Update

My friend EJ reminded me that I hadn't blogged about the recent events in our lives. It was a crazy insane weekend. I left at 6am Friday morning and drove to Houston by myself. Leaving my girls with my dear friend Jessica, as the boys were off to school. I met up with another photographer, Angie, and assisted her on a day full of photography sessions. She is someone whose work I admire, and I wanted to see what I could learn from her. She took me to lunch and we chatted all things photography. It was great. I left Houston at 3:30 and got home at 6:30pm. I listened to podcasts, the radio, made a long distance call, and didn't get sleep--yay! I usually have a really hard time driving, so I am glad all went well.

I met Angie in the warehouse district in downtown Houston. I got to the meeting spot before her and grew slightly concerned as I drove a block down the road and saw a gathering of about 100 homeless individuals lining up for their morning breakfast. A block in the other direction had apartments and small businesses, so I felt better after seeing people. Angie was really nice and after about 15 minutes of chatting, the first group of people came to be photographed.

What was funny is I had noticed her blog a few months ago mostly because besides photography, she sells template designs to photographers. So she is quite known among photographers because of this. I was pretty impressed that she can live out of state, post on her blog that she would be in Houston a certain weekend, and get her sessions all booked up. Wow, that must mean she has lots of blog readers out of her area. Well, come to find out, all the sessions she booked were of admiring photographers who idolized her work. And I truly mean idolized. I was shocked to see how these ladies were around her. One even explained to her daughter..."You know how much you love Miley Cyrus and would love to meet her? Well, thats how mommy feels about meeting Ms. Angie." Wow, I thought. This is serious. I mean, I appreciate her work, but I wouldn't have put her in my top 5. But I did make an effort to come shadow her for the day, but I would have done that for 25 other photographers, too. Anyway, it was interesting.

{All people I met that day--don't we look so chummy? Angie, Mark is holding the camera, he and his wife (next to him) photograph weddings in Louisiana and he is kindof a big deal, so I realized after. He was interviewed on GMA a year or so ago. It was their daughter Angie photographed. Tristian in pink is a hairpiece designer that Mark uses--came out for 10 min at the end of their shoot.}

I helped get the kids to smile, held reflectors, talked to mom so Angie could get the kids alone (and mom to stop nagging them to smile so cheesy) I totally get it, so it was fun to help in that way and watch instead of be in the hot spot. And to spend the day chatting and doing photography is my kind of fun.

Angie insisted on buying my lunch, and we met up with her husband who was at a helicopter conference. He was nice. She shared her post processing secrets on what she does to her images, and I made mental notes, but can't seem to remember each detail now that I sit in front of photoshop. We talked about her struggle to be the breadwinner with photography, and I'm so grateful I don't have to do that. It would be so hard to depend on that. We both did darkroom printing back in the day and have similar photography journeys. We discussed how we both struggled in figuring out digital and manual settings long before you could just google how to do it. Also how we dropped majoring in photography in college because our professors wanted artisitc landscape shots when all we wanted to do was "shoot" people.

So I left Houston, got home at 6:30pm--cuddled my kids and nursed my baby (she had some goats milk while I was gone) and at 7:30 headed out again to our Stake Relief Society Conference. My friend, Michael, was catering the event, and had asked me to photograph the food and such.

When I chatted with friends after (9pm) I felt like I was going to fall over, I was so tired. I fell into bed and the next morning did a bit more photographing the lunch she organized.

Came home. Michael went on bike ride. He came home, and tag I was out again. Had a long planned photo session. Came home, and we went out to eat with 2 other couples. Came home. Fell into bed.

Oh yeah...while I was driving to Houston on Friday morning, our realtor called and said that our offer was finally accepted after 2 weeks of negotiations, so we officially have a contract to sell our home. 2 weeks ago this offer came in 10K below our asking and them wanting to pay all their closing costs (approx 6k). We found out then that they first came 6 weeks before (around New Years Day) and made the offer 6 weeks later without even a second walk through. Weird.

So then they wanted a second walkthrough (when we countered quite a bit up) and I went to my across the street neighbors to spy on them. I even took a few pictures. I'm so sneaky. (not on computer yet...don't feel like loading it now).

We ended up agreeing to a sale price about 3k below our asking (not too bad) but are paying their closing costs, which adds up (about 5k). BUT, we are closing March 29th and renting back from them until May 10th when our new home should be done! Yay! That is VERY happy. Now I'm just having the adjustment time, I will miss this cute little home. I love it so much. But as we are watching our new one take shape, the excitement is coming more and more. This dragging on is sortof annoying, yet I think good in the long run. It will be good. It will be great!

Sunday was ward conference. I subbed as the primary chorister and Michael was gone for several hours after church with the stake presidency doing visits. Home relaxing for a bit, then we went to dinner with our friends the Wilkinsons in Cedar Park. They are one of our favorite families to hang out with. The men relate so well, the women relate well, the kids love each other, win/win/win all around. We just have to plan ahead to get together because otherwise it will go a long time before seeing each other.

She made the yummiest rolls and helped me realize the depressing fact that while walking for exercise, I only burn about 7 calories a minute. 7 a minute???? No pics yesterday, but here is a funny shot from when they came to dinner at our home last month. Rustin got sprayed in the face with our fridge water dispenser.

Once home and the kids were in bed, Michael and I read, printed, and signed the contract for our home. He then chatted with his brother plotting our drive to Utah next month. Never done it with kids...any suggestions on routes? I want to avoid Wyoming, but I don't get all the say in it.