Slow Motion North Shore Adventure with Allison | Haleiwa, Oahu Videographer
It wasn't hard to convince her to get in front of my camera. Look at her, she's gorgeous.
Meet my dear friend Allison of Allison Gipson Photography. Not only is she an uber talented lifestyle photographer here in Hawaii, but she is my coffee buddy and is always up for an adventure. So when I called her on a whim and said "hop in the car we are going to the north shore to practice slow motion", she said heck yeah. Duh.
Ok, so my slow mo needs a little work, but we had such a blast cruising around Haleiwa capturing fun little moments.
We stopped at these local favorites along the way, Waialua Sugar Mill for shave ice and coffee, Wow Wow Lemonade for the most delicious ginger sparkling lemonade, North Shore Surf Shop , for some cute island vibe t's and Alii Beach Park to find some turtles, and of course the Dole Plantation for pineapple ice cream.
Check out her awesome lifestyle photography at Allison Gipson Photography
A few screen grabs from the video footage.
Flowers For The Soul
As an entrepreneur, it is vital that you set aside time to focus on your well-being.
As a workaholic and perfectionist to a fault, I put 1,000 percent in everything I do, which means I give my clients and my family all my time and attention and almost ALWAYS neglect my own inner voice telling me I need a mental health break from the 24/7/365 mom-preneur life.
If I didn’t set an alarm on my computer to remind me to eat lunch or to get up and stretch or even to stop what I am doing to go pick up my kids from school…well I would probably forget them all. I try to keep a healthy balance on my home/work life (set office hours, no computer time until my kids go to sleep, leave my phone in the other room during the evening, etc), but the pull to work-work-work is real my friends.
So when my photographer friend Allison said she was attending a workshop at a floral boutique, I was excited at the thought, but I have to admit I had to stop and think about it….did I really want to spend money on myself…would my family be upset if I were gone for a Saturday afternoon….are there any edits I have pending that are calling my name to be finished, etc. I had to remind myself that I need a break from working so hard, and from being a mommy and from being glued to my phone.
We invited some girlfriends (who are all, of course, photographers) and I grabbed my big girl camera (you know, the one that isn’t inside my iPhone) and off we went to make floral crowns at Paiko. The Paiko ladies taught us how to make floral crowns, which are very similar to a traditional Hawaiian haku lei.
Once we all gathered the materials, surprisingly we all got really quiet (this is not the norm for our group) and quickly went into floral designer mode and created our masterpieces. This sense of calm came over me, my creative juices started flowing and time and space didn't exist. At that moment, nothing else existed except me and those flowers. There were several flowers to choose from, but my eye was drawn toward the tropical flowers and I decided to make a statement with my side flower crown design.
My brain sooooo needed this break from technology, from entrepreneur life, from motherhood and wife mode...if only just for a few moments. From now on I am going to make an effort to take more time for myself. We had an absolute blast and I don’t regret for one minute taking time for myself.
Afterwards we couldn't help but do a little mini photoshoot in Kaka’ako neighborhood and eventually ended up in front of the many fabulous Pow Wow Hawaii murals by local artists.
This little guy just "spoke to me" as we left the store. I just knew he needed to be a part of the Sweet Rain Media team. He's a mini succulent. I call him "Little Green". Don't judge. What, you don't name your plants?
Thank you to my gorgeous girlfriends photographed above, who made my day so fun...Allison of Allison Gipson Photography, Jenna of Jenna Leigh Photography, Colleen of Colleen Cordle Photography and Andrea of Mi Amor Photography. Love you girls!