The Last of Vegas

I told you I had some serious catching up to do with my editing. Being away from home with the rest of my family means ample amounts of time to myself since there are 5 other people around that would gladly take Girlie off my hands! So, on a rainy day here I sat down and started at the top of my folders in Lightroom. That took me back to January. Pictures of Cheyenne that I hadn't edited yet, she was 7 months younger. Wow, it's amazing how much someone can change in 7 months! I'm still not anywhere near fully caught up, but I've got a good head start!

So, here are a few more images from my time in Las Vegas in February.

Also, today is my last day as a 25 year old. Tomorrow is my birthday. July 28. Mark it in your calendars. Just kidding. It's been a long, long time since I've celebrated my birthday in this town. Growing up we were always here for my birthday. So it's nice. Hopefully the weather will be in my favour! It's kind of hit and miss here this year. Oh well. Still loving being away from home for awhile and having a pool to lounge by on the sunny days!

Australian Everyday

I summed up a bit of my trip in a previous blog post and today I want to talk a little more about my time in Australia!

First of all, I have to say, when I go on vacation I don't usually feel like bringing my "good" camera along (ie: my Canon DSLR). Sure, I love the look and quality of those images so much more than my point and shoot images but there are many reasons why I prefer to leave it at home. For one, it's heavy. It takes up a lot of room and it's bulky. For two, I have to go back and edit all the pictures I take because my camera isn't spot on with colour balance SOOC. For three, I find that it disconnects me too much from the people I'm with when I'm immersed in taking pictures. Yes, I love taking pictures and finding new ways to be creative, but it takes a lot of mental space and that tends to mean that I have to block out other things that are going on around me. On one hand I feel like I can take in so much more of my surroundings by photographing them, but on the other hand I feel like I'm missing out. I just want to be in the moment, in the location, in the experience. So, that's probably the main reason why my camera tends to stay in my purse or back in my room during my travels. And, I also prefer taking pictures of people, not just places and things, although there are times when I thoroughly enjoy taking pictures of my surroundings (like in Tofino).

All that being said, I did take a few pictures here and there. The following were taken in Heidi's house and on our lunch date at The Austral in downtown Adelaide. I'll commentate as we go long!

First I want to say that I love Adelaide. It was probably my favourite part of our first visit to Australia in 2008. I love that when I visit there, I get to live with Australian families and love in a more suburban area, away from all the tourists and busyness. I love being immersed in their culture and community and experience their everyday. I love that, only a few days into my trip, I already pick up on their sayings and their different words. I would love to go back there for a bit of an extended trip one of these days!

The "thing" in Australia is to drink tea. At least I think it is. I was shocked when one of the girls I met there said she didn't drink tea. Is that even possible?! I thought Australian's were born with the love for tea! Anyway, I love tea. So I was thrilled to have ten days of tea, multiple times a day! Heidi had such an amazing array of tea selections, including delicious loose leaf tea from a Melbourne tea company called T2. I might need to look into seeing if they ship to Canada! And this lovely orchid plant sits on the windowsill above her sink, overlooking the trees and the beach in the distance.

This is the view from her kitchen and living room. It was cloudy and rainy this day so you can't really see the beach, but it's right in the nook of the trees in the horizon.

Heidi's house was so her. I walked in and felt like I was walking into her soul. All the small details and hand crafted items just screamed "Heidi". =) And her husband, Joel, is such a fabulous guy! I'm thrilled they found each other and got married. Love them both. Joel sums up who an Australian is to me. He's got long dreads, goes surfing every weekend, sometimes more often, when you get in his car the radio is sure to be playing the reggae station, and he's got didgeridoo's in the corner of the room. And the way they both speak, so classic! We had a good time making fun of each other's vocab's and terminology for different words. I could write a blog post on just that! haha. Maybe I will!

I spent much of my time on this couch, overlooking the view, drinking my tea, catching up on facebook, and chatting with Heidi. And trying to escape the millipedes!

On Monday, Heidi took me downtown to have lunch at The Austral and then to walk and shop along the streets. My husband and I visited this same restaurant and streets when we came out in 2008 for Heidi and Joel's wedding so I was a little nostalgic while we were there. Such a great place! And their beer is amazing! I tried something new, I added some lime cordial to my Cooper's Pale Ale, as per Heidi's suggestion and it was amazing! Needless to say, I bought some Lime Cordial to bring home to have that same taste over and over and over again!

We also went out for coffee nearly every day! We basically did all the things I love doing with friends... chatting from morning till night; drinking tea together; going out to cafes and drinking lattes; driving around, still chatting; shopping; eating at and tasting wines and some South Australian Wineries; and so much more. It was really fabulous!

Am I ever going to cover everything that I experienced while I was in Australia? I really don't think so! I have another chunk of photos that I need to edit yet, too. Slowly but surely I'll get there. At least give you a good glimpse into my time there.

That's all for now. I have lots of work to catch up on! Enjoy the rest of your day!

Processing

As you all know, I spent most of last week in Las Vegas. I'm still recuperating from that trip, both physically (sleep deprived!) and mentally (over stimulated by the sights and all the valuable information from the speakers and vendors.) Not only is Vegas a place to visit, but it's also quite the experience! I loved it so much. SO so much. I already told my husband he would be taking me back there in the near-ish future!

The city is amazing. Never have I seen such hugeness in such a condensed area. It seriously felt like the strip was a pop up city. When we flew in and our plane came through the clouds, all we saw were thousands upon thousands of little homes, and right smack dab in the middle of all those houses and flat land was this little blob of high rises. It was so strange!

Our hotel room faced the New York New York Hotel and it was an awesome view, right along the strip. As the sun set you could see the city transform into this amazing light show. Millions and billions of lights turned on and the city was illuminated by them and just by the energy that came from those walking along the sidewalks. I felt like I had to see it all but there was no way I possibly could. We tried to go out as often as we could, between speakers and perusing the trade show. I'm happy with the amount of stuff that we saw and did but there was still SO much that I didn't get a chance to see.

I'll write more about the details when I finish the rest of my pictures. But I have to say, the most amazing part of my trip was the Cirque du Soleil show that Frances and I watched. Remember my parents bought us tickets for Christmas? Well, best Christmas present ever! For most of the show we were sitting on the edge of our seats, jaws dropped, even a few tears shed on my part from the awe and wonder and gorgeousness of it all. What an amazing worship experience... to see art be created and unfold right before your eyes. I love how creative my Father is. Nothing moves me more than live theatre. It was unreal.

I learned so much at WPPI. I titled this post "Processing" because I seem to use that word every time I talk to someone about my experience and my time in Vegas. I went to maybe six different speakers and all them changed me in a different way. I learned so much about business and marketing and even some new techniques, but even more so, I learned things about myself. I can't say I was thrilled with everything that this brought up about me and how I'm running my business and life together. It's been a hard week in that sense. You'll notice I've been quite quiet as far as blogging and whatnot goes. I'm processing a lot. A LOT. This brain hasn't stopped turning since I got to Vegas and I don't anticipate it slowing down any time soon. But I'm so grateful for the areas in my life that God has pointed out to me that need some tweaking and re-prioritizing. I see some big changes coming for my business, but it'll be good. I'm excited about it. I'm excited to make this business my own and not compare it to other photographer's. I'm not them, and neither is my business or my life. I will defintiely write more about this as I reflect on it more and more, but for now you'll have to bare with me as I continue to process all this information.

Here are just a few photos that I edited yesterday from Vegas. Enjoy!

This is the view from my room just after sunset

New York New York in the day time

Frances (on the left) was my travel companion and roommate! Justine (right) was another friend/photographer who was at WPPI as well and we spent some time together doing photo shoots and hanging out!

Never a shortage of backdrops in Vegas for an impromtu photo shoot!

I love geometric shapes and lines.

A car that I assume is "hot" so I took a picture of it for my husband!

We wanted a picture of all three of us and this is the best we could do! I love it!

Around the Farm

 It's the calm before the storm. The stillness before the mayhem. Tomorrow begins our Christmas festivities! We spent all day at home, relaxing. I spent many hours on my lap top editing wedding pictures and getting the pictures ready for today's blog post. Girlie spent most of the day sleeping, fighting a cold. It's been a nice relaxing day! Tomorrow we'll be joined by more family until the end of the week.

I hope you enjoyed my blog post yesterday because I spent all day waiting for it to upload! The same thing is happening with this post. I've been making more of an effort to use my camera this week. I've been wanting to take more pictures of my every day. Not just photo shoots. I want to keep my camera close-by so I can capture moments of my life, raw moments. (No pun intended!)

I took these pictures yesterday while I wandered around my inlaw's yard. I loved the workshop. So well used with so much character.

3 more days to take part in Cans for Comments! It ends in the evening of December 25.

I'm not sure what the next few days will be like here so I might not be able to post again till I get home. So let me end by saying...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Tofino... the Good Days

Our first weekend away from our daughter ended quite badly, leaving a poor reflection on our time away. On our ride to the ferry in the bus I asked James if he had a good time, aside from the accident. He said he  couldn't remember. The hugeness of the accident over-rided any other thought that we previously had. Bummer.

We really did have a great time the first 2 days in Tofino. Our hotel/inn was great. It was small, only 7 rooms, and was catered for couples, no children allowed. It was fabulous having our own private hot tub on our balcony, over looking Cable Cove. The first day, Friday, we wandered the streets a bit and had dinner at the Schooner restaurant and bought some cake for dessert and drank lots of wine. That's my kind of vacation! I'm thankful that I can be away from my daughter and really enjoy myself. We think about her and talk about her but in positive ways. She's such a huge part of our lives and one of the biggest joys in our lives so how could we not bring her up?? But other than those few parental conversations we really didn't think about her, and fully soaked in our time alone.

On Saturday we roamed the streets of the small town again, this time with my camera in hand. I often purposely leave my camera at home when we go out because I get so absorbed in taking pictures it kind of makes me anti-social and makes me feel separated from whoever I'm with. I enjoy it differently with and without my camera. But this time, my camera won.

We won't talk about Sunday. Let's just remember the good times! (But one thing I will mention as an update is that I'm feeling so much better. A few tight spots but nothing a little massage and chiro can't fix!! Thanks again for your thoughts and prayers!)

Here we go...

We spent much time on this balcony!

Did I mention that I like wine? haha. And I'm trying to teach my husband to take pictures with my camera so I can have some of me too!

This is the woman behind the camera! Don't worry, on most occasions my hair isn't flying away on me and I wear sunglasses so I don't have to squint so hard!

This is part of our hotel, the walkway down to the cove.

The do spa treatments in a little gazebo overlooking the cove.

These next few are from our walk around town on Saturday.

Postcards of Tofino that we didn't get around to mailing because of the unmentionable Sunday circumstance!

This town is a big surf-town.

This guy had quite the array of stuff on his lawn. I just loved the big sign on the front. And the cow skulls that have names under them. Awesome.

Our balcony.

We spent some time at Long Beach on Saturday. These next few photos were taken there.

We spent some time playing chess at the hotel. I haven't played chess in years. Neither has my husband so we were a good match! I won most of the time ;)

And here is the picture I posted a couple weeks ago.