Arboretums and Mountains

This weekend was one for the books. Lots of driving, lots of picture taking, lots of laughing and of course a whole lot of dancing. My kind of weekend.

On Friday night Abby, Zach and I made our way up to the valley to prepare for our early adventure the next day. We met up with Andrew, I drooled over Camila (when do I not, yknow) and made everyone watch "Never Be the Same" videos non-stop, and then drooled over In-N-Out, and just chilled. Our early morning Saturday adventure was taking Kenzie & Keaton out to Superior for a photo shoot. Keaton and I made a deal earlier that they could model for me and they would get free photos (cause they're gorgeous, and you need to keep up your presence on the 'gram). I invited Abby to come along for the party as well so I could learn from her techniques and so that she could get some pretty photos too (we also needed pictures of each other with our cameras, so that happened too). Earlier in the week I found a picture of a bridge on Pinterest, and I tracked the bridge down to be a Boyce Thompson Arboretum and I wasn't going to be stopped. I needed to go there. So our plan was to pick Kenzie & Keaton up at 6:40 so that we could get to Boyce for the sunrise. We had a little difficulty getting one of party animals to wake up, but even though our plan was delayed it worked out way better because the Arboretum didn't even open until 8. And we lucked out hard since it was so cloudy, we really didn't need to be there at sunrise to get good lighting. Clouds are bae when it comes to photographing during the day.
If y'all haven't been to the Arboretum, you have to go. IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL EVERYWHERE. And as a bonus UA students get a discount (will I ever stop using my CatCard to get students discounts? probs not). Kenzie is pretty much a professional when it comes to photo shoots and is very comfortable in front of the camera, and that made it a lot easier for Keaton too. They're kind of the cutest, so much fun and they kept up with me and Abby no problem! The most important part was that we found my suspension bridge, and the hike to the bridge was not nearly as long as I thought it was going to be.
We all need to appreciate Zach for capturing everything behind the scenes:

And now for some of my favorite shots:

Zach is the best pack mule

And Abby gave me my new fav photo:

After a couple hours shooting we quickly went into Superior to visit the world's smallest museum (Superior's #1 tourist trap):

Then we made our way back to Mesa. We dropped Kenzie & Keaton off then we went to Zach's house for a hot second, picked up Andrew, packed up all our stuff at my house, ran to Jordyn's house to pick up a dress and then went to lunch at Floridino's for those heavenly pizza muffins. After lunch the four of us made our way back to Tucson.
We spent most of the afternoon just chilling at 1320 and editing photos from the morning, but in the evening the four of us went to the institute dance (and this time it was indeed an institute dance not a YSA one haha). I feel like I haven't had a good dance party since mine and Zach's wedding, and this dance filled the void a little bit. It was nice to see some of my college friends and institute teachers that I don't get to see at all because I never go to the institute anymore (duh, I work all the live long day).
Eventually we made our exit and tried to watch Footloose at Abby's but it was a fail and everyone was pretty tired so we just called it a night.

Have I blogged about how I am a primary teacher now? I am trying to not broadcast every. single. detail. of my life anymore, so I am bringing down the blogging a little bit... but every now and then I am just going to have to do it. ANYWAY, I am a primary teacher and I teach the cutest 5 years olds. I have one girl in my class who called my Sister Angel Sunshine because I don't have a middle name (logical). My teaching companion was one of my Dad's students in seminary, so crazy! I always meet people who have had him for institute, but a seminary student is a rare occasion, so it felt pretty special. This past Sunday was tough because neither of us brought treats and that was a struggle for the kids, but they survived and so did we.
After church Zach and I went with Abby, Brittany & Andrew up Mt Lemmon. As you all probably know we got hit with a cold front pretty hard this past weekend, which meant a lot of rain in the valley and a lot of snow up on the mountain, so we had to make a trip. Abby & Brittany and the whole Tucson gang had gone up on MLK day, but I was working so I couldn't join them and now there was more snow so another trip was sort of necessary. IT WAS SO DANG COLD! Our car was so warm riding up the mountain and the second the door opened it was like so cool and nice and then two seconds later the snot in your nose has frozen over and you can't feel your ears. I LOVE IT! We hiked a little bit and found an excellent patch of snow and let the fun begin.
There are many great things about having Abby as a friend, but near the top of the list is that she is a rockstar photographer who will take pictures of me and I can take pictures of her (photog probs, never making it in the photo). So of course we needed some good ol' couples pics, and best of all 5th wheel Brittany pics (she is single guys and probably the greatest human, if you need her number let me know).

Do you see how good Brittany is at sliding down hills with me? What more could you want from a woman?

Look at the way the little snowflakes just rest on her hair like it's a pillow. Imagine your face resting on that pillow. That's magic.

Imagine yourself in this photo

I know this looks like a gust of wind and snow but this is actually Brittany ever so lightly throwing snow in the air for special effects. She is just a homie y'know?

I think this picture just says it all, I don't need to convince you anymore

Eventually we were all just a little too cold so we decided to make our way back down the mountain, then not too long after that I journeyed with Andrew & Jenny back to Phoenix. The conversations with these two are always the best, and the weirdest? And usually turns into TMI. But I love these car rides.

Now it my half week working in Mesa. I am loving only working every other week now, I feel like I get so much more time with Zach and my friends and Tucson in general. Zach and I are actually going to start decorating our house soon people now that life has started to calm down (sort of) so STAY TUNED!

2017

At work all month everyone has been talking about how quickly this year has gone by, and how as we all get older years start to rush by faster and faster. This year absolutely flew by for me in hind sight, but as I was thinking about things to include in my blog post and going through old posts on Facebook and Instagram, there are so many things that seem like an eternity ago. 2017 has been the year of transitions for me, and while my parents say I handled it with grace, I sometimes wonder how I made it out completely sane.

A Transition In My Relationship

On March 11 I changed my relationship status to engaged. I had been waiting for this day for quite some time and it was a pretty magical experience (if you want to relive it with me, just click here). Thus started the intense wedding planning. Lots of things happened really quick, the big things mostly, so that made everything a lot less stressful. I got my photographer, my wedding dress and wedding venue within the first month, and those are three of the most important things to get done fast when it comes to a wedding. Then came all the little things. I am the first to admit, I am not good at planning the little things. I give a lot of credit to my mom and her helpers for pulling off the intricate details. I had a macro vision for how I wanted the wedding to look, and even though we did not always agree on the micro decisions, she made everything happen at the micro level.

I was blessed with a very patient and understanding fiance during some of the more stressful months of wedding planning. He is the poster child for being on the same team as your partner and I couldn't have made it through without him anchoring me.

During the wedding planning madness I was thrown two awesome parties. Merilee Kenney threw together a fabulous bridal shower for me (with the help of my mom, sister, Kathi Little and Belynda Heslop). And Steph & Kenzie (&Trev) threw Zach and I rager of a bachelor(ette) party. I am all about the parties, so I wanted my entire engagement to be one, and our peeps did not disappoint. 

On September 23 I changed my relationship status to married. It was a very surreal experience getting sealed to Zach, but the experience in the sealing room is something I will never forget. We were surrounded my so many family members and friends, the amount of love and the spirit in the room was overwhelming. Zach and I are so grateful to everyone who helped us get to that point, you all have shaped us in ways you can't imagine and in one way or another that brought us together.

Now let's talk about how our wedding was such a PARTY. I don't know if y'all had a good time, but I didn't even want to leave hahaha! It was the perfect celebration to the happiest day of my life. 

There are no amount of words that can describe the love I have for Zach. He has been my best friend for years now, and being married to him is the greatest adventure. It's the most magical thing to say goodnight and then not leave each other! You guys seriously have no idea how much I treasure just sleeping in the same bed as him, especially since I am away at work for days at a time. He is the most excellent husband. He always cleans the house for me when I come home from Chandler on a Wednesday. Whenever I transition from a day in the office to a day at home, he will always set up my computers and work things at night, so I don't have to do it in the morning. Even though we live in the same house he will still surprise me with treats randomly when he comes home from school or work. He had quite a transition this semester too coming to the UA. It was a tough semester for him, but he very rarely complained and always put up with my complaints about work. He never let school or work come before our relationship. He is real life husband goals people. Everyone deserves a Zach in their lives.

As much as I think marriage is supposed to be a hard transition, it was such a breeze because Zach and I have spent so much time together leading up to moving in together. We work together, make decisions together, pray together and just love each other. I am grateful for Zach for making this transition the easiest of all.

A Transition In The Workforce

I don't have any photos of me at work soooooo this birthday cad from our designer will have to do

I can explain this all to you if you're interested hahah

I was heading into 2017 with a job offer for a newspaper in Cottonwood, Arizona (a job that I wanted exactly... just not where I wanted it) and a plan to get married to Zach later in the year. Zach was going into his final semester at CGCC and had plans to transfer to a university in the fall. I made a tough decision to not put any more distance between mine and Zach's relationship and turn down the job in Cottonwood. That left me in Mesa, close to Zach, but unemployed and mostly bored. I did some freelancing for some newspapers, and started transitioning to portrait photography to start making some money. I wasn't getting any serious cash from this, and knowing that I did not want to have my future wedding in a church building I knew I needed a real job. I just wanted something that was full time and would help me save for my wedding. I was pretty sure that Zach was going to the University of Arizona at this point, so I figured I would only have this job until my wedding anyway, so I didn't really care what the job was in. I applied for lots of jobs from social media marketing to good ol customer service. In March I eventually interviewed for a job within Backdrop Express to be a customer service rep. Not my dream job, but they were paying well so I figured I would go for it. I passed my phone interview, and they brought me in for an in-person interview and I started to actually like the sound of this environment, even if I didn't like the job. A few days later while grocery shopping at Fry's with my mom I got a call from the operations manager saying I didn't get the job I applied for, but that they are creating a new position for me that involved less customer service, more working with orders, and a lot more photoshop/design work. This had me stoked! Because even though I was okay with just being CS agent for a little while, I felt super blessed to have a position created for me (they must have really liked me or something). So I took the job, and started on March 20th. At the start I knew this was going to be a short term job...but as months went on and I started gaining more and more tasks and responsibilities, I was actually kind of sad at the prospect of leaving this job once I got married. So I did that unforgivable and tried to convince Zach to go to ASU so that I could keep my job. This logically made a lot more sense to me, because I thought for sure that I would have to quit this job and try and find a new one in Tucson that paid just as much. But as God would have it, Zach ended up receiving a better scholarship from the better school, so we made plans to move to Tucson in September, and I slowly started dropping hints to my boss that I would be leaving in September. Jokes on me though. I walked into work one day in August with wedding invitations and a plan to officially tell my boss to start looking for someone to replace me. Well turns out she was wanting to talk to me that day too, but not about me leaving... instead how to get me to stay! She said that the benefit of working for a small e-commerce company is that we don't necessarily have to be in the office, as long as we work hard. So she worked out a plan for me that I can work from home in Tucson and work in Chandler a few days at a time. It was a tremendous blessing, especially at the start of mine and Zach's marriage. Financial security is the number one thing that stresses me out in life, so to not have to worry about going paycheck to paycheck with part time jobs going through college, was an incredible gift to us.

During all of this I started to get more and more opportunities with my photography... I even did what I swore I would never do... make a photo Instagram account! As much as I didn't want to admit it, I was transitioning from the photojournalism world to the portrait/wedding photography world. This is an extremely saturated profession, especially in the Phoenix valley so I feel way less confident in my skills in this realm than I did in the journalism world. So while it probably seemed like an easy decision to start promoting myself more... it honestly tore me apart because of how insecure I was about it. But I am glad I made the leap! I shot my first wedding in May for Diana & Harrison. Did some senior shoots here and there. And because of a partnership I did with the Gilbert Girl I was able to meet so many families and do so many family photo sessions through the fall and and winter. I even got to photograph some engagements, a proposal and a wedding all this month! Although this is just my side gig to my full time job, I am so excited to see my photography grow this year and meet so many more people! I do want to thank everyone that hired me this year, or let me take photos of you a million times so that I could expand more portfolio more and more! I won't bombard you with my favorite photos from the year so here is one from this week's bridals session with Raini & Levi:

A Transition in Geography

Like I mentioned earlier Zach and I live in Tucson now that Zach is going to school at the UA. Tucson ha my heart, so it wasn't really a transition to just moving to Tucson. What was more of a transition was living in Tucson, but not at 1320. That duplex was my home for the entirety of my college career, and even though that is still the happening house amongst the Tucsonans, it wasn't my house anymore. It sounds silly to feel displaced just because you don't live in the same house anymore, but it definitely has taken some getting used to have the Beezies next gen there without any of the originals. But I love living in Tucson. I love pretending to be a college student still. I love still going to parties at 1320 and I love having my own house with Zach. A place that is completely our own. And while I have failed miserably to decorate our house (it'r hard when I was honestly in Mesa more than I was in Tucson the past two months), it has become home for me and Zach, and I love it. 

This isn't really a transition, but it fits under the theme of geography here. Zach and I did quite a bit of traveling this year, and we went further than we have before! In March we went to California with his family for spring break:

In June we went to Sedona with Parker, Sadie & Trevor:

In September we went way out east to Tennessee for our honeymoon and proved all our h8erz wrong. We visited the Great Smoky Mountains and found my new favorite place DOLLYWOOD:

In November for my birthday trip we went to California again, but this time to Disneyland and the Channel Islands National Park:

Other notable things that happened this year:

• Cob and Keaton returned home from their missions, allowing the Fam to reunite 
• Rory moved to China!
• I won third place for the College Media Best General News Photo for my photo from the Orlando vigil in Tucson in 2016 that I have over shared with you guys
• We lost our dog Chloe this year, which was easily the most heart wrenching moment of the year
• Zach bought a car right before we got married (and he let me use it while he was living in Tucson and I was in Mesa because he is the bae of all baes) and then when we got married we bought a 2016 Chevy Trax to support me in all my travels to and from Tucson.
• Zach turned 21 and we went on an epic scavenger hunt across Phoenix
• Most exciting of all, Zach and I have indeed made a completely fresh, not frozen meal. Hold the applause.

2018 is fuzzy to me. I know that I am going to be working and I know that Zach will be going to school. But outside of that the canvas for 2018 is completely blank. I am hoping (and planning) for some exciting adventures, like going to DC for EJ's graduation in May! And I am excited for all the photography opportunities that are ahead. I already have one wedding scheduled (yay Kara & Tristan) but I want to start doing more! I have a goal to document more of me in Zach in photos. Just everyday things. I take a lot of photos, but rarely of the two of us, and I want to be able to have a lot of photos for us to look back on in our early years of marriage. I am excited for big events that are happening in 2018 like the arrival of the Whitmore baby (please be a girl) and lots of friends weddings!

Since 2017 was my transition year, I can't wait to get settled into 2018 and really start living life and enjoying the day to day things. I look forward to spending more time in Tucson with Zach, now that the busy season is long gone at work. Here's to my year of transitions, and to an exciting year ahead!

Home Sweet Home

I have missed my home so much the past few weeks. And no not home, like my parents home, but my actual Tucson home. Because of the way my work schedule and other things lined up, once Zach and I left for California for my birthday, I wasn't going to be back to our home for two weeks. I do enjoy being in Mesa with both our families and with our friends, but being away for too long is just as tough.
I left this blog off on Tuesday the 21st. The next day was my last day of work before the Thanksgiving break. Work from Wednesday to pretty much the following Wednesday is my nightmare week, since it is our biggest sale of the year and it lasts for ten days. While I had the option of coming in for black Friday to ease my workload on Monday... I really just needed those two days off. So on that Wednesday I was super hyped to get work done and start my "vacation." Unfortunately Zach worked late in Tucson on Wednesday so even though 99% of UA students had made their way home, he was stuck for a little while longer.  But he did make it back to me late on Wednesday to start the Thanksgiving festivities.
Our parents live like 2 miles from each other and so we try to split our time between our families for holidays and when we are in town. We ate breakfast with my family on Thanksgiving morning and then went over to Zach's parents house for the Thanksgiving feast and to spend time with them. I felt grateful for many things this year, since this has been such a big transition year for me... but I am the most grateful that neither of our parents expect us to provide any meals... yet. Someday Zach and I will surprise with world with our cooking skills, but that day was not Thanksgiving... and nor is it today... but someday. Not only was this mine and Zach's first married thanksgiving.. it was actually our first thanksgiving together ever, well at least for the meal part... we always found our way to each other for the shopping.

After spending time with Zach's family, we went over to my house to play games. When we got there they were in the middle of playing Sardines, and apparently my mother had never played this game before and she thought it was the most hilarious thing in the world, she seriously could not stop laughing at the fact that everyone was squishing together into the smallest of places. After a round of jenga and the world's longest game of Uno, Zach, Kenzie, Avery, my mom and I set out on our Black Friday adventures. Our first stop was to Old Navy, which was open at like 4 pm. They had 50% off everything and what I wanted for Christmas was there so we conquered that one hard. I came out with a few new shirts and a secret santa present for work. Our next stop was Target. We waited in line there for probably 45 minutes or so. I have to say that I am very impressed with Target this year. They had everything way more under control than I had ever seen before. Targets on Black Friday are what nightmares are made of, and it was honestly so easy! It helped that we didn't have a lot of things on our list from Target, but still it was wonderful. Zach and I walked out of their with a new SD card and a new game!

Then it was time for Avery to go home, so my mom and Kenzie took her home, while Zach and i grabbed a quick dinner at Jack in the Box before we all met back up together at Chandler Mall. Zach and I got there first so we started our journey at Hollister where Kenzie and my mom later met up with us AND we ran into the Despain + Kylie clan. Derrick ditched his family to continue our shopping adventures throughout the mall. The BEST place of the night was Lucky. My mom is all about the Lucky brand, but it is all to expensive for me to even want to start to like it. But I went int here with my mom and was amazed to find out that EVERYTHING was 50% off in the store NO EXCEPTIONS not even the sale items. So I went a little ham there. I walked out with a new shirt, a new jacket and some new pants, and I got a very sharp sweater for Zach. I had never been so happy about sales in my life. Next on our list was Forever 21, so I could buy Mckenzie a pink sheep sweater as a payment in advance for her helping with all my photo shoots that weekend. While in line we witnessed the horror of a 16 year old girl using one of the hairbrushes for sale on her own hair and then putting it back.... and then going to use a hair coloring stick and putting it back. Zach may or may not have confronted them... but that was the only "fight" of the night... and it was so funny. Our last shop of the night was Sephora for my mom, and then we took Derrick home and called it a night.

Friday morning was the start of my family photo marathon. Some people run turkey trots... others just take lots of family photos. I was paying Kenzie to be my assistant this weekend so she came with me on Friday morning. We had two shoots, the Rays and the Quarantas at Nichols Park and Riparian Preserve. The highlight of the two shoots was at the end of the Quaranta shoot we saw a real life WOLF at the Riparian. We all thought oh wow that is a big husky... but no it was an Alaskan wolf. It was incredible.

When you say "okay now be a cactus"

They're the sweetest

Erin and the wolf

After the shoots Zach and I attempted to do some more shopping at H&M but were extremely disappointed with their sales, so we ended up just eating pizza instead. Afterwards we met up with my family to go see Daddy's Home 2. It was so funny people. The thermometer scene just about killed me. Everyone can relate. Oh and the best Christmas song of all Christmas songs is featured hardcore in the movie and I honestly cried.

On Saturday morning I had another two shoots, but this time we started off at Riparian and ended up at Nichols haha. Zach joined Kenzie and I on these shoots as well. First off was the Emenecker family featuring Clara, who loves sticks and Paw Patrol more than life:

Then our second shoot was one of my favorite families (DESPITE their love for that other school) the Craigs! They Craigs have been in the same ward as my family pretty much since we moved here so I have seen all their kids grow up... but in my mind none of them can be older than 12... so it was a little weird taking photos of them and seeing how big everyone is!

Later that day I made my way to that other city to go to the other school for my first game at that other stadium. I have never even wanted to go to a UA/ASU football game in Tempe because I feel like I might die... or that too many people would say such funny jokes... but they don't realize I've heard it ten other times in the last two minutes. But alas, thanks to the Frosts Zach and I scored some tickets to the game, and Zach really wanted to go so i decided to toughen up and go. We got to Tempe early so we could park at the institute then we got some lunch, then met up with Scott and Derrick before we went to the game. We also ran into Sammi, her sister, Jaren & Kayla at the institute, which was pretty crazy! There was a little mix up with Scitt and his tickets, so although him and Derrick were supposed to be in the student section, Joann (Trev's step mom) had extra tickets so they got to sit with them. Their season tickets were actually not too far from where Zach and I were sitting so we did end up going to sit with them during the second half when seats started clearing. We planned it out pretty well... we were surrounded by some Sun Devil strangers who were not big fans of my excitement during the first half.... and then when Tate got injured and everything went south in the second half we sat with all our friends who made the experience almost bearable. It would have been oh so sweet to win in Sun Devil stadium... and y'all know we would have if Tate didn't get injured or maybe if the refs knew the difference between a shoulder and  the back (that one less as much but still....) but it was still a good-ish experience being there, at least with the Gonzalez family. And at least with Trev & Derrick there I wouldn't be the only one screaming. I appreciate Scitt the most at this game though because although he is a Sun Devil, he wanted UA to win because he knew I cared more haha. After the game we were pretty sad to say the least, but we all hung out and met up with Kenzie and Avery to eat some Taco Bell and hang at the Walton household and share our sadness together.

On Sunday I had one more shoot for the weekend, and this was with the gorgeous Mellows! The shoot started to quite an unfortunate start when a bee landing on Zach's head somehow turned into McKenzie karate chopping my phone out of Zach's hand only to smash the screen on the ground. But luckily the shoot itself was no reflection of how it started, and it turned out awesome!

Somehow a joke about sorority squats turned into my favorite photo, please note the Dad's Texas longhorn

Seriously people the coolest of families right here!

The rest of the Sunday was pretty relaxing, I spent most of the day just editing photos and spending time with Zach's family.

Then it was Monday which was a nightmare at work, I didn't even take a lunch break... which was heart breaking because Zach was apparently waiting for me outside with a pizza and a mountain dew! Is he the greatest person in the universe? Honestly, that's an understatement. I felt so bad that I kept him waiting, but he was very understanding and still left the pizza and dew on my car as a surprise treat when I got off work. He's the best.

After work I rushed to take the Gardiner's family photos. I love family's who know exactly what they want, and can just tell me that! This was a fun group to be with, and they came up with the best ideas for their own photos too!

Monday was the last day of the main sale, so Tuesday was better than Monday but still a little crazy at work. But no matter how hard a day can be at work it can always be made better by some good food and good friends. I met up with my favorites Steph and Lauren at Some Burros after work and we got each other alllll caught up on each other's lives. So much is going on these days, and you just don't get even a sliver of it from our blogs or social media, so these dinners are essential. I am so grateful I had these girls as my roommates freshman year, and that we still make sure to meet up every now and then even with our crazy schedules!

On Wednesday after work I FINALLY got to go home! I was so excited to finally be back in Tucson. The only down side is that as soon as I got there, Zach had to go to work. So I went and hung out at 1320 and watched Riverdale with Kenzie, Derrick, Britt and Kara.

On Thursday I was working at home for the first time in two weeks. As much as I don't like working at home, sometimes it is nice, especially when it is slow to be able to multi task around the house at the same time. And I still get to eat lunch with Zach, which is the best. After work I tried to go to Marana to find a good cotton field for an upcoming shoot, but I was so unmotivated that I only made it to Park and Speedway before I decided to drag Zach with me to go visit Chastity at the Daily Wildcat. Sometimes I can get caught up with work and I forget that I haven't seen people in a very long time.... I seriously have not seen Chastity since the wedding, so going and visiting her was the best alternate decision I made... even though I discovered such sad sad news from her (also happy I guess) it was awesome catching up with her, and catching up with Brett too!

On Friday after work I was motivated to go to Marana to go find that cotton field. Zach and I drove around with no direction, and we came across what I think will work out pretty well. 

And since we were already on the north side, we decided to go to the $5 Harkins in Marana. We finally saw Wonder... and boy oh boy was this movie WONDERful (lol). I cried so much at so many different parts. Everyone needs to go see it. Afterwards we went to Kenzie's to hang out with her and Derrick a little bit before we called it an early night.

Although we have lived in Tucson for quite some time now, Zach and I have failed at making the time to go do a session at the temple! But we finally did it this morning! Going to new temples is actually kind of stressful for me, because not knowing exactly where I am going creates quite the anxious experience for me. But even though I was nervous it was an incredibly peaceful experience and I am so happy we finally made the time to go!

For the rest of the day we are going to get my phone fixed and then we have another family shoot tonight out in our precious cotton field! I am so so happy to be home... even if it is only for four days before I leave again!

Feelin' 22

I had my wedding blog post last week so I didn't have the energy to do a weekly update last week either, but I will give you a quick synopsis of the week before we get into my exciting birthday things:
1: It was my Moms birthday on the 6th! I was lucky enough to be in Mesa on her birthday so I was able to go to dinner with her and my dad and Avery. We of course went to Joe's Farm Grill as we usually do for birthdays, but this was our first time going since it was renovated so it was a very exciting experience! We tried all their new sodas and the crowd favorites were cherry cream and the cola.
2: I went to dinner with the Steph Shaw since I hadn't seen her in lightyears. It was wonderful catching up with her and all her elementary school adventures. It was not wonderful that Native POISONED me. I knew the chicken tasted a little different, but I thought it was the sauce since the chicken didn't seem undercooked. Well sure enough I woke up on Wednesday not feelin too hot, so I opted out of going to work, and because I was too weak to drive to Tucson, Zach came all the way to Mesa to pick me up and drive us right back to Tucson. He's the best!
3: I went to a basketball game with Derrick, Kenzie, Brittany, Jenny & Jacob. Brittany also caught me up on all the wedding things I have been missing out on since I rarely see my homies in Tucson. This was also the first real game of the season, and I am just so pumped! I can't wait until we get to the PAC, that's when things get real exciting. Thanks to Abby for letting me use her catcard to get into this game.
4: Also thanks to Abby AGAIN for the catcard to get into the football game on the 11th! It was the worlds latest game and I honestly didn't think I was going to get through all of it, but by some stroke of luck I stayed the entire game.
5: I had two photo sessions over that weekend, one graduation and another one family. I am super grateful to everyone who has booked me for these sessions! I love meeting new people, and especially everyone's cute kids! Here are a few of my favorites from those sessions:

6: Work is really freaking crazy, we have hit the busy season hardcore! I find myself going in way early and leaving late... I can't wait for January honestly haha.

So that brings us to the start of my birthday week!
November 14th was my birthday celebration with my family. My mom believes birthdays should only be celebrated on or before birthdays, and since I was going back to Tucson right after work on Wednesday, that meant Tuesday was my family birthday. After work my mom had a table full of sweet presents for me, which of course included takis and Salty V's haha. For dinner since we went to Joe's the week before I decided to go to Oreganos. We picked my Dad up from work and went to the Oreganos in Tempe. Real question: why do all Oreganos have the worst parking lots in the world? Is that like their fun thing they can advertise? Even though their parking lot sucked, we, for the first time in my life, did not have to wait for a table! It was pretty magical. And our food came our pretty dang quick, it was a nice birthday gift from Oreganos. We were so busy talking and eating that we all forgot to say the things that they like about me, so we did that when we got back home.

Since I do not work in the office on Thursdays and Fridays, and since my birthday was on Saturday, it was my work birthday on Wednesday! I have the sweetest co workers who treated me with delicious drinks, boom chicka pop, a jaw dropping image of my face photoshopped onto my queen Dolly Parton's body, and homemade raspberry lemon cupcakes. Oh and a whole lot of balloons. It's always a struggle stuffing my car with balloons haha.
After work I drove right back home to Tucson and then went to dinner with Zach and then went over to 1320 to "watch" Riverdale. I put watch in parentheses because we didn't even start the show ha. I spent pretty much the entire night watching Abby edit her photos haha, photographer life.

Thursday was the start of my birthday adventure. If you haven't caught up by now, for my birthday I prefer to go on a big road trip somewhere. It started with my 20th when I was traveling all around AZ, and I thought that was way more fun than my friends giving me gifts that end up in a memory box haha. Due to some unfortunate circumstances, but maybe also fortunate? it was just me and Zach on the trip this year! I love going on trips with a big group of people, but my number one favorite person to travel is Zach. And traveling alone with him is top notch. This year's trip was to the Channel Islands in California. We were also planning on going to Six Flags when other people were coming with us, but since it ended up just being me and Zach and I have been making a lot of money on the side with photography, we said SCREW IT it's my birthday we are going to DISNEYLAND. So that was what the trip was consisting of.

The original plan was to drive to Huntington Beach on Thursday afternoon and go right to Zach's grandparents. Then on Friday morning we were going to wake up early to drive to Oxnard to hop on a boat to go to Anacapa Island. Then Saturday would be Disney day, and Sunday we would drive home.
Well we got the first part right. Once we got to Zach's grandparents house I wanted to check the boat departure time to Anacapa. Well I did all this research a few weeks ago about the island, but I did not realize that you needed to make the reservation for the boat ride at least 24 hours in advance. Sooooo we would not be able to go to Anacapa in the 8 hours we had before dock time. Luckily there was still availability on the rides to Santa Cruz island on Saturday so I booked those reaaaal quick. So now Channel Islands were being moved to Saturday and Disney was being moved up to Friday.
I couldn't have accidentally planned this any more perfectly because Disney is less crowded on Fridays and the traffic to get to Ventura to get to Santa Cruz would be waaaaay less if we went on Saturday. So it was perfect. The only down side to it all was that Zach and I would literally get like 4 hours of sleep before we went to conquer Disney for 16 or so hours.

Oh but conquer we did. Zach and I are PROS at Disneyland and have never had a bad day there. We have been there by Christmas, in the middle of Summer and now right by Thanksgiving and we have totally been lucky! On Friday we were able to get on every single ride we wanted to by pretty much noon without a single fast pass. Are we super humans? Yes, yes we are.
It was just all so surreal that we were even there! We seriously didn't think we were going to Disney until the Wednesday before, and then we were there!! It was so magical. This was our first time there since they brought in the Guardians of the Galaxy ride, and people I am TELLING you that this is 10000000% better than Tower of Terror... but I never had an emotional attachment to Tower like other people seem to have. I'm just saying the music is killer and the fact that the ride is synced to the beat is just too cool to me.
We went on so many rides, we walked so fast, we rested so hard when we watched the Frozen show (it was actually incredible), we ate dang good food (For lunch we had corn dogs and for dinner Zach had his clam chowder bowl that could possibly bring him more happiness than I do, and I had my chili bowl), and enjoyed everything that is Disney! It was an absolutely perfect trip, and that could have been the end of the entire weekend and I would have been waaaay satisfied.

My only regret is going on Grizzly rapids so early because my beautiful hair was destroyed. But seriously best birthday present to myself ever haha. We proooobably would not have been able to go to Disneyland with a giant group, so I was super happy it was just me and Zach conquering the park together.

We stayed until past midnight, we got onto Zach's favorite Buzz Lighyear Astro Blaster ride right at midnight! I was honestly so shocked we made it, but I sure am happy that I was in Disneyland on my official birthday!

That night was another night of very little sleep haha. We woke up early on Saturday to drive two hours to Ventura. We picked up some Subway Sandwiches and some snacks before we hopped on the boat ride. The boat ride is about an hour and 15 minutes to get to Santa Cruz. We were kind of towards the end of the line to get on the boat, so we sat on the back of the boat and enjoyed the ride. Luckily neither of us get sea sick so it wasn't an awful trip, but it was prettttty chilly haha.

When we got to the Island we were greeted by a nice Park Ranger names Bethany and she gave us the rules of being on the island. One of them being that you can take NOTHING off the island (besides your trash and yourself), not even a single rock. It's a very isolated and unique habitat on each Island so the NPS does their best to maintain it's natural state as much as possible.
After our little orientation we ate our lunch and then joined Ranger Bethany on a guided hike. Along the hike Bethany provided us with wonderful facts about the island and it's history, and it was all very interesting. I can't even believe that people first of all found this island and wanted to live so isolated from the world. It's crazy to me! Just the thought of traveling to the mainland in a small boat seems like a nightmare to me. The ranchers on the island were pretty dedicated.
During our hike we ran into a few of the greatest creatures that walk this glorious earth: THE ISLAND FOX. The island fox is found exclusively on the Channel Island, and they are are the largest native mammal on the island, so they are the predator. They're the tiniest little guys and as of a couple years ago they are no longer on the endangered species list! Please enjoy this fox who got a little tired:

I am pretty much obsessed with these guys now

Besides the fascination of the foxes the tour was awesome because there was this hilarious little boy on the hike with us who acted like he knew everything. Zach and I bonded with Ranger Bethany over this kid and how hilarious he was.

Here are some other photos from the hike:

It felt pretty cool to be so isolated from the world for a few hours. We had pretty much no service on the island, so there wasn't any temptation to even look at our phones for updates on social media. It was just, nature, cute little island foxes and that one smart kid. I love national parks and how they make me just feel so cool to live on this really dope planet with so much diversity!

After the hike we relaxed along the shore before it was time to get on the boat ride back. We were one of the firsts in line this time so we got a spot on the inside of the boat, so we were much warmer. This boat ride was much more entertaining because we ran into a pocket of THOUSANDS of dolphins! It was incredible:

This is Zach sleeping before the dolphins arrived

It was the cherry on top of an awesome trip.

Once we were back on the mainland it took us FOREVER to get back to Huntington Beach, but Zach's grandpa was super sweet and waited for us to take us out to dinner for my birthday to Mimi's Cafe!

After dinner we hit the hay preeettty quickly to actually get a full nights sleep on Saturday night.

We left around 7:30 on Sunday so that we could make it to Mesa in time to take the Brunton/Couto/Whitmore Clan Family photos at Coon Bluff. AND IT WAS THE BEST BECAUSE SADIE AND PARKER WERE IN TOWN!!!! Is this family my most favorite family in the world? Easily yes. They are seriously so fun and the best to be around, FULL of personality:

After taking their photos the Fam got together (plus two new honorary members since they are dating members of the Fam) to play Hand and Foot before Sadie and Parker left back for Utah on Monday morning! I live for Fam game nights, we were only missing Trev! And we were playing a game he would actually like HA.

Monday was a nightmare day at work because my counterpart called out of work.... on the busiest day of the week... I'm not salty. I only had to do the job of two people. But luckily today was much better and he did indeed show up to work! It was good too because I needed to leave slightly early from work to get all the way to Lost Dutchman for yet another family photo session! Luckily I somehow get the families with the cutest kids, so I can never complain with my busy schedule!

So there we have it people, my birthday week! Thank you to everyone's warm birthday wishes, but most thanks to Zach for joining me on all the adventures and always keeping up with my speed! Couldn't do it all in hand with anyone else!