Kelli's Big Adventure Days 3 + 4

I'm bundling the last few days together. Not because there wasn't much going on, there was! Late nights, early mornings, delicious Thai food, and Mexican food, and mud pie, bagels, scones, alcohol, belly laughs, plate licking, drippy cupcakes, great conversations about least favourite words, serenading Karen,  and music and scents from the concerts across the road.  But somethings are better left to the imagination.  

I think Karen hit the nail on the head with this sign, kind of credo, that set the whole tone for the workshop. She covered everything, every little insecurity we had, she didn't belittle them, she just told us to leave them at the door.

(I'm not sure what Kerry was doing. Probably having a great time with his new friends. I was too busy to think about him.)

We got to meet her family, the one I've been reading about on her blog for years and years. It was like meeting celebrities! They were so sweet!

Karen made us play games, ones that made us laugh....

(Don't we look fierce?) 

 and ones that made us think, and ones that made us get to know each other.

And every morning, we got to wake up bright and early to see this face!  She taught us so much about photography, and about ourselves.

 This part is one of my favourite. White balance. I am sure we all had a few dozen shots of our hands as we checked our WB.

 Then we all went out and bought this handy little tool, the Expodisc. And now we should all have correctly balanced photos!

 I think this photo sums up how I feel about each and every one of my homies! I expected to love Karen, to learn a ton, and to have fun, I didn't expect to love each and everyone of these women! They are all so awesome in their own ways!

 I originally found Karen through scrapbooking, and here she is demonstrating how her brilliant transparencies work.

I gave Cole my Canada hat, because let's face it, I'm not a hat person. I was pretty tickled to see him wear it for his camping trip on Karen's blog. 

And not only did I learn a bunch, have a blast, eat amazing meals, sweat buckets in the 101+ weather, and meet great people, I ended up with a pile of photos of myself taken by some pretty awesome ladies!
As happy as I was to see Kerry, I was so very sad to leave Hanna House. I may or may not have cried for a long time, until Kerry said "next year when we go back..." and I wailed "this was a one time thing!"

Moral of that story: If you have taken Karen's Photographers' Workshop, save your pennies and take her Hometown Workshop. You won't regret it.

After Kerry picked me up, we grabbed some of the best bagels we've ever had and didn't get to go to the antique store that everyone else went to. I'm still a little bitter.  We stayed in Garibaldi, right on the ocean.

The little pub was empty. We had delicious deep fried clams and fish and chips.  I set my camera up on a table and took a picture, just like Karen would. Just like I've always wanted to do but was too afraid to do. And it's not perfect, but I love it!

I'm really slacking on this blogging thing.