Doubt anyone uses Xanga anymore since Facebook..

We had a great thunderstorm yesterday, pretty much all day.  Had a tornado watch for about an hour, a LOT of hail (most that I've ever seen)  and great storm clouds.

Here's a few photos I took after the strorms stopped (in our area)

and a video of the hailstorm during the tornado watch.

Well we had a real nice time in Cambria visiting with Elliot and Rob.  We got to Cambria just in time too as Robbie called when we were turning on the street to the hospital saying Elliot was being released right then.  So we got there to basically take him out to the car and drive up to Elliots house in Cambria.   Our hotel rooms that we rented was in San Luis Obisbo near the hospital and the Madonna Inn, so we quickly cancelled that room and tried getting a hotel room covered with our 'points' near Cambria, but they didn't have any available.  It was spring break week up there so a hotel near the ocean was not going to be cheap.  Luckily Rob works as an auditor in one of the hotels so we were able to get the employee rate for 2 rooms (one was ocean front!)  so that was real nice. 

Saw lots of California poppies on the road driving up there, but not a lot of wildflowers yet.  Probably bout a month too early. With all the driving didn't get to play golf. 

Janis took this when I slowed down on the side of the road - great shot Janis!

On the way home from Cambria we stopped at Casa De Carlos, where Janis' family has been eating for 40+ years.  It was Phil's birthday on Friday so for his birthday dinner we took him there after a 5 hour drive from Cambria.  The owner now (son of the original owners) was there which was a nice surprise as Larry usually works at the Chatsworth location instead of the the Woodland Hills location which was down the street from Janis' family house when they lived there.

 By the time we got back from Woodland Hills and dinner which started @ 8:45pm, we got back to Solana Beach at 12:20 am!

We are in CA this week visitng Janis parents in San Diego.   Janis' uncle had 2 strokes so are driving her parents up to San Luis Obisbo to see him.  Get to stay overnite on Madonna Inn Road  (not @ the Madonna Inn though) and then drive back home tomorrow, just to get in the car Saturday morning to drive to LA for the last Kings game of the season and then BACK down to San Diego to fly home on Sunday.

Did I mention I had a lot of driving to do? 303 miles up to SLO and back = 606  and then SD to LA is 140x2 -280..  forget it my head is going to explode..

We shot Chelsea and Robert's wedding on Saturday at the beautiful Trinity Methodist church in downtown Denver.  The Church has been around since 1859.  It is a gorgeous church -

Here's a collage of images - I'm in the middle of editing the images and they'll be up shortly on their website or else my website @ www.mullenphotography.com

It was 71 degrees today, the flowers are blooming, its a beautiful day out,   Tonite's weather report says that they are expecting 5-12" of snow on Monday.  It better not snow much as I'm shooting Chelsea and Robert's wedding on Saturday.  It will be the first wedding of the season for me and I'm very excited to be their photographer.   Robert is graduating from College this spring and his Reserve Unit is going to Iraq, so their wedding will be a very special day.  Here's a little collage of the engagement photos I took of them.

Flowers in the yard are sprouting already.  We've got flowers that we planted 18 months ago re-sprouting already.   I think this means that the summer will be awfully hot, we've had no rain/snow to speak of, I think we shoveled the driveway 3 times this year.  This photo was from Thanksgiving and I think that was the biggest snow we got.

Its nice that we didn't have a blizzard or anything, but the winter has been so wierd here.   Last year it was not bad either.  Two years ago when the house was being built they had the 2 blizzards back to back, and it snowed every weekend from Christmas till February 20th, as every weekend I tried coming out to see the house progression and it was snowing so I didn't come out.

this was taken 1/15/07 when the house was being built.  We've never had snow this bad.

It's really windy today.  One thing they have here is wind!  Janis was out watering the grass yesterday and today as its in high 60s.  The grass is dormant but we want it dormant not "dead"  The sprinklers don't even get turned on until April 11th or something.  They get shut off around October every year.

A friend and neighbor of mine needed a new website design, so I started a new website for him and its just about finished.  Jon Chandler is his name and he's an award winning author and musician out here in Colorado.   His voice is so hypnotic, I just love the sound he creates.

Jon Chandler - website

I'm in Vegas for WPPI for Vegas this week, just got thru 2 day lighting class with Claude Jodoin, very good class and Claude really knows his stuff!

Had a couple models and did mostly shooting techniques, some of the stuff already knew but nice to be reminded again of the Inverse Square Rule!!

Weather has been so weird this winter in Colorado.  Neighbors who've lived in CO all your life keep saying to us "if you don't like the weather, wait 10 minutes"..  It been in the 70's this week, and its supposed to snow tomorrow night.   It gets cold at night but the days have been very mild this year.

The sunsets here are so much better than in Southern California.  We've got some killer sunsets with the great Colorado skies out here.