::Heart skipped a beat::

Behind the scenes, late night after my baby cousin Molly's wedding in Blaine, WA last Sunday 5.13.2012 The handful of us who made it until 11pm ended the night laughing, drinking Whiskey,and burning Sparklers at Semiahmoo Beach with the lights of White Rock, Canada off in the distance.

::if there's a god up in the air::

I spent a very relaxing and enlightening afternoon this past Saturday with my youngest cousin Eddy and his 9 month old daughter Emma. Eddy is 23 and recently became a single father.We took a long round about drive to the Cascade foothills to the upper end of the Skagit River. The sun was blinding and we had an amazing and candid talk about relationships falling apart, the dark places your mind and heart goes when you're dealing with the aftermath of it, and the possibility that "God" maybe does exist and maybe there is a grand plan to everything we go through.
I've known him his whole life and in my mind he always seemed to stay a squirrely little kid. Suddenly standing on the river bank watching him fish for Steel Head Salmon with Emma on his back laughing, I saw him in a new light of being a responsible adult man now raising a child of his own. He's grown up to be not just be my little cousin, but a man that I really respect and admire.









"Quiet & calm through the dawn of the day,
See the sun burn through the fog,
Approaching was a yellow dawn.

If there's a god up in the air,
someone looking over everyone,
at least you got something to fall back on..." -Band of Horses

::handmade holidays::

It's been too many years since Mom and I have spent Christmas together. This year I'm back in Hawaii for 2 weeks in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. On a blustery cold Sunday afternoon Mom and I decided to get to work making a Vinetarta. It's a traditional Icelandic Holiday cake we've been making since I was very young. A good handful of my relatives in Blaine, WA were of Icelandic decent.
It's a bit of a lengthy process that usually starts with boiling down the filling that consists of dried Prunes, dried Currants, Brandy and/or Rum, (just use both, it's Christmas after all!) Cardamom, Lemon juice and Vanilla extract. The Prunes may sound a bit off putting but it's surprisingly really tasty.
The next step is to make around 6 or 7 large sugar cookie sheets that will divide each layer. Basically Eggs, Flour, Sugar, Vanilla and Almond extract and an overly generous amount of Butter. I guess that's really more of a Short Bread.
This may not be true to the traditional recipe but it's extra good to put a thin layer of a Powered Sugar icing with a bit of Almond extract mixed into it on the very top cookie layer of the Vinetarta. Let sit for at least a day before cutting into it, so the Prune filling can sink into the cookie/short bread layers and soften them a bit.
This cake is pretty rich and small slice is especially nice late at night with a bit of Guava desert wine.

::why on earth should life be so serious?::

"just wait and see, all the changes there will be, by the time it gets dark" -yo la tengo

::Show me your jams::

As a photographer I usually politely decline from photographing weddings or family portraits. Financially that's probably unwise but I don't particularly enjoy that sort of work nor do I feel super confident with it.
Yesterday was different though. My longtime friend Emily asked me to shoot some very casual/non traditional family portraits of her, her husband Michael and their 2 daughters, Sonja and Mackenzie for their holiday cards.
Emily's mom is a longtime very close friend of my mom and was apparently very instrumental in my mom's early adult development; riding horses and learning the fine art of floating an open beer bottle in a lake while swimming and not spilling it. Emily herself was a bit of an older sister to me when I was younger and I always really admired her. It was such a funny and awesome feeling to now be an adult myself and be sitting across the table from her two children and realize how much history is between all of us.
This photo was at breakfast after our chilly early morning shoot at Pike Place Market was over, I pulled out my camera for one last shot and said "okay monkeys, show me your jams!"

::as a child I could::

an ever so tiny selection of images from my trip up north last weekend to my old stomping grounds, Bellingham, Blaine and the British Columbia Lower Mainland in Canada. Visited the graves of my great and great great grandparents, met my new baby cousin, and started feeling a bit old myself. Funny that....

::feels like I've been drivin' north, it's getting colder by the mile::

*please note, the political opinions expressed in this blog post are not necessarily those of Amanda Allen, in fact they TOTALLY are not!
A small cozy recap of my little weekend family gathering in Whatcom County for my cousin Eddys wedding:

::off the map::

Postcards from the Big Island
::north end::









::south end::