USS Missouri.

USS Arizona Memorial.

At some point of our vacation, we swung by the Tantalus drive to catch some scenic view of the island.

We are so grateful to had the chance to relax and enjoy being with each other at Oahu! It was a really fun and memorable trip.  Oahu – we shall see you again…hopefully not too far off in the future!

see part one here.

We couldn’t be more excited that we shot Jessica and Jason’s wedding as our FIRST wedding of the year! :) They are such an adorable couple! What is even more awesome about them is that both of them are committed followers of Jesus. Jason is a pastor at a local church here in San Diego (Kairoschurch.org) serving the college students at UCSD.  Jessica is an amazing woman of God,  who is constantly getting out of her comfort zone reaching out to those who need Jesus’ love.  Together they are going to make an awesome team!  We are SO BLESSED to know such amazing individuals!

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Their first look reactions – priceless! :)

At the end of the night, we took advantage of the photobooth and took a fun pic! A lot of people have commented that Daniel and I look like brother and sister. I guess we look like sisters in this picture!

This past week Daniel and I took a trip to Oahu, Hawaii! :) We have been married for almost 6 years now and since we went to Hawaii (Big Island) for our honeymoon, this trip is sort of our ‘second honeymoon’. Although Daniel and I traveled a lot in the past year, we mainly traveled for work and for visiting family.  So a relaxing vacation was very much needed!! :)  We picked Oahu as our destination because 1. we have never been there and 2. it’s cheaper than going to other Islands! HAHA.  I feel like Oahu has a lot of bad reputation of being overly commercialized and crowded. But since I’m a city girl, I figured I would actually like it.  And I did! I LOVE OAHU!  I love the fact that we can go explore all day and come back to the comfort of the hustle and bustle of the ‘city’ (we stayed at Waikiki).  I love that our hotel is right on the beach so no matter what we chose to do during the day, we could always come back to the hotel and chill on the beach.  It was awesome!

So here’s part one of our vacation. :) Some pictures are taken with our Canon 5D with our 50mm f/1.2 lens, and some other pictures are taken with our iphones (should be pretty obvious which ones those are)!

We kayaked out to Sunken Island.  I was hoping that the tide would be low enough so that a beach would surface. But all the sand is below the water.  It was still pretty cool though – we were able to walk around in the middle of the ocean.

For a couple of days we rented two mopeds as our mode of transportation. It was really fun to ride around Waikiki area. But it’s kinda scary once you have to get on the real roads where cars are going fast and you’re afraid that you’ll get hit! But thankfully all the Hawaiian drivers are so kind and nice!

The first time we rode our mopeds out to Hanauma Bay, it was on a Tuesday. And we didn’t realize that Hanauma Bay is closed on Tuesday!! Imagine our disappointment when we got there only to find out that we can’t go in. But it was an overcast day anyway. We went back to Hanauma Bay 2 days later and it was a GORGEOUS day.  I snapped this picture of the bay when we were leaving (after we snorkeled).  We were really lucky (I think) – we stayed on the left side of the bay where we found tons of fishes (and not a whole lot of people)! The snorkeling was surprisingly decent since a lot of people have told us that Hanauma Bay is getting ‘snorkeled out’.  I really wanted to go back to Hanauma Bay later that week but we didn’t get a chance to. We had too many things we wanted to do.

Another highlight of the trip – possibly my favorite moment – watching a pod of spin dolphins swimming around our boat!

A picture of us on the excursion. :) I love the Hawaiian sun in this pic!

Oahu is so crazy beautiful (not that you don’t already know that)! One one side of the road is the beach where as on the other side of the road you can find a view like this:

We went to Turtle Beach at North Shore to get a glimpse of the sea turtles. When we first got there, there was no turtles in sight on land and in the water! I was really disappointed.  We stayed there for close to an hour before we left to visit other places at North Shore.

We came back a couple of hours later….and there was one turtle on the shore, with two more in the water!

We brought our snorkel gears so we could get into the water to swim with these guys! It was really fun.  The visibility of the water was really bad though, so unfortunately I have to say it wasn’t good as when we snorkel with sea turtles at Big Island.

And an obligatory photo with the turtle that was basking in the sun. :)

Back at Waikik, our very own orange turtle Daniel was also basking in the sun.

to be continued…

And here’s the full press release. :) Kinda boring. Feel free to skip.

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{San Diego,CA} – January 25, 2012 – WeddingWire, the nation’s leading wedding Marketplace, is excited to announce Orange Turtle Photography has been selected to receive the prestigious WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2012 for Photography!

The esteemed annual awards program recognizes the top local wedding vendors from the WeddingWire Network who demonstrate excellence in quality, service, responsiveness and professionalism within the wedding industry. While many industry awards are selected by the organization,Orange Turtle Photography was selected based on its stellar reviews from past newlywed clients.

Orange Turtle Photography is recognized as part of the top five percent of wedding professionals in the WeddingWire local vendor community, comprised of over 200,000 wedding professionals throughout the United States and Canada. The Bride’s Choice Award recognizes the best local wedding vendors across 20 service categories, from wedding venues to wedding photographers, based on their overall professional achievements throughout the past year.

“WeddingWire is thrilled to honor the success of the top-rated wedding professionals within the WeddingWire Community,” said Timothy Chi, CEO, WeddingWire. “Since the launch of the Bride’s Choice Awards™ program four years ago, thousands of outstanding wedding professionals have been recognized by the bridal community for their supreme service and dedication to the wedding industry. It is with great pleasure that we congratulate Orange Turtle Photography for their continued professionalism and commitment to enriching the wedding planning experience for engaged couples.”

We are happy to announce that Orange Turtle Photography is one of the very best Photographers within the WeddingWire Network, which includes leading wedding planning sites WeddingWire, Project Wedding, Brides.com, Martha Stewart Weddings, and Weddingbee. We would like to thank our past clients for taking the time to review our business on WeddingWire. Thanks to their positive feedback we were able to receive the WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ for 2012.

For more information, please visit our WeddingWire Storefront today at http://www.weddingwire.com/biz/orange-turtle-photography-san-diego/06519625af628667.html.

To learn more about the Bride’s Choice Awards™, please visit www.WeddingWire.com.

Jess and Vince are our dear friends from the previous church that we attended (Kairos Church) and we were so happy that we could photograph their wedding!  A lot of people have asked me if I would prefer attending a friend’s wedding as a guest instead. I can honestly say that while I do love attending wedding as a guest without the pressure of work, I also enjoy being the photographer for my friend just the same – if not more. Being their wedding photographers means that we get to be a part of their entourage and get the front seat of all the actions!

First look. They are so incredibly cute!

Wedding ceremony at Grace Lutheran Church.

A huge thanks to Obadiah for coming along to shoot with us! :)

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I love this one of her!

For more info on senior portraits, please visit our portraits site.

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Lydia and Kellen are oh so dear to my heart! It’s probably because Lydia is my one and only little sister. :) Lydia has always been so adorably cute since she was a baby and she never grew out of her cuteness.  I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am that she’s marrying Kellen! He’s such a great guy and I couldn’t think of a more compatible guy for her. I do have to take credit though that I was the one who suggested Lydia to consider dating Kellen years ago! HAHA.

It was such a blessing for us to capture their love, their cuteness, their goofiness – all of who THEY ARE – for the engagement session.  I can’t wait until their wedding!

Wow.  I can’t believe it’s 2012 already! We are so thankful that God blessed us with an incredible year of 2011.  There were good times and there were difficult times. But we made it through the year alive and healthy and still be in love with each other – that’s all that we could ask for! As we are venturing into another year, we want to take this time to say thank you to everyone for your constant support and encouraging words – whether you said it on our blog, on our facebook page or in person. :)

I know this is a few days late but – Happy New Year!