janell and rj's engagement session in san luis obispo

imagine, if you will...
tiffany blue skies with cottony clouds of white.
the salty mist of the mighty pacific ocean.
the warmth of the afternoon sun on your face.
rolling hills with vineyards bearing fruit on the vine.
friendly faces.
are you in a happy place? is this heaven? close.
i'm speaking, not of san diego for once, but of another beautiful san city in california called san luis obispo. (yes they're related. they share the same mother) it is the golden state, as it should be. the wonderful sights and senses from our drive north made me realize why the missionaries, like father serra, thought this land to be a gift from God when they first laid eyes on it.
our trip was not to build a mission, but to meet up with one of our awesomest couples ever, janell and rj. we arrived in SLO like a car-load of kids going to gamestop. janell and rj guided us on a tour of the places they met, studied, laughed, took a shortcut, sipped warm drinks, shared conversations, and fell in love.
SLO holds lots of great memories for janell and rj,
including a new one of us taking them to the beach and dumping cold water on them just for fun :)
we had a perfect day walking around SLO taking pictures, laughing (out loud), and sharing stories about the game shows we have been on (and won).
first up is the spot where they took a shortcut. it's a SLO landmark, although you could easily walk right by it without noticing. it's bubblegum alley, and yes, it's disgustingly awesome! janell and rj hooked us all up with some appropriately colored slime-green gum so we could all add our mark to the alley.

the hearts and the P are for janell and rj.
life IS beautiful, so sayeth the gum! :)

next is the place rj caught his first glimpse of janell and uttered, "she's cute", cal poly.

this is how rj felt inside after seeing janelle for the first time. how's that for a reenactment? :)

janell and rj are so rad that they have to carry around an umbrella at all times because rainbow colored clouds follow them around and rain confetti on them wherever they go.
true story.

ok, actually the rainbow colored clouds are called kim and (aptly enough) rain. the "clouds" decided to crank it up a notch, so they stepped closer to janell and rj and took the storm from a light summer sprinkle to...

a category 5 hurricane of confetti!!

how did rj and janell first hookup you ask?
rj dropped that zero and got with the hero.
i guess that line does actually work sometimes :)

after walking around with rj and janell for a while kim told me that she thought janell looked a lot like lindsay lohan.
i agreed and added, ya, but janell is hotter and not cracked out :)
can i get a witness?!!

btw, it's not just a shirt. janell really does wail on guitar hero. she's pretty much like the edge, b.b. king, eddie van halen, and slash all rolled into one.
rj is her biggest stalker, err, umm, fan.

janell and rj sittin in a street.
k-i-s-s-i-n-g :)

here's the spot where rj and janell had their first date. it's a sweet little cafe in downtown SLO named Linnaea's.

seeing janell and rj look at each other with smiles on their faces let me know that this place holds many many warm memories for the two of them.

it also holds many warm drinks :)

will you still need me,
will you still feed me,
when i'm
sixty
four

as the sun was dipping lower on the horizon we headed west for a little sexytime on the beach.

shield your eyes kids :)

if all the previous images haven't proven to you beyond a reasonable doubt that rj and janell are among the raddest people on the planet may i submit this.
they did not even question us when we walked up to them, with large bucket in hand, and handed them a large umbrella.
beach sessions are so much more fun when you mix hot with a little hot mess.
they took it like champs...

again...

and again.
we can not even say how much we LOVE you rj and janell!
you definitely get the triple dragon bonus high score for playing this round of what can david, kim, april, and rain think up next. thanks for playing you two!
on a scale of 1 to 10, you have a fun factor of 11.

you know it's a good session when the sun goes down and you don't want to stop shooting. we enjoyed every minute with you rj and janell. if not for fear of you catching pneumonia we could have spent the rest of the night taking pictures of you. thank you both for being up for anything and for taking us out for a hot meal before the drive home.
we are so stoked to be shooting your wedding. we can not wait!! if your wedding isn't the most fun wedding we've ever been to then i will eventually grow old and die. no pressure :)

i know this is early, but we had to share a preview of janell's beautiful ring.

now it's time to sit down and hold on to something.

rj and janell are about to face off in a battle of who can make us pee our pants laughing first. did i mention that both janell and rj were on the cal poly improv team?

buckle up. the wait is over.

who's ready to laugh?! press play. hope you're wearing your plastic chonies.

photoshoot for three, on a beach!

now who should i take?

janell aaaaaand....

t-pain (aka r.j.)

oh snap!
get your towels ready, it's about to go down.

this dolphins splashing,
getting everybody all wet,
but this ain't sea world,
this is real as it gets.

this post brought to you by kim, and her flippy floppys.

michele's san diego family photos

with a company name like ohana, it's pretty obvious that we love family, especially big families.
by the end of our first conversation with michelle we knew that we would love michele's family as if they were our own. one of the things she mentioned in her first call was that she wanted us to take photos of 18 of her family members in their chargers jerseys. right then i said to myself, this family is awesome, they have loads of fun together, AND they are HUGE fans of our san diego chargers... we are going to go together like PB and J. when we actually met them their awesome factor went right off the charts. everyone was so nice and so easy to get along with that we almost forgot we were there to work. it felt like we were just part of a sweet family reunion. a sweet family reunion of CHARGERS FANS!!!

did i say they are a fun family? i meant they are a SUPER FUN family.

in a family of chargers fans you might think it's hard to stand out. not this little guy. he put a huge smile on all of our faces when he took center stage and...

showed us his version of shawne merriman's lights-out dance.

every family has it's wisest elder. in michele's family all the kids call him grandalf. we call him awesome. no matter what you call him he's seriously one of the coolest grandpas of all time.

babies, bolts, battlestar galactica :)

i am so happy that we met you michele and all of your awesome family members. we loved hanging out for the afternoon and talking about how much we ALL can't wait for football to start again. hopefully we'll all have something to cheer about this year. GO CHARGERS!!!

angel, paul, and 12 blue luftballons in santa monica

we knew going into this session that angel and paul were super fun, smokin hot, and down for just about anything we could dream up.
dear diary, jackpot!
with a couple like this we had to find a place that could handle the kind of fun we were about to roll out. we hopped in the ohana-mobile and drove from san diego to santa monica to find just the right spot.
angel and paul, meet the santa monica pier.

dear ad wizards at hollister, angel and paul are available to model and are waiting by their phone.
ring, ring. who's there? destiny? i've been expecting your call.

if you think angel and paul are hot put your hands up

this is why so many people come to southern california. it's, as fergie says, glamorous.
this is also one of my favorite shots of the day that kim took.

another favorite that kim took... ON A BIKE!

hi, pushing daisies, we stole your color.

kim's better at pitching. i'll let her take it from here.
kimmy's got the spotlight!
wait for it.
pigeons.
oh snap!
audiences love pigeons.
holler back!

paul is sad. he can't smoke upside down.

angel and paul are doing:
a. the cha cha slide
b. the humpty dance
c. da butt

you spin me right round

angel straight up pwned that pier.

not to be outdone, paul followed up angel's hotness with a bit of his own.

the best part about angel and paul is that they balance their excessive hotness with an awesome sense of humor. we LOVE couples that can laugh at themselves, and couples that make us laugh. angel and paul are most definitely in that category.

lock it up :)

as seen on their teaser post, angel and paul went all the way (into the water).
thank you angel and paul for being absolutely down for anything. we could not think of a better day than the one we had with you.