Saint Valentine

Michael and I had been wanting to go to Griffith Park's abandoned zoo for the past month since Banks and Lacey told us about it. And today we went! We didn't have any "real" Valentine's plans and invited Dawson and our friend Carly to come along. She brought her nice Canon camera with Tamron lens. It turned into more of a photo shoot day instead of hiking. But Michael wanted to hike and even wore one of his new "breathable" hiking shirts, so he found a big mountain peak with trails. Here was his view from the top:

 I'd love to go back again with him. He said they have a canopy of the pear trees that I have been seeing all over with white petals. I'd love to get lots of pictures of those. They are very pretty. I was a little disappointed that I forgot my little camera. It wasn't in my purse like I thought, but Carly did an amazing job with all the pictures she took. Here are some of my favorite "modely" ones that I have tweaked just a teensy bit:

And here are some that we played around with at the end, after Michael got back from his 45-minute hike. (He even showed me a cool little video that he made at the top.) These were used with Carly's wide lens, which I found very interesting. They were silly and fun and make me happy.

We didn't find very many areas that seemed like they were parts of an abandoned zoo. I'm sure there were parts that we didn't see today. But there were many more areas with picnic tables and beautiful green grass. During the time between taking the first pictures of Dawson and I, and waiting for Michael to get back, we took a handful of photos with my big Polaroid camera. Those turned out pretty nice too. Unfortunately, Carly was only in town for a month for an HGTV gig, but hopefully she will move back soon!!