We are covering the X-Games this weekend and so far it has been really fun! We’ve managed to get travel advice from Bam Margera & Johnny Knoxville (more on this coming in another post) and I’ve been able to take some really cool photos! (More on this coming in another post.) I had a few minutes here before the next event and wanted to upload some quick pics from today. I’ll put more up later as well as some tips for photographing sporting events. More to come soon!

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*Please remember all photos on this website are copyrighted and property of BeersandBeans.com, NarikosNest.com & Bethany Salvon. Please do not use them without my permission. If you want to use one of them please contact me to ask first because I do love to share and I would be flattered. Thanks!

If you want more information or want to inquire about having your wedding photographed by Nariko’s Nest please contact me at Beth@NarikosNest.com. BeersandBeans readers get 20% and all destination weddings book at 50% off regular rates!! To see more photos please visit NarikosNest.com.

Disclaimer: A couple people have written to me thinking that I am mad at my mother. This is meant to be a funny story. I am not mad at my mom in any way and she is the best mom anyone could ever ask for. I have already asked her what she thought of me posting this story (to add some history to the post) and she said that she didn’t mind. Tomorrow is her birthday and I wanted to send her some flower pictures. Please don’t think I am mad at my mother or that I dislike her in any way. She is awesome!

Many moons ago when I was a photo student I was thinking of transferring colleges. I had an interview at another school and was asked to bring my best photography portfolio. At the time my portfolio was REALLY dark. I don’t mean the colors but the theme was dark. I was struggling with change, growing up and all the emotions that go along with that ball of wax. I was inspired by the likes of Sally Mann, Cindy Sherman, Julia Margaret Cameron and Joel-Peter Witkin to name a few.  My images weren’t happy ones but they were very real to me. I was really proud of my portfolio. My teachers and classmates liked it and I loved it. However my mother HATED it.

Anyway, she always used to bug me to take pictures of “something nice, like flowers” instead. This was something she asked me to do over and over again. So much so that now it is a joke between us. No way! I was an artist, I wasn’t about to spend my hard earned angst on freaking flowers! Gross.

Well she and my father drove me to my interview (at the new school) and I had all of my photos in a large envelope without matting, as requested by the school. I fell asleep in the back seat and my mother was holding the envelope, which I didn’t think twice about.

Until I got into the interview.

I went in and met with the Dean of the college prepared to show him my best work. After I described my portfolio I started taking out the accompanying photos. Imagine my complete surprise when I saw that, while I was sleeping, my mother had taken out ALL of the photos that I thought were the best. All of the ones with the darkest undertones. All of the ones she hated the most.

All that was left was random filler crap. I was speechless. It made me look like an idiot and it made me look like I didn’t prepare at all for the interview. Now at this point I didn’t realize this was my mother’s doing, I was thinking that maybe I actually forgot to bring the right pictures. I was totally dumbfounded and my interview was a total bomb because of it.

I walked out back into the car where my parents were waiting and surprise, surprise what was in there – my missing photos! My mom decided (although she has absolutely no background in art) that she was going to help me out by removing the photos she didn’t like. She assumed that a highly ranked photography only art school wouldn’t like them either.  What?!!?? I was so pissed, as anyone would be. I mean can you even imagine! My blood, sweat & tears removed just like that. She really thought at the bottom of her heart though that she was doing the right thing and that she was helping me out.

Well long story short, because of my bombed interview and ridiculous photo presentation I didn’t get into that school. Which was probably a blessing in disguise. Instead I made the best friends a person could ask for at UMass Dartmouth and had an absolute blast in their art department. So it’s a long time coming but -

Thanks mom for bombing my interview! I made amazing friends who I still know today and you saved me thousands of dollars in student loan debt that I would’ve acquired at the private art school! In the end it was for the best – so thank you!!

Since tomorrow is your birthday and I’m not there in person I wanted to send you this little photo collection I made just for you. It took about 15 years for but here it is -

Flowers! Flowers! Flowers!

I still don’t like shooting them but I have come to peace with it since I love you so much! Plus the desert wildflowers are pretty nice aren’t they?

Wish I was there but I will see you in about a month. I Love You – Happy Birthday!!!!

Love,

Your flower-shooting daughter

Did you like this article? If so, consider retweeting below or stumbling it. Better yet sign up for our RSS feed OR get the goodies delivered directly to your inbox! Consider yourself hugged.
*Please remember all photos on this website are copyrighted and property of BeersandBeans.com, NarikosNest.com & Bethany Salvon. Please do not use them without my permission. If you want to use one of them please contact me to ask first because I do love to share and I would be flattered. Thanks!

Every love story should be told.

Let Nariko’s Nest tell the story of your wedding day.

I made a new photo site! I’m very excited!! It’s geared mainly towards weddings and travel photos. Please take a look, bookmark it and pass it on to EVERYONE you know.

Take a look see:  Nariko’s Nest

If you know anyone who is getting married please let me know or better yet send them the link. My style is mainly photojournalistic. I still have dates open for 2009 and I’m booking for 2010 now. I can make custom packages for any budget. I’m available on both coasts and of course I would love to shoot destination weddings!

I’m also available for travel work, journalism work, lifestyle portraits, food photography & anything else you can throw my way.

Please tell me what you think of the new site!!!

All comments welcome.

Thanks! Beth

It didn’t seem right to let today go by without celebrating the life of Adrian Sudbury.

.

Adrian (aka Baldy) was a beautiful boy from England who worked tirelessly until the last few days of his life to educate people about the awareness of being a bone marrow donor. If you don’t believe me, do a google search and you’ll find hundreds of stories about him. You can also read some previous posts I wrote about him. He was an amazing man, a fantastic journalist and inspired so many people, many of whom he never even personally met. Me, being one of them.

Without a doubt he made a huge impact on my life in the brief times that we emailed back and forth about ideas for his campaign. He was obviously a very unselfish and loving person. I think everyone who read his blog fell at least a little bit in love with him. There aren’t many words to describe someone like Adrian. He was completely and utterly full of awesome-ness. Is that even a word?

There is no doubt that he has saved/will continue to save thousands of people because of his Sign up for Sudders campaign, which made it all the way around the world and directly to the head of his government – the Prime Minster of the U.K., Gordon Brown.

Although Adrian isn’t here now to directly work on the campaign his efforts continue to save the lives of others because he gave a gift that keeps on giving. If you convince even 1 person to sign up for bone marrow donation and then they convince another person the circle continues and grows larger. This is what Adrian did but on a much larger, worldwide scale. Now solely because of Adrian the U.K. has a secondary school program where every student is taught about bone marrow donation and why it is so important. Imagine all the students who are now educated about donation because of his campaign. Whether on purpose or inadvertently they can now pass that information onto many other people.

With all the ways to share information – blogs, tweeting and facebooking – this circle will keep growing and so many more lives will be saved. It’s amazing!

This is all because of Adrian, literally. This was his brain child and he kept going with it, kept pushing until the very end. He did a lot of his work on the campaign in just the couple months right before his passing. When he left us to start his new journey he left enough knowledge & passion with the people around him to keep his campaign going strong. Because of his determination to help save the lives of other people suffering with the same disease, his dream has become a reality. If you ever think that you can’t make a difference, sit back and think about Adrian.

That is the power of what one person can do.

He started the beginning of a beautiful circle that spanned the globe and will hopefully continue for the remainder of time or until we can put a stop to Leukemia.

Did you know that if you donate bone marrow it can be used to save the life of someone else halfway across the world? If you are a patient you can receive bone marrow from anywhere in the world as well. Thanks to Adrian there are now thousands more people donating and helping to save the lives of Leukemia patients everywhere.

Someday that person could be you, your child, your parent, your friend. The donor could very well be someone who was inspired directly though the school program or from following Adrian’s blog. Perhaps it could be someone who donated indirectly because someone else they knew stumbled upon his story and told them about it. Maybe you’ll tell your co-worker during lunch about this story you’re reading right now, maybe they’ll tell their friends later tonight during happy hour. Maybe one of those people will sign up to be a donor and become a match for someone in need. This is the beauty of the campaign that Adrian started.

One main reason many people don’t donate is because they think it is still a painful surgery with large needles being jabbed into your bones. Nowadays in most instances, it’s not too different from giving blood. You can sit in your street clothes and listen to your Ipod. Most people don’t realize how far bone marrow donation has come and how much less invasive it is. Thanks to Adrian getting the word out about how much easier donation has become and I am sure we will continue to see many more people saving lives and signing up to donate.

Maybe right now that person is you.

For more information visit:

Marrow.org – in the U.S.

Anthony Nolan Trust – in the U.K.

Bone Marrow Donors Worldwide – Everywhere

If you aren’t eligible to donate blood marrow there are other ways you can help:

1. You can sign up to become a school speaker.
2. You can help out a local bone marrow drive.
3. You can tweet about Adrian and what he accomplished.
4. You can give a financial donation to any of the bone marrow registries or to the Sudder’s Campaign.
5. You can buy Baldy’s Book and learn more about him while donating to the cause.
6. You can re-post this article anywhere you want so more people can read about Adrian & bone marrow donation.
7. You can post one of the widgets I made for his campaign to your blog, your website or social networking page so that   other friends/readers may see it, click on it and learn more about getting involved in the Sudder’s Campaign.
8. You can join the Adrian’s Army Facebook group
9. You can work on a grassroots project contacting local legistlators.
10. You can read Baldy’s Blog and forward it to one friend, or 10!
11. You can tell just one person what you learned today about bone marrow donation and how easy it is to save a life.

If you can’t do any of the above, you can raise a glass and say a toast to Adrian Sudbury, his family and the gift he gave to the world. Thank you Adrian!

Love, Beth

Gary Arndt of Everything-Everywhere.com is looking for votes to send him to Antartica as an official blogger for Quark Expiditions so let’s help him out – it sounds like the chance of a lifetime!

He needs the most votes by Sept. 30th and will most likely need several thousand to make the grade.

Please vote for him by vising his page on the Quark contest site and click the button that says “Vote for Me”.

Just think of how happy he’ll be when he gets the good news!

If you’re an armchair traveler, visit his site for great info on the World Heritage Sites, excellent travel articles and daily travel photos. Get ready for some serious travel envy!

Happy Travels!

The weekend of June 12th I took off on a weekend trip to Massachusetts for my mom’s 60th birthday. She had no idea we were throwing her a party and she had no idea that I was flying home to see her. My sisters and I sent both our parents away to the Cape for the night, I flew in on the red eye, we painted the living room (her gift) and planned a garden themed party for her.

It was perfect – she had no idea until she walked in the door the next day and everyone yelled – surprise! The garden theme was carried on from the invitations to the buffet tables. We covered the main table in moss and actually ”planted” little plants in the moss so it looked like they were growing out of the table. It was very cool!

I have a very large family (read over 100 people) and some of my aunts, uncles  & cousins were able to make it over for the small, informal birthday surprise. I took a lot of pictures and when I reviewed them I noticed how off-kilter most of them are. I don’t really know any other way to describe them really, except well maybe, bad. They are all just a little off, and I personally find them quite hysterical and I’m sure other family members reading this will laugh too. My mother will want to kill me but after 15 years of taking photos she hates, I can’t see why I should stop now – right mom?  None of these photos are posed and, with the exception of the one below, they all seem to be taken at the wrong time. The are the off-kiltered family photos, a result of too much gin. It was a really fun night!

Mikey, Meredith & Auntie Charlene starting off the gin party.

Mom, Aunty Charlene & Grandma sharing a secret. I have no idea what Alex is doing.

Yes Tabitha, limes are very sour.

I don’t know why my mother is carrying this light around outside but my father isn’t following it.

Once again too much gin leads to bad decisions. My Aunt Charlene decided it might be a good idea to take the wheelbarrow out of her SUV to wheel someone a couple doors down to my Auntie Bette & Uncle Chris’ house. The picture below is not particularly exciting unless you enlarge it to see the look of complete shock on my mother’s face. My father seems entertained by the wheelbarrow idea but my mom appears to be in total disbelief and the look on her face just cracks me up.

My mother’s look of disbelief.

My mother convinced everyone that this was a bad idea so no one ended up in the wheelbarrow, which was probably a good thing.

The next day I took some random pictures around home.

Strange family portrait – My mom, sister Bridgette & my dad. Missing is my sister Kate.

My brother in law then found an old Kodak camera which we jimmy rigged to take some TTV type photos.

My Dad:

My mom trying to figure out what kind of contraption I was using to take pictures. I can almost hear her getting angry at me from 3500 miles away the momentshe sees this is posted on the web. I really like this picture of her though.

My Auntie Toni says hello.

On the same day my friend Ali gave birth to her 2nd child, a beautiful little girl named Maggie Rose, I became the proud owner of my first boat! A cute little 27′ foot Catalina sailboat named Lucky Lady. 

 Yah! Yah! I am so excited! I’m still kind of in shock that I even bought a boat seeing that I don’t even know how to sail but I did it and I love it! It may have been one of the best things I have ever done. Seriously.

I have realized all the nay-sayers who tried to squash my wet sea dreams were people who had no idea what they were talking about. The best day of a boat owners life is the day they buy the boat and the day they sell it…this is just a crap quote. I cannot tell you how many times this was quoted to me on my boat buying journey. It’s def. not true, every day is great on the boat! I finally noticed that the people who say that quote are people who have never owned a boat. They want to but they are just too afraid so they repeat that quote like talking heads because not doing so would force them to face their own reality that they are not being true to their own dreams. Suckers – suck this! This boat is kickin’.

I spent all weekend cleaning and painting the interior of the boat. I really want to paint over the top grey part of the boat but I haven’t decided on a color yet. Any ideas?? I wanted to do it black like a pirate ship but I’m thinking it might be too hot in the sun. Anyway, I slept on the boat all weekend and Randy & I took it out for a spin on Monday. Which turned out to be a really scary event. In retrospect, it was not my smartest idea to take it out, when 1. I barely know how to sail and 2. it was Memorial Day and everyone seemed to be out on their own boats. A homeless man was Huck Finn-ing around the harbor in a 4′ sailboat with his hat over eyes and came w/in a foot of running right into us until I screamed at him to turn around and he woke up. Technically he had the right of way but there was another boat fishing to the other side of us and we had nowhere to go. It was extremely nervewracking! I then almost burst ino tears when we had to bring it back to slip, I was so afraid of hitting someone else’s boat that Randy had to bring it in. Randy and I are trying to work things out again. What can i say, he is cute and hard to stay away from. Anyway, I have a friend who is promising to teach me how to sail and I can’t wait. This little boat is awesome and just hanging out on it all weekend makes you feel like you are miles away from reality. I realized I’m not going to be sailing to South America in 3 months like I was originally thinking (sometimes I don’t know where I come up with these delusions…) but it’s still fun to hang out on the docks and soak up the rays.

I fed some ducks and a jumping fish. Life is good.

Lauren, Scout & Chachy on the boat before I redid the inside.

 The kitchen after I redid some painting.

I’ll be adding new pics soon because I’ve done a lot more work on it and the boat is so cute now!

Dear Ree,

I don’t think you could ever convince me that you did not ride bicycles in St. Petersburg. Or that you weren’t uncanningly similar to the charming Brit boy I met in Mexico last year. Now I wear a t-shirt that has your picture on it. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of you and wish that you are so happy wherever you may be. – All My Love, Bethany

We all stand a little taller. We all stand a little prouder.

That’s because, after 8 long years, America finally grew up and shaved today.

At last there is some sort of tangible change to believe in. Like a porn star’s landing strip – Bush is out.

Obama is in the house.

It’s really exciting to be a part of the change and watch it happening all around. There are only a couple days in my life than I can recall a truly united feeling. Really remembering that I had countrymen and that we all had each other. I felt that way on 9/11 and on Nov. 4th 2008. Those particular days, albeit for far different reasons, there was such a strong feeling of countryship & national pride. On those days no one cared about much else – where you lived, went to school, what you made or did for work – nothing mattered. On 9/11 you could walk down the street, talk to a perfect stranger as if you had known them forever. You would’ve given them all the money in your pocket, whatever they needed and they would’ve done the same for you. It was a very sad, heavy day but the unity of the country was amazing.

Nov 4th, 2008 brought the same feeling of togetherness, except people were very happy. It was a fantastic day! People were crying in the streets but this time they were tears of joy. Everywhere you turned, people were smiling, greeting each other like they were old childhood friends who had lost touch in the last couple of years.

Today, Inauguration Day, was the culmination of Nov. 4th and it couldn’t have been better. The Obama family looked fantastic and I tried many times to imagine what it must be like in their shoes today. To sleep in the White House for the first night, to have a personal chef, to be the first black family – it must have been nothing short of overwhelming. With all the excitement I can’t help but wonder if Barack gets to sleep in tomorrow?

Probably not, but then again he is the President.

Obama WON!!!!!!

The U.S. is on the right track! I am so excited I can’t even explain it. I can’t even remember the last time I really cared about a campaign and here I am crying because I’m so happy.

This is f-ing awesome!!!! Everyone on tv is crying, people are yelling in the streeets – this is freaking amazing.

My personal motto has always been – Anything is possible.

I’m so glad tonight happened. Now it really is true.