Our weekend of true bliss

We celebrated our one year on Saturday and decided to make a fun weekend out of it. A FUN weekend it was. We walked over to the Coliseum area and found this scooter rental place, picked up a scooter to have for 24 hours [ and some ]. 

Have I mentioned how out of control the drivers in Rome are? They truly frighten me. Mainly because there are no lanes in Rome, so people drive wherever they please. They drive however fast they want, wherever they want, and follow some red/green light rules if they feel like it. Therefore, renting a vespa in Rome was a scary thought to start off with, I was thinking we probably would be in some sort of accident by the time the weekend was over. But obviously that wasn't going to stop us, we wanted an adventurous weekend on wheels! 

There are parts of Rome that not a lot tourists visit. It's on the more outskirts of Rome, so it's much more quite and lovely there. We started driving towards the south-eastern side of Rome and found some treasures! 

    -1.The aqueducts [ these huge arches that were a water supply channel to convey water, built 300 b.c.]

    -2. Cestius Pyramid [ built in 12 b.c. ]

    -3. Appian Way [ the first long road in the history of the world, built 312 b.c. ]

    -4. Circus Maximus [ ancient Roman chariot racing and entertainment stadium, held around 200,000     people ]

These were all great sites to see. Driving down Appian Way was the best part, we took left turns and rights turns off that road and found pieces of heaven. Huge Italian home that sat on a large piece of land. Cute little towns that I never knew existed?! 

At one point we were driving and stopped for a heard of sheep, it was truly a dream. The most adorable little lambs that were BAHHing and the mama lambs that were BAHHing back at their babies. I fell in love. We drove through glorious green lands, through big lines of trees, and pretty much saw places we would have never ever seen if we weren't on a scooter. 

Then we woke up the next morning and hit the high road through Italian countryside. This day was the best of all! We saw the most gorgeous scenery, gorgeous! We knew we wanted to go north out of Rome to go see this castle on a lake. I wrote down directions and hoped for the best. Somehow, someway, we found our way.

We drove up north on the A90 highway [ one lane, open road ] we saw fields of bright green grass, fields of flowers, more dream-like Italian homes sitting on hills, and much more. We finally made our way and came up to the city of Bracciano. The castle was shining at us as it sat at the top of Bracciano Hill. It was such a cool feeling to get to a destination you hoped you were going find; then when you do get there, the site is more amazing that you dreamed. The town of Bracciano was like nothing we have seen yet in Italy. The town had tiny ally ways, homes on every level of this town built on a hill. It was quite, peaceful, quint, and best of all... right on a lake!

The lake is huge and bright blue. Everything seemed to be so peaceful, I absolutely loved it.
Also a fun fact: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes got married at this castle we went to in Bracciano. You can look it up on google, it's kind of fun to see.

Anyways, we stayed in that town for awhile then made our way back to Rome. Sitting on the back of a vespa and being able to take pictures all along the way was too perfect. Great weekend to say the least!

This could possibly be the best picture ever! The horse so perfectly positioned!! 

1 year !

One happy year I spent with Shane as his girlfriend

What a fabulous year he and I had. From the time we starting hanging out as friends about a year and a half ago [ as we had both moved to northern California ] to falling for eachother soon after that, to falling in love during this past year, has all been so perfect. I couldn't be happier with who I am with and where we are at in our lives together. I could go on and on about why I love him, but I'll keep it very simple: I love him because I have never been with someone that I trusted so much and felt so loved by. In every aspect of our relationship we compliment eachother perfectly, we enjoy the same things, we want the same things, and he is just adorable!

Paige, you sexy

Not that I get sick of taking traveling Italian pictures, but sometimes I miss taking portraits. 

I miss having sisters or friends around that I can dress up and photograph.

I have a strong desire to get back home and take tons and tons of portraits.

I love them, and its a good thing I have a ton to still archive back through and edit.

By a ton I mean 23,040 images on my laptop to scavenge through. 

It's quite fun to find good portraits that I forgot I have taken.

It's like finding your favorite hair rubber band that mistakingly got lost in clothes or amongst the house. 

Or like finding your favorite black leggings when they get tossed around through sisters, friends, different laundries baskets. You know how that ONE pair of black leggings fits you the best and you get sad when someone else thinks it was theirs and mistakingly took them [or perhaps on purpose?]... but then one day you sitting in your sisters room and go "wait a seconddd....... those are mine!" Then  gladly snatch those babies right back.

That is how I feel when I know I have taken pictures long ago and accidently stored them somewhere within my computer. Then one night I am bored and casually clickin' on through albums and BAM there they are. There is that photoshoot I did that I thought I would never find. 

Introducing Paige's pictures that I kind of fell in love with: 

[ note: I stored these in christmas 2010 album on accident, they are from this past christmas ]

And this is my mom's very cute room that she redesigned, painted, decorated, and sewed herself. 

She is a true gem.