our day at alki beach - photo heavy

i love our state, give me a sunny day and i can get over the fact that it just rained for the last twelve straight and i am head over heals in love again. there is not a lot of places you can dig your feet in warm sand and stare at some gorgeous snow capped mountains. swoon.
today we headed to alki beach, a west seattle favorite spot. of course it was crazy packed with beach combers, bikers, roller skaters, people in bikinis that shouldn't be, and people pushing their dogs in strollers, but nothing was stopping our fun. we had to walk almost a mile from the first parking spot we found but we figured that meant the slurpees we would later treat ourselves to would cancel out, right?
i honestly didn't know what to expect with stella meets ocean and beach for the first time-all these girls have been so different since day one you can never be prepared. so imagine my over the moon-ness when she welcomed the beach with giggles and curious hands. straight for the waves she went; no fear. i couldn't help but smile for the entire forty-five minutes she sat alone ten feet in front of us learning and exploring the beach with her hands, shovels, trucks, and buckets. the best was when a bigger wave would crash in and she would point and squeee at it's arrival. we wrapped up the day with a quick visit to stella's cousin's house; such a great day! after a day like that, i could take the girls and spend every day for the rest of the summer with our toes covered in sand.
ok, i warned you this post was image heavy. i mean it is really hard to narrow it down-these are out of almost 100+ and i am positive you love to look at photos of stella almost as much as me, no? these first few photos are from my phone using the vignette demo and the black and white toy camera. when we left today i had forgotten that my camera battery was almost dead, so the majority of these photos are from either tim or my phone. whoops!

is it irrational that i don't like vertical photos on my blog? i think they throw off the 'look' when they are by themselves, ha. that is why i usually pair them with another to fool you into thinking it is horizontal...did it work?
also, because i always get asked and love to share; to edit these photos i ran a high pass filter on soft light for everyone. then did a mix between florabella's soft color pop, afternoon, black & white vanilla, and vintage spring actions all topped off with her sheer have action (i like to always use the haze as a way to make the photos look conformed even when they are processed differently.) i know you can tell which ones were taken on my 3 mp camera but i am so impressed with tim's phone camera! i bet you can't tell which ones were taken on my canon before the battery died and which are from his phone!

don't forget about the giveaway for an irocksowhat banner and button. ends in two weeks!