got denied taking a photo with the Vatican Guards.
We happily got photos with the Turkish Army.
We had a tour of a monastery given by a lady in a mini-skirt and go-go boots.
We splashed through a flooded Piazza San Marco in Venice.
We somehow figured out how to navigate public transit in Venice.
I ran 6 miles in Rome with some of the members of the Italian President’s private security detail. (yes, really!)

As a photographer, I went back and forth about how I would pack for the trip. Would I bring my nice cameras or opt for the portable little point-and-shoot? And which point-and-shoot would I bring (since I have several that I like)? I finally decided to leave the nice cameras and lenses at home. I was concerned about how much I’d actually want to haul around camera gear while seeing all these sights. So, while the final photos are not as spectacular as I’d like to have had…they were so much easier to incorporate into our adventures. My only regret was not bringing the camera with me on my morning runs in Rome. I had no idea that I would meet up with the Italian President’s private security detail, nor that I would end up running 6 miles through Villa Borghese Park with them. It was like running with a bunch of Italian models…and yes, I ran faster that morning than I usually do. Wouldn’t you? Without any more words, here’s some of the unedited point-and-shoot images…

As a parent, definitely one of my favorite perks of the job. Lots of artwork is completed and given to me free of charge. All I have to do is hug and kiss these great kids.

Holly is in kindergarten this year. Jason normally does all the drop-off and pick-ups from school, so I am not very familiar with all her classmates. But, we have heard quite a bit about a little boy named “T.J.” He’s apparently got an electric guitar at home and a little brother and sister. As we later found out, they also live right around the corner from us.

There was one day where I got to pick Holly up from class, and I got there a few minutes early. Early enough to see Holly cheating off of T.J.’s papers as they were finishing an assignment. I peeked over at T.J.’s paper too…and let me tell you, I couldn’t have been more proud of Holly. She picked the smartest boy in the class to cheat off of. He is wicked smart! We’ve also met his parents and they are great people, too.

After our trip to Maui, T.J. strolled up to Jason one day and said he and Holly were going to get married. And just this week, T.J. dropped off some secret envelopes to Holly at the end of class. Eight envelopes. Which Holly tried to hide while she blushed 4 shades of red. We finally got to see inside the envelopes. Is it too early for me to start finding her a wedding photographer? Cause we really like T.J. too.

This one’s for the family to enjoy…lots of photos. Consider yourself warned.

As some of you saw on facebook or twitter, I just got back from a fantastic Spring Break trip with my family to Maui.  My mom was generous enough to offer up a few weeks of her timeshares for a big family vacation this year.   On this trip were my family, my brother and his family, and my mom and step-dad Mike. It was the first time in about 4 years that my brother’s kids and mine got to play with each other for more than just a couple days in a row, so it was extra special for them.  This is the furthest in advance that I’ve planned a trip in quite sometime, so the anticipation was killing me!  So, let’s start from the beginning with some photos…

aerial view of LA beach area

…and the aerial view of Maui beach area

The girls played in the surf and resort’s pool for endless hours. One day my parents babysat while Jason and I explored the Wailea beach area…and mom swears the girls played on the beach for 7 hours straight without a single problem. WOW! Where can I find a beach for my front yard? We stayed at the Marriott Maui Ocean Villas…here’s a couple shots from around the place.

Sometimes the jacuzzi got a little crowded, kinda felt and looked like a giant crawdad boil.  My kid is somewhere in there.

Grandpa mike was a great kid flipper in the pool. We splashed a lot of people, and I didn’t even care. LOL!

All the kids learned the Hawaiian hand-sign, even below the water surface.

Since my previous Hawaii experiences have only been on Kauai, I was a little skeptical whether I’d like Maui as much. Happily, I was beyond thrilled with Maui. What an amazing place!! The snorkeling was fantastic…I’ve never seen so many turtles before. We saw spouting humpback whales within 15 minutes of being on the island! The weather was also perfect…I think it was 82F the entire time.

Quite possibly one of the coolest highlights of the trip was hearing humpback whales underwater while we were snorkeling. I had no idea this was even possible without some fancy microphones or special trip to get close to the whales. I was totally blown away that I could hear them just snorkeling on pretty much any beach on the island’s south and west shores. I even managed to get a sound bite of it on my little underwater camera.

Humpback whales singing in Maui <---click here to hear for yourself

And we went on a whale watching tour one day. We saw many whales including a few sets of moms and calves. Impressive fact that I learned, biologists have never documented or recorded a live humpback whale birth. I would've figured that somehow, someway that would have been done before. In some way, I'm kinda happy these huge creatures still have a tiny bit of privacy.

Another favorite, of course, were the turtles. Lots of turtles everywhere we went. My little underwater camera (a Canon Powershot D10) did a great job at recording everything I saw. The coral was fantastic on this trip, too. Lots of colors and loads of different shapes. Even saw a couple of moray eels on this trip! One swam by me and I managed to hold myself together enough to take a photo of him after he went into his cave.

And what trip to Hawaii would be complete without these last two photos…a sunset and a forcing-your-kids-together in front of a sunset?