Totally looking forward to re-living this summer’s road trips while watching the city cover in snow. This summer, hanging with Tristan in Van:

Picture by Tristan Casey

Pic by Matt Rennick.

Camping at Algonquin was rad.

I also just spent a week hanging out with my amazing friends Chantal, Chris, their family and friends and Heather in Jamaica. Chantal & Chris said I do in a gazebo overlooking the ocean during a 15 minute break in a Jamaica down pour. We figure they now have enough luck to last a life time. Here’s a sneak peek from their portrait session we did the following day. Fun fact: we were all fully sun-destroyed at the end of this shoot with sunburns on top of sunburns. Pretty sure I passed out after dinner that night…

More from Jamaica….sooon?

Last weekend was amazing – had a little visit from Courtney Fairhead, and Monday I went on my first lil bike trip. Andrew, Chris, Matt and I rode up to George town to visit our friends Taylor and Maria and take a little sit in the river by their place (we literally sat in the river, it was about knee high. But it ruled cause there was a really strong current). You can check out picks from the day here on Matt’s blog. Our ride’s at the bottom of his post. Too fun.

In other news, my bike’s finally up and running – Andrew’s going to pick it up from the shop for me tomorrow morn! So stoked. We didn’t do all that much to it, but it’s looking a whole lot better. After this weekend I’m definitely looking forward to riding.

I feel totally spoiled waking up to watch a game while I’m eating breakfast. I literally couldn’t be happier at the moment and just trying to not take that for granted. I’m finding it hard to stay inside, and have a bazillion photos to post – our first Humber park (totally successful) picnic, two real rad shoots we did with Young Hearts – Patty & Jerry (shot in Humber park):

And the newest Patricia and Justin, which we shot in the Bread & Honey festival in Streetsville:

If you have a sec, check them out at: www.younghearts.ca! Young Hearts is really starting to take off and I can’t believe how rad it’s been. We’ve met such great people, and are having such an amazing time shooting our couples. It’s so weird when you just stumble on something you totally adore doing.

Also made a trip home I made to watch the World Cup opening with my pa and next weekend Andrew and I are heading out to Algonquin for a lil camp out with his brother Matt and our friend Casey and their rad ladies, Lauren and Jacinta. Summer’s off to an amazing start…

Picture care of C dog, a.k.a: Cheryl Mackey

May long weekend we were celebrating Heather and Dru’s birthday (his was the 22nd, and hers the 23rd, sooo weird). Went bowling Friday and then took a real nice scenic bus ride through Mississauga on Saturday with Heather, got back just in time for a birthday BBQ at Dru’s.

Heather, Dru and I Hit Trinity Bellwoods on Monday to meet up with Jordan, Billy & Dani. The park was sooo packed, there were literally groups of people in every spot of shade you could find. Ran into tones of friends though! Also realized how little that happens in the winter. It actually feel like I haven’t seen people in ages. Ran into a few boys I hadn’t seen in a while, Dan T., Billy & Dan P. Billy also introduced me to this summer’s drink Arizona’s Arnold Palmer. Half lemonaid, half ice tea, 100% amazing.

Been out bike riding a couple times. Sadly we got kicked out of the Hersey Factory parkinglot, but found a better lot out the back of Medival Times. It’s been tooo fun! Andrew’s been (amazing) – ordering parts for the bike and putting them on as they come in. I’m pretty lucky to have such a talented boy.

This Saturday C and I went out to Humber Park to shoot a session with some of the coolest, and funnest people I have ever met. Jerry and Patty. More about them and the shoot soon – but in the meantime here’s a lil ‘behind the scenes’ sneak peak from the shoot. Cheryl and I loved the park so much that we planned a lil Humber beach hang out tonight.

We’re guna stretch this summer as long as we can!

I sat there totally glued to the screen as if I was watching it for the first time – feet kicking excitedly under my desk & totally smiling from ear to ear. Summer 2006 came flooding back, all those tense game watches in lil cafes and bars in Little Italy, Italian flags everywhere on Collage street, the all-day car honk celebrations and the pride/amazement of watching my team win game after game…

Definitely counting down the days to Italy’s first match on the 14th.
It’s hard to beat a World Cup summer…

Also, while googling ‘Team Italy’ for some shots for the blog, I ran accross this lil team Italy pic. Greasy…

I’ll get some better pictures up soon…The whole ride home I was peaking out the back window beaming. My first bike. Hoping to get all the fixing, certifying and paper work done in the next two weeks. Kinda stoked…We also got to stop in and see my friend Adrienne, who I hadn’t seen in ages, which was rad!

Today is Cheryl Mackey’s birthday!!
Heather and I dressed up the house this weekend and had a lil birthday bash – board games, snacks and pop. It kinda ruled. I’m starting to feel really lame about the fact that I really love board game nights…

C had some serious birthday luck and kicked all our butts at Scrabble using all her letters on her first move. A 72 point lead.

The game lasted maybe 2 rounds and then we all gave up to play this game Apples to Apples that Mark De Pape brought over. Basically everyone has a bunch of cards with nouns on them – people, places, things, etc…and someone flips over an adjective and you have to lay down a card that you feel best suits the adjective and the ‘judge’ picks which noun suits the adjective best. It got pretty funny.

…or maybe you had to be there?

Soccer season’s finally started! Joined my friend Anton’s team this year and we have our first game of the season tonight. It feels like it’s been aaagges since I’ve last played, so I’m half totally looking forward to it, and half scared of how my body’s going to feel tomorrow. Eshhh…

Currently counting down the hours till the weekend…Don’t wanna get too exctied (not that there’s much hope for that), but I miiiight have found my first motorcycle (thanks to Andrew!). We’re guna head down to Peterborough to check it out on Sunday. It’s sort of perfect – but I’ll only tell ya about it if I end up getting it. Fingers crossed!!!

Today I woke up a real happy lady.
Last night I passed my road test and got my M2. There’s something pretty rad to be said about accomplishing things.

Back in winter when I had been looking around for courses, I saw the Rider’s Training Institute in Toronto was offering an all girl’s course, which sounded way less intimidating then co-ed, so I booked myself in. Best idea ever. The class was about 20 ladies, or 18 in the end (a few dropped out after riding on Saturday, which kinda stinks cause I think we all had a hard time cause of the weather). We had a in-class lesson on Tuesday at the Fairview library and I had walked right past the classroom figuring there was no way those people were there for motorcycle riding. Some of them looked as if they could be my mom! Or my grandmother! There were boxers, interior designers, fitness trainers, one girl was straight out of high school! Another girl had signed up to learn to ride a scouter with that weekend, but by the end of class, we had all more or less convinced her to get her bike license, which kind of rules.

Our first and second training days were so incredibly different. Saturday morning, one of our first lessons was just riding the clutch, and rear breaking, every 20 feet. All in pouring rain. Thinking back it was pretty funny. Two lanes were set up the length of the parking lot and the amount of stalling and bike dropping was insane. All around there were just line ups of bikes waiting to move forward, people stalling left and right, and at the very front of the line there would be a bike down. I sat on my bike waiting and watching my jeans soak through praying the wind would die down. I’m not guna lie, I did my fair share of stalling. It was pretty discouraging. Once I got the bike going I was good – gear changes were smooth, breaking was good, and I loved the turns and the leans, I just couldn’t control the throttle/clutch combo. I also didn’t realize I had kept switching bikes (same model – different bike) which meant I had to re-learn each bike’s ‘sweet spot’ when I was releasing the clutch. It was a lot to work out.

At lunch break, a woman offered me her husband’s 1 piece rainsuit, which changed my life. I changed into dry clothes, threw it on top and was sooo happy. Not only did I stay a bit warmer, but I was dry and looked awe-some (not at all). By the end of the day, we only had one injured lady, one two woman colision (nothing serious, it was actually almost like a slow motion domino affect that kind of happened when the two were driving really slowly into the same parking spot), one drop out, and I was looking a bit better on the clutch.

Day two felt like a whole new start. For one, the weather let up. It was still pretty cold, about 3-9 degrees throughout the day and at one point we even got a bit of snow, but the sun was shining and I think we were all real thankful it wasn’t raining. Secondly, everyone seemed to be riding a whole lot better! We learned how to emergency break (which I thought was going to be a lot more abbrasive then it was), emergency acceleration, swerving and winding curves (so fun) and stopping in a curve. The instructors were great – they weren’t easy on us, and really pushed us to get us used to how things were going to feel (gearing up, and turning with speed, etc…) which I appreciated. One of the instructors Ginny, had me ride around the lot with her slowly while holding in the clutch and revving the throttle so I could get over the stalling. It finally clicked after that and the day got even better. We had the test in the afternoon, but I had already decided whether I passed or not I wanted to get a bike and start practicing. But I passed! Now for the bike…

Who would have known?

A couple years ago I did try to fight this. I went out, got my G1, took driving lessons, and by the end of it felt decently comfortable behind the wheel (as much as I could, having only ever spent 14 hours in a car driving in downtown Toronto…). There were things that never really sat all that well with me though – riding a bike all the time I was so used to being part of the scenery instead of a driving spectator. The whole spacial factor was definitely bizarre, i never got used to how I couldn’t feel how big the car was, or see everything around me as easily…In the end, my lack of enthusiasm killed the dream. I now have a two year expired G1. Pretty brutal. But seriously, who needs a car living in Toronto?

Then, last summer, a few things (among others) got me day dreaming about finally learning to ride a motorcycle:
1. The movie 1 Week.
2. Seeing Andrew decide he wanted to learn to ride. He literally bought a bike, passed his M1 and M2 within a month. So determined. I kinda love that about him.
3. This video my friend Brett Beadle posted on his blog of a bike trip he took in Vancouver. (I seriously must have watched it a million times…)

I sorta feel in love with the idea of riding and even more with the idea of bike trips, so this winter promised myself I’d actually do something about it….Despite the initial nervousness/fear.

And now here I am, wind burnt and wicked sore at the end of day one of my skills training course this weekend. I had such a rad time! So fun to be able to leave the lot at the end of the day and feel like you accomplished something pretty big. By 5:00 we were riding 2nd gear through slalom cones which was the most fun! Can’t say we had it all that easy though – it rained off an on all day. For about an hour straight we had a crazy down pour with some serious wind as well. I remember riding on a straight away at one point looking out into the course ahead and there were literally sheets of rain whipping across the lot. The instructors looked so crazy trying to shield themselves and still watch us ride. Luckily the rain stopped, but the wind didn’t and by 5:15, the instructors were even having a hard time fighting the wind trying to demo the lesson so we called it a day.

I’m definitely falling asleep now and it’s about 9pm, so I’ll save the rest of the stories for another day – in the meantime though, I’m reading this book called Ghost Rider, by Neil Peart (the old drummer of Rush) and the other day I ran across this quote he put in it by Jack London. Thought it was pretty perfect for life these days:

I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.

First camp trip of the year! We thought we’d head out to Bon Echo Provincial Park cause it wasn’t all that far away from the city and they rented out canoes to paddle out to some hike trails on the other side of the river. Sadly the canoe dreams got squashed (read: again) when we found out it was the first weekend that Bon Echo’s camp grounds were open and the canoe dude was no where to be found. It was bare bones camping for the two of us – pretty much everything was still shut down for the season – most of the hike trails, fire wood vendors, sinks, showers, toilets… I was stoked we had an outhouse just down the way till Saturday morning it was suddenly locked from the inside? Bum out.

Saturday Andrew and I decided we wanted to hit the Abes & Essen trail thinking we were hot shots and not wanting to just walk around on smaller scenic trails. So we drove out to where the trail was to start, but it seems the road to the trail was closed too. That wasn’t guna stop us though, so we parked the car and walked – not entirely sure how far the trail was from the road block. 45 minutes later we found the trail. 2 1/2 hours later (and maybe 3/4 of the way done the trail) the trail markers stopped suddenly! We honestly walked eeeverywhere trying to find the next trail marker but we didn’t see a thing nor anything that looked like a trail. With the light fading (4:30 by then) and nothing but drops of water left on us, we decided to sulkily trek back (k, I sulkily trekked back, but only for a bit!). By about the 4 hour mark, we were on the road walking back to the car and my body was juuust about ready to give up. Andrew was a serious trooper telling me stories from the TV show ‘The Pacific’ (it came after Band of Brothers) to keep me from feeling too sorry from myself. Abes & Essen, this isn’t over…

In other exciting news, I’ve finally started working on one of my goals this year – getting my motorcycle liscence. Thinking of posting about the whole experience, so keep an eye out!

See more from this shoot here on the new site.

Completely unrelated – Andrew and I headed up to Bon Echo provincial park this weekend for the first camp trip of the year! It was awwesome! Camp photos will be up later this week.

Got to admit, I was a bit worried the first night when we stopped outside the park to grab fire wood, and the minute we stepped out of the car we were swarmed by misquitos. Apparently it was black fly/mosquito season. Driving away the dude selling the wood tapped on my window, smiled and sang out “enjoy the fliiies”. Stoked to say I left without a single bit on me.

Finally, Cheryl and I are soooo stoked to say that we have officially have a site! www.younghearts.ca Go check it out and let us know what you think! Also, we are now up and running – so if you’re interested in shooting with us, or know anyone who needs a photographer – let us know or pass us along (there’s a contact form on the new site)!