Soooo sorry that I have been neglecting you oh lovely blog of mine.  I have just been sooo busy, and sooo tired.  I was sick for an entire week, then my friend/co-worker got sick and was out for a week, so life has been a little hectic.  Things are back to normal again and I have tons of sessions to post!!! But for now here is a photo of my lovely 9 year old daughter, Leilani and her little friends.  She is quite spoiled.  And soooo very loved. xoxo

So funny how she towers over them.  I knew she was tall, but next to her friends who are the same age as her, really does put her “tallness” into perspective.  Wow!  My little model.

Check out this foxy mama.  Wowzers!!!!  Her eyes totally have me mesmerized.  For real.  Megan you are one beautiful woman.  I cannot wait to show you off to the world.  You and Troy are going to be wonderful parents and I cannot wait to see little Tyce.  Thank you for giving me the opportunity to photograph you guys! xo

Here is a little sneak peak of the gorgeous sisters that were baptized on Valentine’s Day.  They were the cutest sweethearts in town that day.  Guaranteed.  I cannot even express the joy that I carried in my heart on this very special occasion.  But you will soon see what I mean.  I hope that my photos can explain it all.  Sunshyne and Bellyna you girls are loved sooooo much!!  I hope that one day when you are both old enough you will look back at these photos and realize just how much we all adore you!  You make our hearts sing.  Love you girls!!!!!!!!

Life can sure throw curve balls at you.  I am at that point where I feel I might break.  Deep down inside I am a mess.  A puddle of mush.  On the outside… you might think my life was perfect.  I don’t normally focus on the negative stuff.  I try to always think positive.  Because quit frankly I KNOW that IT COULD BE SO MUCH WORSE!!!!  I am a firm believer of that so I thank my lucky stars every single day.  I just feel the need to vent at the moment because for me, it makes me feel better.  My entire family is sick.  With different strains of the flu.  I have a sinus infection and this is not fun!!!  And in the mist of it all, my teenager… yes the little angel I speak of all the time… is giving me trouble.  I knew it would come sooner or later but it’s finally here.  The rebellion.  The I-don’t-ever-do-anything-wrong kid has finally done wrong.  I won’t go into detail about what he did because that would just be focusing on the negative… but my heart is broken at the moment.  I have asked God to give me the strength to get through this.  I know he will give it to me.  I know this is not the end of my heartbreaks with my son.  He is a great kid.  I know this.  We all make mistakes and we learn from them.  I really do hope he learned his.  I am not perfect world.  I have done my fair share of wrong.  But when your baby does it.  Wow.  It hurts.  I would like to say MOM I am sorry for everything I ever did that hurt you.  I now know how it feels to be disappointed.  Oh life.  It sure does know how to throw curve balls at you.  Next time around I will be ready.  Ready to swing at it with all my might.

Speaking of curve balls… here is a sneak peak of the shoot I did with the Diamondbacks @ The Boys & Girls Club

I don’t have much to say today.  But I am on here anyways, spilling out my life to the world.  I have been writing every day for the last 30 days now and it is easier than I thought it would be.  Most of the time I probably bored you with babble of my personal life.  But this is my journey and I hope you enjoy following it.  I don’t have a very exciting life.  I guess if I were twenty you would have been more interested in me.  Ha!  At twenty I was a hoot.  My friends used to say my life was like a soap opera.  I’m not sure that was a compliment Internet.  Now that I am in my thirty’s life hasn’t slowed down, I just have other responsibilities now and doing grown up things.  Which consist of cooking, cleaning, working, working, working, cooking, and did I mention working??!!  Just kidding, just kidding.  I do have fun.  Like this weekend, my boyfriend will be taking me out to a lovely dinner.  He won’t tell me where we are going but I am pretty sure I have a good hunch.  Maybe the Melting Pot?!  Don’t tell him I told you that.  He would be crushed.  He was so excited when he said… Saturday you need to be home no later than 6.  Make sure all your appointments are early, cuz I am taking you out.  I was like Score!!!  Heck yah!  I love being babied.  Saturday will be our Valentine’s Day since Sunday I will be busy baptising my Goddaughter and all.  So enjoy your Valentine’s Day everyone.  Share some of your stories with me.  Let me know if  you got spoiled???

And just for the heck of it… here is a snap my good friend Sara took of me during her photo shoot @ the Mondrian

I am currently reading two books at the same time.  Weird you might say.  Well at least my boyfriend thinks so.  How do I concentrate on more than one book?  It’s easy I say.  I keep one downstairs and one on my night stand.  And they each get the same amount of love.  It takes longer to finish but I don’t get confused.  Fearless by Max Lucado is kind of in both categories, personal and professional.  It’s kind of hard to explain but both personally and professionaly, I need to let  go of fear.  Fear of the unknown, fear of failing, fear of not being the best I could be, fear of comparing myself to other fabulous photographers, fear of living my dream, fear of losing someone I love, fear of raising my children right, fear of never getting married, fear of losing my house, my job, fear of fear.  I know this is not the kind of life to live.  I know I have issues.  It is odd how when I bought the book I knew nothing about it.  Nobody told me to read it.  It just stuck out on the stands.  On the cover of the book it said,  Imagine Your Life Without Fear.  Just as simple as that.  And I said. Wow. That would be awesome!!!  Then I opened it and read a couple of paragraphs on the 5th page:

Fear, it seems, has taken a hundred-year lease on the building next door and set up shop.  Oversize and rude, fear is unwilling to share the heart with happiness.  Happiness complies and leaves.  Do you ever see the two together?  Can one be happy and afraid at the same time?  Clear thinking and afraid?  Confident and afraid?  Merciful and afraid?  No.  Fear is the big bully in the high school hallway: brash, loud and unproductive.  For all the noise fear makes and room it takes, fear does little good.

Fear never wrote a symphony or poem, negotiated a peace treaty, or cured a disease.  Fear never pulled a family out of poverty or a country out of bigotry.  Fear never saved a marriage or a business.  Courage did that.  Faith did that.  People refused to consult or cower to their timidity’s did that.  But fear itself?  Fear herds us into a prison and slams the doors.  Wouldn’t it be great to walk out?

How powerful are these words?  This books blows my mind!!!!  I went to church a couple of weeks ago after I first bought the book and the service was about Fear.  Go figure.  It’s like God was talking to me.  It’s like he knew I needed the courage to let go and to grab on to hope, to faith.  Pasture Lee, from Radiant said if you let go, he will save you.  Just open up your heart and believe and he will be there walking next to you.  Have faith.  Have courage.  If you believe in Him you will no longer have fear.  What an amazing service!!!  From here on out Internet…. I am letting go of fear.  I don’t want him residing in my heart any longer.  He doesn’t belong there.  God does.  Will you believe and let go of fear????

I will keep you posted when I finish the book and give you another update.

He met her at Club Downtown.  He saw her from across the room.  He knew he had to talk to her.  He finally mustered up the nerve to ask her for her name and for a dance.  Of course she couldn’t resist his charm.  She said yes.  And she said yes again when he asked her hand in marriage.  They have been living happily ever after ever since.  She says he is her best friend.  Her confident.  Her rock.  And without him, her life would be in shambles.  Joe and Julie, you guys mean the world to me.  I know life has thrown you some curve balls but you keep your head up and you keep on moving forward.  I admire you for that.  Don’t ever let that chin down.  Your children are beautiful and they see how strong you are and I am sure they are only learning good from it.  Thank you for giving me the opportunity of photographing you and your family.  Love you guys to pieces!

To view their slide show click here!

Could it get any cuter than this?

I love this photo.  And I really love the reflection of the family standing around.

I fell in love with this wall!!  So flippin cool! 

  I just love this series!!!

I just love this one for some reason?? Maybe its the silly smile on Alex’s face or the tired look on Joe’s or the squinting of Eli’s eyes and the smirk on Julie’s that just makes it so unique. 

How gorgeous is she?

Talk about Sassy!! 

This just makes my heart smile.

One of my goals is to read one book that will benefit my photography business and one book just for fun.  I have already given you a brief description of the Time Traveler’s Wife which was my fun book and now I will introduce to you Selling The Invisible by Harry Beckwith.  I follow a very successful photographer, David Jay, and he mentioned that every small business owner should read this book.  So I listened like a very good school girl.  Thanks David Jay!!!  I am only on page 42 but already it is teaching me tons of stuff.  It talks about not selling things that are tangible but selling a service that cannot be seen.  Selling You.  People go back to the experience because they have enjoyed what you have given them, not so much the product, but the experience.  The concept is so simple that we often overlook it.  Just be yourself.  There is only one you and you cannot be duplicated.  Make it the best experience of their life and guaranteed they will come back for more and tell everyone else they know to go as well.  I will keep you posted on when I finish the book to rate it and to maybe throw out a few of my favorite quotes of the book.  Until then, Happy Reading!!!

Every year we have our annual Fidelity Pep Rally Event.  Skits are acted out, dinner and drinks are served, fun games are played, important awards are given for the previous year’s achievements and new goals are made.  This year it was held at the Tempe Center for the Arts.  The Craps and Black Jack tables were my favs.  I have never played Craps before but will definitely have to do so now.  I had so much fun!! I learned a lot of the rules and had my hand slapped a few times for doing things incorrectly.  And I love that that happened because now I know WHAT NOT to do in Vegas.  We got fake money to play with and at the end of the night we were able to purchase things with it, such as gift cards for I-Tunes, Starbucks, Fidelity Polo shirts etc…  The Sales Team, who work very diligently at setting up the event and keeping everyone entertained, did such a great job as they do every single year.  They all dressed up so wonderfully.  The ladies were in their show girl attire and the gentlemen in their Elvis attire.  So flippin cute!!  The skits were unbelievable this year.  There were 6 departments that participated.  There was a 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rdplace winner.  So everyone brought out the big guns.  Admin came out to Poker Face by Lady Gaga and all sat around at a poker table and gambled while doing their skit.  I loved how everyone was in uniform.  Mary Lou, the president of the company, is so in character and makes it so much fun to watch.  I mean if I ever ran into a Mafioso or Mafiosa that looked that hard core I would probably walk the other way.  That is how tough and serious she is when she plays the part.  Too funny!  And of course Steve de Laveaga, our Sales Manager, always plays the funny part of the big boss man, swooning all the ladies, or in this case the waitress (his executive assistant Sophia Moreno).  Heather Wyant played the part of the Cigar girl and Vonya Smalley and Barbara Groeger were players at the table.  Great job guys!  One of our offices, Gateway came out to a cute little saloon skit, auctioning things off, and Barbara Pusch, in our Trustee Sales Department, was brave enough to come out to a solo of Poker Face and rocked it out!!  Scottsdale Seville took it back to the 80’s with big hair and leg warmers, to DIE for!  They sang and danced to MC Hammer’s, Can’t Touch This.  Four of the girls actually went down to a recording studio to record their song.  This is how serious we all get about this.  Not that we are competitors or anything.  :) And of course Market Research and a couple girls from our I.T sales joined in with our skit for The Hangover.  Like I said in my previous post was something we were not sure we really wanted to do as it involved obnoxious hangovers from a crazy year of real estate in 2009.  But we made it to where we talked about work and all the hardship from the previous year  and how we were betting on the future for a brighter 2010.  I will go into depth on our skit as it is my journey that you are following and all. 

Earlier on in the week our team got together to take photos of what we thought a crazy night out would be (trying to make things work related of course), gambling in one of our gorgeous executive conference rooms, smoking cigars in our Boss’s office, getting a tattoo of one of our client’s names on the arm, playing out in the water fountain outside of our office building (which security was actually called on because they thought we were vandalizing the fountain) and a wedding that took place on our President’s balcony.  All of this was in fun and nothing was intended to harm anybody’s feelings or no office equipment was hurt in the process.  It was a comedy of course that was from the movie, The Hangover, that we all made our own and used our own words to fit to our industry.  It went a little something like this:

Making a toast on the roof top of a building in Las Vegas to the song Yeah, by Usher…

Victoria: Here’s to a year that we will never forget ladies

Tanya: Here’s to betting on the future

Denise: The Hangover from 2009 is finally over

Jean: Cheers to that!

Everyone: Cheers whoohoooooo!!!!

12 hours later sitting at a table trying to piece the night together…

Victoria: Does anyone remember what happened last night?

Jean:  I don’t remember a thing (looks at her hand) did I get married????!!!

Denise: Ouch, my arm hurts, did I get a tattoo??!!

Tanya: OMG Sauce, yes you did!!!  And where the hell did this tiger come from??

Victoria: More importantly where is Pati?

Jean:  She is probably working on the database at Gateway (audience goes crazy as in real life Pati is ALWAYS at our Gateway office working on the database.)

(Baby Cries—waaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!)

Jean: What was that??

Tanya: Probably just some realtor crying about his commission check

Baby is thrown on stage to Victoria

Denise: Victoria you have a baby???

Victoria: Yeah, I just found him.  I named him Andrew Bloom (one of our clients) isn’t he cute??!!

Tanya: Guys, guys focus, let keep our eyes on the crisis.  We need to find Pati!

Victoria: Let’s call her

Ring, ring, ring

Jean answers the phone: Hello!

Victoria: Hi

Jean: Hi (very annoyed)

Victoria: Hi (very clueless)

Jean: Hi

Victoria: Who is this??

Jean: Victoria this is Jean

Victoria: Oh my god you have Pati’s phone

Denise: Guys, hang up the phone, I found my camera, I am sure we can piece together the night with these pictures and maybe find out where Pati is.  We will look at it one time and then delete them forever!! Agreed??!!

Everyone: Agreed!

Slideshow plays (Click here to view in full effect)

Being silly at the water fountain

Security coming to reprimand the vandalists  

When they saw it was us, they couldn’t help but laugh at the audacity of someone calling us vandals.  So we added them to the script. Beautiful.

Love you Doug!!! LOL!

Pati found in the ladies room…  not working after all.

We ended up tying for 1st place with Scottsdale Seville. Who ties in 1st place?  I demand a rematch!! Just kidding Seville you guys rocked!!!! xo

And here are a few pics of the Sales Team.  I was not the main photographer at the event so I only grabbed a few snaps.

The lovely Bernie 

The hot men… Justin and Rob 

Jeaners and Boss Man Steve 

Dustin, Tanya and Bernie

The fabulous Roxie, Rob and Deena 

Tanya with the Boys

 Me with the boys

I love it!!!

The beautiful MaryLou Paulk and Heather Wyant

Work it Linda, work it 

You go Chiquita Banana

Scottsdale Seville rolling deep

Our Precious Pati getting an award for being THE BEST PERSON EVER!!!!! 

I am sure if you know me well, you know that I L-O-V-E to read!!  It’s right up there with photography.  There are times that you just need to unwind and enjoy some quality time for yourself.  This is what I like to do with my time.  No work, no cooking, no homework, no kids… just time for ME!!!  This is a very important part of keeping my mind sane.    So any who I have decided to post about the books that I have read and enjoyed or not enjoyed and hope that it inspires you to pick up a book and have a little quality time for yourself as well.  Believe me, you will thank me one day!  Plus here is what statistics say: They found that those who read books and magazines, played games, used computers or did craft activities in their 50s and early 60s were 40 per cent less likely to suffer from dementia later in life.  If this isn’t enough to make you pick up a book, I don’t know what else will.

Now that that is out of the way, I heard through many of my friends, that The Time Traveler’s Wife was an excellent book.  And I indeed enjoyed it thoroughly.  In the beginning of the book it was a little confusing with all the time travel and I couldn’t figure it out, but hey that’s just me and I probably just have A.D.D and don’t know it! Ha!  But I enjoyed the love story behind it all.  And how the girl loved him so much that she waited.  Her entire life.  To be with him.  It was pretty amazing.  Love.  It stops the world, or it makes it go round.  Either way you look at it, it’s amazing.  I won’t ruin the story here but I give it between 4-5 stars.  5 of course being the highest rating.  What are you waiting for??? Go out and get it and tell me what you think about it!  Enjoy!

Oh yes and if you are not on Good Reads you need to be… and add me as a friend while you are at it.  It’s a fun place book finatics like myself go to find out the next best book to read, and find out what other people are rating them.