Hi! I'm happy you took a moment to drop in. I'm Shannon Montez...a San Jose-based photographer capturing all aspects of family life: families, babies, children, maternity, seniors and weddings. My big goal is to help you love the people in your life more and capture them in a beautiful and wonderful way. This is where I talk about the latest stuff going on with the business and the family and random stuff banging around in my head. I'm goofy and a little crazy sometimes, so please forgive me if/when I say anything stupid. :)
So, today, all four of my brothers competed in and finished an Ironman Triathalon. If you’re not familiar with that, imagine swimming 2.4 miles, biking 112 miles, and running 26.2 miles ALL IN ONE DAY. They finished in times from 11 and a half hours to over 13 hours.
Today, I took a nap for over 2 hours.
Way to go Caldwell Pain Train!! Maybe tomorrow I’ll think about doing some exercise or something.
Tricia has been waiting patiently for her images… Let’s not waste any more time. On to the images!
Above: the details… all ready and waiting to play their big part. 
And- let’s get this show on the road!
Tricia’s best friend couldn’t hold back the tears once she saw Tricia in her dress…
I love how you can see her friend’s supportive approval in the background.
She looked amazing.
I love that little Mona Lisa smile…
Let’s not forget the guys! They were a little less sentimental.
Jason’s daughter was a delight.
The beautiful scenic location at Eagle Ridge in Gilroy.
I LOOOVE this shot that Dave caught. (I love it when I get to bring the hubby to work!) Jason was surprised and delighted when the Star Wars theme was played as they walked out after the ceremony.
More of the gorgeous location.
No fun being the only kid at the adult table…
Yes, there was dancing… but this was only the beginning. Jason brought down the house with his solo number…
Here he is, preparing… The music was “Dancing Queen” and apparently this was an encore presentation from an earlier performance that involved a cruise ship and a lot of booze and many of the people that were there that night… I’m only showing one image, but the whole routine was as good as this. 
Tricia, Jason… Thanks so much for inviting us to be a part of your totally fun day!
Just hours into summer vacation-
My mom (a teacher): It’s passing too quickly!
Shelby (a student): It’s only 4 o’clock? What am I going to do with my life?
**I meant to publish this on Saturday! I wrote it Friday, but couldn’t figure out how to set it up to publish later. **
Somehow, eleven years has passed since I first met this soul…
Seriously? HOW!!
Someone trying to sell me something recently asked if I was over 25. I nearly said no, and I really meant it. Then it occurred to me that, no, I’m not under 25, and not barely… I’m seven years past that mark. It was a weird moment. For some reason, Shelby’s birthdays are even weirder to me than my own. At first motherhood was such an uncomfortable suit to wear. But it grew on me and became my skin. I wouldn’t know who I was without the lessons she has taught me. I’m such a different person than I would be without the lessons she taught me as we’ve taken this journey. It took more patience and selflessness than I thought I could ever muster. And more self-restraint. Not because she’s a difficult child… quite the opposite! But parenting is crazy. It’s been an amazing journey at each turn.
The latest turn, one I was really not expecting, is finding out that this girl is really, really funny. She’s always had a great sense of humor and been quite clever, but now her humor is real… not kid humor, but stuff that I find myself laughing at as if she was a peer. What a delightful surprise!
I’m really hoping that the upcoming journey to middle school is full of only delightful surprises… 
So, a week and two days before Mothers Day I got a call from a guy who wanted to have pictures of his daughters to give to his wife for Mothers Day. I was already booked for that week, but decided to squeeze them in. I told him I wouldn’t have fit him in if he wasn’t a dad. But the fact that he was thinking even a week ahead, trying to do something nice for his wife… I’m a softie. I squeezed them in on my next day off, and managed to get them proofed late Saturday night so he could show her the images on Sunday morning.
A sweet moment…
She had the best faces! I love this age (under1), where they interact, but aren’t really acting for the camera… Still genuine…
This age (2) is a little different. They are a bit more wary and either get cheesy or avoidant. So to get a real, genuine expression is a treat. Even if it’s not a smile!
Of course, once dads get involved, the smiles become genuine and unavoidable!
I love this shot… it’s happy.
We happened upon this chalk art, just begging to be photographed!
We couldn’t leave Fozzie out! This shot makes me smile.
I loved all the different expressions, so I had to put them all in one place!
This was fun. I’m glad I could help surprise a mom with something I would love to get!
Susan and Greg’s wedding was such a great day. Everyone was just so happy and excited and the whole affair was laid back and fun. We felt like part of the family. And the food at the reception assured that I will keep doing weddings. It was awesome! (You all know the real reason I decided to do weddings is for the food!)
So without further ado… the images!
The church and the golf club were right next door to each other. I got a kick out of the sign.
I loved the detail on her dress, and the cool books in the room we were in for getting ready.
I love this shot. She’s so calm getting ready, her dress awaiting the big moment in the background…
Her necklace was pretty cool…
Adorable flowergirl and her bear.
For some reason, I really adore this shot of Greg’s parents…
I love this shot too… it really speaks to me about how women support each other in the process. This is two of her friends using their talents for her. One doing her makeup, one giving her a blessing/energy work.
A cool overview shot of the entire ceremony.
I love this shot immediately after the ceremony, they’re both glowing.
Greg really enjoyed cutting the cake…
Their first dance… sweet… and fun- they took some lessons and showed us their moves!
Gettin’ jiggy…
And their rings, just on a plate… but I liked how it looked!
Hi… I just feel like being random for a minute. I’ve very busy lately, seeking balance. May was really busy, business-wise. I’ve still got a ton to do to catch up. I’m not complaining, just explaining! The blog is about a month behind with sessions to post, but I’ll get it done.
But in the moments when I wasn’t kind of freaking out about my to-do list, I was making a bigger to-do list. Things I need to do to get balance. The last few weeks, we’ve been all about simplifying. We loaded up two whole truckloads of stuff from our house to give to the Goodwill. That felt so good. The garage can now fit an actual car! Horray!
My closet is color-coordinated and tidy. It makes me happy.
My bookshelves have books standing upright and decorations in them that are not soley made up of soda cans and happy meal toys. (Not that it was that way before… )
All of this cleaning and organizining helped me realize that I’m a neat-freak, deep down under the junk. I get so frustrated with the messes and the feeling that it’s pointless that I kind of freak out and ignore, but then I start to ignore other things in my life and I disconnect. So, it’s time to embrace the neat freak. I work better, I focus more, I’m better all around. So from now on, I’m going to be the most organized person you’ve ever met. Get ready.
So the plan… organize my stuff, then organize my time, organize my life. And then with my new-found time and energy, I’ll take up more hobbies and get more stuff and start all over again.
(btw… the picture is random, too… an illustration of summer, but not a particularly good one! I just grabbed something, and my laptop doesn’t have everything…)
This family was so great. Dad got Mom a gift certificate for a session for Christmas. I love it when Dads do that! Isn’t that an awesome gift? Anyway, we got together for this session and I had so much fun with them. He’s from South Africa, she’s from California, they met in Mexico. Well, actually the Gulf of Mexico (they were working on a cruise ship), and have lived in India and been all over the world. I felt more cultured and international just by talking to them!
Their daughter was the cutest thing ever. She had just woken up from a nap, but that didn’t stop her from being happy and smiley! I love this moment, you can just feel how much mom loves her baby.
I love making non-standing babies stand! For some reason, it always makes me laugh.
And when I laugh, she laughs.
A nice little family moment.
We sat her in a grassy field and watched her smile.
Classic family shot.
Bare baby shoulders. I don’t think parents approve of me nibbling on their babies, so I had to restrain myself. I miss those from my babies. Their shoulders are all bony now… just not the same…
WEEEE!!!
I really love this shot. The trees, the grass, the sunshine, the private moment that I witnessed from afar… It makes me happy.
One more, a collage I made from the session… It’s got happiness and love written all over it.
(I’m so behind on blogging! I have a lot of fun sessions to share. One at a time, though…)
Candice and Carlos ROCK. We had such a great time with these. We went to Santa Cruz and just played around for a few hours. I took way too many shots, and had a tough time narrowing it down to these.
They met as lifegaurds, so we definitely wanted water to be a part of the session. I love that we even got them on a lifegaurd tower. (Although growing up in Sacramento, this isn’t exactly the type of tower they were using as lifegaurds!) I really loved all the options we had at the boardwalk. I got all giddy with the amount of color we found. I’m such a nerd…
And on that note…
What you don’t see in this shot is that we’re laughing at the dude who was walking in his underwear to come pick up his pants that were hanging on the tower.
The famous Giant Dipper sign…
Just look at all that color!! Be still my heart…
My favorite color of blue. Makes me happy. I want to paint a wall in my house that color. Or put it in my logo. :p I love the relaxed way they’re interacting in that blue shot. Such a perfect moment.
(It’s late and I’m tired… these photos posted in the wrong order, but I’m leaving it!)
If you want to see the entire slideshow, click here.
So, while the kids were out of school for spring break we decided to go camping. Dave has a little book about great areas to camp in northern California and found Castle Crags State Park. His little book mentioned that this campground was named in Sunset Magazine’s list of top 50 campsites in the west or something like that. Sounds good. So, why not? Beautiful, huh? That’s a reason we decided to go there. Really great mountain scenery, peace and quiet. Our alternate plan was Disneyland, but we decided that really we wanted peace and quiet and solitude over crowds and crowding. Well, the crowds weren’t a problem, we had the campground to ourselves. I don’t know if that is because it was freaking April and most people know that the nights are still too cold for camping, or if other people knew what we soon found out…
…that peace and quiet at this campground was a JOKE!! We were camped literally 50 yards from a major interstate freeway. In a mountain pass. Which means all these semis taking their loads across the state? They’re on this freeway. And they have to slow down. And they use those awesome jake brakes all day and night to slow down. At first it was funny. We set up camp, and decided to just deal. And then we heard the train. We didn’t know that on the other side of the freeway, I’m not kidding, were train tracks! Trains, going on a curve, which means they are noisy and squeaky as they pass. Seriously? Oh well… we drove all this way, we set up camp, the trains and semis aren’t going constantly, we’ll have fun anyway. Besides, we had stuff do besides sit around the campground. But at night… We honestly couldn’t hear Shelby and Matt, who were a few feet away, because of the noise. It was pathetic…. but a really funny memory! And that beautiful mountain? The view is only available after a drive and a hike.
The first night, we just set up camp and ate dinner. In the morning, we tried to be tough and cook eggs and sit around the fire. It was freezing! I think it was 42 degrees on the temperature gauge when we decided to give up and get in the car to warm up (it might have been 37, but I’ll go with 42, just to be safe). **edited to add: Dave just informed me that it was actually *32*, not 42 degrees… BRRR!!** The kids were crying because their fingers were numb, and Franklin was shivering. So fun! So we decided to drive up and see the crags. The drive and hike were short, and the view was beautiful, but far away. This picture is a good example of why shooting people in the shade is more flattering… I was teaching Dave a few camera tricks… See all the shadows around the eyes? Not flattering. But a good illustration of our view after the short hike…
Franklin found a stick that was perfect for him…
Luckily, it warmed up fast and ended up being a gorgeous couple of days. The second night was not nearly as bad as the first, temperature-wise. After our hike, we took a drive up the canyon to get another look at the crags, as well as a better view of Mt. Shasta. We found a really cool place that has views of the crags… the cutest motel/campgound ever! It was called the Railroad Park Resort. Not only did the campground have views of the crags and no freeway/train noise, the motel was a bunch of cabooses converted to motel rooms. I wanted to stay there that night, but considering that the restaurant wasn’t open on weekdays yet (too early in the season), and the campground was still closed (ok… because Dave didn’t want to move, and let’s face it, he’s the one doing all the work in the set-up/take down) we decided to just tough it out one more night where we were and possibly go back later in the year. But maybe next time! It was so cute.
Once we got back from our little journey, we decided to take a hike from our campground down to the river, which happened to be under the freeway, under the railroad tracks, across a country road, and over a fun footbridge. To be fair to Sunset magazine, the campground on the other side of the river was night and day… they must’ve been talking about that side when they rated it highly… but it was closed because they had a handful of sick trees, so it wasn’t an option for us at that time. 
(Dave and Piper, getting ready to go).
Hanging out under the railroad tracks.
Franklin demonstrating his favorite part about camping…
He seems to be sitting awfully close to where he just… um… Let’s change the subject.
Hi cutie pie.
The next day we packed up camp and headed over to Burney Falls. About an hour away, this park was also highly rated on Sunset’s list. Of course, this time, I was skeptical. We decided if it was worth it, we’d ditch our Friday plans and stay a couple more days. If not, we’d head home and get back into the swing of things. As we entered the park, we talked to the delightful ranger, who told us that it had gotten down to 19 degrees the night before. That made our decision! We were not going to camp. We took a look around, and loved what we saw. This park is going to be our next camping destination.
A family picture in front of the gorgeous falls, snapped by a passerby: 
Man… I look like I’ve been camping… Good thing you can’t smell us!
I took a picture to demonstrate to Dave how slow shutter speeds can be super cool.
(I had the camera set up on a ledge, you can’t do this hand-held!) When I was a kid, my mom had a calendar with a cool misty-looking river. I thought there were rivers that actually looked like that all the time, and I made a goal to go see one. Does this count as achieving that goal?
Anyway, looking forward to going back there. Now, don’t you all go reserving the place up so we can’t get in!
After that, we headed over to Lake Shasta Caverns. We’d picked up a brochure at a gas station and thought it looked fun. Three adventures in one… a boat ride, a bus ride, and a hike through the caverns. Fancy. Cool thing was, we were the last tour of the day, and the only people in the tour… so we had our own private tour. It was awesome!
Our guide got this horrible pic of us… (dark, no flash, but here it is anyway…)
The caverns were pretty cool. But I think my favorite part of the whole thing was walking out of the cavern and back down the hill to the bus, where we were greeted with this vista:
The lake was gorgeous. Bright red shorelines, super blue water, green trees, blue sky, white clouds… a total feast for the senses. I’d love to go back and hang out on a houseboat there for a few days. Add that to my list!