i woke up this morning to a sprinkle of fresh snow on the ground. while i do enjoy the fluffy white stuff a couple times throughout the season, i have honestly had enough of winter.

to combat the winter blues, i try to surround myself with any spring. one of the many perks of living on the west coast is that we get to enjoy spring flowers in early february. tulips are a wonderful way feel “spring-ey”.

i’m still upset with the three groundhogs for seeing their shadows and forcing 6 more weeks of winter on us! how dare they??? really???

if you happen to visit over the next couple of days and things look sorta funky….. well, don’t worry, it’s ok.

i’m updating and changing a few things around here. check back again soon.

he loves to do puzzles. he loves building anything actually, especially lego.

this puzzle didn’t go so well though.  poor little guy got really frustrated when he realized that it was missing a bunch of pieces. he’d been working on it for about 20 minutes before he noticed. i think i’d be frustrated too.

every winter i get into a funk.

a photography funk.

it’s as though something comes over me and i just don’t have any desire to pick up my camera or to be creative. but it always goes away. thankfully.

since wppi, i’ve been taking pictures every day. nothing mind blowing or anything. just stuff that happens around here every day.

but it’s fun! and it’s being creative is a small way. and it’s gotten me out of my funk.

and because i’m out of my funk, i played a bit in photoshop too. i like the gritty feel and texture in this one.

this year was my first time at wppi and all i can say is W.O.W!!

it was everything that i ever imagined it would be and more. it was informative. it was overwhelming. it was exhausting. and the biggest lesson that i learned is that when they say you should bring comfortable footwear, BRING comfortable footwear!by the end of the first day, my feet were killing me!

i arrived on sunday night, alone. derek was supposed to travel there with me but got held up on business so he arrived a day later. i felt like a fish out of water when i got there. i had never been to vegas before and arriving on my own wasn’t much fun. so, i walked the strip, got some dinner and then went and got a good night’s sleep. i know, pretty boring!

bright and early on monday morning i headed to wppi at the MGM (we stayed at TI). it was really cool to see and meet so many photographers who i “know” online from their blogs and the photography forums we belong to. one of the biggest highlights on monday was meeting up with my good friend and fellow photographer kelly smith and her friend ami. kelly and i “met” after taking an online photography course a couple of years ago but this was our first “in-person” meet up. she is an absolute sweetheart and i am so glad that we finally got to meet. (it’s a bad photo but i’m so happy to have it!)

on monday evening, i met up with some of my fast track photographer friends, christine bentley and kristie blake. we attended a great platform talk, rings to rattles, given by kevin jairaj and alycia alvarez. after dinner, i left the girls and headed back to my hotel to meet up with derek.

on tuesday morning, i attended a fast track photographers breakfast get-together, hosted by dane sanders. dane is such an amazing person! he truly is. so genuine and so inspirational. his platform talk was the BEST one that i went to. he spoke not so much about photography but about getting “off automatic”, creating value in YOU  and knowing your customers. his words really struck a cord with me and i will look at myself and my business in a different way now. if you’re a photographer and you haven’t read his book yet, you must!

i must say that all the platform talks that i went to were great. as well as the speakers at the vendor booths during the trade show. i gained alot of valuable information and i plan on incorporating what i learned into my business practices in the future.  i’m sad to say that i didn’t take many pictures at wppi. i so wish that i had now. but i did take some when derek and i toured around vegas. we gambled a bit, went to “old” vegas and treated ourselves to a cirque du soleil show. it’s such a fun city! i can not wait to go back!

that’s about all i can tell you ’cause….. you know….. what happens in vegas, stays in vegas!