Awkward/Awesome in Austin

A few weekends ago, I took a trip to Austin, Texas…. by myself! I know, I can hardly believe it! I actually left my kid, got on a plane (alone) and had myself a little girls photography retreat weekend and I was pretty independent!

Also… I stayed up past 7:30 pm! WHAT!!!

Almost a year ago now I joined a few fellow family photographers and took a course online with the amazing Shalonda Chaddock! We spent 4 weeks in some pretty intense business zoom calls and we formed our own little family while we also took our businesses and worked them over hard!

This past weekend, we finally got to meet face to face and man it couldn’t have been better if it was a dream! We got to shoot in some dreamy locations in Austin and also learn from each other and love on each other!

BUT that’s not what this post is about! This post is about all the craziness that ensued on my trip to meet up with all these phenomenal people because you know it’s me and I can’t just be normal!

Let’s start with the AWKWARD:

• I forgot about the time change! I was sitting on my first flight to Houston and I started panicking because our flight took off late and when I checked my watch I realized we still hadn’t landed! My next flight was getting close to boarding time and because I’m an anxious person, I was like oh crap… I’m going to miss my connection. I called the flight attendant over and he sweetly reminded me by way of the southern “Bless your heart” to remember we were now an hour behind! I mean honestly… sometimes I’m so pretty!
• On the way (running) to that connecting flight… I peed my pants a little! So this is one of those moments where I thought ok… no one’s gonna know! Except now I’ve told the whole world, so everyone’s gonna know! If you are a mom… you’ll understand and sympathize! We actually DID land late from that first flight and we did need to run a bit. I was super worried so I thought man I have to go to the bathroom but I want to make sure I get to the gate! That was the WRONG CHOICE MAN… running after having children is never a good idea when you have to go to the bathroom! So unfortunately I peed a little bit! But no one knew… unless I told them!
• On the way home, I gate checked my bag trying to do a good deed without realizing my keys were in the bag. That wouldn’t have been the problem except that bag didn’t make it home! So I had to call my parents to come and get me!

AWESOME:

• Meeting people in person: Finally meeting these girls I’ve been talking to online for almost a year now and it being even better than expected!
• Shooting at the cre-VACE: Texas has some pretty awesome environments! Don’t get me wrong, I love the beach and I will never grow tired of being able to shoot family sessions at the beach with those cotton candy skies! However, the two locations we were able to go to in Austin were incredible, especially the one I call the cre-VACE a.k.a. Bull Creek! It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I joked that I wanted to amazon prime it to my backyard. It wasn’t a joke though. I would drive hours if I could to just visit the location let alone go shoot a session there every once in a while. Texas, you might be seeing a lot more of me if I can get some clients to let me photograph them there!
• Topo Chico: This is all that needs to be said! No really though, I’ve been dying to try this sparkling water for a while now and while it may seem silly to some it was kind of a big deal for me! It was also a game changer. Topo Chico in my fridge from now on! Except I kept calling it Topo chichco like the puppet from the Ed Sullivan show and apparently that was not amusing for people although it wasn’t intentional on my part! I think it’s because we have Chicho’s restaurant here and I just got confused!

There is so much more I could talk about: the sessions, the individual people, meeting my mentor photographer who is like the Beyonce of Family photographers… but honestly I don’t even have the words to describe all of those! The only word I have is just completely dreamy!

In the meantime, check out my instagram to see some highlights from my trip!