in exactly 3 months...

we will be spending our fist day as Virginians, (I can't believe it's that close) one of the things that I'm going to miss most is being able to go to my parents house for the weekend, especially times like mothers day. These are a couple of images from our road trip from Lubbock to Ft. Worth this past weekend. I've been making this drive all together now for over 10 years, and it never ceases to amaze me. Almost every trip we see some kind of amazing sunset, or crazy awesome clouds. I will start out taking pics of it with my iphone and K will say, "do you think we should stop for this one?" I always answer "no" but then quickly digress and we pull over so I can get my "big camera" and get a better shot. 

This is what I have referred to, for most of my adult life as "my mesa." It also signifies that I am one hour from Lubbock. This formation is right outside of Post, TX and I have recently found out that it's called "flat top mountain"... whatever. 

Found this guy while exploring around an Allsups in Baird TX. 
This is Cotton staring, mystified by the white horse. Cotton has a thing for anything that's white. It could possibly be due to the fact that his fur is white? BUT he has a strong attraction to other things that are white... blankets, toys, horses, cats...? 
Road Dog.

Kyle thought that this cloud formation was actually a flying saucer, a gigantic flying saucer entering our atmosphere... who knows, stranger things have happened.

even rock stars have parents

I was recently asked to photograph my bosses family for their christmas portrait. This was my first experience at taking pictures of people who WANT their picture taken, HA! I was a little nervous about the whole thing, and knew that it would be a challenge with so many people (Dad, Mom, and 4 girls!) On pure happenstance, photojojo, my FAVORITE by-weekly photo newsletter posted some inspiring ideas about capturing families just a couple of days before the shoot. My favorite family photos were taken by John Olson in the 1970's of rock stars with their parents. This image of David Crosby and his dad is probably my favorite, i'm almost positive it has something to do with the frequency The Byrds are played at our home. 

The whole set is really awesome. Click here to see the other images. The images of Grace Slick and Frank Zappa are priceless too!  I also discovered in this photojojo issue that LIFE magazine has posted their entire photo archive online! There are millions of photos stretching from the 1860's to today! click here to go to the archive.

So because of the pure brilliance of the wind in Lubbock (yes that is sarcasm), we were not able to go outside and explore with the family to get the kind of shots I wanted to get, but what I got was sufficient for the christmas card, and hey you gotta start somewhere! This was not an official photo, but I just thought it was too funny and captured the chaos that was going on before the shoot started.

thanks

I feel somehow absent recently from my blogging world, partly due to the fact that for 5 WHOLE days I was without internet connection, and then in some sort of transit for 2 1/2 days after that, wow. My family spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Red River, New Mexico which is one of our favorite vacation spots, summer or winter, due to the fact that the town forces relaxation, with nothing really to do there but to sit back and enjoy the environment. K, Fil (Jana's beau) and I met the rest of the family at the cabin early Thanksgiving day (which is when the pic below was taken). Shortly after that it started to snow and before the next morning there were a couple of inches on the ground. It always amazes me how quiet and crisp the air is when there is snow. Although we had good intentions of taking a family portrait each day, this one of the first day seemed to be the only that we could muster.

After the weekend we were back in lubbock for half a day, and then drove to Dallas to see our friend Whitney play with Deerhunter.... which was AMAZING! ...and so so good to see Whitney, it's probably been more than a year since I have seen her, and it felt good to my soul to be around her again. sidenote: The Deerhunter album, Microcastle, from this year is rapidly moving to the top of my favorite album of the year list which is one of my favorite things to compile and is just almost time to post it!

anyway, I'm back at home base for a while, preparing for the holiday just around the corner, in the mean time, here are some of the things from my thankful list this year { in no particular order }
• every single memory that I was able to create through my entire live, with my grandparents, the ones that have passed on and the ones that are still here, I think of them so often.
• the geography based proximity that I have with my family, I don't know how much longer I will live this close to all of them, but I have enjoyed our time together this last year. Especially my sis & bro that live right here in Lubbock!
• K, who is the best thing to ever happen to my soul. I could fill this page describing his wonderfulness.
• healthy living & vegetables
• courage
• boots
• hot apple cider

My bro, Paxton, was incredibly excited about his leg shot in this pic.

Dad, Paxton, & Jana skied 1 1/2 days... and with no physical injuries!
Every sat night during ski season the locals have a tradition called TORCH LIGHT where they gather and ski down with torches. So fun... and so so so so cold. Good thing we were observing from the bar.