Silly Family Portrait

So, this is my silly family. When I did the poll on which sibling I looked the most like I left out my oldest sister Sarah (which she lovingly brought to my attention) and also my parents. So, the shot behind the case is of my immediate family, and then the silly picture is of everyone including spouses (and the baby of course!)
So, cast your vote on who I look most like. (I am the one with the blonde hair and sunglasses on my head). :)

Advice Needed!

(This is a shot of my beautiful sister Sarah with her husband Mike and daughter Avery. I thought this would give a nice visual for this post. :) Plus I just like showing off my family. hehe)

First let me preface this by saying, I am the type of person that likes to make very informed decisions. Therefore, I am asking this question literally years before it will/may happen so please don't anyone be thinking otherwise!

Question: How do those of you have had children do it? What are you recommendations for having children and what types of priorities should I be thinking about ahead of time?

I am seriously SO excited to have kids one day, but I don't know if I completely realize the commitment and time involved. Is it just me, or do most people think about these kinds of things before taking the plunge?? Any and all advice is welcome! Thanks!

Finally Home!

(The view from my balcony! It's good to be home!)
(This is me with my oldest sister Sarah's adorable daughter Avery!)
(Here I am with my sister Leah (brown hair), her husband Hank my brother Daniel (on the right) and my sister Bethany. Who do you think I look most like?)
(This is my long time friend Kami with her baby Quentin and toddler Ian. Kami and I have been friends since we were 18 months old!)

(Here is Michael being surprised by the B-Day cake I ordered for him at the Cheesecake Factory. I know I'm biased but he's pretty much the cutest thing ever!) All pictures taken courtesy of my iphone! :)

We'll, we finally made it back home! After Vegas, we went to Utah to see my sister and brother -in-law in a play! Both of them are amazing actors, so it was really fun to see them perform together. We also got to spend a lot of time with friends and family and enjoy easter together. It was actually the last time my whole family will be together for awhile. My brother is leaving for a two year mission to Brazil in a couple weeks, so it was our last hurrah as a family.
It's really weird, but I can start feeling my family organically breaking away. My oldest sister Sarah is married (to Mike Walker) with a baby and another on the way. She lives in Lake Stevens, WA. My sister Leah, (the actress) lives in Utah with her husband Hank. My brother Daniel is going to be moving to Brazil and my baby sister Bethany is still in high school! (Thanks goodness!) With so many of my siblings scattered all over, it's nice to still have Bethany and my parents close by. (They live in Thousand Oaks which is about an hour away). I've always been a really sentimental home body (I'm a Cancer), so I really hate the fact that my family is all over. But maybe it's a sign that I need to create my own family. Yikes!
It was SUCH a relief to finally get home, so I took a quick pic of the view from our balcony which I love to look at everyday.

Vegas Whirlwind!!

Ohmygosh - this has been one crazy weeks so far!! We have been in Vegas for the annual Wedding and Portrait Photographers International convention, and were honored this year to be platform presenters sponsored by Fujifilm. So here's the recap:
Sunday: Got into Vegas around 9:30 and went to the Super Swanky Soiree II hosted by Sara France and Lauren Hillary this year.
Monday:
8:30 - Michael and I spoke on "Standing out in the Photography Industry" and it went really well! Thanks to everyone who was there!
1:30 - Michael and I spoke at the Fuji Booth (in the tradeshow).
5:00 - Michael and I got much needed massages at the spa in the Paris. (Ahhhhhh...)
9:30 - We headed over the the Blu Domain party, which btw was awesome! It was at the Parisian Palace and there was a hypnotist, taro card reader, airbrush tattoo artist and plus we got some awesome party gifts! The place was so posh, there was original Salvador Dali & Picasso paintings on the wall as well as 22K gold faucets! Michael & I were honored to be on there celebrity list and Michael got some Versace cologne and I got a coach purse. Plus we both got free Nikes! Wow!! (Thanks Blu Domain!)

Tuesday
12:00 - Michael and I spoke at the Fuji Film Booth
12:30 - Michael and I hosted a mentorship lunch for some select people who came to our "Standing out in the Photography Industry" presentation. Congratulations to Jonathan Canlas who was able to secure a sponsorship with Fuji Film! :)
2:15 - Michael and I spoke at the Fuji Film Booth, again!
7:00 - Michael and I headed over to the Richard Photo Lab dinner party at Canalleto's restaurant at the Venetian.
10:30 - Michael and I went with Jose Villa to the [b] party hosted by The Becker. Crazy fun!

Wednesday
11:00 - Michael and I did a mentorship lunch at the Eiffel Tower Restaurant in the Paris Hotel with Lilia Photography. These guys were SO awesome to bid on us for the Thirst Relief Mentorship auction.
1:30 - We met up with some Photo for the People members and then headed over to the tradeshow to check it out! (we had been speaking in the tradeshow but always had to run right after our talk)
8:00 - We went over to the Awards Show (which is always inspiring) and stayed and chatted with some friends.
10:00 - Got some yummy crepes, and took them back to our room. After devouring them we pretty much conked out! What a fun few days! Whew!

A big thanks to Kayce Baker, Bryant Tsumida and WPPI for having us speak at this years amazing conference!!!

Sunrise in Santa Barbara...

So, my friend Amy Nave and I are always trying make plans to work out together, but we're both really busy and so it never seems to work out. So anyway, Amy and her roommates were going to be power walking to the beach and then running on the bike path and then power walking back home and Amy invited me to join them. Here's the hitch - they were leaving at 6:30 am!!! Yikes! So, I decide I was going to suck it up and make it there come hell or high water. But last night I could NOT go to sleep for the life of me! It was 2:30 in the morning when I finally fell asleep and even then Michael kept waking me up (he stayed up until 5 am working).
But guess what. I woke up and went anyway! I was going on 3 1/2 hours of sleep - but I did it. Here are pictures of the sunrise over the beach. I took this on the Santa Barbara pier. So pretty....
(Then I went home and fell into bed and slept until 11. :)

105 Photo for the People Members! (In less than 2 weeks!)

Wow. Michael and I are blown away from the amazing people that are joining Photo for the People. We started the forum because we wanted to share our interviews with others and form a book club and are amazed at the response!!
Now, we also realize that probably most of the people that have joined, did so to chat with Jasmine Star online today!! So a BIG thanks to Jasmine for being so awesome to donate her time and blog about us.
I seriously cannot WAIT to see this forum grow even more and meet a ton of new people that I may never have had the opportunity otherwise.

Thanks everyone!!

Business Book Club - A Success! (Thanks to you!)

April Book Club - Reading "Creating Customer Evangelists"
Brion Hopkins, Andrejka Hirschegger & Michael!

(So if your wondering why there is a random picture of me in the bathroom - it's because I took a picture of Michael, Andrejka and Brion and then wanted to one of me too (because I felt left out). So I went in the bathroom and took this picture accidentally! I thought it was funny, so here I am...)

So, today we hosted an online book club("Love is the Killer App" by Tim Sanders) on photoforthepeople.com as well as an in person book club and they were both awesome! We had some great comments on the online book club from Tim Halberg, Nathaniel Thompson & Beth (she joined in all the way from Tokoyo!) to name a few. And then we had Brion Hopkins and Andrejka Hirschegger over and we had the most amazing discussion! We seriously nailed down things that would make us all more successful and talked about our strengths and weaknesses in certain areas. I learned SO much! So a special thanks goes to Tim Sanders for writing the book and to everyone that came to learn!
So, the book we'll be reading for next month is....(drum roll) "Creating Customer Evangelists" by Jackie Huba & Ben McConnell. Jackie Huba already posted a comment on my blog the last time that I blogged about her book - how cool is that??
The book club will be April 14th 2008 from 4-6 online and 7-9 in person at our place! Mark your calendars and start reading! BTW - I just want to say that originally it was David Jay that inspired me to read BOTH these books. Michael and I went to lunch with him awhile back and he was the one that recommended these books to us- he has always been such a "love cat!"

Book Club - Tonight!!

The day has finally arrived for our first book club! I'm totally amped b/c we are doing an online LIVE book club on photoforthepeople.com tonight from 4-6 pm (pacific time) and then a In Person book club at our place from 7-9 pm (also pacific time!)
If you haven't had a chance to sign up on photoforthepeople.com - definitely go on there really quick and sign up so that your all set for tonight. I'm really excited to see what kind of discussion this will turn into and hear all your opinions/insights/thoughts on the book!! Also, if you haven't read the book still come online and ask questions. I for one, am more than willing to share my favorite parts of this book and I'm sure other are as well! :)

Note: If you are coming to the In Person book club at our place - here are the directions:

Address: 1827 De La Vina St.
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
From 101 N
Take Mission Exit
Make a right onto Mission
Make a right on De La Vina St.
After Pedregosa St - Park. We are the second house on the right in the back (behind 1825)

Can't wait to see everyone!

Tick Tock, Tick Tock, Tick Tock...

Time is running out! Michael and I are giving our FIRST EVER presentation for Wedding & Portrait Photographers Internationals yearly convention in Las Vegas. It's ONE WEEK away! Ahhhh!!
We are SO excited and actually have some fun surprises - so you'll have to come to our presentation to find out. hehe.(March 17th @ 8:30 am in the Platinum Ballroom) :)
All Michael and I have been doing is working on our presentation. We have only left the house twice today. Once to walk down to Los Gallos to get mexican food for lunch - and once to go to the grocery store to buy food for dinner tomorrow. It's actually kind of scary how much time we spend together...(But we wouldn't have it any other way. We're both glutton's for attention - so we keep each other happy :)
Can't wait to see some of you there! Who is going??

Shopping Madness

Michael and decided that we wanted to look nice for our presentation at WPPI in Vegas, so we went shopping. I haven't been THIS tired in such a long time! Funny story...So, I was sitting on this bench outside of Blue Beetle waiting for Michael while he was getting some pants hemmed - when this random guy came and sat RIGHT next to me on the bench. It was uncomfortably close, and I (being quick on my feet) thought that perhaps he was going to grab my bags and purse and take off. So I started to swoop down to secure my packages when I looked up and realized it was my friend Ricky Mia! I started laughing SO hard! He was like, "I saw you sitting there literally staring into space so I thought I'd surprise you."
That's one thing that I LOVE about Santa Barbara - you always run into people that you know. (which I guess wouldn't be a good thing if you had a lot of enemies - but fortunately we don't. Yet.) But we run into Ricky ALL the time, and it's always a pleasure. He is also one of our fellow photographers in town so definitely check out his website.
Anyway, this is a shot of the result of all our hard work in trying to not look like hobo's for our presentation! But it's kind of funny, because we definitely bought expensive pants with holes in them - so I guess we'll look like designer hobo's! :)

Confesion Series # 2

My husband likes to bite my nose. It's really silly, but it's his favorite thing. Whenever I go to give him a kiss, he raises his head a little and tries to kiss my nose instead. (Or tricks me and bites it) It's gotten to the point where I have to bargain for a kiss on the lips. It's goes something like this, (Anna) " No! I want a mouth kiss!" (Michael) "Then can I give you a nose kiss?" (Anna) "Hmmm...yes, but no biting!"
He usually ignores me and bites my nose anyway. It's the most embarrassing when we're in public (and he forgets) and bites my nose.

Alright, so I've told you an embarrassing thing - I want to hear from you! Post your confessions here people! :)

Interview - Jasmine Star!

For those who have been following my blog for awhile know that I did an interview with Jared Bauman awhile back. And it was so much fun that I decided I would start interviewing more people when I felt I was organically drawn to someone for one reason or another.
So, last January I saw on David Jay's blog a photo from his trip to this deserted island somewhere and I noticed the images was taken by Jasmine Star. So, I then dug deeper and found a whole slew of images taken by her from this same trip on her blog. They were crisp and beautiful and it got me curious.
I have met Jasmine several times before, but just recently realized that she's been making huge waves in the photography world. So I thought, "Hey, I want to interview her and see what she's been doing!"
The interview can be found on our new forum - photoforthepeople.com, under the "Knowledge for The People" topic. So please take a minute to read about Jasmine, post a comment and or question.
I am hoping that we'll also be able to set up a live Q&A so that we can all log into the forum and get some fun dialog going. Okay, thanks!