Welcome to the new Lisa Leese Photography blog!

It's been revamped, updated, remodelled, and renovated!!!! I tore down the old blog and built a new one and am super happy with what I came up with. Gosh, lemme tell you .. it was not easy. I've never built a website and here I was experimenting with zero experience under my belt. Yikes! I must admit that I have a new found respect for website designers. I never knew it was a such a tedious and involved process. I constantly had to stop for a breather and pray for patience, patience and more patience. Don't get me wrong. It's not rocket science. Am not saying I am on the same level as Albert Einstein. But it's more on the level of defeating chicken pox. You know that feeling? You know ... you have these tiny, little, red blotches that irritate and bug the bejeezes out of you that you just wanna cry? That's how I felt working with css and html. Those little buggers are evil! hahahaha. But now it is done and over, *phew* and it's just feels soooo soooo awesome!!! Plus, I get to see the fruits of my labor. Double yeay!



The image above was my inspiration for the new design. The walnut orchards in Chico were too enticing that I had my husband stop the car so I could jump out and snap this. The colors just spoke to me. The yellows and oranges were so lovely and I knew I had to incorporate them in the new blog. So, I toyed around with lots of designs and this is what evolved. Like my new logo as well? I LOOOVED making it --- it was the best part of this whole process. That and picking the background. :) Now, I just have to adapt the logo to use them on my photos themselves. Plus, this site still have a few bugs that I have to fix. For instance, I seem to have lost comment-capability and listing who the post author is. I just can't figure it out at the moment. Ahhh ... the process never ends!

But at least now I can concentrate more on taking photos! :) Love it!

[Side note]:
If you are reading this post from an rss feed, feel free to check out the new site! You can find it at: www.lisaleese.com

Winter Storms in California

This must be the 3rd week of rain for the bay area and I can't help but long for the bright, warm sun. I mean really ... where did the sun go? Is it on vacation? a strike? The winter blues are slowly creeping into my daily life and it's not pretty! Eeek!

However, my husband has an entirely different outlook on this kind of weather. This downpour of wet nastiness not only makes him smile ... it practically makes him giddy! Perhaps being an avid snowboarder makes all the difference. In Taylor's view, any drop of rain here in the east bay means only one thing --- awesome snow in Lake Tahoe!

So with a huff and a puff, I finally gave in and tagged along on one of his trips to the slopes of Lake Tahoe. Being a couple of months pregnant, I can't snowboard at all, but I did however enjoy the sites and had fun with family in the cabin. Plus, it helped a WHOLE LOT that Taylor was sweet enough to buy me a prenatal massage at Northstar. Yipeee! *Everybody wins!*


Check out this quaint store I found on one of our food runs:


I have this odd obsession with red bikes ... ask my friend Iza. haha!


Northstar loveliness ...




I couln't resist taking a picture of this cafe. It's window pane lists all the things I'm suppose to avoid while I am preg-o. Oh how I miss all of these drinks ...


So the lesson I learned from all of this --- Just EMBRACE the weather!! Work with it instead of fighting it, and you will still have fun! :) The End.

Day after thanksgiving Trip

Belated Happy Thanksgiving everybody!!!

This year, my parents came along with us to Chico to spend thanksgiving with the Leese family. It was so much fun and the food was just so delicious. My mom says that she never had such a juicy turkey. I adored the graving. Taylor killed the mashed potatoes and everybody praised the stuffing. And as always, if delicious food is around ... you know I just can't snap pictures. I gotta eat. More specifically, I was busy with a huge turkey drumstick, thank you very much. (and yes, I had the WHOLE drumstick to gnaw on!) But I did however take one picture of grandma's bird before it was chow time. :)



The next day however, I had my camera at hand and took pictures of our lovely trip to Mount Lassen. Granted I was asleep on much of the way (Those thanksgiving deals were just beyond belief. So mom and I woke up at 6am and braved the chaos --- but that is another story.) ... I did wake up when we got to the Sundial bridge in Redding, CA. It was just wonderful to wake up the vibrant colors of the fall season.




Here is the sundial bridge my dad has been wanting to see. So if you ever need to know the time, just head over there. haha!




A pic of my favorite person ...


A pic of my two mothers. :)


Then off to Mt. Lassen we went for a scenic drive. Little did we know that there was gonna be snow up there! It was such an awesome treat! Check out the change in scenery!!


A few minutes later ....


Whoa! Are we back in Chicago??! Crazy! But it was so much fun!

Homecoming -- Trip to Manila (Part 2)

One favorite part of our trip to the Philippines was going to the island of Boracay for some much needed beach time. I think the pictures below will speak for themselves on how absolutely beautiful it was over there. Granted it was overcast during our four day stay (because of crazy crazy typhoons), we still enjoyed what the place had to offer.



We especially loved riding on the local boats called "bangkas" and getting to island hop for half a day for only $15 per peson!


On one of the islands, we got to check out the inside of a couple of caves!


... And enjoy spectacular views from the bamboo huts.


But just as impressive were the hard-working people. Here is a kid who would paddle around where tourists snorkled and sell coconuts. :) Too bad I don't have a photo of the ice cream man selling from his boat.






A huge huge thank you to the Sanson family who let us stay at their resort. I hope we can come back someday! :)