Another weekend out of town (with my new camera!)

Not much happened last weekend in the photography/adventure registry. Yet it doesn't mean that nothing happened at all.

First of all, I just got my hands on a brand new Fuji X100S camera to replace my beloved Sony NEX-6. What an amazing little camera! I'll be keeping it on me all the time and will post many pictures from it. Besides a couple iPhone pictures, all of the others here were taken with the Fuji.

The whole weekend was dedicated Jenna's birthday celebration. We first went to the Magic Castle on Friday night with a bunch of friends and got our minds magically blown away. (Un)fortunately, the Magic Castle does not allow photography so the memories are just for ourselves.

Then on Saturday morning, we headed to Lake Sherwood where I had rented a very cute little cottage. This was my present to Jenna as a get-out-of-LA opportunity.

The cute little Lake Sherwood cottage

Out there we basically just stayed in! The cottage felt so homey and inspirational that the only time we went out was to go buy a whole bunch of groceries and cook dinner for 4 hours! 

Our delicious home-cooked dinner

On the menu:

- rosemary braised lamb shanks simmered in a whole bunch of vegetable, wine and broth

- mushroom risotto made the hard way

- brussel sprouts

- bruschetta

- tarte aux pommes

Here, be hungry:

Lamb deliciousness

Tarte aux pommes à la Dutilh

The only camera I brought was the Fuji so I played a little while Jenna graciously posed.

Just enjoying the dwelling

Striking a pose

Unfortunately the owner of the awesome cottage kicked us out before we had time to change the locks. So we headed out after having a great home-cooked breakfast. One of the items that we bought at the grocery store was the mandatory bread to feed the ducks so we did that for a few minutes until Jenna got harassed by a swan larger than she is!

Larger than life swan... oh wait...

That's not true actually... we just ran out of bread. And she really got harassed because the swan doesn't get the chicken dance...

Miscommunication

We then headed south through the Malibu mountains to the coast. That's where Jenna had the brilliant idea to go wine tasting. We headed back into the mountains where we stopped by Malibu Wines for a few sips. The wine there isn't bad, the atmosphere was pretty great though. It's all outdoors, they have live music and the place is perfectly set up for outdoors parties and picnics.

Wine lights

My Jenna generously posed some more.

Enjoying the wine and scenery

Our last stop on the way back to LA was to eat some good seafood at the Reel Inn right off of PCH. Oh what a romantic weekend.

Emotion overdose

And that's it folks, until next time.