The crowd started gathering early, and 90 minutes before showtime the path to the ocean was already defined by waiting turtle lovers.

An hour later the line was 5 people deep, leaving a nice wide path for the turtles to take toward the Atlantic Ocean

First to be released was a loggerhead turtle named Beasley. He barely survived a cold snap in North Carolina waters in early February of 2009:

Front row seats:

I love how this boy crawled through a sea of legs to get his prime spot:

Finally Beasley reached the ocean…

…and swam away to a great round of applause and cheers from the crowd:

Meanwhile, another loggerhead survivor of the same cold snap in North Carolina, Ocracoke, was given a helping hand in getting to the water…

…and then stopped to pose for the paparazzi:

Seemed like Ocracoke was really checking out everything before going back home to the sea:

Swim Ocracoke, swim!

Up next was Dare, a green sea turtle who was also a victim of a cold snap, this one in December of 2009. He was covered in barnacles when he arrived at the aquarium, but he’s sure looking good now!

Cluse, another green turtle brought in as a result of the same event as Dare, testing the waters before getting in:

Here, Dare, Cluse, and Frisco, yet another green sea turtle brought in due to cold-stunning, are released at the same time:

Scute, a juvenile loggerhead turtle, has the distinction of being the 50th turtle to have been rehabilitated and released by the South Carolina Aquarium. Looks like he wants nothing to do with the fanfare of having his picture taken…

…and heads straight for the horizon once past the cameras:

It’s just so awesome to see them swim away…

Last but not least was Mingo, a juvenile green sea turtle found on Kiawah Island, SC, in June of 2009. He was found very underweight, covered in barnacles, and suffering from severe dehydration. Mingo was “air-swimming” the entire way to the water!

“Please, no photos”

The crowd loves little Mingo:

One last look before the show is over:

I cannot describe how magical it was to see these turtles find their way back to the ocean and swim away. If you ever get a chance to see it for yourself, go check it out!

Now, for those of you asking yourselves “What are sea turtles doing on a blog devoted to ‘pet’ photos?” The answer is this: some turtles are pets! (Though no one should have a sea turtle as a pet—they belong in the oceans.) Also, turtles have had a bit of a role in my life, as can be seen in this past blog entry of my brother and me holding our pet turtles in Holland. I’ll even confess here on my blog, that my mom’s nickname for me used to be “Turtle” (had something to do with me telling her I’d be right over, then getting caught up in something I was doing, and showing up an hour later.)

My mom would have turned 80 tomorrow. She passed away at age 78, and some days I still cannot fathom that she is no longer alive (she always believed she would “at least” make it to age 99, like her own mother did.) Mom would have loved to have been front row for the turtle release, and it is thanks to her that I have my love of nature, travel, art, writing and photography. So, in honor of what would have been my mom’s 80th birthday tomorrow, I am offering a May special for pet photography! Any photo session booked in May, and making mention of the discount code…wait for it…TURTLE, will receive an extra $80 print credit! So what are you waiting for? Book it!

So, the Blue Angels were neat and all, but, the real fun was in meeting Peaches the Australian Labradoodle, and her folks, who were also out on the docks watching the air show. What a sweetheart of a dog Peaches is, and, she wasn’t scared of the loud jets passing by at all. Here are a few captures of Peaches and her folks. It was great meeting them and enjoying the show together!

She’s a real lap dog…

…and a kisser!

…and she follows her folks wherever they go without being leashed!

We happened to catch the amateur dock diving competition, which featured a lot of “gentle encouragement” (aka nudging and pushing) from owners:

Though on the second go-around she went right for the water…

(Also love the facial expressions of the gal in the hat in the background in that series)

This guy looked like he had done this before…

…preparing for a soft landing…

Second time around…

This guy had just gotten out and wondered if he could jump in from the other side…

Another pro…

This next guy got all the style points. Here’s walking on water…

…and the tennis-ball cat-pounce…

Ooooof!

Next up was the police K-9 exhibition, in which they demonstrated how canine police officers assist in the apprehension of criminals. This team worked great together…

He looks so friendly while chasing the “bad guy”…

…but he caught him by the arm…

…held on…

…and took him down…

Seemed like everyone had an awesome time…

…except maybe this cutie, who didn’t like being left outside the door…

We can’t wait until Pet Fest 2011!

Hey!? What are you doing over there?

Look! Get a picture of this new wool bone toy I got from Trader Joe's!

I'll just lie down right here and look innocent, while blocking your access to your shot.

Have you noticed my cute lips lately?

Walk? Did you say walk?

This is my "unimpressed teenager" pose. Abercrombie & Fitch catalog, here I come!

In all fairness, he is pretty fun to have around as my shadow while I look for things to photograph. And, he’s given me plenty of shots on which to try my new Totally Rad! Lightroom presets. Which is your favorite?

Of course, in trying to defeat my “to do” list each day, I sometimes get stuck at the end of daylight with barely a few minutes to get a few frames. This is where Cooper comes in…

He’s really a good boy for putting up with me, because while I was forcing him to participate in my daily project, he was totally aware of the yummy smell of roasted chicken he was missing out on in the kitchen. (But don’t worry, he was well-rewarded for his modeling.)

I have, however, committed to a personal project 365, in which I will (try my best to) take a photo a day for the entire year. So far so good—though, full disclosure: New Year’s Day I did not take a photo, and thus the photo posted for that day was actually taken on January 2. I’ll make up for this by taking a photo on January 1, 2011, which will complete my 365 project. (I always have been one to do things my own way, for better or worse.) Anyway, if you’re at all interested in what I manage to find to photograph daily, you can check it out at www.elssipkes.com. There’s also a link in the menu bar at the top of this blog page called “365 project”, and you can access it from there as well.

Aiding in my search for subjects for my daily photo is the “Be a Tourist in Your Own Town” pass I received for Christmas, which allows me to visit 33 local attractions in the month of January. Yesterday, we visited the Center for Birds of Prey in Awendaw, SC. Lots of cool birds to see and learn about, but of course the highlight was watching the bird flight show.

Included in the photos here are a Common Hawk soaring over the trees, Center for Birds of Prey trainer Aubrey (or was it Audrey?) with a Ural Owl, another trainer holding what I believe was a Falcon, and, in the rest of the photos, a (non-native) Kite who eats insects as his main diet (they use bits of meat in the flight show.) Interestingly, he (she?) catches his food in his claws and then brings the food up to his beak. If you look closely you can see the food in the air, and then in his claws. Also, you’ll see that the birds all have radio transmitters attached to their tail feathers so they can be tracked and located in case they wander off during the show. In the one photo the Kite flew by and took food off the fingertip of the trainer. We could have watched him fly for hours, and I can highly recommend it to you locals to go out there and check it out for yourselves!

Speaking of wildlife, this week’s Blast from the Past photo shows me feeding ducks at a vacation rental in Holland at about age 7 (I’ve always been an avid connect-with-nature girl.) The other photo was taken when I was about 25 at my parent’s home in California—I think I’d just come home from the beach and saw the ducks in their backyard and asked my mom to take a photo of me feeding them, a sort of re-creation of the same scene from years before. I guess in another few years I’ll need to seek out another opportunity to re-create the scene again…

Hope you all had a great first week of the new year. Enjoy the weekend, and maybe go be a tourist in your own town! See you next week!

What are you calling the new year? Two thousand ten? Or twenty-ten? I am leaning towards twenty-ten, but find myself saying two thousand ten too. Time will tell what’s going to stick, but I think it will be twenty-ten.

Now that we have THAT important stuff out of the way, I’d like to start the new year by thanking you all for reading my blog in 2009 and regularly checking back (and leaving comments! yay!) while I’ve continued to find my voice in this very public forum. Nice to know I’m not just blogging for myself, so thank you!

I’m counting on 2010 being a watershed year, both personally and professionally. I hope you’ll join me in finding all the joys, promise and challenges 2010 has to offer!

I’ll return to my more traditional form of Blast from the Past! Friday next week, but in the meantime, here’s a photo of me when I was 7, celebrating New Year’s Eve in Holland. Judging by my sleepy eyes my parents must have woken me up a few minutes before midnight so I could light my 2 sparklers and then crawl right back in bed.

We lit some sparklers last night as well. Most fun I’ve had for $2 since I was 7. Good times!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! See you next week!

Get out there and enjoy these last few days of 2009 and indulge yourself in everything nice! See you next week!

(Edit 01.01.2010: Just noticed I never hit publish on this post last week. Better late than never, eh?)

Nonetheless, despite having a number of 3- and 4-letter conditions myself (ADHD, PMS, TMJ ring a bell?!? Not to mention OLD. That’s old..as in, aged) I’ve managed once again to remain persistent (if not patient) and only let a few choice words escape my lips as I brought this whole project together and then uploaded it all, despite wanting to wait to relaunch on January 1. (Yep, impulsivity is another of my strong suits.)

In any case, I’d love any and all feedback on the new looks of the main website and, of course, of this blog. Feel free to let me know exactly what you think—I seem to be doing that myself in this picture as well: (I’m the little one with mad face, in case you hadn’t figured that out)

I believe we were in Italy on a boat from Piombino to Elba here, and from the looks of it, I wasn’t too happy about it. (Even though I love boats and being on the water.)

Seems things went no better the next year, when my grandmother came along:

Wise calm woman, I was the youngest of all her grandchildren, and she had probably seen it all before already.

I’m sure I made this same face this week while working on the website redesign, but I’ll bet I didn’t look half as cute now as I did when I was 4 or 5.

Anyway, have a great week everybody! I’ll finally be starting my Christmas shopping now!