Weekend Getaway || South Padre, Texas

Beach. Relaxation.

The sound of waves as I laid out on the sand, moving only to cool off in the salt of the ocean. This was my first experience in South Padre and frankly, I'm upset it took me this long to make it down. As a Texan by birth -- it's unacceptable. Truth be told, I had very low expectations for South Padre. I had been warned many times about the gulf being...well...a not so great beach (and that's putting it mildly).  

However, Padre was a pleasant surprise. It reminded me a lot of an American Cancun.  A lot of people walking around soaking up the sun. A lot of seafood, and of course a lot of Spanish. Mr. Hallease and I took the trip with my in-laws. When Mr. Hallease was a boy they used to make the trip down to South Padre often during the summer from Laredo, Texas his hometown. 

From San Antonio, the drive is about 4 hours -- which to me, is just on the cusp of being too long of a drive for a weekend getaway.  Still, definitely worth it.

My advice is to definitely AirBnB it up if you can. This was Mr. Hallease's parents first AirBnB experience and for a traditional Hispanic family, it was perfect.  His mother and father are big on cooking and having fruit and snacks handy.  They also prefer to grill. Things you just can't do in a traditional hotel.  

The home we stayed in was a 3bd/3bth house literally a 3-minute walk from the beach.  There are a lot of great condos, lofts, and homes right near the beach so definitely check AirBnB out. 

Because our trip was so short, we kept things pretty simple.  We spent most of our time on the beach boogie boarding and relaxing.  While there we did attempt to fish on their main pier back in Port Isabella (the last city before you cross the bridge into Padre), but alas we came home empty handed (although I do count the Pokemon I caught as a solid win). 

My Trip To London

What a whirlwind the end of the year has been! If you follow me on social media then you know for the first week and a half I was in London for HPE's Discover Conference.  I spent the first week of December at the ExCeL Center in the Docklands interviewing different companies about their HPE products. 

Me holding the new HPE logo

Recently HP (Hewlett Packard) split into two new companies HP Inc and HPE (Hewlett Packard Enterprise).  For the second half of 2015 I spent much of my time co-producing content with Big Picture Lab for this conference. 

Once the work was done, I stayed a few extra days in London to take in the sites! 

Trying some Butter Beer at the Harry Potter Studio Tour

Mr. Hallease came to join me for 3 days in London, and we tried to jam in a lot of the major sites into the visit.  We ended our stay by doing The Making of Harry Potter Warner Brother's Studio Tour! As a producer, it was so much fun seeing the attention to detail and the creativity behind all the different sets and various props. I, of course, took my camera and documented a little bit of our experience while in London, but to be honest, I didn't record as much as I usually do. I really just wanted to soak everything in, and enjoy the fruits of my hard earned labor this last quarter. 

I broke up our adventures into two videos. The first catalogs my time spent at the Natural History Museum. The second video focuses on all the different things Mr. Hallease and I did once he joined me. 

2015 has been a great year for me in regards to Travel.  I've left the country 3 times, twice for vacation and once for work, and have gotten the opportunity to see parts of the US that I would not visit otherwise.  I hope in 2016 it's more of the same! 

- Hallease

#FollowMeTo || Cancun

About two weeks ago my husband and I decided to take a little vacation to  celebrate our 4th anniversary together.  When we first got married we made a deal to take vacations instead of buying each other anniversary gifts. 

This year we went to Cancun, Mexico and had an amazing time. In true producer fashion, I brought along my Sony NEX - 5T to shoot and had the great idea of incorporating a #FollowMeTo approach to filming our adventure.  Luckily, Mr. Hallease is always willing to indulge my shenanigans. 

Let me know what you think! 

#Travel | Wisconsin & Back in 48 Hours

Hey everyone, I recently went to Wisconsin to interview executives with Big Picture Lab.  The trip was really quick. I arrived in Wisconsin on a Monday and left out the following day.  Before leaving I decided it would be fun to bring my Sony NEX - 5T and catch some video documenting the trip.  

When I returned I threw it all together into a quick montage to showcase some of the highlights of the trip.  I've never been to the Midwest before so I wanted to document the experience.  We had a lot of cheese! 

Hope you enjoy the video!